Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8)(74)

That was what had caused these marks.

John walked over and ran his fingertips across the fine lines in the

concrete. The rage had been so great, Tohr had literally imploded into a supernova, the emotional overload dematerializing him to some other place.

John never had learned where he'd gone.

A sense of being observed had him lifting his head and looking over

his shoulder. Tohr was on the far side of the glass door, standing in the office, staring out.

The two met each other's stare and it was male to male, not elder to

younger.

John was a different age now. And like so many things in this

situation, there was no going back.

"John?" Doc Jane's voice came from far down the hall and he wheeled around,then ran to her.

How is she? What happened? Is she--

"She's going to be okay. She's just coming out of the anesthesia. I'm going to keep her in bed for the next six hours or so. I understand she fed from you?" He flashed his wrist and the doc nodded. "Good. I'd appreciate it if you'd stay with her in case she needs to again?"

Like he would be anywhere else.

As John stepped inside the exam room, he moved on his tiptoes, not

wanting to disturb anything; but she wasn't there.

"She's been moved into the other room," V said from over by the autoclave.

Before he went through to the far door, he stared at the aftermath of whatever had been done to Xhex. There was an alarming pile of bloody

gauze on the floor and more blood on the table she'd been on. The sheet and towels she'd been wrapped in were off to the side.

So much blood. All of it fresh.

John whistled loudly so that V would look over. Can someone tell me what the f*ck went on in here?

"You can talk to her about it." As the Brother got out an orange biohazard bag and started to gather up the used gauze, V paused, but did not meet John's eyes. "She's going to be okay."

194

J. R.Ward

And that was when John knew for sure.

However bad he'd thought she'd been treated, she'd gotten it worse.

Much worse.

Generally speaking, when there were injuries sustained in combat or

on the field, the information was traded back and forth without a thought--

femur broken, ribs crushed, stab wound. But a female came in, was

examined without males present, and no one would speak a word of what had been operated on?

Just because lessers were impotent didn't mean they couldn't do other things with . . .

The cold breeze that shot through the OR brought V's head up again.

"Word of advice, John. I'd keep your suppositions to yourself. Assuming you want to be the one who kills Lash, true? No sense Rehv or the Shadows, much as I respect them, doing what is your right."

My God, the Brother was cool, John thought.

Nodding once, he went over to Xhex's room, thinking those males

weren't the only reason he was going to keep a lid on things. Xhex didn't need to know the lengths he was going to go to, either.

Xhex felt like someone had parked a Volkswagen bus in her uterus.

The pressure was so great, she actually lifted her head and looked

down her body to see if she was swollen to garage dimensions.

Nope. Flat as always.

She let her head fall back.

On some level, she couldn't believe where she was now: on the other

side of the operation, lying in a bed with her arms and legs and head still attached . . . and the tear in her uterine wall repaired.

When she was in the grips of her iatrophobia, she couldn't see past

what her brain had marked as deadly. To her, in that flipped-out state, she was not in a safe environment, surrounded by people she knew and could trust.

Now, having gone through the fire, the fact that she was unscathed

and well gave her a weird buzz of endorphins.

There was a soft knock, and she knew who it was by the scent beneath

the door.

Touching her hair, she wondered what the hell she looked like and

decided it was better not to know. "Come in."

John Matthew's head ducked inside and his eyebrows lifted in a

how're-you-feeling arch.

195

J. R.Ward

"I'm okay. I'm better. Groggy from the meds."

He slipped through and leaned back against the wall, shoving his

hands in his pockets and crossing one shitkicker over the other. His T-shirt was nothing but a white Hanes, which was probably a good call, given that it was stained with lesser blood.

He smelled like a male should. Soap and clean sweat.

And he looked like a male should. Tall and broad and deadly.

God, had she really lost it that badly in front of him?

"Your hair's shorter," she said for no particular reason.

He unplugged one of his hands and awkwardly brushed at the skull

trim. With his head tilted down, the powerful muscles that ran from his shoulders up into his neck flexed under his golden skin.

Abruptly, she wondered if she would ever have sex again.

It was an alien thought, to be sure. Considering how she'd spent the

last--

She frowned. "How many weeks have I been gone?"

He held up four fingers and then made a pinching motion.