Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #4)(42)

Meanwhile, Havers stumbled and caught himself on the edge of the bed, his eyes crazed as he rearranged his glasses and glared at her. “I want you to leave this room. Now.”

“No.”

Havers’s jaw went slack. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m staying with Butch.”

“You most certainly are not!”

In the Old Language, she said, “If he would have me, I would stand at his side as his shellan.”

Havers looked as if she’d slapped him: shocked and disgusted. “And I would forbid you. Have you no nobility?”

Butch cut off her reply. “You really should go, Marissa.”

She and Havers looked over at him. “Butch?” she said.

That harsh face she adored softened for a moment, but then grew grim. “If he’ll let you out, you should go.”

And not come back, his expression said.

She glanced at her brother, heart starting to pound. “Leave us.” When Havers shook his head, she shouted, “Get out of here!”

There were times when female hysteria got everyone’s attention, and this was one of them. Butch went quiet and Havers seemed nonplussed.

Then her brother’s eyes shifted to Butch and narrowed into slits. “The Brotherhood are coming to pick you up, human. I called them and told them you are free to go.” Havers tossed Butch’s medical chart on the bed as if he were giving up on the whole situation. “Don’t come back here again. Ever.”

As her brother left, Marissa stared at Butch, but before she could get any words past her tight throat, he spoke.

“Baby, please understand. I’m not well. There’s something still in me.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“I am.”

She linked her arms around her stomach. “What’s going to happen if I leave here now? Between you and me?”

Bad question to ask, she thought in the silence between them.

“Butch—”

“I need to find out what was done to me.” He looked down and fingered the puckered black wound next to his belly button. “I need to know what’s inside me. I want to be with you, but not like this. Not the way I am now.”

“I’ve been with you for four days and I’m fine. Why stop—”

“Go, Marissa.” His voice was haunted and sad. So were his eyes. “As soon as I can, I’ll come find you.”

The hell you will, she thought.

Dear Virgin in the Fade, this was Wrath all over again, wasn’t it. Her waiting, always waiting, while some male with better things to do was out into the world.

She’d already put in three hundred years of baseless anticipation.

“I’m not going to do that,” she murmured. With more force, she said, “I’m not waiting anymore. Not even for you. Almost half my life is over now and I’ve wasted it sitting at home hoping that a male would come for me. I can’t do that anymore…no matter how much I…care about you.”

“I care about you, too. That’s why I’m telling you to leave. I’m protecting you.”

“You’re…‘protecting’ me.” She eyed him up and down, knowing damn well he’d been able to peel Havers off her only because Butch had had the element of surprise working for him and the male in question had been a civilian. If her brother were a fighter, Butch would have been leveled. “You’re protecting me? Christ, I could lift you over my head with one arm, Butch. There’s nothing you can do physically that I can’t do better. So don’t do me any favors.”

It was, of course, the perfectly wrong thing to say.

Butch’s eyes shifted away and he crossed his arms over his chest, his lips narrowing flat.

Oh, God. “Butch, I don’t mean that you’re weak—”

“I’m very glad you reminded me of something.”

Oh, God. “Of what.”

His tight smile was ghastly. “I’m on the lower end of things on two counts. Socially and evolutionarily.” He nodded to the door. “So…yeah, you go on, now. And you’re absolutely right. Don’t wait for me.”

She started to reach out to him, but his cold, empty eyes held her back. Damn it, she’d blown it.

No, she told herself. There hadn’t been anything to blow. Not if he was going to shut her out of the ugly parts of his life. Not if he was going to take off and leave her and maybe come back at some indefinable, probably-never point in time.

Marissa went to the door and had to look back at him once more. The image of him with that sheet wrapped around his hips, his chest bare, bruises still healing all over him…was one she was going to wish she could forget.

She walked out, the air lock sealing him in with a hiss.



Holy shit, Butch thought as he sagged down onto the floor. So this was what getting skinned alive felt like.

Scrubbing his jaw, he sat there staring into space, lost though he knew exactly what room he was in, alone with the remnants of the evil in him.

“Butch, my man.”

He jerked his head up. Vishous was standing just inside the room and the brother was dressed for fighting, a big-ass, leather-wearing, stabbing machine. The Valentino garment bag dangling from his gloved hand seemed totally out of place, just as whacked as a butler toting an AK-47.