Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #8)

by J.R. Ward

Darius’s eyes lifted up from the words he had put upon parchment a lifetime ago. In the cave’s innermost entryway, a band of four stood tall and thick shouldered and heavily weaponed. Members of the Brotherhood. He knew this quartet by name: Ahgony, Throe, Murhder, Tohrture.

Life had beaten the shit out of him, but instead of folding, each strike and blow had forged him harder and stronger and tougher. He was straight steel now, nothing lingering of the boy he’d once been.

Unaware he was being watched, he smoked along, the chilly spring night eating up the puffs that rose from his lips.

Saxton’s eyes shifted over and met Blay’s. Instantly, the guy’s expression changed to something serious and speculative. “Well, hello.” Saxton turned his back on Qhuinn and came over with a focus that made Blay check behind himself. “Blaylock, is it not?” The male extended his elegant arm across the bar. “I haven’t seen you in years.” Blay had always felt a little tongue-tied in Saxton’s presence because the “slick bastard” always had a comeback. And a vibe like he not only knew the right answers to everything but might not choose to let you in on the secrets if you weren’t up to his standards. “How do you do?” Blay said as their palms met.

She wished she’d told Murhder, all those years ago, that she was half-symphath . That way, when she’d been taken up to the colony, he wouldn’t have come to rescue her.

Not that the other Brothers wouldn’t have given themselves over with similar dedication—except for Hharm, perhaps, who had a rather dim view of female worth.

“Qhuinn . . .” Blay shoved a hand into his hair. On cue, that fucking Bonnie Raitt song shot into his brain, her rich voice singing . . . I can’t make you love me if you don’t. . . . You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t. . . .

No’One just shook her head and gathered up the cloth. The maid was so lovely and quiet, doing her duties without complaint even though she had some kind of disability.

Defects were shunned by the breeding laws. Always had been. And so someone like No’One, who was handicapped, was relegated to serving her sisters under a cloak . . . a hidden, unspoken-of embarrassment that was nonetheless regarded with “love.”

“Far better to be uninterested than unfulfilled. One is a relief. The other an emptiness with heavy weight.”

“Because I just had sex with him,” Holly said. “I had sex with Eliahu Rathboone.”

When it actually went down, though, it was just an instant. An impulse on her part. A chaste gift given in gratitude for a chaste gift received. Xhex flexed up on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth against his. Oh, so soft. Her lips were incredibly soft. And gentle. And very warm.

Opening one up, he saw the only thing he’d expected to find left behind. His name. And the date.

I was part symphath and there was nothing out in the world for me . . . but I had to go. Fortunately, I met Rehvenge and he showed me what I was.”

Once your grid collapsed, you were cooked. Lost to your inner demons. Which made her think of Murhder.

“You’re not half the male you could be because of what was done to you. You’re twice what anyone else is because you survived.”

“Is it possible he’s been dethroned,” Wrath murmured. “Daddy-o maybe decide that the son was not so amusing after all? Or did the evil’s shiny, pretty new toy break—is there some shit in Lash’s bizarre biology that’s just coming out now?

“I should never have given you the remote. This is just some guy in a monster suit, batting around at a piñata. Come on, I’m missing Maury.” “What a shame.” “Paternity tests, Tohr. You’re button-blocking paternity tests. This sucks.” “Only to you.”

Verily, it was a strange curse to have been born and yet not have a life to live.

Payne recalled her conversation with Layla by the reflecting pool. Same exchange, different twist: Then, Layla had been the one to envy Payne’s lack of desire when it came to sex and males. Here, it was No’One’s contentment with inertia that was of value.

NHP. Not. Her. Problem.

After it’s over, we go our separate ways. We’re done.

And verily, the daughter of Sampsone might have possessed a beating heart betwixt her ribs, but her soul had passed away.

But he was going to take care of the crowding PDQ.

Pretty damn quick

He’d read that book, seen the movie, bought the sound track, the DVD, the T-shirt, the mug, the bobble-head, and the insider’s guide. He knew every reason they could have been lock and key.

Maybe the Survivors’ Club wasn’t something you “earned,” but simply what you were born into when you came out of your mother’s womb. Your heartbeat put you on the roster and then the rest of it was just a question of vocabulary: The nouns and verbs used to describe the events that rocked your foundation and sent you flailing were not always the same as other people’s, but the random cruelties of disease and accident, and the malicious focus of evil men and nasty deeds, and the heartbreak of loss with all its stinging whips and rattling chains . . . at the core, it was all the same.

The essential truth of life, he was coming to realize, wasn’t romantic and took only two words to label: Shit. Happens. But the thing was, you kept going.

I’ve been awful to you, John signed. I’m sorry. Tohr shook his head. “Like I was any better? Don’t apologize. As my best friend and your father always told me, don’t look backward. Only forward.”

Life goes on . . . long after the thrill of living is gone . . .

John’s tattoo . . . Goddamn . . . He’d done it as a memorial to her—putting her name in his skin so she’d be with him always.

“I did not want this destiny.” “That and a pile of shit gets you nothing. Will You let me save her.” The Scribe Virgin shifted her stare to the opaque heaven above her and the tear that fell from her eye landed on the marble flooring as a diamond, bouncing with a shimmer and a flash.

“Jesus Christ . . .” Qhuinn muttered. “You look like a Rorschach test.”

“I love you.” Her gunmetal gray stare lifted to his. “I love you and I’m sorry and thank you.” She laughed in a short, harsh burst. “Check me out, being all ladylike.”

He’d gotten his girl, his true love, his pyrocant. Of course, he wasn’t fooling himself. Life with Xhex wasn’t going to be normal on so many levels—good thing he was down with the wild side.

He couldn’t put his finger on the why of it . . . but she was his missing puzzle piece, the twelfth in his dozen, the first and the last pages of his book. And at some level that was all he needed.

Yes, he mouthed. I would hold you up. I will ever hold you up and hold you dear, lover mine.

Where were his shellan and their young? Where was Darius? Where were all the others who had pared off from the trudging path his boots still strode so that they could take residence in the velvet ever-afterlife of the Fade?

You never knew the last time you were seeing someone. You didn’t know when the last argument happened, or the last time you had sex, or the last time you looked into their eyes and thanked God they were in your life. After they were gone? That was all you thought about. Day and night.

“I . . . I should wish to impart her nomenclature.”

“She shall be called Xhexania.” The gentlemale bowed anew. “ ‘Blessed one.’ Yes, that suits her beautifully.”

And sometimes, the surprises were not bad, not bad at all. One . . . John. Two . . . a gown. Three . . . her mother.

Fate was not easy . . . but it got things right. Eventually, everything that came to pass was exactly how it was meant to be.