Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood #3)(63)

She would be his forever that way.





As midnight neared, Bella put on a pair of her old blue jeans and that thick red sweater she liked so much. Then she went into the bathroom, pulled the two towels down from the mirror, and looked at herself. Her reflection was of the female she had always seen staring back at her: Blue eyes. High cheeks. Biggish lips. Lots of dark brown hair.

She lifted the edge of the sweater and peeked at her stomach. The skin there was flawless, no longer bearing the lesser’s name. She smoothed her hand over where the letters had been.

“You ready?” Zsadist asked.

She glanced up into the mirror. He loomed behind her, dressed in black, weapons hanging off his body. His coal eyes were pegged on the skin she exposed.

“The scars have healed,” she said. “In just forty-eight hours.”

“Yeah. And I’m glad.”

“I’m scared to go to my house.”

“Phury and Butch are coming with us. You’ve got plenty of protection.”

“I know….” She lowered the sweater. “It’s just…what if I can’t bear to go inside?”

“Then we try again another night. However long it takes.” He held out her parka.

Shrugging into the thing, she said, “You have better things to do than watch over me.”

“Not right now I don’t. Give me your hand.”

Her fingers trembled as she reached out. She had some vague thought that it was the first time he’d asked her to touch him, and she hoped the contact would lead to an embrace.

But he wasn’t interested in hugging. He put a small gun in her hand without even brushing her skin.

She recoiled in distaste. “No, I—”

“Hold it like—”

“Wait a minute, I don’t—”

“—this.” He positioned the little butt against her palm. “Here’s the safety. On. Off. Got it? On…off. You need to be in tight to kill with this, but it’s loaded with two bullets that will slow a lesser down long enough so you can get away. Just point and pull the trigger twice. You don’t need to cock it or anything. And aim for the torso, it’ll be a bigger target.”

“I don’t want this.”

“And I don’t want you to have it. But it’s better than sending you in light.”

She shook her head and closed her eyes. So ugly this business of life sometimes was.

“Bella? Bella, look at me.” When she did, he said, “Keep that in the outside pocket of your coat on the right side. You want it in your business hand if you have to use it.” She opened her mouth and he talked right over her. “You’re going to stay with Butch and Phury. And as long as you’re with them, it is extremely unlikely you will need to use that.”

“Where will you be?”

“Around.” As he turned away, she noticed he had a knife at the small of his back—in addition to the two daggers on his chest, and the pair of guns on his hips. She wondered how many other weapons he had on him that she couldn’t see.

He stopped in the doorway, head hanging low. “I’m going to make sure you don’t have to take out that gun, Bella. I promise you. But I can’t have you unarmed.”

She took a deep breath. And slipped the little piece of metal into her coat pocket.

Out in the hall Phury was waiting, leaning against the balcony. He was also dressed for fighting, with guns and those daggers all over him, a deadly calm radiating from his body. When she smiled at him, he nodded and drew on his black leather coat.

Zsadist’s cell phone rang and he flipped it open. “You there, cop? What’s doing?” When he hung up, he nodded. “Good to go.”

The three of them walked down to the foyer and then out into the courtyard. In the cold air both males palmed guns, and then all of them dematerialized.

Bella took form on her front porch, facing the glossy red door with its brass knocker. She could feel Zsadist and Phury behind her, two huge male bodies full of tension. Footsteps sounded and she looked over her shoulder. Butch was coming up onto the porch. His gun was drawn, too.

The idea of taking her time and easing into her house struck her as dangerous and selfish. She unlocked the door with her mind, then walked in.

The place still smelled the same…a combination of the lemon floor wax she used on the wide pine boards and the rosemary candles she liked to burn.

When she heard the door shut and the security alarm get turned off, she glanced back. Butch and Phury were tight on her heels, but Zsadist was nowhere to be seen.

She knew he hadn’t left them. But she wished he were inside with her.

She took a deep breath and looked around her living room. Without any lights on, she only saw familiar shadows and shapes, more the pattern of the furniture and the walls than anything else.

“Everything seems…God, exactly the same.”

Although there was a blank spot over her writing desk. A mirror was gone, a mirror that she and her mother had picked out together in Manhattan about a decade ago. Rehvenge had always liked it. Had he taken the thing? She wasn’t sure whether to be touched or offended.

When she reached out to turn a lamp on, Butch stopped her. “No lights. Sorry.”

She nodded. Walking deeper into the farmhouse, seeing more of her things, she felt as though she were among friends of long acquaintance whom she hadn’t seen in years. It was delightful and sad. A relief most of all. She’d been so sure she would get upset….