Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8)(47)

The f*cker had obviously been dusted, but not finished off yet.

When a car came up behind him and honked its horn, he realized he

was stopped dead in the middle of the lane.

Ordinarily, his first move would have been to pull the Mercedes into

the garage and flash into the brownstone with his fists up . . . but he was half-mast at best, all sluggish and woozy. And in the event the Brothers were still inside, now was not the time to engage his enemy.

Even lessers could wake up dead. Even the son of the evil could be sent home.

But what about his female?

Dogged by an odd, cold terror, Lash went farther down the alley, and

took one right and then another. As he trolled by the front of his house, he 126

J. R.Ward

prayed like a little bitch that she was still--

Looking up to the windows on the second floor, he saw her in the

bedroom--and his relief was so powerful his breath left him on a wheeze. No matter what might have gone down in that house, no matter who had

infiltrated, Xhex was still there where he had left her: Her face was plain for him, and only him, to see on the far side of that glass, her eyes lifted up to the sky, her hand raised to her throat.

What a lovely picture, he thought. Her hair was growing out and

starting to curl and the moonlight on her high cheekbones and perfect lips was downright romantic.

She was still his.

Lash forced himself to keep driving. The thing was, she was safe

where she was--his invisible prison was impenetrable by any vampire or human or lesser, whether it was a Brother or just any old schmo with a gun and an attitude.

If he went in there, and got into a skirmish with the Brothers? If he was injured? He was going to lose her, because that spell she was trapped in took energy for him to maintain. He was already having enough trouble summoning the strength to keep it going--and though he despised his weakness, he was a f*cking realist.

It killed him to keep going. Absolutely killed him.

But it was the right decision. If he wanted to keep her, he had to leave her behind until dawn cleared that brownstone out.

It took him a while to realize he was driving around aimlessly, but the truth was, the idea of going back to crash at one of those shitty little ranches that the Lessening Society owned made him want to peel the skin off his face.

Man, was the dawn never going to come . . .

On some level, he couldn't believe he was so ball-less as to be pulling a drive-off. But on the other hand, he was having trouble keeping his head up and his eyes open behind the wheel. As he started over Caldwell's westbound bridge, he just didn't get the tired routine. The sores could well be from the battles with Xhex, but the exhaustion was--

The answer occurred to him as he glanced over at the eastbound lanes.

It was so obvious and yet it struck him with such force that his foot eased off the accelerator.

East and west. Left and right. Night and day.

Of course feeding from Mr. D had only nominally helped him.

He needed a female. A female lesser.

Why hadn't it dawned on him sooner? Male vampires were

127

J. R.Ward

strengthened only by the blood of the opposite sex. And although his father's side was very much dominant in him, clearly there was enough of the fang left over in there that he needed to feed.

Only after he'd taken Mr. D's vein had he felt even partially satisfied.

Well, didn't this change everything . . . and give Xhex a whole new

future.

128





J. R.Ward





SEVENTEEN


The sounds of the bloody melee down below had carried up to Xhex's ears, and given the stench that now wafted through the bedroom's doorway, she could only guess what had been done to that little lesser who'd brought her food.

Apparently some portion of the first floor had just been redecorated in slayer paisley.

She was surprised that the Brothers had chosen to rip the bastard limb from limb in the house. From what she knew, Butch O'Neal usually inhaled the slayers to keep them from going back to the Omega. But downstairs?

She'd be surprised if there was anything left you could pick up without a mop.

Unless it was a message to Lash.

Following the slaughter's loud chaos, there was an odd stretch of quiet and then lots of footfalls. They were leaving now that there was nothing left to kill.

Panic rose again in her chest and the effort of pulling herself back

together was nearly physical . . . but goddamn it, she was not going to come undone. All she had in this situation was herself. She was her weapon; her mind and her body were the only things that Lash couldn't take away from her.

She lost them, she was as good as dead.

Fuck that, she lost them and she couldn't take Lash with her when she went.

The reality of the situation was where she found the strength to keep going, the weight on her grounding her emotions when they otherwise would have flown the coop and taken her logic with them. She locked away everything, shutting down anything she'd felt when she'd been beside John Matthew.

Nothing got through. Nothing bubbled up.

Snapping into war mode, she realized she hadn't heard a pop or seen

the echo of a flash, so they hadn't stabbed the slayer. And the smell was so vivid, she was betting they were leaving the body behind.