Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8)(177)

The king looked back at Payne. "Jesus . . . Christ."

Payne dragged in a breath. "Leave us, dear King. Go forth unto your world and lead your people. You need no help from this side or Her. You are a fine male and a brilliant warrior. . . ."

"I'm not going to let you die," he spat.

"You have no choice, do you."

"The f*ck I don't." Wrath shot to his feet and glared downward. "Let Her heal you! You're out of your goddamn mind! You can't die like this--"

"I most certainly . . . can." Payne shut her eyes, a wave of exhaustion rolling through her.

"Do something!" Clearly the king was now yelling at the Scribe Virgin.

Too bad she felt like such hell, Payne thought. Otherwise, she most

certainly would have enjoyed this final declaration of independence. Verily, it had come upon the wings of her death, but she had done it. Stood up to her mother. She had gotten her freedom through her refusal.

The Scribe Virgin's voice was barely louder than breath. "She has denied my help. She is blocking me."

She certainly was. Her fury was directed at her mother to such an

extent, it wasn't hard to believe that it functioned as a barrier to whatever magic the Scribe Virgin might seek to bear upon the "tragedy" that had occurred.

Which in fact felt more like a blessing.

"You're all-powerful!" The king's voice was a rough charge--the frantic nature of which was a tad confusing. But then, he was a male of worth who would no doubt place the blame upon himself. "Just fix her!"

There was a silence and then a weak reply: "I can no more reach her body . . . than I can her heart."

Verily, if the Scribe Virgin was finally getting a sense of what it was to be without power . . . Payne could die in peace.

"Payne! Payne, wake up!"

Her lids lifted. Wrath was inches from her face.

"If I can save you, will you let me?"

She couldn't understand why she was so important to him. "Leave

me--"

"If I can do it, will you let me?"

"You can't."

"Answer the f*cking question."

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He was such a good male, and the fact that her demise would be upon

his conscience e'ermore was a sorrow. "I'm sorry . . . about this. Wrath. I'm sorry. This is not your doing."

Wrath turned upon the Scribe Virgin. "Let me save her. Let me save her! "

Upon the demand, the Scribe Virgin's hood lifted of its own volition, and her once glowing form appeared nothing but a dingy shadow.

The visage and the voice she put forth was that of a beautiful female in tremendous agony: "I did not want this destiny."

"That and a pile of shit gets you nothing. Will You let me save her. "

The Scribe Virgin shifted her stare to the opaque heaven above her

and the tear that fell from her eyelanded on the marble flooring as a diamond, bouncing with a shimmer and a flash.

That lovely object would be the last thing Payne ever saw, she thought as her eyes became so heavy, she could no longer keep her lids open.

"For f*ck's sake," Wrath bellowed. "Let me--"

The Scribe Virgin's answer came from a vast distance. "I can fight this no longer. Do what you will, Wrath, son of Wrath. Better she be away from me and alive, than dead upon my floor."

Everything went quiet.

A door was shut.

Then Wrath's voice: I need you on the Other Side. Payne, wake up, I need you on the Other Side. . . .

Odd. It was as if he were speaking into her skull . . . but he was more likely leaning back down over her and talking aloud.

"Payne, wake up. I need you to get yourself over to my side."

In a haze, she started to shake her head--but that impulse wasn't borne out well. Better to hold still. Very still. "I don't . . . can't get there--"

A sudden, twirling vertigo sent her reeling, her feet swinging around and around her body, her mind the vortex about which she spun. The sense of being sucked downward was accompanied by a pressure in her veins, as if her blood were expanding, but was confined to tight quarters.

When she opened her eyes, she saw a lofty white glow above her.

So she hadn't moved, then. She was where she had been lying all

along, beneath the milky sky of the Far Side--

Payne frowned. No, that wasn't the strange heaven o'er the sanctuary.

That was a . . . ceiling?

Yes . . . she recognized what it was--and indeed, in her peripheral

vision, she sensed walls . . . four pale blue walls. There were lights as well, although not ones that she remembered--not torches or lit candles, but things 451

J. R.Ward

that glowed without flame.

A fireplace. A . . . massive desk and throne.

She hadn't moved her body here herself; she hadn't the strength. And

Wrath could not have cast her corporeal form forth. There was but one explanation. She had been expelled by her mother.

There would be no going back; she had her wish. She was free,

e'ermore.

An odd peace o'ercame her, one that was either the calming pall of

death . . . or the realization that the fight was over. Indeed, live or die, that which had defined her for years had passed, a weight lifted that sent her flying anew in her as yet still flesh.