The Thief (Black Dagger Brotherhood #16)(73)

“I couldn’t believe all these jewels.”

“It’s the wealth of the race.”

She shook her head. “How did it get up here?”

“Who the fuck knows.”

“And did you see the revolvers?” She pointed over her shoulder toward a set of antique guns. “And what do you suppose was here?”

With a frown, he shuffled over to a marble case that was empty. Something had been set within its velvet-lined interior, however. There was a rectangular singed spot in the middle of it.

“What the hell?” he muttered.

“V, you’re limping. I think we need to check out your ankle.”

He glanced over his shoulder and lowered his lids. “Can we do an internal exam?”

“On you or me?”

“Both.”

Jane laughed as she joined him in front of the vacant case. “Weird, right?”

“It was a book. I’ll bet it was a book. Even though there’s no identification on the exterior.”

Then again, it wasn’t like this was a museum with little brass plaques explaining what everything was and where it came from.

But whatever. Not his problem. For all he knew, his mahmen had found a misplaced comma on one of the pages and fried the tome in a fit of fury.

“Come on, my female,” he said as he took Jane into his arms. “Back to the land of the living. My brothers are no doubt marshaling a search party for me at this very moment.”

Jane was smiling at him as he up-and-outed them to the other side, materializing them to the mansion’s dour entrance. And as he let them into the vestibule and shoved his mug into the security camera, he kept his arm around Jane.

Fritz started to open the way in, but Vishous finished the job, shoving the heavy weight wide to help the old doggen out—

Sure enough, all of the Brotherhood was milling around and arming themselves like they were about to head off to find his sorry ass before dawn made shit too late.

All eyes swung toward him, and as he saw the surprise and shock on those familiar faces, a load of aw-shucks hit him hard.

To cover that up, he gave ’em a sly grin. “I’m back, bitches—miss us?”

There were some shouts and then people were coming up and there were hugs and other malarkey that, under normal circumstances, made him want to scratch. Not tonight, though. Not tonight. After everything he had been through with Jane, and all that he had both lost and found, he wanted to hold on to his true family, to this moment, to this place in life he found himself. Sure, the war sucked, and the future was unknown, and danger was all around, but with Jane at his side and his brothers and the fighters of the house coming up and embracing him? He couldn’t help but think it was all going to be okay.

As Fritz announced he was going to go gather Last Meal for everyone, and the brothers headed to the bar for celebratory drinks, Vishous put his arm back around Jane and kissed her on the mouth.

Leaning into her ear, he whispered, “I want to rechristen our bedroom.”

“So do I. How long do we have to stay?”

“Dinner, no dessert.”

“Deal.”

He was following the crowd into the billiards room when something had him look over his shoulder.

Lassiter was standing in the far corner of the foyer, his face grim, his eyes intense. There was absolutely no fooling around to the guy. No laughing. No joy, either.

A warning tightened V’s shoulders and shot down his spine into his ass. Something was just not right here, he thought. But he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“V?”

As Jane spoke up, he shook himself—and the fallen angel disappeared into thin air.

“Are you okay, V?” she prompted.

“Yeah,” he said, turning back to the poolroom. “S’all good. It’s all…perfectly fine.”

No doubt it was only the aftershocks of everything making him paranoid. The angel was probably upset that Stranger Things Season 3 had been delayed or some bullshit.

All Lassiter really cared about was himself and TV.





THIRTY-THREE


The dawn was beginning to hint at its arrival with a blush of pink on the horizon when Vitoria determined that they were on a fool’s chase. She, along with Streeter’s failing set of lungs, had mounted the foot of Iroquois and progressed, as instructed, what had to be over a half mile. Or two. Or twelve. Yet no lane, or even the offshoot of a trail, had appeared.

As Vitoria stopped, she did some panting herself—and knew a frustration that was so deep, she was cursing in Spanish in her head.

“Go…back…?” Streeter wheezed.

She looked all around and saw nothing but this singular snow-covered road that continued farther up toward whatever was at the peak—picnic spot, observatory, park ranger station.

There was a desire to blame the intel Streeter had brought to her, but that was counterproductive. And this was a lesson learned. Her desire for a given outcome had colored her analysis of the information and led them on this wild-goose chase.

A waste of time and energy.

“Yes.” She allowed one, single curse in her native tongue to escape her lips. “Back to the car.”

Resuming the lead, she made a little circle and continued along, putting one snowshoe in front of the other over the track they had made. And though there was some relief that came with a downward course, her anger did not permit any appreciation of the aid.