The Thief (Black Dagger Brotherhood #16)(34)

Eventually, he lost the energy to keep going and drifted back.

This is not to be, he realized. This is not—

“So I should have told you this before,” she whispered. “But…I was afraid. I didn’t trust you, I didn’t trust myself…sometimes I wonder how much of my leaving Caldwell was really about you…”

What, he asked. What are you to tell me?

“I love you, Assail. I love you with all that I am and all I will ever be, and if you die tonight or tomorrow or the night after, I just want you to know that you will always be with me. Right…here.”

And then it happened.

As she touched her heart, a marvelous peace overcame him, and instead of fighting his way back into his earthly home, he moved as a light breeze into the spaces between his cells, filling up that which had been emptied, enlivening that which had been on the verge of demise…



* * *



—

The croaking sound was so soft, Sola wasn’t sure she had heard anything—or maybe she had made the sound? There was so much pressure in her chest and constriction in her throat that her every inhale and exhale was an effort.

“I love you,” she said again—because as sad as this situation was, it felt good to let the secret she’d kept out—

Click—cough.

Sola recoiled. “Assail?”

Those eyes of his were open once again, the red and black depths at once scaring and reassuring her.

“Are you back?” she said, leaning up to him.

She brushed her free hand over his forehead, as if his once thick and beautiful black hair still existed. “Hi.”

Her voice was wavering and her body was shaking, but she didn’t care. He was with her for this split second—and she knew without medical advice that this could be over at any moment.

“I’m right here.”

Click…click…

He was trying to communicate, his tongue moving in his dry mouth.

“Shh.” She smiled at him—in what she hoped was a halfway normal fashion. In reality, she was bracing herself for another seizure, and a rush of medical people coming into the room, and a horrific sorrow that it was all over.

“No, don’t try to talk. There’ll be time for that. You have all the time in the world.”

As she spoke the lie, it was for the both of them. Otherwise, she would be bursting into tears—

His hand jerked in hers, and she squeezed it harder. “I’m right here.”

She stroked his face. Pressed her lips to his forehead. Smoothed his brows.

“Stay with me,” she said tightly. “Please don’t leave me…”

Assail started shaking his head, yet his eyes were sticking with her and no alarms were going off—so it was not a seizure. No, he was communicating with her, she realized.

“You’re going to stay?” she whispered.

When he nodded, she started to cry, her tears falling on his cheeks. “Good. That’s good…” Sola smiled. “I’ve missed you.”

Staring into his face, it didn’t matter that he’d lost his hair, or that his eyes weren’t right. It didn’t matter that he was in a hospital bed and his body had shrunk to half its size.

Love transformed him back into the man she knew.

To her, he was beautiful no matter what he looked like.





SIXTEEN


“It is not for me to say.”

As Lassiter let that no-comment fly, Vishous considered the merits of pulling a haymaker on the fallen angel in front of everyone and their uncle.

On the fuck-yes side: The Audience House’s dining room was definitely big enough for V to get a good running start at it; Lassiter more than deserved a punter for lesser infractions ranging from hogging the remote to those zebra-print, David Lee Roth–from-1985-wants-his-pants-back leggings; and, as V was the son of a deity, there was a chance that he would survive the retaliation that would inevitably come to him.

Not-so-hot-idea side: Wrath was probably not going to appreciate this meeting devolving into a cage match; Lassiter had tricks up his sleeve that would hurt like a motherfucker; and it wasn’t going to get that angel’s mouth flapping.

If he didn’t want to say shit about those shadows, nothing was going to open that piehole of his.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” V demanded around the wad of Nicorette in his mouth. “Do you know what the fuck they are or not?”

As the Brotherhood and the Bastards went Wimbledon on the situation, all heads swinging back to Lassiter as if they were waiting for a line-drive response to that lob, Vishous looked over at Wrath. The King’s brows were down behind those black wraparounds, his massive body overflowing that armchair like he was an adult in an infant’s car seat.

Hard to read where the brother was with this sitch. Maybe he was pissed off. Maybe he had gas. More likely, he was waiting to see what happened next.

But yeah, no, there wasn’t any V-beat-his-ass-for-me vibe coming off him.

Goddamn it.

Refocusing on Lassiter, V drawled, “Come on, angel, tell us what you know.”

Lassiter shook his head, his bizarrely beautiful eyes steady as an anchor at the bottom of the sea. “I cannot interfere in this. It is not my business to change any course before you.”