Lover Unveiled (Black Dagger Brotherhood 19)

With a coordinated move—like he’d had to do it before—Dave lunged into the couch cushions for a gun.

“Three,” Sahvage said as he pulled his trigger first.

The discharge was a loud clap in the grungy confines, and then Dave’s rather limited IQ exploded out the back of his skull, speckling the wall behind him with blood and gray matter. The gun he’d gone for went off as the hand holding it contracted on an autonomic squeeze, but its muzzle had been on the swing around instead of in position—so the bullet just hit the cheap cabinets over the sink and rattled whatever dishes were in there.

The woman screamed again and pushed herself away from the collapsed body.

“Sorry about that,” Sahvage said grimly.

He didn’t have a chance to offer help. She swiped up the loose money, hooked a black pack on her arm, and dodged around the trash and debris to tear out of the trailer. A split second later, a muffler-less truck roared to life and threw up the loose gravel of the drive.

Sahvage exhaled and kept his gun out as he went over to the sofa and took the gun from the now-dead hand of his arms dealer. Then he went down to the bedroom. Kicking the door out of its hinges with his boot, he leveled his weapon at the six-by-nine-foot steel cabinet across the shallow space.

Two shots. Both of which ricocheted into the bed’s bald, stained mattress.

As the panels of the armory safe lolled open, he made quick work of stealing the guns that Dave had stolen from God only knew who. Which was the nah-not-really to the quandary of whether it was thievery to take things from a person who had lifted the shit themselves.

And oh, look. There was a duffle bag right over by a collection of pristine Nikes. Handy for transport.

Taking the bag and leaving the shoes, Sahvage filled his new piece of soft luggage with rifles, shotguns, and a nine millimeter for Mae. The ammo was in the bottom of the weapon wardrobe, and he took boxes of bullets.

He would have paid Dave for it eventually. He had $2,800 in cash back at the shithole he was camping out in, and one more fight with the Reverend would have covered the rest of the $5,000 or so he’d have been charged: He hadn’t come here intending to steal, more like borrow on layaway.

Shoot-away was more like it.

But good ol’ Dave didn’t have to worry about his black market business’s balance sheet anymore, so Sahvage was considering the debt discharged.

As he came back out, he stared at Dave—and took a minute to think about the nature of dead bodies. The next thing he knew, memories he had been trying to mentally outrun overtook him on a tackle that landed him smack back into the past.

• • •

Within the confined space of his coffin, Sahvage gathered his wits, marshaled his strength. There was the temptation to thrash and batter, yet he could sense naught of where he was. He smelled no dirt, and he took that to mean he had not been buried. Beyond that? He was sure of nothing.

No sounds gave him cues. No particular smells, either.

Other than the fresh cut of the wood planks that surrounded him.

There was no calming himself to dematerialize. No sufficient measure of self-control to be mustered as his heart thundered for all that had to be occurring for Rahvyn. Thus he fashioned his palms upon the lid’s underside, and with ever-increasing force, pushed, pushed, pushed—

The nails sang and squeaked, but yielded before the pressure, the lid lifting a crack, air entering, even as no light did. One deep breath suggested a location that made little sense, though as he could have been under six feet of earth, he would take the scents of flour and oats o’er raw dirt. And just as the lid popped free of its many moorings, he grabbed its edge so as to not make a clatter—

With a hiss, he bit his tongue to quell calling out as his hand was scored by the teeth of the nails. The smell of fresh blood sprang into his nose as his flesh wept, and he prayed that this food-storage area was free of drafts that would carry his scent unto the noses of others.

As he lifted his torso from its recline, he was of care with the lid, setting it aside silently—

Something fell from his chest. Beads? It sounded like marbles.

Feeling about, he encountered a wad that was damp and disturbing. His blood? Someone else’s?

He couldnae worry about that right the now.

Across whatever space he was in, there was a door . . . he could see the glowing outline created by its loose fit, and though the illumination did not carry far, it was a sufficient grounding whilst he stood up slowly.