Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(66)

Wrath waited for about two minutes; then he dematerialized to Safe Place. She had so much of his blood in her after all their time of feeding from each other that he sensed her presence inside the stout walls of the security-laden facility, and he knew she was protected.

With a heavy heart, Wrath dematerialized again and headed back to the mansion: He had stitches to get removed and a whole night to pass alone in his study.





TWENTY-ONE




An hour after Trez took the tray back down to the kitchen, Rehv’s stomach was in full revolt. Man, if oatmeal was no longer a viable food afterward, what was he left with? Bananas? White rice?

Fucking Gerber baby gruel?

And it wasn’t just his digestive tract that was screwed up. If he’d been able to feel anything, he was pretty sure he had a headache along with the tossing nausea. Anytime there was a light source, like when Trez came in to check on him, Rehv’s eyes went on autoblink, flickering up and down in an uncoordinated, ocular version of the Safety Dance; then he’d start to salivate and swallow compulsively. So he had to be nauseated.

As his phone went off, he put his hand on it and brought it to his ear without turning his head. There was a lot going on at ZeroSum tonight, and he needed to keep tabs. “Yeah.”

“Hi…you called me?”

Rehv’s eyes shot to the bathroom door, which had a soft light glowing around the jambs.

Oh, God, he hadn’t had a shower yet.

He was still covered with the sex he’d had.

Even though Ehlena was about a three-hour drive away and he wasn’t on a Web cam, he felt absolutely nasty just talking to her.

“Hey,” he said in a rough voice.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” Which was a total f*cking lie, and the gravel in his voice made that obvious.

“Well, I, ah…I saw that you’d called me—” As a strangled sound came out of his mouth, Ehlena stopped. “You’re sick.”

“No—”

“For God’s sake, please come to the clinic—”

“I can’t. I’m…” God, he couldn’t bear to speak to her. “I’m not in town. I’m upstate.”

There was a long pause. “I’ll bring the antibiotics to you.”

“No.” She couldn’t see him like this. Shit, she couldn’t see him ever again. He was filthy. A filthy, dirty whore who let someone he hated touch him and suck on him and use him, and force him to do the same to her.

The princess was right. He was a f*cking dildo.

“Rehv? Let me come to you—”

“No.”

“Goddamn it, don’t you do this to yourself!”

“You can’t save me!” he shouted.

In the aftermath of his explosion, he thought, Jesus…where had that come from? “I’m sorry…it’s been a bad night for me.”

When Ehlena finally spoke, her voice was a thin whisper. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t make me see you in the morgue. Don’t do that to me.”

Rehv squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m not doing anything to you.”

“The hell you aren’t.” Her voice cracked on a sob.

“Ehlena…”

Her moan of despair came through the phone all too clearly. “Oh…Christ. Whatever. Kill yourself, fine.”

She hung up on him.

“Fuck.” He rubbed his face. “Fuck!”

Rehv sat up and fired the cell phone at the bedroom door. And just as it ricocheted off the panels and went flying, he realized he’d busted the only thing he had with her number in it.

With a roar and a messy scramble, he launched his body off the bed, quilts landing everywhere. Not a great move on his part. As his numb feet hit the throw rug, he went Frisbee, finding air briefly before landing on his face. On impact, a sound like a bomb had gone off rumbled through the floorboards, and he crawled for the phone, tracking the light that still glowed from its screen.

Please, oh, f*cking please, if there is a God…

He was almost in range when the door swung open, narrowly missing his head and clipping the phone—which shot like a hockey puck in the opposite direction. As Rehv wheeled around and lunged for thing, he shouted at Trez.

“Don’t shoot me!”

Trez was in full fighting stance, gun up and pointed at the window, then the closet, then the bed. “What the f*ck was that.”

Rehv sprawled out flat to reach the phone, which was spinning under the bed. When he caught it, he closed his eyes and brought it close to his face.

“Rehv?”

“Please…”

“What? Please…what?”

He opened his eyes. The screen was flickering, and he pressed the buttons fast. Calls received…calls received…calls r—

“Rehv, what the hell is going on?”

There it was. The number. He stared at the seven digits after the area code as if they were the combination to his own safe, trying to get them all.

The screen went dark and he let his head fall down on his arm.

Trez crouched beside him. “You okay?”

Rehv pushed himself out from under the bed and sat up, the room spinning like a merry-go-round. “Oh…f*ck me.”