Blood Truth (Black Dagger Legacy #4)

by J.R. Ward

According to the Black Dagger Brother Vishous, there were four levels of skill development: unconsciously unskilled, which meant you didn’t know how much you didn’t know and couldn’t do; consciously unskilled, which was when you began to be aware of how much you needed to develop; consciously skilled, which was the level at which you started to use what you’ve trained yourself to do; and, finally, unconsciously skilled.

Which was what happened when your body moved without your brain having to micromanage every molecule of the attack. When your training formed a basis of action so intrinsic to who you were and what you did in a given situation that you were unaware of any cognition occurring. When you entered “the Zone,” as the Brother Rhage called it.

Vishous was as he always was: dressed in black leather, draped in weapons, and sporting an expression like someone stupid had just done something ridiculous.

V’s laconic puss made resting bitch face seem like something that belonged on an inspirational poster.

“Is he dead?” Boone heard himself say. “Is my father . . . dead.”

Tohr’s hand landed on Boone’s shoulder, heavy as an anvil. “I’m really sorry, son. Your father . . .”

“So I was right, wasn’t I?” he interrupted. When no one replied, he popped his lids and focused on Tohrment. “I was right, they were plotting against Wrath.”

“He was attacked by a shadow.” As Boone sat up, the Brother put his hand on Boone’s shoulder again. “Nope, stay down, son. You’re still the color of flour—” “What happened?”

This time, the story’s totality finally sank in: His father had been standing among the other aristocrats at the gathering when shadow entities had come in and ambushed the crowd. The Brothers had counterattacked, but not before Altamere had sustained mortal injuries.

As V resumed his form a good ten blocks from where Boone was getting treated, he took a minute to catch his breath in the cold. Granted, he wasn’t breathing hard at all. And he needed to hustle to his destination. But . . . shit. Seeing that kid find out the why and how of his father and stepmahmen being dead? After he’d been the one who turned the gathering into the Brotherhood?

The kid felt responsible. You could see it in his face. It was heartbreaking. Even for someone like V who prided himself on having a meat locker for a pericardium.

Fritz took off for the billiards room like a winning lottery ticket had been left out on the bar, and V could only shake his head. He really didn’t want to be waited on, but for all the S&M he had enjoyed over the course of his lifetime, he couldn’t stand the pain of disappointing that doggen. The butler was like kryptonite.

“Confirmation bias is a dangerous thing when you investigate a case, especially in the beginning. The truth needs space and airtime to reveal itself. The only way to make sure that happens is to let your brain and your senses record every nuance while at the same time you resist your rational side’s desire to come to any hard-and-fast conclusions. There is a solution to the whodunit out there. I promise you that. But you have to earn the right to that revelation, and the way we do that is by sacrificing our assumptions at the altar of OMG-I-know-what-happened.”

Truth is absolute, but it’s like the existence of God. You don’t know you’ve got it until you do.”

Down by the stairwell’s door, a figure was standing still as a statue and focused on him. And in spite of the black hooded robe that covered the head and draped down to the feet, he knew it was a female.

And that scent of hers.

Butch re-formed next to him and entered a code on a keypad next to a solid steel door.

As they came up to the morgue’s entrance, Butch jumped ahead and held open the way in. Boone, on the other hand, stopped short. And couldn’t go any farther.

“What’s up, son?” the Brother asked quietly. “You okay?” It was hard to say the words out loud. Much less to a male he respected. “Is it . . . is it wrong that I didn’t ask to see his body?”

There was no reason to specify the “he” he wa...

Because goddamn Paperless Post had worked just fine for the invites, Marquist, you tool.

Men were physically stronger, true. But the women? They were the warriors. As much as those males who had come with her would have run into a burning building to save her, not one of them was strong enough to take her place for this heartbreaking duty.

The thing with true family, from everything he’d learned? Sometimes they shared DNA with you. Sometimes they didn’t. And given that the blood connection only went so far, the friends you chose were what made up the slack when your relatives sucked.