Lover Unveiled (Black Dagger Brotherhood 19)

“You know,” Rhage muttered, “I have to say this again. I was really looking forward to a vacation. Not forever, but, like, twenty-five, maybe fifty years of coasting woulda been great. I mean, I’ve just started my online encyclopedia of ice cream favors.”

“You’re doing a virtual Britannica of that?” somebody prompted. “How long can it take? Even Baskin-Robbins only has thirty-one kinds.”

Rhage shot a hard stare across the peanut gallery. “Baskin-Robbins has over thirteen hundred entries in their flavor profile, you provincial fuck-tart. And I’m talking all ice creams from all makers. I’m going to call it Wiki-licks.”

V flicked his hand-rolled into the logs. “You better be careful that URL isn’t taken up by someone with a different agenda on their tongue—”

“Focus!” Wrath barked. “Jesus Christ, you people are like Google without any direction. And meanwhile, we’ve got a problem we don’t have any clue how to contain—”

“That’s not correct,” Lassiter said. “We can lock it down.”

As all eyes returned to the angel, he was very fucking serious—and Rehv had a thought that as annoying as Lassiter could be when he was normal-nighting it, the flip side of the jokey-jokey was so much worse.

And frightening, even to a symphath: Lassiter had access to things no one else in the room did, and some of that shit made the Omega look like nothing worse than a two-year-old in a temper tantrum.

“You have what you need under this roof,” the angel announced.

“We’re going to get Rhage to eat the Book?” someone chimed in.

Hollywood raised his dagger hand. “I just need the right condiment and I’ll choke it down somehow. I swear, I can do it.”

“I vote we light the angel on fire and catapult him at the damn thing,” V countered. “And I volunteer to toss that match.”

“What weapon do we have that we’re not seeing?” the King demanded.

“Follow me.” Lassiter opened the study doors and walked out.

To his credit, V was the first one to get with the follow-the-leader shit. “I’m not saying I like him,” he said as he marched for the stairs. “But I’ll use any weapon we’ve got. Even if he’s the asshole putting it in our hands.”

Rehv stood up with the rest of the fighters and the King. And as they all filed out of the study and descended for the foyer, he felt like he was in school and going on a field trip.

Assuming school was a martial arts academy and the student body was made up of kids who could deadlift two Teslas with one hand.

Lassiter led the parade all the way through the dining room and out into the kitchen—where it was nearly impossible not to have a dessert tray, a traveler with coffee, or an entire leg of lamb pressed into your palm from the nervously helpful doggen.

Naturally, Rhage accepted a turkey sandwich like it was a football passed into the end zone. And a liter of Coke. And a bag of M&M’S.

Just as Rehv was wondering where the hell this was leading, Lassiter proceeded out into the garage—and that was when the math added up.

“Fuck,” Rehv muttered as he stepped into the vast, unheated open space.

Rubbing his face, he glanced around at the gardening equipment and the bins of grass seed and fertilizer—and wondered whether he should be here at all. This was some private Brotherhood shit going down.

’Cuz ain’t nobody here for the John Deere.

Sixteen coffins. Stacked two high and four deep.

The casings for the dead were made out of different kinds of wood, and they had aged in different ways—but what was inside them had something in common.

They were the remains of the damned.

Brothers who had not been granted proper Fade Ceremonies. Or could not be granted them.

Wrath had spilled the backstory one night when he and Rehv had been sharing-and-caring about how much “fun” it was to be King.

“Are we where I think we are,” Wrath asked after a moment.

Lassiter strolled along the lineup of coffins—and then paused in front of the second to the last one on the top row. As he put his palm on the lid, he said, “Yes, you are.”

Each of the coffins had inscriptions running down the sides and across the tops, and the Old Language symbols were not just names and dates. They were warnings.

Not to disturb the damned.

“There’s no proof it wasn’t just a coup for land and resources,” Wrath murmured. “It could merely have been the glymera making another power move.”

“Or that story was a ruse,” Rehv said. “Because, hey, the aristocracy never lies or misrepresents historical events, do they.”

“What the fuck are you two talking about?” V demanded.

Rehv held his breath as Wrath looked over his shoulder as if he could see the Brother. “A warlock.”

Vishous’s eyes narrowed, the tattoo at his temple distorting. “I didn’t know we had one of them in here.”