Blood Vow (Black Dagger Legacy #2)(64)

From out of nowhere, the hum of his addiction started to vibrate, that thing he had always thought of as part cancer, part dragon, standing up on its hindquarters and starting to roar.

The good news? At least he wasn’t thinking about Elise. The bad news?

Once that hum started talking to him? It would rise and rise until he had to deal with it … and there was only one way that had worked for him now that he’d quit heroin—

The phone went off in his hand, the electronic pattern of sound loud as the pop! of a gun in the quiet house.

He answered before the second ring was over. “Novo.”

“Hey.”

As background noise made her hard to hear, he frowned and turned up the volume with his thumb. “Where are you?”

“At a club. You know that Euro-trash one Peyton goes to all the time.”

“Yeah.”

He took the phone away from his ear and checked what time it was. Also noted that he was running out of battery life. Shit, he’d forgotten to charge the damn thing in the restaurant—when you lived without electricity, you learned to vampire volts when you could and recharge your stuff everywhere.

When his fellow trainee didn’t say anything further, he frowned. “You drunk and need a pickup? ’Cuz you know I don’t have wheels.”

“No, I need to ask you something.”

“What.”

“You want to fuck?”

Axe popped his brows. And for a split second, he entertained the idea of the female coming over and the pair of them hardcoring it all over the fucking house, breaking furniture, slamming into walls, letting the fire die because their body heat was more than enough to keep them warm.

“Is that a yes,” she drawled in a low, sexy voice that should have been better than an actual hand down his pants.

Keeping the phone to his ear, he walked over to the fireplace, bent down, and picked up the blanket Elise had wrapped around herself. As he put it to his nose, he breathed deep.

And missed her so much he dropped the damn thing like he’d been burned by it.

“I don’t shit where I eat, Novo,” he heard himself say.

The come-on went out of her voice immediately. “Thanks for suggesting sex with me would be excrementally awesome.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I won’t get emotionally attached,” she muttered dryly. “Trust me.”

“I know.” He thought of the asshole Peyton and the dumb-ass’s little Paradise obsession. “We got enough fucked-up dynamics in the group already, though, and someone would find out. That shit’s hard to hide even if you do it vanilla.”

“Fine. See you at class—”

“I’ll take you to The Keys, though.”

“When?” she demanded.

“Night after tomorrow.” He closed his eyes and rushed through the rest: “We’ll go together. It’s guest night. You’ll find what you’re looking for there. I know I always do.”





TWENTY-FIVE


It was five hours before Vishous came back into the Audience House’s kitchen. And Rhage couldn’t decide whether he was glad the initial interview of the uncle was over … or shit terrified to find out the results.

As V sat down at the table with all of them, he was clearly tired, his hair plastered back off his forehead like he’d been pulling his hands through it, the tattoos at his temple glowing in contrast to skin that was too pale, his gloved hand shaking a little as he lit a hand-rolled and took a deep drag.

Rhage took the teacup he’d been drinking hot chocolate out of off its saucer and pushed the little porcelain plate in his brother’s direction. So the guy had an ashtray.

Then he sat back, took Mary’s hand, and waited some more.

It wasn’t a surprise that Vishous took his time before he spoke, and even Z came over and sat down.

“So here’s what we got.” V tapped his cig over the saucer even though there was no ash at the end. Then he pointed to the thing. “Thank you for this.”

“You’re welcome,” Rhage murmured.

Fucking hell, he almost didn’t want to hear it. Mary, on the other hand, was leaning forward, obviously prepared to deal with whatever the news was.

He drew from her fighting spirit. ’Cuz at the moment, he was feeling pretty fucking ball-less.

“So Ruhn gave me all the details he knows about Bitty’s mother. The names of their sire and mahmen. When and where she was born. Where she lived and who with before she came to Caldwell. How she met that asshole she mated. What he knew of what happened after she came here.” The brother took another inhale and released more of that Turkish smoke. “He also told me about where he’s been living, what he’s been doing, who he’s been associating with.”

“What does he do?” Mary asked roughly.

“He’s a manual laborer. He lives in South Carolina. He works on a big estate down there.”

“What’s the bloodline?” Wrath demanded. Like the King was prepared to go and seize the estate as if they were back in the Old Country. “And did the stories make sense?”

V put his palm up even though Wrath couldn’t see it. “Look, I’m not going to tell you your royal business—”

“But you’re going to anyway,” Wrath muttered.