Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(163)

This one with the filth was what he had been forced to show her.

“He’s waiting for you,” Trez said gently.

The side door of the club opened wide, another Moorish male appearing. Behind him, everything was dim, but she heard the thumping bass.

Did she really need to see this, she wondered.

Well, she needed to tell Rehv off, that was for sure, assuming this train wreck was going in the direction it appeared to be. And then it dawned on her: If all this was true, she had a bigger problem. She’d had sex…with a symphath.

She’d let a symphath feed from her.

Ehlena shook her head. “I don’t need this. Take me h—”

A female appeared, one who was built tough and hard as a male, and not just on the outside. Her eyes were icy cold and utterly calculating.

She came over and leaned into the car. “Nothing is going to hurt you inside here. I swear it.”

Whatever—the hurt was already happening, Ehlena thought. She was getting chest pains like you would with a heart attack.

“He’s waiting,” the female said.

What got Ehlena out of the car was her backbone, and not just because it straightened her from a sitting position. The thing was, she didn’t run. In all her life, she hadn’t run from the hard stuff, and she was not starting now.

She walked in through the door and knew for sure that she was somewhere she wouldn’t ever choose to be. Everything was dark, and the music banged into her ears like fists, and the smell of too much hot skin made her want to plug her nose.

The female led the way, and the Moors flanked Ehlena, their huge bodies carving a path through a human jungle she had no wish to be a part of. Waitresses dressed in tight black uniforms carried around endless variations on alcohol, and half-nude women rubbed up against men in suits, and every person Ehlena passed had eyes that were looking somewhere else, as if whatever they’d ordered or whoever was in front of them couldn’t satisfy them.

She was led over to a reinforced black door, and after Trez spoke into his wristwatch, the thing opened and he stood to the side—as if he expected her to walk right in, like it was just someone’s living room.

Yeah…not.

Staring into the darkness beyond, she saw nothing but a black ceiling and black walls and a shiny black floor.

But then Rehvenge stepped into her line of sight. He was exactly as she knew him to be, a big male dressed in a sable duster who had mohawked hair and amethyst eyes and a red cane.

He was, however, a total stranger.





Rehvenge stared at the female he loved and saw on her pale, strained face exactly what he had sought to put there.

Revulsion.

“Will you come in?” he said, needing to finish the job.

Ehlena glanced over at Xhex. “You’re security, right?” Xhex frowned, but nodded. “Then you’re coming in with me. I don’t want to be alone with him.”

As her words hit, Rehv might as well have been sliced through the throat, but he showed no reaction as Xhex came forward and Ehlena followed.

The door shut and the music was buffered away and the silence was as loud as a scream.

Ehlena looked at his desk, on which he’d deliberately left twenty-five thousand dollars in cash and a brick of cocaine that was wrapped in cellophane.

“You told me you were a businessman,” she said. “Guess it was my fault for assuming it was legitimate.”

All he could do was stare at her—his voice had left him, his shallow breath nothing that could sustain words. The only thing he could do, as she stood stiff and angry before him, was memorize her, from the way her strawberry blond hair was pulled back to her toffee-colored eyes to her simple black coat to the way she kept her hands in her pockets, as if she didn’t want to touch a thing.

He didn’t want this to be how he remembered her, but as it was the last time he would see her, he couldn’t help but focus on every detail.

Ehlena’s eyes flipped from the drugs and the cash back to his face. “So it’s true? Everything your ex-girlfriend said.”

“She is my half sister. And yes. Everything.”

The female he loved took a step back from him, fear bringing her hand out of her pocket and up to her throat. He knew exactly what she was thinking of: him feeding from her vein, them being naked and alone in his penthouse. She was recasting the recollection, coming to terms with the fact that it hadn’t been a vampire at her neck.

It had been a symphath.

“Why did you bring me down here?” she said. “You could have just told me over the phone—no, never mind. I’m going home now. Don’t ever contact me again.”

He bowed slightly and choked out, “As you wish.”

She turned away and went to stand in front of the door. “Will someone please let me the f*ck out of here.”

After Xhex reached over and opened the way to freedom, Ehlena all but bolted away from him.

As the door shut, Rehv locked it with his mind and stood there, where she had left him.

Ruined. He was utterly ruined. And not because he was turning himself and his body over to a sadistic sociopath who was going to enjoy every minute of torturing him.

When his vision clouded with red, he knew it wasn’t his bad side coming out. Not a chance. He’d pumped enough dopamine in his veins over the last twelve hours to choke a horse, because otherwise he didn’t trust himself to let Ehlena go. He’d needed to cage his bad side one last time…so he could do the right thing for the right reason.