Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(125)

She was surrounded by vampires. And she’d never felt safer.

“Where is Balthazar?” she demanded.

“In the next room—”

Erika threw the covers off herself and put her feet over the edge of the bed. The mattress seemed seven feet off the ground. She didn’t care. She launched herself right—

As her legs collapsed, the goateed one caught her weight. Except then, when she went to head for the door, he held her back.

“Wait, IV. You’ve got an IV.”

Lifting her arm, she had a moment of relief that her skin was a normal color again. Then she ripped out the cannula in her arm and started walking.

“Don’t you dare stop me again,” she muttered to Goatee as he jumped forward to catch up. “I’ve got to get to him.”

His chuckle was one of respect. “I’m not going to keep you two apart. Don’t worry about that, female.”

The fighter with the scarred upper lip held the door open, and there were two others who helped her along. When the door to another room was opened for her, she looked in—

“Oh… God.”

Somebody took her arm. Goatee? Yes, that was the one.

“I know he looks bad,” the vampire said. “But he’s a bonded male. As soon as he hears your voice, it’s his best shot at coming back. When he was fighting a shadow, we think the entity somehow got ahold of one of his daggers—and did some serious damage. He lost a lot of blood, and he’s sustained a stroke. It was a minor one, but he needs a reason to fight. You’re it.”

Lying back against the pillows, plugged into all kinds of machines, Balthazar looked already dead. And holy hell from the injuries. His face so swollen, his features were nearly unrecognizable, and his breathing was nothing but a wheeze.

Erika rushed to his bedside, using Goatee like a walker, pushing him in front of her at the same time she hung on to the waistband of his leather pants.

“Balthazar. It’s me. I’m here.”

As she leaned over him, a Kleenex was put in her hand and she impatiently swiped at her eyes. “I need you, please come back to me.”

Dropping her head next to his on the pillow, she was aware she was getting really weak, and Goatee must have recognized this. She felt her body get lifted up and settled on the bed next to Balthazar’s.

She wanted to touch him, but his skin was covered in welts. And as the world went on another ride around her, she couldn’t believe they were both in such rough shape. But that didn’t matter.

They had each other to live for—and that was more than enough.

Steeling her resolve, calling on every ounce of will she had in her soul, she turned his face to her.

And spoke in a loud, clear demand, the three most important words she knew: “I love you.”



* * *



It was what Balz had been waiting for.

In the midst of his stasis, trapped between death and life, in a prison of pain, he had prayed that his Erika would come to him. He had refused to believe she was dead, that the demon had won, that the Book was lost. If he just held on, if he fought the lure of the Fade, surely she would come for him, and he would follow her scent and the sound of her voice out of—

Balthazar, come back to me. I need you. Please… after everything, don’t let this be our end. Remember my basement, be with me down there again, hold me… don’t leave me…

He thought he would have to fight to return.

Instead, he just floated his way up to her. As his female whispered to him, he orientated himself to her syllables and they became his map, showing him the way to go home.

Rising, rising… rising…

Opening his eyes, his vision was blurry. But he didn’t need clarity to know her features because he saw them with his heart.

“Balthazar?” she said with wonder. “Balthazar?”

“I…”

“Oh, my God, he’s alive, he’s back!”

“Love…”

There were all kinds of conversations at that point, other people in the room with them talking with excitement, the voices ones that he recognized. Meanwhile, he didn’t understand how Erika was still alive.

How was his female still alive? They hadn’t brought the Book back. They hadn’t…

Vishous?

The Brother Vishous was right at his bedside, and Balz focused on that gloved hand. Then he remembered the power in that palm, and what it had done to those shadows. He thought also of Butch who—there he was. The former homicide cop was by the bed, too, looking like he had food poisoning, his face sallow, a little green line around his mouth. As the pair of roommates met each other’s eyes, they nodded, as if they’d worked hard together. As if they’d toiled on a project… and finally gotten it past a finish line.

No, Balz thought. They may have helped keep Erika alive, but something else had had to have intervened to cure the infection.

And he’d been saying something to her, hadn’t he?

Oh. Right.

“You…”

As he finished that last word, Erika moved her face even closer to his own, and that was when he finally saw her properly.

“Beautiful… female… mine…” he croaked.

“Yes, yes—”

When she tried to kiss him, he hissed because he hurt all over—and he didn’t care about the pain. “Kiss me anyway…”