Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(83)

She smiled a little. “Of course it’s quiet. They’re using ball gags next door—er…”

Rehv laughed. “You get the wrong side of the building?”

“Did I ever.”

That blush told him she had seen more than just inanimate objects from V’s BondageR-Us collection, and suddenly Rehv was dead serious. “Do I need to say something to my neighbor?”

Ehlena shook her head at him. “It was totally not his fault, and fortunately he and Jane hadn’t…er, started. Thank God.”

“You’re not into that kind of thing, I take it.”

Ehlena went back to staring at the view. “Hey, they’re consenting adults, so it’s all good. But me personally? Not on your life.”

Talk about bubble burst. If BDSM was too much for her, he guessed that meant she wouldn’t understand the fact that he was f*cking for ransom a female he hated. Who happened to be his half sister. Oh, and who was a symphath.

Like him.

His silence brought her head over her shoulder. “I’m sorry. Have I offended you?”

“I’m not into that either.” Oh, not at all. He was a whore with standards—kinky crap was okay only if you were forced into it. Fuck the consensual shit V and his mate were into. Yeah, ’cuz that was just wrong.

Christ, he was beneath her.

Ehlena wandered around, her soft-soled shoes making no sound on his black marble floors. As he watched her, he realized that under her black wool coat she was in her uniform. Which was logical, he pointed out to himself, if she had to go to work after this.

Come on, he told himself. Did he really think she was going to stay the night?

“May I take your coat?” he said, knowing she must be warm. “I have to keep this place hotter than most people are comfortable with.”

“Actually…I should just head off.” She put a hand in her pocket. “I only came to give you the penicillin.”

“I was hoping you’d stay for dinner.”

“I’m sorry.” She held out a plastic bag to him. “I can’t.”

Flashes of the princess tripped through Rehv’s brain, and he reminded himself of how good it felt to do right by Ehlena—and erase her number from his phone. He had no business courting her. None at all.

“I understand.” He took the pills from her. “And thank you for these.”

“Take two four times a day. Ten days. Promise me?”

He nodded once. “Promise.”

“Good. And try to go see Havers, will you?”

There was an awkward moment, and then she lifted her hand. “Okay…so, bye.”

Ehlena turned away, and he opened the glass panel with his mind, not trusting himself to get too close to her.

Oh, please don’t go. Please don’t, he thought.

He just wanted to feel…clean for a little while.

Just as she walked out, she stopped and his heart pounded.

Ehlena glanced back, the wind ruffling the pale wisps around her lovely face. “With food. You need to take them with food.”

Right. Medical information. “I’ve got plenty of that here.”

“Good.”

After he shut the door, Rehv watched her disappear into the shadows and had to make himself turn away.

Walking slowly and using his cane, he went down the wall of glass and around the corner into the glow of the dining room.

Two candles lit. Two place settings of silver. Two glasses for wine. Two glasses for water. Two napkins folded precisely and laid on top of two plates.

He sat down on the chair he’d been going to give to her, the one to his right, the position of honor. He rested his cane against his thigh and put the plastic bag down on the ebony table, smoothing it out so that the antibiotics were resting one next to another in a neat and orderly row.

He wondered why they hadn’t come in a little orange bottle with a white label on it, but whatever. She had brought them to him here. That was the main thing.

Sitting in the silence, surrounded by candlelight and the scent of the roast beef he’d just taken out of the oven, Rehv stroked the plastic bag with his numb forefinger. Sure as shit he was feeling something, though. In the dead center of his chest, he had an ache behind his heart.

He’d done a lot of evil deeds over the course of his life. Big ones and small.

He’d set people up just to mess with them, whether they were rogue dealers infringing on his turf, or johns who didn’t treat his whores right, or idiots who screwed around at his club.

He’d leveraged the vices of others to his benefit. Sold drugs. Sold sex. Sold death in the form of Xhex’s special skills.

He’d f*cked for all the wrong reasons.

He’d maimed.

He’d murdered.

And yet, none of that had bothered him at the time. There had been no second thoughts, no regrets, no empathy. Just more schemes, more plans, more angles to be discovered and exploited.

Here at this empty table, though, in this empty penthouse, he felt the ache in his chest and knew it for what it was: Regret.

It would have been extraordinary to deserve Ehlena.

But that was just one more thing he wasn’t ever going to feel.





TWENTY-SEVEN




As the Brotherhood met in his study, Wrath kept an eye on John from his vantage point behind the frilly desk. Across the way, the kid looked like roadkill. His face was pale and his big body was still and he hadn’t participated in the discussion at all. The scent of his emotions was the worst part of it, though: There was none. Not the stinging, nostril-bracing bite of anger. Not the acrid, smoky blow of sadness. Not even the lemony pitch of fear.