The Thief (Black Dagger Brotherhood #16)(125)

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, sure as if a hand brushed his nape.

Stiffening, he sent his instincts out—and knew that there was someone right behind him.

Knew instantly who it was, too.

Closing his eyes, he shook his head and sagged with defeat. “It’s you. Isn’t it. She picked you.”

As the second bottle finished filling up, he took the thing out of the fountain and slowly turned around.

Lassiter, the fallen angel, stood with his feet planted on the white marble floor. His entire body was lit from within, and stretching out on either side of his torso was a magnificent pair of iridescent wings.

Glowing as he was, he was one of the most beautiful sights Vishous had ever seen, as awe-inspiring as a mountain range, as arresting as a perfect sunset, as broad as the ocean, as high as the heavens.

He was too much to be contained in any kind of form, and V blinked, not because things were necessarily that bright, but because the signals that his optic nerves were sending to his brain were too strong, too many, too resonant.

Lassiter’s voice echoed throughout the Sanctuary even though he did not speak out loud. I bring greetings from your mahmen. Rise, and know that you are blessed in this life as you are her son and you are worthy.

V got to his feet with a mind of shutting those blessings down, fuck him very much. But then he thought of Jane and canned the anger.

Still, he felt compelled to say “I don’t believe in my mother.”

Belief is not required.

For some reason, that unsettled him. Maybe because it meant someone else was driving destiny’s bus—but like he hadn’t already figured that out?

“She doesn’t exist anymore. She’s out.”

That which is not alive cannot die. It is as time, extant and all around whether acknowledged or not.

Abruptly, and against his will, the shit came out, the fucking shit that he didn’t want to admit, even to himself…the cocksucking shit that had been bothering him ever since he had come up here and found that dumb-ass, emo missive she’d left for him and him alone:

“Why wasn’t it me?” he heard himself ask. “If I am her son, why didn’t she pick me to succeed her?”

It was the height of narcissism to even wonder such a goddamn thing in passing. To admit it to anyone, much less Lassiter, FFS, made V feel like a candidate for a bitch slap across the crybaby.

Lassiter reached out a hand, but he didn’t touch V. He stopped about two inches in front of Vishous’s chest.

Even though there was no direct contact between them, a warm feeling lit off inside V’s chest and grew in intensity until it suffused his entire being—and him, being him, he thought…man, it was going to suck to come down from this high.

Except then…he realized that the warmth had a pitch, like a song would, a hum that was specific to one and only one entity he had ever been around.

This was his mahmen, he realized. This sense of love enveloping him was…her.

She has not disappeared. She is still with us and with you. Lassiter lowered his hand. And she did not pick you not because she didn’t love you, but because she did.

Even though Lassiter wasn’t rocking the glow-motional connection anymore, Vishous could still feel the sensation deep in his bones. And as he pictured the Scribe Virgin’s diminutive figure in her black robes, with that white light shining out from under her hem, the warmth re-intensified.

She is in all of us. She missed her creation up here, and when she freed herself, she was able to reenter us. She is not gone—she is back where she started and happiest for it.

At that moment, a movement out of the corner of V’s eyes drew his attention to the colonnade in front of his mother’s bedroom suite—and when he saw what it was, he was both utterly astonished…and completely unsurprised.

It was a black cat. But not just any black cat.

It was Beth, the Queen’s black cat. The one she had brought with her to the mansion all those years ago.

As V’s stare met its glowing green one, a sacred aura surrounded the feline, and he realized She had been with them all along. From the very beginning, She had been with them…right in their midst without them even knowing it.

With a feeling of inevitability and peace, the last of V’s puzzle pieces fell into place, the hole that had been vacant filled with an answer to a question he hadn’t been aware of asking for all these years.

Yes, Lassiter said, in spite of her faults, she always loved you and your sister, and now she can show you. And she always loved her creation, too—and now she can show that as well. Therefore, close your eyes and see what is to come as only you can. You must guide the end, do you understand? You shall guide the end—



* * *



—

“—Vishous? V, wake up, sweetheart—”

V bolted upright in the dark, sweat pouring off his face, chest screaming in suffocation, heart pounding.

Only Jane’s voice and scent were able to reach him through his panic, and even then, he wasn’t sure what in the hell was going on.

Throwing out a hand, he grabbed on to her and held her close—and as he felt her arms tighten on him, he started to shake. But it was only a dream, he told himself. What he’d just seen was only a dream—a weird, fucked-up contortion of him having had a late day, and Lassiter-binge-watching TV in the billiards room, and finally the carbonara served at Last Meal.