Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood 8)

"Make yourself useful," she snapped. "And give me your cell phone. "

"You calling in a pizza? I'm hungry. " Trez flipped her his BlackBerry. "I like a lot of meat on mine. My brother prefers the cheese. "

Xhex called Rehv out of contacts and hit him up because it was the fastest way to get to the Brothers. When voice mail kicked in, she left the specs and the tag on that car and asked for Vishous to track them.

Then she hung up and fired the phone back to Trez.

"No Domino's then?" he muttered. "They deliver, you know. "

Swallowing a curse, she frowned and remembered that V had given her a phone. Shit. . . she was not as sharp as she should be in this situation--

"And another department is heard from. . . " iAm said.

Her eyes shot to the road as an unmarked came to a stop in front of the house. The homicide detective who got out was someone she knew. Jose de la Cruz.

At least the humans had sent in a good man. Then again, maybe that kind of competence wasn't great news. The less involvement of that other race in a situation like this, the better, and de la Cruz had the instincts and follow-through of a bloodhound.

Man. . . it was going to be a loooooong frickin' day. A very, very long frickin' day.

As she watched the humans mill about and spin their wheels, and felt the collective weight of her bodyguards pressing down on her head, her right hand began to move, her fingers forming the curves and straightaways John had taught her.

A. . .

B. . .

C. . .

Lash woke up to the sound of moaning. And not the good kind.

Lying facedown on a bare mattress in that cheesy-ass ranch was another buzz kill. Third strike was the fact that when he finally got up, his body left a black stain behind.

Kind of like a shadow thrown on the ground, a reflection of what actually was.

Jesus f'n Christ. He was like that Nazi guy at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the one whose face melted off. . . the one the DVD extras had said was special effected by hitting Jell-O with a hot fan.

Not exactly the sort of movie role he wanted to rock in RL.

As he walked out toward the kitchen, he felt like he was dragging a refrigerator behind him, and what do you know, Plastic Fantastic wasn't doing much better as she lay on the floor by the back door. She'd been drained enough to incapacitate her, but not enough to zap her back to the Omega.

Bummer for her. To be forever on the brink of death, with all that pain and suffocation, and yet aware that the vast peace on the other side of all that was never coming? It was enough to make you want to kill yourself.

Cue laugh track.

Then again. . . she didn't have a clue that she was going nowhere. That she would be forever in "as-is" condition. Probably best to keep that info on the down-low--it would be his good deed for the day.

As she marshaled a pathetic groan for him to help, he stepped over her and went to check on the food sitch. To conserve cash, he'd sucked back Mc- Crap for dinner on his way here. Shit had been one step up from dog food, and that had been warm and fresh from the fryer.

Age did not improve the half he hadn't been able to stomach at the end of the night, but he ate what was left over anyway. Cold. Standing up over the crumpled bag on the countertop.

"Want some?" he said to the woman. "Yes? No?"

All she could do was plead with her bloodshot eyes and her gaping, oozing mouth. Or. . . maybe it wasn't pleading. She looked kind of horrified--which suggested that whatever condition she was in, his appearance was startling and ugly enough to draw her out of her agony for a moment.

"Whatever, bitch. The sight of you ain't doing wonders for my appetite, either. "

Turning away, he stared out the window to the sunny day and felt a whole lot of fuck-this-shit-for-real.

Man, he hadn't wanted to leave that farmhouse, but he'd been a narcolepsy candidate, he'd been so exhausted--and no way he was risking a nap with that many of his enemy around. It was a case of retreat to fight again as opposed