The Sinner (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #18)

by J.R. Ward

“The Prophecy is not ours. It is the property of history. As it was foretold, so it shall be. First as the future, then as the present when the time is nigh. And after that, with recording, it shall be the sacred past, the saving of the species, the end of the war.”

What if I can’t believe it, he amended. “You assume destiny requires your permission to exist.”

“What if I’m not enough?” “You are. You have to be.” “I can’t do any of it without you.”

Prophecies dismissed when another future comes along to claim the present as its victim,

proving that that which had been taken as an absolute was in fact only a partial truth. Everyone was talking about the end of the war, but was there ever really

an end to evil? Even if he succeeded, even if he was, in fact, the Dhestroyer, what then. S...

No, he thought with a conviction that made his spine tingle with warning. There would be another. And it would be the same as...

She wanted a mouth at the hollow of her throat. A tongue to lick into her between her legs. She wanted the beast with two backs, the down-and-dirty, the hard pound.

Devina took control of the situation by freezing the human where he stood, with that arm of his around her, that knife up to her jugular, that weight tilted back on his tailbone. Then she disappeared from his grip, and re-formed in front of him.

However, she worried. When she had first escaped the Well of Souls through a resourceful seduction, she had expected the father of everything, the Creator, to chastise her and remand her back to the below, re-punishing her with an

even greater sentence of isolation.

Jim Heron, the fallen angel, was in Heaven now, forever apart from her—and forever not alone. He was with that little, irrelevant girl, Sissy, who he stupidly gave a shit about, and his eternity with that

mealy-mouthed pathetic made Devina want to destroy the earth itself. And then start on the rest of the galaxy.

Without love, even evil was unhappy.

It was strange to require the very thing that she existed to destroy, and to

mourn its loss as if she were mortal and the cold, thieving hand of death had plucked a prized, irreplaceable apple from one’...

Zypher, the outrageously beautiful bastard, was pulling a schoolmarm, his one working eye frowning with disapproval. The other one, which had been lost about two months ago in a stabbing with a lesser, was currently replaced by a falsie with a Captain America shield for an iris.

As he resolved to get back to work, he was aware of a ringing disappointment in the center of his chest, sure as if he had been cheated out of a promised benediction.

Then again, for one brief moment, he had had something other than killing on his mind.

This stranger with the parted lips and the wide eyes made him want to be different. Better. Improved from the base beast that he had been since his transition.

He was hers to command, and if she wished to take his life here and now, he would willingly give his mortal coil unto her. No matter how much it hurt or what his suffering was, it would be a good death, one he had long deserved. Because this female, who captivated his black soul as surely as if she

held his beating heart in her palm, would be the one killing him.

And it wasn’t just that two men getting it on was awesome. Something swirled around the tableau of dominance and submission, and it wasn’t the stench. Evil. Pure, high-octane evil was down there in that

that alley. It was… her, but not her, her essence captured and held within the flesh of the one that was on the ground…

and yet he was not what interested her. No, she was enthralled by the one who wa...

And when whatever process or procedure was done, the evil was gone, only the two men remaining. Except—no. These were not men, were they. They were other. They were vampire. Okay, that was fucking hot.

“It’s not cologne,” he replied. “What is it.” “Me. When I’m around you.” “Why?” “Why do you think.”

“You want some of this?” she murmured after a moment. “You keep staring at it like you didn’t have dinner.”

It took him a minute to figure out she was talking about the snack. “I don’t know what that is,” he said. “You’ve never had a Slim Jim?” “No, but I wouldn’t mind trying one.” And that was when he kissed her.

It was never healthy to want someone so badly that you forgot they were a stranger.

He took a moment to study her face. Word had always had it that hers was the greatest beauty in the species, and he knew this to be fact, not rumor. Ever since the first moment he had seen her at Darius’s old place—back when he’d been a human and had no idea what he was getting himself into—she had

struck him stupid. Except for him, it was not her looks that created such a compelling, compulsive attraction. It was the soul behind the lovely eyes, the voice that came out of those perfect lips, the heartbeat behind the curves. Her soul was what really did it for him.

“With everything I am, and all that I will ever be, I swear, I will come back to you.”

His faith was strong. His love for Marissa was even stronger. His control over destiny? Big nope on that one.

Something about confronting the Omega had hinged him loose in ways he didn’t seem to be coming out of well—but at least he knew the solution. He was going to go be with his female. Even if all he could do was sit in a parked car outside of her work for four hours, six

hours, before she got off, that would be enough.

He was untethered. She was ...

Jo slowly sat forward, compelled by the mask that covered his face. She

needed to know what was under there with an intensity that had bad idea written all over it.

“You can trust me,” she whispered. “With your secrets. I’m not a reporter...

DR. MANUEL MANELLO, CHIEF OF SURGERY. ST. FRANCIS MEDICAL CENTER. Bill had given her the picture. And had typed up a report on what he’d found when he’d looked into her birth mother, who had died during birth. It was a mystery solved. Kind of. And the dark-haired man? He was her brother… who had

strangely disappeared off the radar over eighteen months before. Never to be seen or heard from again. “I’m getting really sick and tired of people who disappear into thin air,” she muttered to herself.

There shall be one to bring the end before the master, a fighter of modern time found in the seventh of the twenty-first, and he shall be known in the numbers he bears:

One more than the compass he apperceives, Though a mere four points to make at his right, Three lives has he, Two scores on his fore, and with a single black eye, in one well will he be birthed and die.

An end before the master? Or an end o...

The Omega and that particular vampire were tied together, and the strings that linked them were in these stanzas.

He also knew how he and the Omega were connected. So he knew what he had to do. He had to pull all of the slayers together here in Caldwell. And they had to

find that Brother from the night before. It was the only way he was going to come through this. Besides, according to the book, it was all but preordained.

The resulting cleanse of his anxieties was similar to what Vishous did for him. The strengthening, too. It made him feel like he could handle what was coming. Later tonight. Tomorrow night. Up until the last moment.

“We never can. That is why our faith is important. Do you believe, do you truly believe?” Butch took his gold cross out from his shirt. “I truly believe.” “Then you will never be alone. No matter where you are.”