Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(106)

An image from that sacred ceremony appeared in his mind, and he saw with tragic clarity the moment when the Scribe Virgin had clasped both his and Wellsie’s hands and declared that it was a good mating, a very good mating indeed. He’d felt such warmth linked to his female through the mother of the race, and that sensation of love and purpose and optimism had increased a million times over as he’d stared into his love’s eyes.

It had seemed as if they had a lifetime of only happiness and joy before them…and yet now here he was on the other side of unthinkable loss, alone.

No, worse than alone. Alone and about to take another female’s blood into his body.

“This is happening too fast,” he mumbled behind his palms. “I can’t…I need more time….”

So help him, God, if that angel said one word about how now was the right moment, he was going to make that bastard wish his teeth were made out of safety glass.

“My lord,” the Chosen said softly, “I shall come back if that is your wish. And come back anon if then is not right. And return and return once more until you are ready. Please…my lord, verily I should only wish to help, not hurt you.”

He frowned. She sounded very kind, and there wasn’t a sultry note to any of the syllables that had left her lips.

“Tell me the color of your hair,” he said through his hands.

“It is black as the night and bound tight as my sisters and I could make it. I took leave to wrap it in a turban as well, though you did not ask that of me. I thought…perhaps it would help further.”

“Tell me the color of your eyes.”

“They are blue, my lord. A pale sky blue.”

Wellsie’s had been sherry colored.

“My lord,” the Chosen whispered, “you need not even look upon me. Allow me to stand behind you, and take my wrist that way.”

He heard the rustle of soft cloth, and the scent of the female shifted around until it came from behind him. Dropping his hands, Tohr saw Lassiter’s long, jeans-clad legs. The angel’s ankles were crossed again, this time as he leaned back against the wall.

A slender arm draped in white cloth appeared before him.

In slow tugs, the sleeve of the robing was gradually lifted higher and higher.

The wrist that was exposed was fragile, the skin white and fine.

The veins beneath the surface were light blue.

Tohr’s fangs slammed down from the roof of his mouth and a snarl came out of his lips. The bastard angel was right. Suddenly there was nothing on his mind; everything was his body and what he’d deprived it of for so long.

Tohr clamped a hard hand on her shoulder, hissed like a cobra, and bit the Chosen’s wrist down to the bone, locking his fangs in place. There was a cry of alarm and a scramble, but he was gone as he drank, his swallows like fists on a rope, pulling that blood down into his gut so fast he didn’t have time to taste it.

He nearly killed the Chosen.

And he knew this only later, after Lassiter finally peeled him free and knocked him out with a punch to the head—because the instant he’d been separated from the source of those nutrients, he’d tried to go for the female again.

The fallen angel had been right.

Horrible biology was the ultimate driver, winning over even the stoutest of heart.

And the most reverent of widowers.





THIRTY-FOUR




When Ehlena got home, she put on a fake face, sent Lusie off, and checked with her father, who was “making incredible strides” in his work. The second she could get free, though, she went into her room to hop online. She had to figure out how much money they had, down to the penny, and didn’t think she was going to like what she came up with. After signing onto her bank account, she scrolled through the checks that had yet to clear and tallied up what was due the first week of the month. The good news was that she was still going to get her pay for November.

Their savings account had just under eleven grand in it.

There was nothing left to sell. And no fat on the monthly budget.

Lusie would have to stop coming. Which would suck, because she’d take on another client to fill the spot, so when Ehlena found a new job there’d be a nursing care hole to plug.

Although that was assuming she could get another position. Sure as hell it wasn’t going to be in nursing. Getting fired for cause was not what any employer wanted to see on a résumé.

Why had she lifted those f*cking pills?

Ehlena sat staring at the screen adding and readding all the little numbers until they blurred together, not even the sum of them registering anymore.

“Daughter mine?”

She quickly shut down the laptop, because her father didn’t do well with electronics, and composed her face. “Yes? I mean, yes?”

“I wonder if you would care to read a passage or two of my work? You seem anxious, and I find such pursuits calm my mind.” He shuffled to the side and gallantly extended his arm.

Ehlena stood up because sometimes all a person could do was accept the direction of others. She didn’t want to read any of the gibberish he had committed to the page. Couldn’t bear to pretend that everything was okay. Wished that, even if just for an hour, she could have her parent back so she could talk through the bad position she had landed them both in.

“That would be lovely,” she said in a dead, elegant voice.