Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood 20)

The only thing she refused to have were the 25s. Too small. She liked the 30s and the 35s.

“You would never forsake me,” she whispered to them as if they were good little children. “You are always here for me.”

Yeah, assuming no one came in like a serial killer and brutally dismembered somebody in her collection.

The demon needed to brace herself before she could bear to look at the top of the display, at the highest Lucite stand… at the crucifix on her altar to the atelier’s very best creation.

“Oh, God…” She clutched the center of her chest as the pain hit as fresh as it had when she’d found the bag destroyed. “Oh…”

For the last three nights, she had not been able to bear the sight of the burned Birkin corpse. But she hadn’t been able to get rid of it, either.

Then again, the Himalayan crocodile with the diamond hardware was the rarest and most spectacular of all the world’s handbags—and even more valuable because she had the matching diamond bangle. With a central snowy-white skin that faded on both sides to browns, grays, and a sprinkling of blacks, not only was the masterpiece a shining beacon in her collection, it was the very finest testimony to the fact that the best things in life were not actually free.

Andthensomevampirebitchhadlitthethingonfire.

How the fuck did anybody do that? If the stupid cunt had been so desperate to try to get out by triggering the fire alarm, she could have lit up a Balmain jacket. A Chanel suit. An Escada gown. But nooooooo, out of all the racks of clothes, and the shoes and boots, and the other, hello, regular boring flammable shit like sheets, pillows, the fucking Saks catalog, for fuck’s sake—that female had had to pick the Himalayan. With the diamond hardware. And the matching bangle.

That waste of skin had picked the most expensive, most rare, and most desirable purse to try to get out of this parallel dimension.

It was almost like she’d known what she was doing. Which she had not.

Torching that stupid little ranch in retaliation hadn’t gone nearly far enough. And then the vampire had managed to waltz away with her immortal fucking mate, all in love and happily ever after and crap.

Who knew Sahvage had been immortal? It was like finding out a housewife could bench-press a car.

And when all was said and done, what did Devina get? Not true love, yeah, not at all on that, but rather a toasted-beyond-recognition Birkin, and now PMS—without the period.

Looking down at the floor between her Louboutins, Devina wondered if maybe she needed to put the bag’s remains to rest. Considering the way the night was going, what with her frustratingly sleepless vampire lover betraying her with thoughts about a human, how could she feel worse? And hadn’t her therapist said something about part of mourning being a gradual confrontation of loss? Like you bit off the death in pieces, working through your horror d’oeuvres in degrees?

God… the Birkin had been so perfect.

At least the diamonds still sparkled.

As she took the burned carcass off of its stand, she cradled the remains to her heart and closed her eyes. Tears started coming and she pictured that human therapist, the one who had always worn earth tones that had blended her into her brown sofa.

Feel your feelings, Devina. That’s all you have to do.

“I’m trying…”

That Balz thing had cut really deep, the idea that the guy she was fucking was actually into someone else such a goddamn stinger. She definitely could not feel worse than she did right now.

When she was ready, she conjured a child-size coffin out of thin air and willed open the lid. The glossy white-and-cream box with its tufted satin interior seemed like a fitting reliquary for the cream-and-brown-and-gray color scheme of the Himalayan.

With resignation, she placed the Birkin onto the cushioned interior, setting its handles on the little tufted pillow. As tears blurred her eyes, she ran her manicured fingertips over the pattern of scales where things were not burned and she tried to shut out the campfire smell. She could still remember what it had looked like as she had first seen it in the private room at the mothership at Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, so fresh, so clean, that fragrance of the crocodile hide rising up as she had held it as if it were holy.

Because it had been. Because it still was, no matter its marring.

With trembling hands, she closed the lid. Then she rested her palms on the lacquered contours of the top and bowed her head. Breathing shallowly through her mouth, she told herself that she could get a new one.

But this one had been hers.

As the grief became unbearable, she willed the remains away, sending them down to the Well of Souls. For a split second, she remembered that that vampire Throe was still there on her worktable, and then that thought went right out of her mind.