Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood 8)

He spit a couple of times to try to get rid of a foul taste, but whatever it was, the shit wasn't just around his tongue and teeth; it was down the back of his throat and into his gut. His eyes were also stinging and blurry.

Was he crying again? He didn't feel sad anymore. . . he felt empty.

"Jesus. . . Christ. . . " someone said softly.

Abruptly overcome with exhaustion, John allowed his elbow to go lax and let his weight shift to the side. Laying his head down in a cooling puddle, he closed his eyes. He had no strength. It was all he could do to breathe.

A while later, he heard Qhuinn talking to him. Innate politeness, rather than any clue what was going on, made him nod when there was a pause.

He was momentarily surprised when he felt hands on his shoulders and his legs and his lids managed to flicker open as he was lifted up.

Weird. The countertops and cabinets had been white when they'd first come in. Now. . . they'd been painted in a high-gloss black.

With delirium, he wondered why someone had done that.

Black was hardly a welcoming color.

Closing his eyes, he felt the bumps and shifts as he was carried out and then there was a final hefting followed by his body landing in a heap. Car engine turned over. Doors shut.

They were en route. No doubt back to the Brotherhood compound.

Before he passed out completely, he took his hand and raised it to his cheek. Which made him realize he'd forgotten the pillow.

Coming awake with a flash, he jacked himself up, all Lazarus back from the dead.

Blay was right there with what he'd taken, however. "Here. I made sure we didn't leave without it. "

John took what still smelled like Xhex and curled his huge body around it. And that was the last thing he remembered of the trip back home.

When Lash woke up, he was in precisely the same position he'd been in when he'd fallen asleep: flat on his back, arms crossed over his chest. . . like a corpse laid out in a coffin. Back when he'd been a vampire, he'd moved around during the day, usually waking up on his side with his head under a pillow.

As he sat up, the first thing he did was look at the lesions on his chest and stomach. Unchanged. No worse, but unchanged. And his energy level hadn't improved significantly.

In spite of the fact that he'd slept. . . Jesus Christ, three hours? What the hell?

Thank fuck he'd had the sense to postpone that appointment with Benloise. You didn't meet a man like that when you looked and felt like you'd been on a bender for a week and a half.

Shifting his legs off the bed, he braced himself and then pushed his ass free of the mattress, going all the way vertical. As his body weaved, he heard nothing but silence from downstairs. Oh. . . wait. Someone was throwing up. Which meant the Omega had finished his biz with the new recruit and the kid was starting on a fun-filled six to ten hours of vomiting.

Lash picked up his stained shirt and his suit and wondered where in the hell his wardrobe change was. It didn't take three hours for Mr. D to get his ass over to Benloise's, reschedule things, and then head over to the brownstone to feed Xhex and pick out a new set of threads from the closet.

On his way down the stairs, Lash dialed the idiot, and as voice mail kicked in, he snapped, "Where the fuck are my clothes, asshole?"

He hung up and stared through the hall into the dining room. The new recruit was not on the table anymore; he was partially underneath, and huddled over a bucket, dry heaving like there was a rat in his gut that couldn't find either exit.

"I'm leaving you here," Lash said loudly. This caused a pause and the recruit looked over. His eyes were bloodshot and there was something like dirty dishwater running out of his open mouth.

"What's. . . happening to me?" Small voice. Small words.

Lash's hand went to the sore on his chest and he found it difficult to breathe as he thought once again that the recruits were never told the full story. They never knew what to expect or the full value of what they gave up and what they received.

He'd never thought of himself as a recruit before. He was the son, not another cog in the Omega's machine. But how much did he really know?

He forced his hand away from his lesion.

"You're going to be okay," he said roughly. "Everything's. . . going to be okay. You're going to pass out in a little bit and when you wake up. . . you're going to feel like yourself only better. "

"That thing. . . "