Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood 20)

Balz had never felt so helpless in his life. He didn’t know—

A hard grip on his arm drew him away from the bed, and he looked over at V. “What—”

“Go,” the Brother ordered. When Balz stared at him in confusion, V lowered his voice. “Sahvage told me where you were heading tonight. Go now and get the fucking Book. She doesn’t have much time.”

“But I have to—”

“Butch is the best shot at keeping her alive you have, even above us medical types. There’s nothing you can do here. But you can bring that Book back. There has to be something in it that can help get whatever this is out of her.”

“Get whatever…” Balz blinked. “You think this is a possession?”

And yet he knew that was the truth of it.

“I’m not sure what the fuck it is. But it’s evil, that much I know—”

All of a sudden, Balz thought about the first time he and Erika had had sex. He could remember her orgasming… and her eyes rolling back. It had been right after that that Devina had stopped visiting him in his sleep.

What if the demon had merely relocated into Erika?

And she was killing the female out of spite, rotting her from the inside.

“Fuck,” he barked. “Fuck!”

So this was why, when he’d asked Lassiter to come to see if the demon was gone, the angel hadn’t sensed anything in him—but also hadn’t looked right when he’d left. Lassiter had known that Devina was still—

“I’m going,” Balz growled. “And I’ll bring that Book back even if I have to kill that bitch.”

Before he left, he went to the bed and dropped his head to Erika’s ear. She was breathing in a wheeze, the rise and fall of her chest so shallow, it was almost not happening.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I’m going to get you what you need. Just hang on. Erika, you’ve got to hang on.”

* * *

As Devina arrived back at her lair’s building, her frame of mind had seriously improved.

Then again, a good fuck had always been a mood elevator for her, a clear sign that even though she was a non-temporal force of nature, the dopamine receptors in the body she projected herself into worked just fine.

And holy fuck, Lassiter was a good lay. Ohhhhh, man, if she’d thought Balthazar hated being with her, that was nothing compared to the angel’s regrets. So obviously, she had stretched the fucking out for a good long time—and she wanted more of him. To make sure they weren’t a one-night stand, she had big plans to do shit all about keeping her side of the bargain.

She’d leave that female of Balthazar’s only when the woman was good and dead, something Devina could control by keeping the detective alive and suffering for quite some time.

God, Balz and that stupid human woman he loved so much. The demon had thought she’d use them for her spell, a great way to have revenge on him and get what she needed. And it was fun being inside the bitch and torturing them both: In the work of a heartbeat, she’d jumped from one to the other during a le petit mort moment in one of their sex sessions, her possession triggering an infection that had kindled for a day or two, before it had taken a firm toehold.

But as it turned out, the demon had found an even better candidate for her true love spell.

“You had a secret, angel, didn’t you,” she said out loud.

In spite of all the reasons she didn’t deserve it, fate had given her one hell of a present tonight: Lassiter was in love.

And Devina had ruined everything. The instant she had taken that angel’s virginity, which had been beyond enriching on an existential level, she had soiled him in his own mind, making him no longer worthy of the female he’d gotten soppy over.

What a surprise! And her spell’s last stricture was met.

So it had been a great night—and even greater because thanks to that angel’s sappy heart, she could now await the proper return of her blond Adonis.

Gliding through the building’s front door—literally, because hello, it was way after hours so the thing was locked—she resumed her striding in the lobby, her stilletos clipping out a snare drum roll as she strode over the marble floor. Heading for the back stairs to go down into the basement, she would normally have played around with the nightshift humans on security detail. It was always a kick to fuck with the guards, sneak up behind them, play a little spook game.

Not tonight.

She had to get ready for her male.

“Talk about Christmas,” she murmured as she descended and then hit the hall that took her to her lair. “Kwanzaa. Hanukkah.”

The demon was whistling a little tune as she came up to her door and stepped through the reinforced panel, piercing into the other plane of existence—