Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(48)

“As you wish.” The king extended his six-fingered hand. “Such a pleasure…”

Lash reached forward and felt electricity lick up his arm as their palms met. “Yeah. Whatever. You’ll be hearing from me.”





SIXTEEN




She was with him…oh, God, she was finally back with him.

Tohrment, son of Hharm, was naked and pressed against the flesh of his beloved, feeling her satin skin and hearing her gasp as his hand went to her breast. Red hair…red hair everywhere on the pillow he’d rolled her back against and on the white sheets that smelled like lemons…red hair wrapped around his thick forearm.

Her nipple was tight against his circling thumb and her lips soft beneath his own as he kissed her deep and slow. When she was begging for him, he was going to roll onto her and take her from above, driving into her hard, holding her down.

She liked the weight of him. She liked the feel of him covering her. In their life together, Wellsie was an independent female with a strong mind and a stubborn streak to rival a bulldog’s, but in bed, she liked him on top.

He dropped his mouth to her breast, sucking her nipple in, rolling it around, kissing it.

“Tohr…”

“What, leelan? More? Maybe I’ll have you wait….”

But he couldn’t. He nursed at her and stroked her stomach and her hips. As she writhed, he licked up to her neck and raked his fangs across her jugular. He couldn’t wait to feed. For some reason, he was starved for blood. Maybe he’d been fighting a lot.

Her fingers dug into his hair. “Take my vein….”

“Not yet.” The sting of delay was just going to make it better—the more he wanted it, the sweeter the blood.

Moving up to her mouth, he kissed her harder than before, his tongue penetrating her as he deliberately rubbed his cock against her thigh, a promise of another, deeper invasion down below. She was thoroughly aroused, her scent rising up through the lemony sheets, making his fangs pound in his mouth and the tip of his sex weep.

His shellan had been the only female he’d ever known. They’d both been virgins on their mating night—and he’d never wanted anybody else.

“Tohr…”

God, he loved the low sound of her voice. Loved everything about her. They had been promised to each other before they’d been born, and it had been love at first sight the moment they’d met. Destiny had been so kind to them.

He swept his palm down onto her waist, and then…

He stopped, realizing something was wrong. Something…

“Your belly…your belly is flat.”

“Tohr…”

“Where’s the young?” He pulled back in a panic. “You were with young. Where’s the young? Is he okay? What happened to you…are you all right?”

“Tohr…”

Her eyes opened, and the stare he had looked into for over a hundred years focused on him. Sadness, the kind that made you wish you’d never been born, drained the sexual flush from her beautiful face.

Reaching up to him, she put her hand on his cheek. “Tohr…”

“What happened?”

“Tohr…”

The sheen over her eyes and the quaver of her lovely voice snapped him in half. And then she began to drift away, her body disappearing under his touch, her red hair, her exquisite face, her despairing eyes fading so that only the pillows remained before him. Then in a final blow, the lemony smell of the sheets and her naturally clean scent left his nose, replaced by nothing—

Tohr jacked upright off the mattress, his eyes spilling over with tears, his heart aching as if he’d had nails driven into his chest. Breathing raggedly, he clutched at his breastbone and opened his mouth to scream.

No sound came. He didn’t have the strength.

Falling back against the pillows, he wiped his wet cheeks with hands that shook and tried to calm the hell down. When he finally caught his breath, he frowned. His heart was skipping in his rib cage, not so much beating as fluttering, and no doubt because of the erratic spasms, dizziness spun his head in a tight circle.

Pulling up his T-shirt, he stared down at his deflated pecs and his shrunken torso and willed his body to keep failing. The spells had been coming with increasing regularity and strength, and he wished to hell they’d just get organized and help him wake up dead. Suicide was not an option if you wanted to get into the Fade and be with your deceased loved ones, but he was operating under the assumption that you could effectively neglect yourself to death. Which wasn’t technically suicide, like eating a bullet or throwing a noose around his neck or doing a slit-the-wrist special would be.

The scent of food from out in the hallway had him looking at the clock. Four in the afternoon. Or was it morning? The drapes were drawn, so he didn’t know whether the shutters were up or down.

The knock that sounded was soft.

Which, thank f*ck, meant it wasn’t Lassiter, who just came in whenever he wanted. Evidently fallen angels weren’t big on manners. Or personal space. Or boundaries of any kind. Clearly the great, glowing nightmare had been booted out of heaven because God hadn’t liked his company any more than Tohr did.

The quiet knock was repeated. So it must be John.

“Yeah,” Tohr said, letting his shirt fall as he pushed himself up on the pillows. His arms, once strong as cranes, struggled under the weight of his wilted shoulders.