Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(3)

It was a tender mass, however, and he wished he could remain and protect his only begotten. Knowing he had to leave it in such a vulnerable state, the Omega stood over his progeny and played witness to the mass doubling in size, and then incrementally coalescing into an infant: Arms and legs, chubby and uncoordinated, sprouted from the trunk, as the head also emerged. Movement unrelated to the gestation was next, the limbs beginning to flex and churn.

Underneath the veil of black blood, the skin was white and matte, like bone.

“My son,” he whispered.

If the evil had been capable of love, he knew that the feeling so many lived and died for was what was coursing through him the now, the strange, unfamiliar weight behind his breast forging a connection with the burgeoning young that was nothing logical, everything instinctual.

And indeed, though he resented it, he knew that the sensation was in fact love because he had felt it for one other. His sister, however, the so-called great Virgin Scribe, had always been too busy for him, too concerned with her single act of creation, to pay any attention to the brother who had followed her everywhere when they had first been called into existence by the Creator. Her negligence had been the seat of his hatred for the vampires.

So petty. So childish.

“I must needs go.” He brushed his hands over eyes that watered. “You shall survive. With or without me. You’ve done it once before.”

Though he wanted to stay, he had to get into the Brotherhood’s most sacred place, to those jars the fighters had collected over the course of the war. In them, though dried and in some cases ancient, were the hearts that had pumped his blood through the bodies of his inductees, trophies for the Brothers as dead vampires had been his trophies against the Scribe Virgin. If he could consume those repositories, he could fuel himself by accessing the residue of his essence left in those chambers. Yes, it would be only scraps, but there was volume. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cardiac muscles would be available to him, and even morsels could fill one up if there were enough upon the plate.

He was also certain where they were located. The Creator had been forced, out of fairness, to allow the Omega one advantage to cure an act of overreaching by the Scribe Virgin.

So no, he would not die, never, not ever. No extinction for him.

Fuck that prophecy.

But just in case? His son would live on after him—and as he had to force himself to go, and as he worried over what would happen to the young if he did not survive, there was an irony. The Omega’s need to ensure the continuation of a part of himself, of a fraction of who and what he was?

It was the one and only thing he had ever had in common with mortals.

Now he understood why humans cherished their children.

And vampires, too.





CHAPTER ONE




Present Day

267 Primrose Court

Caldwell, New York

No, not this one. This one is not for you.”

As Detective Treyvon Abscott stepped in the path of Detective Erika Saunders, she stopped. Then again, that was what you did when you hit a brick wall. Her partner was a former college football player, an honorably discharged Marine, and at least four inches taller and seventy pounds heavier than she was. But even with all that going for him, he still braced his weight and put both palms out in front of himself, as if he were protecting his end zone against the likes of a Mack truck.

“Dispatch sent me here.” Erika crossed her arms over her chest. “So I know you’re not standing in my way right now. You’re just really not.”

Behind her colleague, a run-of-the mill two-story house with an attached two-car garage was strobe-lit in blue, the flashing lights of the squad cars parked in front of the driveway reflecting off the storm windows, turning a family’s home into a disco ball of tragedy.

“I don’t care what dispatch said.” Trey’s voice was quiet, but I’m-not-fucking-around deep. “I told you on the phone. I got this on my own.”

Erika frowned. “FYI, your detective of the month award could get revoked for this kind of scene hoarding—”

“Go home, Erika. I’m telling you, as a friend—”

“Of course, I”—she indicated herself —“have never gotten a collegial award. You want to know why?”

“Wait, what?” her partner said. Like she was speaking a different language.

She dodged around him and spoke over her shoulder as he stumbled over his own feet to turn around. “I’m not a good listener and I don’t like people in my way. That’s why I never get awards.”

Marching up the walkway, she heard cursing in her wake, but Trey was going to have to get over himself—and she was surprised by the territoriality. Usually, the two of them got along great. They’d been assigned together since January, after his first partner, Jose de la Cruz, retired following a long and distinguished career. She had no idea what kind of hair Trey had across his ass about this particular—

“Hey, Andy,” she said to the uniformed cop at the door.

—scene, but she wasn’t going to worry about it.

“Detective.” The uniformed officer shifted to the side so she could pass. “You need booties?”

“Got ’em.” As she slipped a set on over her street shoes, she noted that the hedges around the entrance were all trimmed and a little Easter flag was pastel’ing itself on a pole off to the left. “Thanks.”