Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #1)

by J.R. Ward

But Tohrment wasn’t off the mark. It was like turning a virgin over to a thug.

When she heard a leering whistle behind her, she rolled her eyes. That was the problem with working near the bars. On occasion you picked up gawkers.

Beth knew better than to stop. They looked like college frat boys out for the summer, which meant they were just going to be annoying, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

With a hard jam of her hand, she grabbed his balls, twisted as hard as she could, and kneed him in the nose as he crumbled. Adrenaline shot through her, and for a split second she wished his buddy would come at her instead of staring at her stupidly.

The pounding beat of Ludacris faded into old-school Cypress Hill.

He smiled widely, opened his leather jacket, and took out one of his hira shuriken. The stainless-steel throwing star

BMW 650i,

Besides, a fine car was a joy to behold. Darius got into the Beemer

Even though D was a warrior, he had the tastes of an aristocrat and it made sense. He’d started life as a highborn princeps, and fine living was still of value to him. His nineteenth-century mansion was well cared for, filled with antiques and works of art. It was also secure as a bank vault.

Stepping inside, he took a set of stairs deep into the earth. At the bottom landing there were two doors. One went to Darius’s sumptuous quarters. The other opened to what Wrath supposed was a home away from home for him. Most days he slept in a warehouse in New York City, in an interior room made out of steel with a lock system along the lines of Fort Knox’s. But he would never invite Marissa there. Or even any of the brothers. His privacy was precious.

As he stepped inside, candles mounted into the walls flared around the room at his will. Their golden glow barely made headway against the darkness. In deference to Wrath’s eyesight, Darius had painted the walls and twenty-foot-high ceiling black. In one corner there was a massive bed with black satin sheets and a thicket of pillows. Across the way was a leather couch, a wide-screen TV, and a door that opened into a black marble bathroom. There was also a closet full of weapons and clothes.

Wrath sensed Marissa before she came into the room. The scent of the ocean, a clean breeze, preceded her.

Damn his parents. Why had they given him a female like her? So…fragile.

Funny thing was, Marissa wouldn’t give up on him, as fragile as she might be. He figured she probably feared no other female would have him, that none would feed the beast when he needed it and then their race would lose their strongest line. Their king. Their leader who wasn’t willing to lead. Yeah, he was one hell of a catch. He stayed away from her unless he had to drink, which wasn’t often because of his lineage.

He sensed her desire, too. She wanted him, but he blocked out that particular emotion of hers. There was no way he was going to have sex with her. He couldn’t imagine putting Marissa through the things he’d done to other female bodies. And he’d never wanted her that way. Not even in the beginning.

Wrath closed his eyes, laying his head back as she drank. The panic came on him fast and hard. He curled his free arm around the edge of the couch, his muscles straining as he gripped the corner to keep his body in place. Calm, he needed to stay calm. It was going to be over soon, and then he’d be free.

Fritz was all jazzed up about something. Wrath slid outside, closing the door tight. He was about to ask what the hell would warrant the disruption when the butler’s scent permeated his irritation. He knew without asking that death had paid another visit. And Darius was gone. “Master—” “How?” he growled. The pain he would deal with later. First he needed details.

The bastards had no honor anymore. At least their precursors, going back for centuries, had fought like warriors. This new breed were cowards who hid behind technology.

And let his rage out. The candles exploded and fell to the floor as a whirlwind of viciousness swirled around him, growing tighter, faster, darker until the furniture flipped off the floor and traveled in a circle around him. He leaned back his head and roared.

In her time as a reporter, she’d found that murder was a community event in Caldwell. Well, certainly for everyone except the man or woman who’d actually done the dying. For the victim, she had to imagine death was an alone kind of thing, even if he or she were staring into the face of the killer. Some bridges you crossed on your own, no matter who drove you to the edge.

Hard-ass was a lot of man. Big body, deep voice, attitude to spare. She supposed a lot of women must be attracted to him, because God knew he was a looker in that rough, tough kind of way. But Beth had never felt a spark. Not that she ever did when it came to men.

Tohrment was the first of the brotherhood to arrive. His eyes were all fired up, pain and vengeance making the dark blue glow so vividly even Wrath caught the flash of color. As Tohr settled back against one of Darius’s yellow walls, Vishous came into the room. The goatee he’d recently grown made him seem even more sinister than usual, although the tattoo around his left eye was what really put him into ominous territory. Tonight his Red Sox hat was pulled down tight so the complex markings on his temple barely showed. As always, his black driving glove, used to keep his left hand from inadvertently making contact with anyone, was in place.

Rhage followed, his cocky attitude dialed down in deference to what had brought the brothers together. Rhage was a towering male, big, powerful, stronger than all the other warriors. He was also a sex legend in the vampire world, Hollywood beautiful with the drive to rival a barnful of stallions. Females, vampire and human alike, would trample their own young to get at him.

Phury was the last, walking through the front door with his limp barely noticeable. His prosthetic lower leg had recently been updated, and he was sporting a state-of-the-art titanium-and-carbon composite number now. The combination of rods, joints, and bolts was screwed into the base of his right shitkicker.

With his fantastic mane of multicolored hair, Phury should have been in Hollywood’s league with the ladies, but he’d stuck solid to his vow of celibacy. There was room for one and only one love in his life, and it had been slowly killing him for years. “Where’s your twin, man?” Wrath asked. “Z’s on his way.” That Zsadist was late was no big surprise. Z was one giant, violent fuck-you to the world. A walking, sometimes talking, usually cursing SOB who took hatred, especially toward females, to new levels. Fortunately, between his scarred face and his skull-trimmed hair, he looked as scary as he was, so folks tended to get out of his way.

