Lover Enshrined (Black Dagger Brotherhood 6)

"Goddamn it." Z's weight shifted back and forth on his feet, like he wanted to haul ass.

"Please don't take the Lord's name in vain," the slayer said when it got to the corner the police had come around. "And have a good evenin', gentlemen."

The little guy was gone quick, not even his footsteps sounding out as he tore off.

Phury willed the cops back into their patrol car and made the female one call into the station and report that their investigation showed no altercations or public disturbances in the alley. But that missing gun... that was straight-up trouble. Goddamn slayer. No memory imprint could solve the fact that there was a nine missing.

"Give her your gun," he told Zsadist.

His twin popped the sleeve of bullets out as he went over. He didn't wipe the weapon before he dropped it in the woman's lap. No reason to. Vampires left no identifying fingerprints.

"She'll be lucky if she doesn't lose her mind over this," Z said.

Yup. It wasn't her gun and it was emptied. Phury did the best he could, giving her a memory of buying this new piece and trying it out and tossing the clip because the bullets were faulty. Not a great cover. Especially considering that all the Brotherhood's guns had the serial numbers removed.

Phury willed the officer who was behind the wheel to throw the squad car in reverse and back out of the alley. The destination? Station house for a coffee break.

When they were alone, Z cranked his head around and met Phury in the eye. "Do you want to wake up dead."

Phury checked over his prosthesis. It was undamaged, at least for regular use, just knocked free from where it plugged in under his knee. It was not safe to fight with, though.

Pushing up the pant leg of his leathers, he reattached it, then stood up. "I'm going home."

"Did you hear me?"

"Yeah. I did." He met his twin's eyes and thought it was a helluva question for the guy to ask. Z's death wish had been his operating principle up until he met Bella. Which was, comparably, like ten minutes ago.

Z's brows came down over a stare gone black. "Go straight home."

"Yeah. Right home. You got it."

As he turned away, Z said roughly, "Haven't you forgotten something?"

Phury thought about all the times he had chased after Zsadist, desperate to save the brother from killing himself or killing someone else. He thought about the days he couldn't sleep for wondering whether Z was going to make it because he refused to drink from female vampires and insisted on getting by on human blood. He thought of the aching sadness he had every time he looked at his twin's ruined face.

Then he thought of the night he'd faced off at his own mirror and cut off his hair and dragged a blade down his own forehead and his own cheek so he could look like Z... so he could take his twin's place and be at the mercy of a lesser's sadistic vengeance.

He thought of the leg he'd shot off to save them both.

Phury looked over his shoulder. "No. I remember everything. All of it."

With no remorse whatsoever, he dematerialized and re-assumed form on Trade Street.

Facing off at ZeroSum, his heart and his head screaming, he was called forth to cross the road like he'd been chosen for this mission of self-destruction, tapped on the shoulder, beckoned forward by the bony forefinger of his addiction.

He couldn't fight the invite. Worse, he didn't want to.

As he approached the club's front doors, his feet - the real one and the one made of titanium - were serving the wizard's mission. The pair of them took him right in the front door and past the VIP area's security guard and by the tables of highfliers to the back, to Rehvenge's office.

The Moors nodded and one of them talked into his watch. While waiting, Phury knew damn well he was stuck in an endless loop, going around and around like the head of a drill, digging further and further underground. With each new level that he sank to, he tapped into deeper and richer veins of poisonous ore, ones that spidered up through the bedrock of his life and enticed him down even farther. He was heading for the source, for the consummation with hell that was his ultimate destination, and each lower plateau was his malignant encouragement.

The Moor on the right, Trez, nodded and opened the door to the black cave. Here was where little bits of Hades were dealt out in cellophane Baggies, and Phury went in with twitchy impatience.

Rehvenge came out of a pocket door, his amethyst stare shrewd and slightly disappointed.

"Your usual gone already?" he asked quietly.

The sin-eater knew him so well, Phury thought.

"It's symphath, remmy?" Rehv slowly went to his desk, relying on his cane. "Sin-eater's such an ugly degradation. And I don't need my bad side to know where you're at. So how much is it going to be tonight?"

The male unbuttoned his flawless double-breasted black jacket and lowered himself into a black leather chair. His low-cut mohawk glistened as if he'd just gotten out of the shower, and he smelled good, a combination of Cartier for Men and some kind of spicy shampoo.

Phury thought of the other dealer, the one who had died back in that alley just now, the one who had bled out while reaching for help that never came. That Rehv was dressed like something off of Fifth Avenue didn't change what he was.

Phury looked down at himself. And realized that his clothes didn't alter what he was either.

Shit... one of his daggers was missing.

He'd left it back in the alley.

"The usual," he said, taking a thousand dollars out of his pocket. "Just the usual."

Chapter Seven

Upstairs in her bloodred bedroom, Cormia couldn't shake the conviction that by going outside, she had triggered a chain of events, the culmination of which she couldn't begin to guess at. She only knew that destiny's hands were moving things around behind her stage's velvet curtain, and when the two halves opened again, something new was going to be revealed.

She wasn't sure she trusted fate to have the next act in the play be one she would enjoy. But she was stuck in the audience with nowhere to go.

Except that wasn't entirely true, was it.

Going to her door, she cracked it open and looked down the Oriental runner to the head of the grand staircase.

The hall of statues was off to the right.

Every time she came to the second floor, she caught a glimpse of the elegant figures in their windowed corridor and was fascinated. In their formality and their frozen bodies and their white robes, they reminded her of the Sanctuary.

In their nudity and their maleness, they were utterly foreign.

If she could go outside, she could go down and see the statues up close. She absolutely could.

Whispering down the runner in her bare feet, she passed the Primale's bedroom, then Rhage and Mary's. The king's study, which was at the top of the stairway, was closed off, and the foyer far below was empty.

As she rounded the corner, the statues stretched out for what seemed like forever. Positioned to the left, they were illuminated from above by inset lights and separated one from another by arching windows. On the right, opposite every other window, there were doors that she assumed opened into more bedrooms.

Interesting. If she had designed the house, she would have put the bedrooms on the window side so they would have enjoyed the benefit of garden views. As it was now, if she had triangulated the layout of the mansion correctly, the bedrooms overlooked the opposite wing, the one that bracketed the far side of the front courtyard. Attractive, true, but better to have architectural landscapes in hallways and vistas of gardens and mountains in bedrooms. At least, in her opinion.

Cormia frowned. She'd been having odd thoughts like that lately. Thoughts about things and people and even prayers that weren't always of an approving nature. The random opinions made her uneasy, but she couldn't stop them.

Trying not to dwell on where they came from or what they meant, she made the corner and faced off at the hallway.

The first statue was of a young male - a human male, going by its size - who was draped in rich folds of robing that ran from his right shoulder to his left hip. His eyes were trained on the middle ground, and his face was composed, neither sad nor happy. His chest was broad, his upper arms strong yet sleek, his belly flat and ribbed.

The next statue was similar, only his limbs were arranged differently. And the next was in yet another position. The fourth as well... except that one was fully nude.

Instinct made her want to rush by. Curiosity demanded that she stop and stare.

He was beautiful in his nakedness.

She looked over her shoulder. No one was around.