Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #4)(22)

He whipped out his cell, deciding that Havers was wrong about the no-visitors thing. It just depended on who the visitor was.

As he dialed, he resented the only option he had. And knew that what he was doing probably wasn’t fair. Probably would cause a helluva lot of trouble, too. But when your best friend was doing the tombstone two-step with the Reaper, you kind of didn’t give a shit about a lot of things.



“Mistress?”

Marissa looked up from her brother’s desk. The seating chart for the Princeps dinner was in front of her, but she couldn’t concentrate. All that searching of the clinic and the house and she’d come up with nothing. Meanwhile, her senses were screaming that something was wrong.

She forced a smile for the doggen in the doorway. “Yes, Karolyn?”

The servant bowed. “A call for you. On line one.”

“Thank you.” The doggen inclined her head and left as Marissa picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“He’s in the room down by your brother’s lab.”

“Vishous?” She jumped to her feet. “What—?”

“Go through the door marked HOUSEKEEPING. There’s a panel to the right that you push open. Make sure you put on a hazmat suit before you go in to see him—”

Butch…dear God, Butch. “What—”

“Do you hear me? Put the suit on and keep it on.”

“What ha—”

“Car accident. Go. Now. He’s dying.”

Marissa dropped the phone and ran from Havers’s study, nearly mowing down Karolyn out in the hall.

“Mistress! What’s wrong?”

Marissa shot through the dining room, punched open the butler’s door, and stumbled into the kitchen. As she made the corner to the back stairs, she lost one of her high heels, so she kicked off the other and kept going in her stocking feet. At the bottom of the steps, she entered the security code to the rear entrance of the clinic and burst into the ER’s waiting room.

Nurses called out her name, but she ignored them as she raced for the lab’s corridor. Tearing past Havers’s laboratory, she found the door marked HOUSEKEEPING and slammed it open.

As she panted, she looked around at…nothing. Just mops and empty buckets and smocks. But Vishous had said—

Wait. There were faint marks on the floor, a little pattern of wear that suggested a hidden door opening and closing. She shoved the smocks out of the way and found a flat panel. Clawing with her nails, she forced it open and frowned. It was some kind of dimly lit monitoring room with a high-tech setup of computers and vitals readouts. Leaning in to the blue glow of one of the screens, she saw a hospital bed. On top of it, a male was lying spread-eagled and restrained with tubes and wires coming out of him. Butch.

She barged past the yellow hazmat suits and facial masks hanging next to the door and pushed into the room, the air lock breaking with a hiss.

“Virgin in the Fade…” Her hand went to her throat.

He was definitely dying. She could sense it. But there was something else—something frightening, something that set off her survival instincts sure as if she were confronted by an attacker with a gun. Her body screamed for her to run, get out, save herself.

But her heart brought her to his bedside. “Oh…God.”

The hospital johnny left his arms and his legs bare, and it seemed as if he was bruised everywhere. And his face…good Lord, he was desperately battered.

As he made a groaning noise in the back of his throat, she reached out to take his hand—oh, no, not there, too. His blunt fingers were swollen at the tips, the skin purple, some of the nails missing.

She wanted to touch him, but there was no place that she could. “Butch?”

His body jerked at the sound of her voice and his eyes opened. Well, one of them did.

As he focused on her, a ghost of a smile pulled at his lips. “You’re back. I just…saw you at the door.” His voice was weak, a tinny echo of the bass it normally was. “I saw you then…lost…you. But here you are.”

She sat gingerly on the edge of the bed and wondered which nurse he thought she was. “Butch—”

“Where did…the yellow dress go?” His words were garbled, his mouth not moving much, as if his jaw were broken. “You were so beautiful…in that yellow dress…”

Definitely a nurse. Those suits hanging next to the door were yello—shoot. She hadn’t put one on, had she? Holy hell, if his immune system was compromised, she needed to protect him.

“Butch, I’m going to go out and get a—”

“No—don’t leave me…don’t go…” His hands started twisting in the binds, the leather restraints creaking. “Please…dear God…don’t leave me…”

“It’s okay, I’ll be right back.”

“No…woman I love…yellow dress…don’t leave me…”

Not knowing what else to do, she leaned down and softly laid her palm on his face. “I won’t leave you.”

He dragged his bruised cheek into her touch, his cracked lips brushing her skin as he whispered, “Promise me.”

“I—”

The air lock broke with a hiss and Marissa looked over her shoulder.