Stolen from his family as an infant, he’d ended up a blood slave, and his abuse at the hands of his mistress had been brutal on every level. It had taken Phury almost a century to find his twin, and Z had bee...

A fall into the salty ocean had sealed Zsadist’s wounds into his skin, and in addition to the maze of scars, he still bore the tattoos of a slave. As wel...

With Darius’s death, he was reminded that though his warriors were hitting the society’s legions of slayers hard, there were so few of the brothers going against an inexhaustible, self-generating pool of lessers. Because God knew there were plenty of humans with an interest and aptitude for murder. The numbers were simply not in the race’s favor. He couldn’t escape the fact that vampires didn’t live forever and that brothers could be killed and that the balance could be thrown off in an instant. In favor of the race’s enemies. Hell, the shift had happened already. Ever since the Omega had created the Lessening Society aeons ago, vampire numbers had shrunk until now there were only a few enclaves of population left. Their kind was flirting with extinction. Even though the brothers were deadly fine at what they did. If Wrath had been a different kind of king, one like his father, who wanted to be the adored, revered paterfamilias to the species, maybe the future would have seemed more promising. But the son wasn’t as the father had been. Wrath was a fighter, not a leader, better on his feet with a dagger in his hand than sitting around being adored.

Boo lifted his back and hissed. “Pleased to meet you, too, Panther Boy.”

Wrath felt his breath catch as her scent came to him. She smelled positively beautiful. Like a rich flower. Night-blooming roses, maybe. He dragged more air into his lungs and closed his eyes as his body reacted, his blood stirring.

Seeing a woman who’d been clocked in the face was not a part of his job he liked. And in Beth’s case he found it particularly disturbing, because he’d known her for a while and he was kind of attracted to her. The fact that she was an unusually beautiful woman didn’t make it any more egregious. But her swollen lip and the bruises around her throat were glaring defects within the otherwise perfection of her features.

Beth Randall was flat-out, hands-down gorgeous. She had long, thick black hair, impossibly bright blue eyes, skin like pale cream, a mouth just made for a man’s kiss. And she was built. Long legs, small waist, perfectly proportioned breasts.

He looked at her and meowed. In the glow from the kitchen light she’d left on, she saw him paw at the glass door. “Not likely, Boo-man. You’re a house cat. House. Cat. Trust me, the big outdoors isn’t as grand as it seems.”

some fancy lawyer was going to get Billy sprung quicker than shit through a goose. Probably in the next hour. ’Cause that was the criminal justice system for you. Money talked, and creeps walked.

A male who stayed with her during those torturous, mercifully rare times when she was fertile. Who eased her terrible cravings with his body for as long as the needing period lasted.

returned her cat’s purr of welcome with one of his own.

he’d found the world of humans to be based largely on a physical meritocracy.

There was the strangest scent in the air. Something rich and spicy… She went over to the screen and sniffed a couple of times. As she breathed in, she felt the tension in her shoulders ease.

She panicked, but found she couldn’t move. Oh, man, he was colossal. If her apartment was small to begin with, he turned it into a shoe box. And all that black leather just seemed to make him bigger. He had to be six-feet-six, two seventy-five at least. Wait a minute. What was she doing, measuring him for a suit? Running, she should be running. She should be making a break for the other door, running like hell.

Beth craned her neck to look up at his face. God, he was gorgeous.

As if all that menace wouldn’t have given him away as a killer. He was smoking some kind of thin, reddish cigar, and he took a long drag, the end flaring bright orange. He blew out a cloud of that fragrant smoke, and as it hit her nostrils, her body loosened even further. He must be coming to kill her, she thought. She didn’t know what she’d done to deserve a hit, but as he breathed out another drag of whatever he was smoking, she could barely remember where she was.

And then the extraordinary happened. As he stopped in front of her, she felt a blast of pure, unadulterated lust. For the first time in her life her body got wickedly hot. Hot and wet. Her core bloomed for him. It was chemistry, she thought numbly. Pure, raw, animal chemistry.

“Are you going to kill me fast?” she mumbled. “Or slow?” “No killing. Protection.”

“You’re almost ready,” he said softly. “And it’s coming fast.” If the it he was referring to had anything to do with their getting naked, she was totally on board with the plan. My God, this had to be what people talked about when they waxed poetic about sex. She didn’t question the need to have him inside of her.

“That’s not what I’m here for,” he said. “Touch me anyway.”

Man, he was so cold. Cold down to his marrow. And she was hot. Hot enough to make that ice go away, at least for a little while. And it had been so long for him.

He willed the lights in the room off. Then he used his mind to close the back door, usher the cat into the bathroom, and slide home every lock in the apartment.

He kissed her softest skin, drawing her core into his mouth, and she came over and over again for him until he couldn’t fight his own need any longer. He pulled back, shrugged out of his pants, and covered her with his body once more. She wrapped her legs around his hips, and he hissed as her heat burned his erection. He used what was left of his strength to pull back and look down into her face. “Don’t stop,” she breathed. “I want to feel you inside me.” Wrath dropped his head into the fragrant hollow of her neck. And slowly drew his hips back. The tip of his erection slid into place beautifully, and he sheathed himself in her body with one powerful stroke. He let out a bellow of ecstasy. Heaven. Now he knew what heaven was like.

Just the kind of whore he would have bought for himself if he’d still had an operational phallus.

She’d often wondered if there was something wrong with her, especially as she watched couples walk by on the street hand in hand. Most people her age were dating wildly, trying to find altar material. Not her.