Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood #3)(67)

And what a mess that had been. The male had been totally unworthy of her, a crumbling idiot, and yet the bastard had managed to walk away from the split without talk. Bella, on the other hand, had been whispered about for months, and though she’d tried to pretend it hadn’t bothered her, Rehv knew it had.

He hated the aristocracy they were stuck in, he really did.

He shook his head, pissed off at himself. “She should never have moved out of this house. I should never have allowed that.”

And as soon as he got her back, she was never going to be allowed out again without his approval. He was going to have her anointed as a sehcluded female. Her blood was pure enough to justify it, and frankly she should have been one all along. Once that was done, the Brotherhood was legally required to render her back to Rehvenge’s care, and thereafter she would not be able to leave the house without his permission. And there was more. Any male who wanted to see her would have to go through him as head of her household, and he was going to deny every single one of the sons of bitches. He’d failed to protect his sister once. He wasn’t going to let that happen again.

Rehv checked his watch even though he knew he was late for his business. He would make the petition for sehclusion to the king from his office. It was odd to do something so ancient and traditional through e-mail, but that was the way of things now.

“Rehvenge…”

“What.”

“You will drive her away.”

“Not possible. Once I take care of this, she’ll have nowhere else to go but here.”

He reached for his cane and paused. His mother looked so miserable, he leaned down and kissed her cheek.

“You don’t worry about a thing, mahmen. I’m going to fix it so she never gets hurt again. Why don’t you ready the house for her? You could take her mourning cloth down.”

Madalina shook her head. In a reverent voice she said, “Not until she walks over the threshold. It would offend the Scribe Virgin to assume her safe return.”

He held back a curse. His mother’s devotion to the Mother of the Race was legendary. Hell, she should have been a member of the Chosen with all her prayers and her rules and her flinching fear that one word askance would bring certain doom.

But whatever. It was her spiritual cage, not his.

“As you wish,” he said, leaning on his cane and turning away.

He moved slowly through the house, relying on the different kinds of floorings to tell him which room he was in. There was marble in the hall, a swirling Persian carpet in the dining room, wide-planked hardwood in the kitchen. He used his sight to tell him that his feet were landing squarely and that it was safe for him to put his weight on them. He carried the cane in case he misjudged and lost balance.

As he went out into the garage, he held on to the door frame before putting one foot and then the other down the four steps. After sliding into his bulletproof Bentley, he hit the garage door opener and waited for a clear shot out.

Goddamn it. He wished like hell he knew who those Brothers were and where they lived. He’d go there, blast through the door, and drag Bella away from them.

When he could see the driveway behind him, he threw the sedan in reverse and nailed the gas so hard the tires squealed. Now that he was behind the wheel, he could move at the speed he wanted to. Fast. Nimble. Free of caution.

The long lawn was a blur as he gunned down the winding drive to the gates, which were set back from the street. He suffered a quick pause while the things opened; then he tore out onto Thorne Avenue and proceeded down one of the wealthiest streets in Caldwell.

To keep his family safe and never lacking for anything, he worked at despicable things. But he was good at what he did, and his mother and his sister deserved the kind of life they had. He would give them anything they wanted, fulfill any whim they had. Things had been too hard on them for too long….

Yeah, the death of his father had been the first gift he’d given them, the first of many ways he’d improved their lives and kept them out of harm’s way. And he wasn’t stopping the trend now.

Rehv was going at a clip and heading for downtown when the base of his skull began to tingle. He tried to ignore the sensation, but in a matter of moments it condensed into a tight grip, as if a vise had been clamped around the top of his spine. He lifted his foot from the accelerator and waited for the feeling to pass.

Then it happened.

With a stab of pain his vision went to shades of red, like he’d pulled a transparent veil over his face: The headlights of oncoming cars were neon pink, the road a dull rust, the sky a claret like burgundy wine. He checked the clock on the dash, the numbers of which were now a ruby glow.

Shit. This was all wrong. This shouldn’t be hap—

He blinked and rubbed his eyes. When he opened them again, his depth perception was gone.

Yeah, the hell this isn’t happening. And he wasn’t going to make it downtown.

He wrenched the wheel to the right and pulled over into a strip mall, the one where the Caldwell Martial Arts Academy had been before it burned down. He killed the Bentley’s lights and drove behind the long, narrow buildings, parking flush with the bricks so that if he had to drive off fast, all he had to do was hit the gas.

Leaving the engine running, he shrugged out of the sable coat, stripped off his suit jacket, then rolled up his left sleeve. Through the red haze, he reached into his glove compartment and took out a hypodermic syringe and a length of rubber tubing. His hands were shaking so badly he dropped the needle and had to stretch down and pick it up off the floor.