Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(80)

There was no one in either room.

A strange, giddy hope flared in his chest as he went back into the hall. Looking left and right, he decided to start with Lassiter’s bedroom.

No answer, and, looking inside, he found a whole lot of neat and tidy along with the dimming scent of fresh air.

This was good. The angel had to be with Tohr.

John hot-stepped it down to Wrath’s study and, after he knocked on the jamb, he put his head in, doing a quick review of the spindly sofa and the armchairs and the mantel by the fireplace that the Brothers liked to lean against.

Wrath looked up from the desk. “Hey, son. What’s doing?”

Oh, nothing. You know. Just…excuse me.

John headed down the grand staircase at a jog, knowing that if Tohr was having his first foray back into the world, he wouldn’t want to make a big deal out of it. He’d probably start simple, just going into the kitchen for food with the angel.

Downstairs, John hit the foyer’s mosaic floor, and when he heard male voices to the right, he looked inside the billiards room. Butch was bent over the pool table about to take a shot, and Vishous was behind him, heckling. The wide-screen was showing a whole lot of ESPN, and only two squat glasses were out, one with amber liquid in it, the other with crystal-clear stuff that was not water.

Tohr wasn’t there, but he’d never been big into games. Besides, with the way Butch and V went after each other, they were not the kind of company you’d want if you were just dipping your feet in social waters again.

Turning away, John hurried through the dining room, which had been set for Last Meal, and went into the kitchen, where he found…doggen preparing three different kinds of pasta sauces and taking homemade Italian bread out of the oven and tossing salads and opening bottles of red wine to breathe and…no Tohr.

Hope decanted out of John’s chest, leaving behind a sour tightness.

He went up to Fritz, butler extraordinaire, who greeted him with a brilliant smile on his old, wrinkled face. “Hello, sire, how fare thee?”

John signed in front of his chest so no one else could see. Listen, have you seen…

Shit, he didn’t want to make a panic in the household for no reason other than that he was jumping to conclusions. The mansion was huge and Tohr could be anywhere.

…anyone? he finished.

Fritz’s fuzzy white eyebrows pulled together. “Anyone, sire? Do you refer to the ladies of the house or—”

Males, he signed. Have you seen any of the Brothers?

“Well, I have been here preparing dinner for much of the last hour, but I know that several have come home from the field. Rhage had his sandwiches as soon as he returned, Wrath is in the study, and Zsadist is with the young one in the bath. Let’s see…oh, and I believe Butch and Vishous are playing pool, as one of my staff served them drinks in the billiards room just a moment ago.”

Right, John thought. If a Brother who no one had seen out and about for, oh, say, four months had shown up, surely his name would have been at the top of the list.

Thanks, Fritz.

“Was there anyone in particular you were searching for?”

John shook his head and went back out into the foyer, this time moving with heavy feet. As he walked into the library, he didn’t expect to find anyone, and what do you know. The room was full of books and completely devoid of any Tohr.

Where could—

Maybe he wasn’t in the house at all.

John bolted from the library and skidded around the bottom of the grand staircase, the soles of his shitkickers squeaking as he turned the corner. Ripping open the hidden door beneath the steps, he took the underground tunnel away from the mansion.

Of course. Tohr would go to the training center. If he were going to wake up and start living, that would mean he was going back into the field. And that meant working out and getting his body back into shape.

As John emerged into the facility’s office, he had fully returned to hope-land, and when Tohr wasn’t at the desk, he wasn’t surprised.

That was where he had been told about Wellsie’s death.

John hauled ass out into the corridor, and the dim sound of weights clanking together was a f*cking symphony to his ears, relief blooming in his chest until his hands and feet tingled.

But he had to be cool. Approaching the workout room, he shook off his smile, and opened the door wide—

Blaylock glanced over from the bench. Qhuinn’s head bobbed up and down on the StairMaster.

As John looked around, both stopped what they were doing, Blay resetting the weight bar, Qhuinn slowly sinking down to the floor.

Have you seen Tohr? John signed.

“No,” Qhuinn said while wiping his face with a towel. “Why would he be in here?”

John left in a hurry and headed into the gym, where he found nothing but caged lights and glossy pine floors and bright blue mats. The equipment room had only equipment in it. PT suite was empty. Jane’s medical clinic was the same.

He broke out in a run as he gunned back for the tunnel to the main house.

Once he got there, he went directly upstairs to the study’s open doors, and he didn’t knock on the jamb this time. He walked straight up to Wrath’s desk and signed, Tohr is gone.





As the Domino’s delivery guy fumbled to catch the pizza box, everyone else went stock-still.

“That was close,” the human said. “Don’t want to get it—”