Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(2)

“Arrest thee now this wasted reverie,” he muttered.

Bracing himself, he forced his torso and his unreliable legs into a concert of movement that returned him to his height. And then he shuffled forth once more.

He was immortal.

He was never going to die, not ever.

He was immortal. He was never going to die…

The cadence of the words became the steps he took, a metronome that propelled him even as every extension of leg tired him further. And some time later, mayhap it was the matter of a year, a glint of something bright caught the evil’s attention. Stopping himself, he saw that he was upon his private bedding area, and there, across the barren space, a dagger, silver and sharp, stood upon a marble stand, suspended in thin air on its razoring tip.

Yes, he thought. That is why I have come. I remember now.

Propelling himself over to the weapon, he willed his robing off—and when he couldn’t accomplish even that simple magic trick, he brought trembling hands up to the ties at his throat. It had been so long since he had had to work anything mechanically that he fumbled with the knot he had previously manifested with his mind.

The Omega did not want to dwell upon the inefficiency, the ineffectuality of his ten digits. And in any event, he eventually became naked.

He held out his palm to summon the blade. When the weapon refused to heel, he was forced to reach forth and take the hilt of that which ignored his call. The grip was familiar as he curled his hand around it, but the dagger seemed as heavy as a boulder as he removed it from its invisible buttressing.

Lowering his head, he looked down at his sexual organs. Like every other inch of his “body,” they were but an image that functioned, a prosthesis with bodily fluids, a corporeality that suited his purposes when he needed it, and disappeared back into a closet of illusions when he did not.

Using what felt like the last of his strength, he gathered the soft weights of the balls and cock in his palm. He had a thought that they were warm and heavy in combination.

The dagger glinted again as he brought the blade under that which hung from his hips.

“I will not end…” he said hoarsely. “I will never end.”

And yet as he made the pronouncement, he had a thought that it was a lie. Not a vicious one, but a pitiable one.

He did not want to be over. When time had been his to squander, he had wasted it on much that had not mattered, in the manner of a rich male before a marketplace of beautiful things. Now that seconds were precious, he missed the largesse he had once had like a loved one who had departed dearly.

A tear formed in his eye. He would have gone back in time if he could have. But he was too weak. In his arrogance, he had waited too long—

With a savage yank, he cut off the penis and the scrotum, easily slicing through the delicate, sensitive skin. The pain was gasoline in his veins, his heart exploding in his chest, the rapid pump enlivening him, the adrenaline surge giving him a little of that which he needed a deluge of.

As black blood flowed down the insides of his thighs and pooled around his feet, he lifted his palm up to eye level and drew in through his nose. He smelled nothing. Then again, who could smell themselves? Whether perfume or body odor, the nose only knew what was fresh and new, not that in which it had been stewing.

He had been told once he smelled like baby powder. By a human whom he had disemboweled shortly thereafter.

As he recalled his offense, it seemed so childish. But he had had rage to spare back in those days. Now, he had to ration…

The thought disintegrated as if to prove the point he could no longer recall desiring to make.

Beneath the organs he had removed from himself, black blood gathered in the cup of his hand and ran a descent down his wrist. He watched it flow, black and slow and lazy, gleaming in the ambient light that had no source.

“My son.” He cleared his throat and spoke more loudly. “My son shall recommence and continue if I go no further.”

The demand did not effect a damn thing.

“My son shall return now!”

As naught occurred, t’was the same as his cloak not vanishing and the dagger refusing to come unto his palm, the lack of power within him robbing him of his dominion over objects that should have been an easy summon.

Frustration kindled into anger that alit into rage, and he cast the flesh across to the bedding platform in what should have been a throw of strength. When the momentum was little more than a shove at the air, he knew he should never have let his one and only progeny rot as he had. But he had felt disrespected and underappreciated for all he had done for the male, and though the great Blind King of the vampires was named Wrath, the Omega might as well have had that dark emotion as his own middle name.

He had been so vengeful and so petty. A terrible combination.

Now he was here, abruptly old and infirmed, with no one to help him, no son to bear him up, no legacy left within his Lessening Society. He was doomed to be where all of history retreated with enough passage of days and nights: A distant memory that died out when the last of those who knew him went unto their graves.

He had been hubristic about his future. And now… it was too late.

In disgust with himself, he was going to turn away and head to the place where he would find one last chance for a rival… when he noticed movement upon the bedding platform.

Shuffling forward, he stood over the black bloody mess he had lamely tossed over. The components of what had been his sexual organs were twisting and turning upon themselves, melting, melding… reforming. Germinating.