Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(206)

The barn was a good-size one, with a pair of front doors that slid back on well-oiled runners. Xhex didn’t take the obvious way in, though, leading them around the side to a squat door instead.

Just before they filed into the lofty, empty space, Ehlena glanced back at the farmhouse.

The blond male was squared off at a circle of Brothers, the guy as calm and cool as someone at a cocktail party might be, his smug smile suggesting big trouble, in Ehlena’s opinion: Only somebody with a lot of weapons at his disposal looked like that when he was confronting a wall of muscle.

“Hurry up,” Xhex said.

Ehlena ducked inside and shivered, even though she was out of the wind. Man…this was all wrong. Like the farmhouse, there was something off about everything: no hay, no feed, no harness or tack. There was no horse in the stall, either. Natch.

The urge to flee choked her, and she clawed at the collar of her parka.

Zsadist put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s their equivalent of mhis. Just breathe. It’s an illusion that stains the very air, but what you’re feeling is not real.”

She swallowed and looked up into the Brother’s scarred face, drawing strength from how steady he was. “Okay. Okay…I’m all right.”

“Good girl.”

“Over here,” Xhex said as she headed for the stall and opened its two-part door.

The floor inside was concrete and marked with an odd geometric pattern.

“Open sesame.” Xhex bent down and lifted what turned out to be a slab of stone, the Brothers coming forward to help her with the weight.

The staircase that was revealed was lit with a soft red glow.

“I feel like I’m walking down into a porn movie,” V muttered as they took the steps with care.

“Wouldn’t that require more black candles for you,” Zsadist cracked.

At the bottom of the landing, they looked left and right down a corridor carved out of stone, seeing nothing but row after row of…black candles with ruby-colored flames.

“I take that back,” Z said, eyeing the display.

“We start hearing chick-a-wow-wow shit,” V cut in, “can I start calling you Z-packed?”

“Not if you want to keep breathing.”

Ehlena turned to the right, overwhelmed by a sense of urgency. “He’s down here. I can feel him.”

Without waiting for the others, she took off at a jog.





Of all the miracles that could have been granted on the planet, of all the, OMG, you’re alive!s, or, Thank you, Scribe Virgin, he’s cured!s, the resurrection John was staring at was a total nut-buster.

Lash was standing in front of a Martha Stewart white colonial, dressed in slick clothes, looking like he was not only perfectly alive and as impressed with himself as ever, but as if he’d been turbocharged somehow: He smelled like a lesser, but as he stared down from the porch it was as if he were the Omega itself—nothing but evil power that was unimpressed by any mortal displays of strength.

“Hey, John-boy,” Lash drawled. “I can’t tell you how great it is to see your pansy-ass face again. Almost as good as my rebirth.”

Jesus…Christ. Why couldn’t Wellsie have been the recipient of this kind of gift? But no…psychotic ass-wipe with the narcissistic disorder got fingered to do the Lazarus shuffle.

The irony was that John had prayed for this. Shit, immediately after Qhuinn had sliced the guy’s throat, John had prayed that somehow Lash would live through the massive blood loss. He could remember getting down onto the wet tile in the training center’s shower and trying to plug up the wound with his shirt. He’d begged God, the Scribe Virgin, whoever would listen, to somehow fix the situation.

Lash’s becoming the vampire equivalent of the Antichrist was not exactly what he’d been going for, however.

As snow started to ease down from the cloudy sky, some words were exchanged between Rhage and Lash, but the buzzing in John’s head drowned most of them out.

What he did hear clearly was Qhuinn’s voice right behind him: “Well, look at it this way. At least we get to kill him again.”

Then the world exploded. Literally.

From out of nowhere, a meteor formed in Lash’s palm and went flying, coming straight at John and the Brothers, a metaphysical bowling ball from hell. As it made contact, its glowing shock waves knocked all of them off their feet, a full strike.

Flat on his back with the others, John struggled to catch his breath as flakes settled softly on his cheeks and lips. The next blast was coming. Had to be.

Either that or something worse.

The roar that lit off across the landscape originated from in front of him, and at first he assumed Lash had transmogrified into some kind of five-headed horror that was going to eat them all alive.

Except…well, it was a beast, but as purple scales flashed and a barbed tail swept through the air, John was relieved. It was their Godzilla, not the Omega’s: Rhage’s alter ego had come out of him, and the massive dragon was good and pissed off.

Even Lash seemed a little surprised.

The dragon inhaled with a great dragging pull on the night air, and then it stretched its neck forward and let out a burst of fire that was so intense the skin on John’s face tightened like shrink-wrap—even though he was well out of range.

When the flames dissipated, Lash was standing between porch supports that were singed, his clothes steaming, his body otherwise unharmed.