Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8)(151)

Only once, though, she thought at him. And never again.

After a moment, V nodded, as if he appreciated the reassurance, and

she returned the respect. Then she refocused on the males in front of her.

Rhage had hopped on the hell-no-you're-not-fighting train, picking up the slack she'd left.

"I'm going back with you, John," she cut in. "We're going back together."

As John met her eyes, his emotional grid was lit up like the Vegas

Strip.

She shook her head at him. "I'm going to keep to our deal. And you're 385

J. R.Ward

going to take care of yourself."

With that, she resheathed her knives, crossed her arms over her chest, and leaned back against the wall, all going-nowhere-fast.

She'd saved his life.

Without a doubt, Xhex had given John his future back before he'd

even known he was going to lose it: The only reason he was still alive was because she'd clipped that slayer in the shoulder with her knife.

So, yeah, he was grateful for all that, but he really wasn't interested in her playing nursemaid.

Besides, it wasn't as if candy striper was the highest and best use for her talents.

John glanced past her to the scorched mark on the floor--which was

all that was left of the slayer who'd shot him. Goddamn . . . to think she'd done the worst of the damage without even touching the f*cker? That was one fancydancy weapon she had in her mind. Shit, the horror on that bastard's face . . . Then he'd slit his own abdomen open. What the hell had he been seeing?

Now John knew why symphaths were feared and segregated.

And man, between that little show and the Heisman move she'd pulled

out on the front lawn, he realized she was precisely what he'd always known her to be: a fighter to the core.

She could more than handle herself in the field--she was an out-and—

out asset in the war. Which was why they both needed to keep going tonight and not waste time back at the house getting a Band-Aid put on his boo-boo.

Shoving himself up off the floor, he put weight on the injured leg and the thing howled like a bitch. But he ignored the yelling--as well as the conversation that sprang up all around him.

Cheap talk from the peanut gallery: free. Opinions about his leg: not worth the powder to blow up.

Selective deafness? Priceless.

What he was interested in was how many they'd killed tonight. And

whether they'd gotten the ferret. Looking into the living room, he--

Rhage stepped in front of him. "Hey, hi! How are you?" Hollywood stuck his hand out. "I'd like to introduce myself. I'm the piece of meat that's going to force you headfirst into your buddy Qhuinn's Hummer as soon as it gets here. Just figured I'd introduce myself before I rope your ass and throw you over my shoulder like a bag of sand."

John glared at the guy. Not going anywhere.

386

J. R.Ward

Rhage smiled, his incredible beauty looking like something heaven

sent. But that was just the external shit. Internally, he was straight from hell--in this situation. "Sorry, wrong answer."

I'm fine--

That piece-of-shit, motherf*cker, cocksucking son of a bitch actually ducked forward, grabbed John on the wound, and squeezed the bullet's new home.

John screamed without making a sound and went down in a free fall,

landing on the blood-soaked floor with a splash. Bringing up his leg, he tried to cradle his thigh, as if showing some belated TLC would convince the thing to calm down.

As it was, he felt like he had jagged glass jammed into his muscle.

"Was that really necessary?" Xhex demanded overhead.

Rhage's voice was no longer teasing. "You want to reason with him?

Good luck. And if you think any slayer would do differently, you've got your head wedged. There's an obvious circular hole in the front of his leathers and he walks with a limp. Any half-wit asswipe's going to know what his weakness is. Plus he smells like fresh blood."

The rat bastard probably had a point, but Christ on a crutch . . .

It was entirely possible that John passed out from the pain, because

next thing he knew, the self-proclaimed "piece of meat" was picking him up to carry him out of the house.

Yeah, whatever. That was a no-go. John shoved himself free of the

guy's hold and tried to land without cursing or throwing up. With his mouth making up all kinds of f*ck-oriented words, he limped past Butch, who was looking much better, and V, who'd lit up a hand-rolled.

He knew right where Xhex was: behind him, with her hand at his back

like she knew he was wobbly and might go down at any minute.

Not a chance, though. Sheer grit got him to the Hummer and in the

backseat on his own. Of course, by the time Qhuinn hit the gas, he had a cold sweat all over him and couldn't feel his hands or his feet.

"We did a body count," he heard Xhex say.

When he looked over, she was staring across the seat at him. Man . . .

she was f*cking beautiful in the distilled light from the dash up front. Her lean face had a smudge of black lesser blood on it, but her cheeks had high color and her eyes had a special sparkle to them. She'd gotten off on tonight, he thought. She'd enjoyed it.

Fuck him. She really was the perfect female.