Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #4)(108)

Butch’s eyes lazed open, but he wasn’t too sure what was reality and what was trippy nonsense. Until he saw his woman’s face.

Marissa was bent over him and his head was in her lap. Her tears were what was falling on his face. And V…V was right next to her, down on his haunches, his mouth a thin, strained slash in the midst of his goatee.

Butch struggled to speak, but there was something in his mouth. As he batted at it, trying to get it out, Marissa went to help him.

“No, not yet,” V said. “I think he’s got a couple more in him.”

More what?

From out of nowhere, Butch heard a scramble of feet.

He lifted his head a little and was surprised to find that he was the one making the noise. His shoes were flopping up and down, and he watched as the spasms crawled up his legs. He tried to fight the progress, but the seizure took over, traveling into his hips and his torso, making his arms flap and his back slap against the floor.

He rode the wave as best he could, trying to hang on to consciousness until it was just impossible.

When he came back, he was dizzy.

“That one didn’t last so long,” Marissa said, smoothing his hair back. “Butch, can you hear me?”

He nodded and tried to lift his arm to her. But then his feet started up with the Fred Astaire routine again.

Three more trips through the seizure park and the belt was finally taken out of his mouth. As he tried to speak, he realized how truly drunk he was. His brain was barely kicking over, he was so wasted. Except…hold up—he couldn’t remember hitting the Scotch.

“Marissa,” he mumbled, taking her hand. “Don’t want to see you drink so much.” Wait, not really what he’d been going for. “Ah…don’t you to see me drink so much…want.”

Whatever. God…he was so confused.

V smiled a little, but it was the kind of falsey number doctors gave to patients who were about to throw up. “He’s going to need something with sugar in it. Rhage, you got a lollipop on you?”

Butch looked over as a wicked handsome blond guy knelt down. “I know you,” Butch said. “Hey…buddy.”

“Hey, my man.” Rhage reached into the pocket of his fleece and pulled out a Tootsie Pop. After ripping the wrapper off, he put the thing into Butch’s mouth.

Butch groaned. Goddamn, that was the best thing he’d ever tasted in his whole life. Grape. Sweet. Ahhhh…

“Is he seizing again?” Marissa asked.

“I think he likes it,” Rhage murmured. “That right, cop?”

Butch nodded and nearly lost the lollipop, so Rhage took control of the stick, holding it in place.

Man, they were so good to him. Marissa stroking his hair and holding his hand. V’s palm a warm weight on his leg. Rhage making sure the Tootsie Pop stayed where it needed to be—

All of a sudden, higher reasoning and short-term memory came back in a rush, like his brain was being poured back into his skull. He wasn’t drunk. The regression. The ancestor regression. V’s hand on his chest. The blackness.

“What was the result?” he asked, panicked. “V…what did you find out? What was—”

Everyone around him took a deep breath and someone muttered, Thank God he’s really back.

At that moment, two steel-toed shitkickers approached from the right. Butch’s eyes latched on to them, then rose higher, taking in a pair of leather-clad legs, then a huge body.

Wrath towered over them all.

The king reached up and removed his wraparounds, revealing brilliant, gleaming, pale green eyes. As they didn’t appear to have pupils, the stare was like getting hit with a pair of klieg lights.

Wrath smiled broadly, his fangs so very white. “What’s doing…cousin.”

Butch frowned. “What…?”

“You’ve got some of me in you, cop.” Wrath’s smile stuck around as he slid his glasses back on. “’Course, I always knew you were a royal. Just didn’t think it went past the pain-in-the-ass part, is all.”

“Are you…serious?”

Wrath nodded. “You’re of my line, Butch. One of mine.”

As Butch’s chest got tight, he braced himself for another seizure. And so did everyone else: Rhage took the lollipop out and reached for the belt. Marissa and V tensed up.

But what came out of him was a rush of laughter. A ridiculous, belly-rolling, tear-up, stupid-idiot wave of happy hysteria.

Butch laughed and laughed and kissed Marissa’s hand. Then laughed some more.



Marissa felt the satisfaction and the excitement humming through Butch’s body as he let loose. But when he beamed up at her, she couldn’t share his joy.

He lost his smile. “Baby, it’s going to be all right.”

Vishous got to his feet. “Why don’t we give you guys a minute alone?”

“Thank you,” she said.

After the Brothers left, Butch sat up. “This is our chance—”

“If I asked, would you not do the transition?”

He froze. As if she’d slapped him again. “Marissa—”

“Would you?”

“Why don’t you want me with you?”

“I do. And I would choose the future we have now over a hypothetical cast of centuries any day. Can’t you understand that?”