Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(59)

And shit, everything hurt as soon as he moved quick.

While he groaned and collapsed on the examination table, Erika looked like she was about to call for medical reinforcements—but she didn’t have to. Manny jumped into the back.

“We’ve got a medical emergency. I gotta go now. You’re stable enough for the time being, and if you can wait here—”

“I’m okay. I’m good.” Balz sat all the way up, gritting his teeth as lashes of pain flared across his chest, down his back, through his thighs. “Who is it? Who’s down—”

Vishous ripped open the RV’s rear double doors. “We gotta go—”

“Help me out the back?” Balz said to Erika. Even though he wanted to ask questions. But that would just slow things down.

Erika got right on it, grabbing him under the armpit as he put his feet down and tried to set his weight on them. When he nearly fell over, she locked a hold on his waist—and the fact that the sheet dropped to the floor of the treatment area didn’t seem to bother her.

It kind of bothered him.

Okay, fine, her gasping and saying something like, “Gee, I didn’t know they came that big” was probably not reasonable under the circumstances. But now he was worried she wasn’t impressed at all.

Or hadn’t even noticed that he was a male?

Ah, yes, the penis ego was fragile, wasn’t it.

With his marching band of dick insecurity following, he shuffled to the drop-off at the rear bumper, and at that point, V briefly took over from Erika, lifting Balz up and out, transferring him to the garage floor like a piece of luggage. Erika came right back against him to hold him up—and even though he hated how weak he was, he did not mind being so close to her.

As the RV’s engine came alive and one of the garage bays started to open, the sweet scent of diesel made him sneeze and the two of them backed out of the way.

“Who is it?” he called out as V hopped up into the OR compartment.

“You know where the weapons are.” V started closing the doors. “We’ll be back as soon as we can—”

“Who is it.”

“Not any of us.”

And then the Brother tossed out the sheet. Slam! went the panels, and then the massive, lumbering RV took off into the night.

Watching at the red glow of the brake lights make a right-hand turn, Balz remembered when the Black Dagger Brotherhood and the Band of Bastards had been mortal enemies. Funny, how time changed things. “Us” was now all of them.

Maybe it was just a civilian who needed help getting to Havers’s hidden medical facility.

The garage door automatically began to lower itself, cutting off the city sounds and the stink of the river shore. As it bumped back into place, Balz had one and only one thought—and it wasn’t something that reflected well on his character, given everything that was going on. He should be concerned with things stuff like safety… and that demon.

Instead, it was all about Erika.

Finally, he was alone with her.



* * *



Naked.

Really naked.

As Erika held on to Balthazar’s waist, she was acutely aware that her hand was on a whole lot of bare skin. And given everything else that was… well, hanging around, so to speak… she supposed she should have been more embarrassed. There was a lot of him—and private parts aside, it wasn’t because he had a beer gut.

Oh, no, Balthazar was all muscle. All. Muscle.

And that was a great name, truly.

“Can you help me over there?”

When she couldn’t immediately find her voice, she was glad when he pointed to the mismatched set of armchairs and the card table that was— “Is that a charcuterie board?” she asked as she noticed a cheese and cracker display that was right out of Gourmet magazine.

When had that magically appeared?

“Fritz,” he replied.

As they began a hobble over to the sitting area, she muttered, “Is that ‘yes’ in a foreign language I’m not familiar with?”

“It’s a butler.”

Erika lost the rhythm of their stilted walk. “Butler? As in the Windsor Castle kind of thing?”

“You got it. Penguin suit and perfect timing, there’s no one else like him. He must have delivered it while—well, when some extra help came in.”

“Yeah, I would have noticed it before.”

There were so many more questions to be asked, but as she glanced at his white-as-an-envelope face, she knew that he was hurting badly and trying to cover it up.

“Almost there,” she murmured.

The armchairs were mismatched in terms of color, but equally f-ugly, their patterns floral and bright, yet blessedly faded. Totally man cave decor—which made sense. Did she think there was a knitting circle hanging out in this fortified-but-not-like-kids’-cereal bolt-hole?

“You’re going to have to help me sit,” the man said. Balthazar said.

“Sure. Just lean on—”

“Here, I think I can—”

Crash! He landed like something that had been thrown down a flight of stairs, the chair screeching back, his arms flopping on the—well, arms. And then his head dropped onto his collarbones like he was exhausted— “Shit, I’m naked.”