Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #4)(62)

While the phone rang, Vishous started the SUV, threw it into drive, and thought back to Butch working some kind of mojo shit on that lesser. To steal a phrase from the cop, Holy Mary, Mother of God.

Man…that suck job was a hell of a weapon. But the complications were legion.

V glanced over again. And realized it was to reassure himself that Butch wasn’t eyeing him as a lesser would.

Fuck.

“Wrath?” V said as his call was answered. “Listen, I—shit…our boy here just consumed a lesser. No…not Rhage. Butch. Yes, Butch. What? No, I saw him…consume the thing. I don’t know how, but the lesser disappeared into dust. No, no knife involved. He inhaled the damn thing. Look, just to be conservative, I’m going to take him to my place and let him sleep it off. Then I’m coming home, true? Right…No, I have no clue how he did it, but I’ll give you the blow-by-blow when I get to the compound. Yup. Right. Uh-huh. Oh, for God’s—yes, I’m fine and quit asking me that. Later.”

As he hung up and tossed the phone onto the dash, Butch’s voice drifted over, all weak and hoarse. “I’m glad you’re not taking me home.”

“Wish I could, though.” V took out a hand-rolled and lit it, drawing hard on the thing. As he blew smoke, he cracked one of the windows. “Jesus Christ, cop, how did you know you could do that?”

“I didn’t.” Butch coughed a little, like his throat was bothering him. “Lemme have one of your daggers.”

V frowned and looked at his roommate. “Why?”

“Just give it to me.” As V hesitated, Butch shook his head with sadness. “I’m not going to come after you with it. I swear on my mother.”

They hit a red light and V shifted his seat belt out of the way so he could unsheathe one of his blades from his chest holster. He gave the weapon to Butch handle first, then checked the road ahead. When he glanced back over, Butch had shoved up his sleeve and was slicing himself on the inside of his forearm. They both stared at what came out.

“I’m bleeding black again.”

“Well…not a surprise.”

“I smell like one, too.”

“Yeah.” Man, V did not like the way the cop was fixated on that dagger. “How ’bout you give my blade back, buddy?”

Butch handed the thing over and V wiped the black steel on his leathers before resheathing the weapon.

Butch wrapped his arms around his middle. “I don’t want to be anywhere around Marissa when I’m like this, okay?”

“No problem. I’ll take care of everything.”

“V?”

“What?”

“I will die rather than hurt you.”

V’s eyes shot across the space between them. The cop’s face was grim and his hazels were dead serious, the words not a mere expression of thought but a vow: Butch O’Neal was prepared to take himself out of the game if shit got critical. And he was fully capable of doing the job.

V inhaled on his hand-rolled again and tried not to get even more attached to the human. “Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

Please, God, let it not come to that.





Chapter Nineteen




Marissa paced another circle around the Brotherhood’s library and ended up back at the windows that looked out over the terrace and the pool.

The day must have been a warm one, she thought. There were patches in the snow that had melted through, revealing black slate at the terrace or brown ground over the lawn—

Oh, who the hell cared about the goddamned landscape.

Butch had left after First Meal, saying he had a quick errand to run. Which was fine. Dandy. A-okay. But that had been two hours ago.

She wheeled around as someone came into the room. “Butch—oh…it’s…you.”

Vishous stood in the archway, a full-blooded warrior framed by the extravagant gold-leaf molding around him.

Dear Virgin in the Fade…his expression was utterly blank, the kind of thing you put on your face when you had bad news to deliver.

“Tell me he is alive,” she said. “Save my life right here and now and tell me he is alive.”

“He is.”

Her knees buckled and she grabbed on to one of the wall-to-wall bookshelves. “But he isn’t coming, is he?”

“No.”

As they stared at each other, she noticed absently that he was wearing a fine white shirt with his black leathers: a Turnbull and Asser button-down. She recognized the cut. It was what Butch wore.

Marissa wrapped an arm around her waist, overwhelmed by Vishous even though he was all the way across the room. He seemed like such a dangerous male—and not because of the tattoos on his temple or the black goatee or that fearsome body. The Brother was cold to the core, and someone that removed was capable of anything.

“Where is he?” she asked.

“He’s okay.”

“Then why isn’t he here?”

“It was just a quick fight.”

A…quick…fight. Her knees loosened again as memories of being at Butch’s bedside crashed over her. She saw him lying on hospital sheets in that johnny, beaten up, almost dying. Contaminated by something evil.

“I want to see him.”

“He’s not here.”