Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(121)

Before he left, he went to the bed and dropped his head to Erika’s ear. She was breathing in a wheeze, the rise and fall of her chest so shallow, it was almost not happening.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I’m going to get you what you need. Just hang on. Erika, you’ve got to hang on.”



* * *



As Devina arrived back at her lair’s building, her frame of mind had seriously improved.

Then again, a good fuck had always been a mood elevator for her, a clear sign that even though she was a non-temporal force of nature, the dopamine receptors in the body she projected herself into worked just fine.

And holy fuck, Lassiter was a good lay. Ohhhhh, man, if she’d thought Balthazar hated being with her, that was nothing compared to the angel’s regrets. So obviously, she had stretched the fucking out for a good long time—and she wanted more of him. To make sure they weren’t a one-night stand, she had big plans to do shit all about keeping her side of the bargain.

She’d leave that female of Balthazar’s only when the woman was good and dead, something Devina could control by keeping the detective alive and suffering for quite some time.

God, Balz and that stupid human woman he loved so much. The demon had thought she’d use them for her spell, a great way to have revenge on him and get what she needed. And it was fun being inside the bitch and torturing them both: In the work of a heartbeat, she’d jumped from one to the other during a le petit mort moment in one of their sex sessions, her possession triggering an infection that had kindled for a day or two, before it had taken a firm toehold.

But as it turned out, the demon had found an even better candidate for her true love spell.

“You had a secret, angel, didn’t you,” she said out loud.

In spite of all the reasons she didn’t deserve it, fate had given her one hell of a present tonight: Lassiter was in love.

And Devina had ruined everything. The instant she had taken that angel’s virginity, which had been beyond enriching on an existential level, she had soiled him in his own mind, making him no longer worthy of the female he’d gotten soppy over.

What a surprise! And her spell’s last stricture was met.

So it had been a great night—and even greater because thanks to that angel’s sappy heart, she could now await the proper return of her blond Adonis.

Gliding through the building’s front door—literally, because hello, it was way after hours so the thing was locked—she resumed her striding in the lobby, her stilletos clipping out a snare drum roll as she strode over the marble floor. Heading for the back stairs to go down into the basement, she would normally have played around with the nightshift humans on security detail. It was always a kick to fuck with the guards, sneak up behind them, play a little spook game.

Not tonight.

She had to get ready for her male.

“Talk about Christmas,” she murmured as she descended and then hit the hall that took her to her lair. “Kwanzaa. Hanukkah.”

The demon was whistling a little tune as she came up to her door and stepped through the reinforced panel, piercing into the other plane of existence—

The instant she entered her lair, she could feel that something wasn’t right. Her eyes went immediately across to the Birkin display, but everything was where it was supposed to be, with the burned star on the top of her proverbial tree.

In the rest of the open space, her clothes were the same, the racks all orderly, nothing hanging cockeyed or anything.

The bedding platform was made.

The kitchen was neat. The furniture arranged as it had always been. Likewise, the tub and the towels and her sink were gleaming and static, just as she had left them.

But someone had been here, someone who shouldn’t have been. She could scent them… and they smelled like a meadow of wild flowers—

“Nooooooo!”

Devina whirled around to where the Book had been suspended in thin air. It was gone… and no trace of it was left behind, not the rancid stench, not a fragment of parchment, not a shadow of where it had once been. The whole lair was empty of the ugly, stinking thing.

It could not escape on its own, though. It needed a proxy to become mobile.

Who the fuck had been in her space—

At that moment, as if the universe were answering her demand, she sensed arrivals outside in the corridor. Many of them. A cadre’s worth of them.

Pivoting on her heel toward the door, she peered through the panel and what she saw got her attention, even though she was an immortal.

The Black Dagger Brotherhood and the Band of Bastards were just outside her lair, and they were fully armed and ready to fight.

“What the fuck,” she muttered. “I have to get dressed and do my goddamn hair.”





CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT




This is where she was,” Sahvage announced. “That last door.”

Even though the Brother had been their guide into the building, he stepped aside so that Balz could now lead the way down the long basement corridor. As the other males flanked in behind him, they paid honor to a bonded male’s right to ahvenge his female.

Protect his female.

To that end, a dozen more fighters than he expected had shown up in Erika’s living room—and they had come with supplies. He had been given a new pair of guns. And fresh leathers. And steel daggers in a holster. And the best backup any warrior could have asked for.