Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8)(184)

When John nodded at her, his dagger in her hands swept down and hit

Lash directly in the heart. . . .

The evil's scream echoed in between the buildings, ricocheting back

and forth, gathering in volume until it became the great Pop! that

accompanied a vivid flash of light.

Which took Lash back to his unholy sire.

As the sound and illumination faded, all that was left was a faint

scorched circle on the asphalt and the stench of burned sugar.

Xhex's shoulders went limp and the dagger blade squeaked across the

pavement as she fell backward, her strength gone. John caught her before she hit the ground, and she stared up at him, her tears mixing with the blood on her face and running down her neck, past the vital beating pulse that was her life force.

John held her tight against him, her head fitting perfectly under his chin.

"He's dead," she sobbed. "Oh, God, John . . . he's dead. . . ."

With his hands occupied, all he could do was nod so that she knew

that he was agreeing with her.

End of an era, he thought, looking over at Blay and Qhuinn, who were

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J. R.Ward

fighting side by side with Zsadist and Tohrment against the slayers who had shown up.

God, he had the oddest sense of continuity. He and Xhex might have

briefly stepped out of the way of the war, taking this momentary respite at the side of the struggle trail. But the fight in the shadows of the alleys in Caldwell was going to continue without . . .

Her.

John closed his eyes and buried his face in Xhex's curling hair.

This was the end game she'd wanted, he thought. Get Lash . . . and get out of life.

She had exactly what she'd wanted.

"Thank you," he heard her say roughly. "Thank you . . ."

Against the tide of sadness that overtook him, he realized that those two words were better than I love you. They actually meant more to him than anything else she could have uttered.

He had given her what she wanted. When it had really mattered, he

had done right by her.

And now he was going to hold her as her body grew colder and she

drifted away from where he was going to stay.

The separation was going to last longer than the number of days he

knew her.

Taking her slick palm, he flattened it once more. And then with his

free hand, he signed against her skin in slow, precise positions:

L. O. V. E. U. 4. E. V. E. R.

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J. R.Ward

SIXTY-EIGHT

Death was messy and painful and largely predictable . . . except when it didn't feel like behaving and decided to exercise its bizarre sense of humor.

An hour later, as Xhex opened her eyes a crack, she realized she was

in fact not in the foggy folds of the Fade . . . but in the clinic at the Brotherhood's mansion.

A tube was being pulled out of her throat. And her side felt like

someone had parked a rusty spear in it. And somewhere over on the left, gloves were being snapped off.

Doc Jane's voice was low. "She coded twice, John. I got the bleeder in her gut . . . but I don't know--"

"I think she's awake," Ehlena said. "Are you coming back to us, Xhex?"

Well, apparently she was. She felt like hell, and after having sliced open a variety of stomachs over the years, she couldn't believe she still had a heartbeat . . . but yeah, she was alive.

Hanging by a thread, but alive.

John's pasty white face entered her line of vision, and in contrast to the ill cast of his skin, his blue eyes were like fire.

She opened her mouth . . . but all that came out was the air in her

lungs. She didn't have the strength to speak.

Sorry, she mouthed.

He frowned. Shaking his head, he took her hand and smoothed it. . . .

She must have passed out, because when she woke up, John was

walking beside her. What the hell--oh, she was being moved into the other room . . . because they were bringing someone else in--someone strapped down to a gurney. A female, given the long, black braid that swung off the side.

The word pain came to mind.

"Pain is in here," Xhex murmured.

John's head whipped around. What? he mouthed.

"Whoever's there . . . is pain."

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She passed out again . . . and came to feeding from John's wrist. And passed out again.

In her dreams, she saw parts of her life going all the way back to a

time she didn't consciously remember. And as in-flight movies went, the drama was pretty depressing. There were too many crossroads to count

where things should have been different, where fate had been more of a grind than a gift. Destiny was like the passage of time, however, immutable and unforgiving and uninterested in the personal opinion of those who breathed.

And yet . . . as her mind churned beneath the leaden weight and still surface of her unconscious body, she had the sense that everything had worked out as it was supposed to, that the path she had been set upon had taken her precisely where she was supposed to go: Back to John.

Even though that made no sense whatsoever.

After all, she'd met him only a year or so ago. Which hardly justified the sprawl of history that seemed to unite them.

But then, maybe that did make sense. While you were unconscious on