Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood #3)(83)

And what was all that noise around him? Swords? Fighting?

While choking he lifted his eyes, and for a split second all manner of suffocation left him. The sea. He was looking out at the vast sea. Joy soared for a moment…and then his vision swam from lack of air. His lids flickered and he sagged, though he was grateful that he’d seen the ocean once more before he died. He pondered vaguely whether the Fade would be anything like that vast horizon, an infinite expanse that was both unknowable and a home.

Just as he saw a shining white light before him, the pressure at his throat ceased and his body was handled roughly. There were shouts and jerky movements, then a jarring, bouncing ride that ended abruptly. Along the way, agony bloomed all over him, rushing into his bones, beating at him with dull, pounding fists.

Two shots from a gun. Grunts of pain that were not his own. And then a scream and a blast of wind on his back. Falling…he was in the air, falling…

Oh, God, the ocean. Panic spread through him. The salt—

He felt the hard cushion of the water for only a moment before the sensation of the sea hitting his raw skin overloaded his mind. He blacked out.

When he came to once more, his body was nothing more than a loose sack holding in aches. He realized dimly that he was freezing cold on one side, moderately warm on the other, and he moved to see if he could. As soon as he did, he felt the warmth against him shift in response…. He was inan embrace. A male was against the back of him.

The slave shoved the hard body away from his own and dragged himself through the dirt. His blurry vision showed him the way, pulling a boulder out of the blackness, giving him something to hide behind. When he was sheltered he breathed through the discomfort of his vitals, smelling the brine of the sea and the wretched decay of dead fish.

And as well a tinny scent. A sharp, tinny…

He peered around the edge of the rock. Though his eyes were weak, he was able to pick out the form of the male who had come into the cell with the Mistress. The warrior was sitting up against the wall now, his long hair hanging in strings down his thick shoulders. His fancy clothes were torn, and his yellow stare aglow with sorrow.

That was the other smell, the slave thought. That sad emotion the male was feeling had a scent.

As the slave sniffed again he felt an odd pulling in his face, and he lifted his fingertips up to his cheek. There was a groove, a rigid line in his skin…. He followed it up to his forehead. Then down to his lip. And remembered the knife blade coming at him. Remembered screaming as it cut.

The slave started to shiver and wrapped his arms around himself.

“We should warm each other,” the warrior said. “Truly, that is all I was doing. I have no…designs upon you. I would but ease you if I could.”

Except all the Mistress’s males had wanted to be with the slave. That was why she brought them. She liked to watch, too….

Yet then the slave remembered the warrior raising that dagger, looking as if he were going to gut the Mistress like a pig.

The slave opened his mouth and asked hoarsely, “Who are you, sire?”

His mouth didn’t work as it had before, and his words were garbled. He tried again, but the warrior cut him off.

“I heard your inquiry.” The tinny smell of sadness got stronger until it overrode even the fishy stench. “I am Phury. I am…your brother.”

“Nay.” The slave shook his head. “Verily, I have no family. Sire.”

“No, I’m not…” The male cleared his throat. “I am not sire to you. And you have always had a family. You were taken from us. I have searched for you for a century.”

“I fear you wrong.”

The warrior shifted as if he were going to get up, and the slave jerked back, dropping his eyes and covering his head with his arms. He couldn’t bear to be beaten again, even if he deserved it for his insubordination.

Quickly, he said in his now messy way, “I mean not to offend, sire. I offer only my respect to your better station.”

“Sweet Virgin above.” A strangled noise came from across the cave. “I will not strike you. You are safe…. With me, you are safe. You are found, my brother.”

The slave shook his head again, unable to hear any of it, because he suddenly realized what was going to happen at nightfall, what had to happen. He was the property of the Mistress, which meant he would have to be given back.

“I beg of you,” he moaned, “do not return me unto her. Kill me now…. Do not render me returned to her.”

“I shall kill us both before I allow you to tarry there once more.”

The slave looked up. The warrior’s yellow eyes were burning through the darkness.

The slave stared into the glow for a passing time. And then he remembered, long, long ago, when he’d first awoken from his transition in capture. The Mistress had told him she loved his eyes…his canary yellow eyes.

Among his species, there were very few with irises of bright gold.

The words and the actions of the warrior began to penetrate. Why ever would a stranger fight to get him free?

The warrior shifted, winced, and picked up one of his thighs.

The male’s lower leg was gone.

The slave’s eyes grew wide at the lost limb. How had the warrior saved them both in the water with that injury? He must have struggled simply to keep himself afloat. Why had he not just let the slave go?