Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(123)

“What the fuck?” someone said.

“Where the hell—”

“—did they all—”

“—fucking go?”

It was the same snippets of conversation from each one of them, the males remaining braced with their daggers and their fists, their fighting stances unchallenged by any enemy.

Hard breathing was the only sound. No more screeching.

Until a door opened.

Balz pivoted toward the portal. And he knew who was coming out before he even saw her.

“Devina,” he growled.

The demon walked out into the corridor, a red dress hugging her curves, a string of pearls around her neck, her heels so high that she was as tall as he was. With her hair swept up on top of her head and diamonds sparkling on her earlobes, she was Julia Roberts, Pretty Woman’ing it off to the opera, so classy, so elegant.

The fucking cunt.

“Give me the Book,” Balz demanded as he pointed a gun at her. “Give me the fucking Book!”

She didn’t seem to hear him. And that was when he realized she was translucent, like a hologram. Even if he’d tried to shoot her, the bullets were going to go right through.

She did pause as she came up to him. “It’s gone.” Her voice was distracted and her dazed eyes stared past him. “I don’t know who took the Book, but it can’t leave on its own. So someone got in there and walked out with it.”

And then she just kept going.

Balz lunged for her, but when he tried to grab her arm, he just snatched at air. There was no substance to the demon at all.

“What about Erika!” he yelled. “You get the fuck out of her—”

Devina glanced over her shoulder. “It’s too late. Sorry. Oops.”

As she resumed walking, he started to go after her—but V locked a grip on him and hauled him back. “No, you let her go. Let. Her. Go. We’ll find Lassiter. Lassiter will help us—”

That was when the lights came back on in the stairwell. And as the demon easily walked through the the crowd of Brothers and bastards, even while they stabbed at her and tried to catch her, someone emerged down at the base of the steps.

Someone else… arrived.

On the far side of her see-through body, a blond-haired male in a black suit stepped into the hall.

Were those roses in his hands? Like… a dozen red roses?

And it was like he didn’t see what else was in the basement: The guy only had eyes for the demon, the transfixion so complete, it was as if he were under her spell.

V hissed to the group: “Retreat. We need to get out of here. That motherfucker in the suit is the son of the Omega and we’re all wounded. Retreat, now.”

Balz wanted to argue. He wanted to fight. He wanted the fucking Book and to hell with Lassiter. But as the warriors began to dematerialize out one by one, their broken bodies bearing the toll of the shadows’ impacts, he knew he was out of gas, too.

The angel was his only hope.

As he admitted defeat, the last thing Balz saw before he closed his eyes was the blond male grabbing the demon and pushing her up against the wall. Their heads came together as their bodies fused into one… and then, with those red roses still in his hand, the male tilted his head and kissed Devina like he had been waiting his entire life for her. As if she were his one true love.

Balz intended to dematerialize out. But his body wobbled on his feet, his vision got wonky, and he couldn’t seem to remember what he was doing or why. Out of hope, without a plan, and knowing his mate was dying…

What was all that copper he was suddenly smelling?

“Oh, shit,” he heard V say. “Jesus, Balz, you’ve been stabbed.”

Oh. Well. That explained the smell—

His last thought was of Erika.

Maybe he’d see her in the Fade.

Right…

…about…

…now.





CHAPTER FORTY-NINE




Exactly nine minutes before Devina arrived at the building downtown, at precisely thirteen minutes before Sahvage led Balthazar down into the basement there, Rahvyn returned to Luchas House one last time. She was careful to hide what she had with her in her jacket, and after checking in with the social worker, she went upstairs. On her made bed, with its smoothed duvet cover and precisely stacked pillows, she took out that which had called to her.

The Book was warm to the touch, and as she put her palm upon it, it seemed to get even warmer, as if her body heat compounded its own.

The temptation to open the tome was overwhelming, and she felt as though the thing wanted her to lift its cover, the pages ruffling themselves between its hard, leathered confines.

It was alive, she realized. Living though it did not have breath or heart rate.

“You have caused much trouble,” she said.

A shudder registered under her hand, contrition made manifest.

“I know you did not mean to. But you are responsible for what you have wrought. You must know that.” She petted the bumpy cover to soothe its feelings. “In that, you and I are much the same. We are neither one nor the other, neither good nor evil, and that means we are by definition bad. We are agents of chaos, we are not right for this world.”

She passed her hand down its spine. “And that is why you called me to you, is it not. You know you have done wrong and you are tired of being used. You assess the balance of your deeds and recognize more ill has been done with you than you can bear. You need to just get away.”