Lover Unveiled (Black Dagger Brotherhood 19)

Meanwhile, up at the top of the stairs, the brunette was leaning around the doorjamb, her furious eyes boring down at Balz.

“You’re a fucking fool,” she bit out.

And then, justlikethat, she was gone.

Balz sagged, his breath tearing up and down his throat, some kind of weird nausea curdling his stomach, a feverish shimmy prickling his skin. As he twisted over and retched, he felt all kinds of pain bloom in all kinds of places.

Now that the immediate threat was gone, he remembered the stories of shadows in Caldwell. And shit, he should have grabbed some of V’s special bullets. But he hadn’t taken those reports seriously enough.

And he needed to call for help before more of these fucking shadows showed up.

Pushing himself up, he tried to stand—but lost his balance and slammed his hip into the banister.

“You ’live?” he mumbled as he barely noticed the new injury.

From at his feet, there was a groan. Then Syphon lifted a face that was lashed with red welts, the features so distorted that he was barely recognizable.

“I’m calling us in,” Balz said as he triggered the emergency locator on his communicator. “And I gotta clear up there.”

“I have a dagger. I’ll be okay.”

Balz didn’t have the heart to point out that his cousin could barely see. “Good, hold the fort.”

As Balz limped up the steps, the going was uneven. Bullets littered the staircase, balls of lead that had free-fallen when they’d hit the shadow.

At the top landing, he back-flatted by the open door—and then fired up his flashlight and pointed the beam into the dark interior.

The space was mostly empty: Couple of tables below the bank of windows that faced out front, a clutter of candles, pots, and herb bundles crowding the tops. In the center of the room, there was the proverbial crystal ball on a round reading station with two chairs and a lot of draping. Elsewhere, there were futons with cushions and a sitting area of threadbare armchairs. Swathes of brightly colored fabrics shot with cheap gold thread were nailed to the walls, rainbows trapped and captured.

Absolutely no brunette.

She was gone.

Balz breathed in deep. He couldn’t catch the scent of anything other than the acrid, metal-backed burn of gunpowder and an unpleasant, fleshy tang of fresh meat.

Had she even been there?

He told himself that he had made the right decision. He had done the right thing. He had chosen family over . . . whatever she was.

And yet he mourned. Like a lover left behind—

As a beeping went off on his communicator, he angled his head to his shoulder. “I need medical help. STAT.” He looked down the stairs. Then jogged down them. “One wounded, extent of injuries . . . hold on.”

Back with his cousin, he took the lax hand of the fighter he was probably closest to. Syphon had passed out again, but he was breathing through those bee-stung lips.

Oddly, his clothes were all intact. Which made no sense.

“Extent of injuries is severe,” Balz choked out as he lost the strength in his own body and collapsed on his side. “Do you have my location . . . ? Good. Fucking hurry.”

• • •

Back at her parents’ ranch, in the bathroom where she had never intended anyone to see what she was keeping cold, Mae tried to block Sahvage’s perfectly good view of the tub . . . of Rhoger. But it wasn’t like a dead body in ice was the kind of thing eyes ignored, even if only parts of the remains were showing.

“Close the door,” she barked, because it was all she could think of saying. “Don’t look at him like that.”

Except Sahvage wasn’t focused on Rhoger. He was staring at her.

“Mae—”

“No!” She covered her ears with her palms. “I’m not listening.”

Instead of continuing to speak or doing what she’d demanded with the door, Sahvage backed up until he was against the hall wall. Then he slid down until his butt landed on the floor and they were on the same level.

Now he didn’t look at her or Rhoger. He put his head in his hands.

As he stayed quiet, Mae collapsed against the side of the tub. Looked through the ice at her brother.

“You don’t understand,” she whispered. “It’s all my fault.”

Sahvage made an exhausted sound. “Unless you killed him with your own two hands, I’m very sure it’s not.”

“Our parents were really strict,” she heard herself say. “Very old school. After they were killed in the raids, Rhoger started to change. He stayed out all day, sometimes for a week at a time. He was hanging around with a different crowd. He just . . . spiraled. Meanwhile, I was here taking care of the house, paying the bills, trying to hold what was left of our family together. I got resentful.”

She reached into the tub and shuffled the ice around more evenly. As her hand got cold, the difference in temperature between her palm and the chips was a stark reminder of everything that separated her and her brother.