Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood 5)

Even though Phury was a peacekeeper at heart, he knew better than to intercede in this kind of family squabble. The best he could to was pray his brother didn't come back in an urn.

Before he took off, he had one last look at the female's hooded form. V was now holding her with both hands, as she appeared to have passed out. Jesus Christ... What a mess.

Phury turned and beat feet back down the white silk runner toward the Scribe Virgin's Courtyard. First stop? Wrath's study. The king was going to have to know what went down. Even though clearly the biggest part of the story had yet to play out.

Chapter Thirty-five

When Cormia came to, she was stretched out flat on her back, the robing still on, the hood in place. She didn't think she was on that board she'd been strapped to, however. No... she wasn't on -

It all came back to her: The Primale stopping the ceremony and freeing her. A vast wind blowing through the amphitheater. The Brother and the Scribe Virgin starting to argue.

Cormia had passed out at that point, missing what ensued. What had happened to the Primale? Surely he had not survived, as no one defied the Scribe Virgin.

"You want any of that off?" a hard male voice said.

Fear shot up her spine. Merciful Virgin, he remained herein.

Instinctively she curled into a ball to protect herself.

"Relax. I'm not going to do anything to you."

Going by his harsh tone of voice, she could not trust the words: Anger marked the syllables he spoke, turning them into verbal blades, and though she could not see his form, she could sense the awesome power in him. He was indeed the warrior son of the Bloodletter.

"Look, I'm going to take the hood off so you can breathe, okay?"

She tried to get away from him, tried to crawl from wherever she lay, but the robing tangled and trapped her.

"Hold up, female. I'm just trying to give you a break here."

She went dead still as his hands fell upon her, sure she would be beaten. Instead he merely loosened the top two fastenings and lifted the hood.

Sweet, clean air swept onto her face through the thin veil, a luxury like food to the hungry, but she couldn't draw much in. She was tight all over, her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth drawn in a grimace as she braced herself for only the Virgin knew what.

Except nothing happened. He was with her still... she could catch his fearsome scent... and yet he touched her not, spoke no other words.

She heard a rasping sound and an inhale. Then she smelled something tangy and smoky. Like incense.

"Open your eyes." His voice was all command as it came from behind her.

She lifted her lids and blinked a number of times. She was on the stage at the amphitheater, facing outward toward an empty golden throne and a white silk runner that led up the hilly rise.

Heavy footsteps came around.

And there he was. Towering over her, bigger than anything she'd seen that breathed, his pale eyes and hard face so cold she recoiled.

He brought a thin white roll to his lips and inhaled. As he spoke, smoke came out of his mouth. "Told you. I'm not going to hurt you. What's your name?"

Through a tight throat, she rasped, "Chosen."

"That's what you are," he snapped. "I want your name. I want to know your name."

Was he allowed to ask her that? Was he - What was she thinking? He could do anything he wanted. He was the Primale. "C-C-Cormia."

"Cormia." He inhaled on the white thing again, the orange tip flaring up brightly. "Listen to me. Don't be scared, Cormia, okay?"

"Are you - " Her voice cracked. She wasn't sure whether she could question him, but she had to know. "Are you a god?"

His black eyebrows came down low over his white eyes. "Hell, no."

"But then how did you - "

"Speak up. I can't hear you."

She tried to make her voice stronger. "How then did you intercede with the Scribe Virgin?" As he glowered, she rushed to apologize. "Please, I mean not to offend - "

"Whatever. Look, Cormia, you're not into this mating thing with me, are you?" When she said nothing, his mouth compressed with impatience. "Come on, talk to me."

She opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

"Oh, for the love of God." He pushed a gloved hand through his dark hair and started pacing.

Surely he was a deity of some kind. He looked so fierce she wouldn't have been surprised if he called lightning from the sky.

He stopped and loomed over her. "I told you, I'm not going to hurt you. Goddamn, what do you think I am? A monster?"

"I have never seen a male before," she blurted. "I know not what you are."

That stopped him cold.

Jane woke up only because she heard a garage door squeaking, the high-pitched whine coming from the condo to the left of hers. Rolling over, she looked at the clock. Five in the afternoon. She'd slept most of the day.

Well, kind of slept. For the most part, she'd been trapped in a bizarre dreamscape, one in which images that were half-formed and hazy tormented her. A man was involved somehow, a big man who felt at once a part of her and yet utterly alien. She'd been unable to see his face, but she knew his smell: dark spices, up close, in her nose, all around her, all over her -

That bone crusher of a headache flared up, and she dropped what she was thinking of like it was a hot poker and she was holding the wrong end. Fortunately, the pain behind her eyes eased off.

At the sound of a car engine, she lifted her head off the pillow. Through the window next to the bed she saw a minivan back down the driveway beside hers. Someone had moved in next door, and God, she hoped it wasn't a family. The walls between units were not as thin as an apartment building's, but they weren't bank-safe solid by a long shot. And screaming kids she could do without.

Sitting up, she felt beyond wretched and into a whole new category of dreck. Her chest was aching something fierce, and she didn't think it was muscular. Shifting around from side to side, she had some inclination that she'd felt like this once before, but she couldn't place when or where.

Showering was an ordeal. Hell, just making it into the bathroom was a chore. The good news was that the soap-and-rinse routine revived her a little, and her stomach seemed open to the idea of some food. Leaving her hair to air-dry, she went downstairs and fired up some coffee. The plan was to get her head into first gear, then return some phone calls. Come hell or high water she was going to work tomorrow, so she wanted to clear the decks as best she could before she went into the hospital.

With mug in hand, she headed into the living room and sat down on the couch, cradling her coffee between her palms, hoping Captain Caffeine would come to her rescue and help her feel human. As she glanced down at the silk cushions, she winced. These were the ones her mother had smoothed out so often, the ones that had served as a barometric meter of whether All Was Well or not, and Jane wondered when she'd sat on the damn things last. God, she supposed that would be never. For all she knew, the last butt that had taken a load off here might well have been one of her parents'.

No, probably a guest's. Her parents had sat only on the matching chairs in the library, her father on the right with his pipe and his newspaper, her mother on the left with a square of petit point on her lap. The two had been like something out of Madame Troussaurs wax museum, part of an exhibit on affluent husbands and wives who never spoke to each other.

Jane thought of the parties they'd thrown, all those people milling around that big Colonial house with uniformed waiters passing crepes and things stuffed with mushroom paste. It been the same crowd and the same conversation and the same kind of little black dresses and Brooks Brothers suits every time. The only difference had been the seasons, and the only break in the rhythm occurred after Hannah's death. Following her burial, the soirees had stopped for about six months on her father's orders, but then it was right back on the bandwagon. Ready or not, those parties started up again, and even though her mother had seemed brittle enough to crack, she'd put on her makeup and her little black dress and stood by the front door, all fake smiled-and-pearled up.

God, Hannah had loved those parties.

Jane frowned and put a hand over her heart, realizing when she'd felt this kind of chest pain before. Not having Hannah anymore had created the same kind of achy pressure.

Odd that she would wake up out of the blue and be in mourning. She hadn't lost anyone.

Taking a sip of the coffee, she wished she'd made hot chocolate -

A blurry image of a man holding out a mug came to her. There was hot cocoa in the thing, and he'd made it for her because he was... he was leaving her. Oh... God, he was leaving -