Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(61)

She could not believe she was being so calm. But what choice did she have.

“I want to protect you.”

Erika looked over at him—and did not mean to do a stem-to-stern on the guy. But for one, she was remembering him fighting with that shadow-whatever, and as someone who had been trained in self-defense, it was obvious he had skills. For another…

Well, the view was goddamn spectacular. From the pads of those pecs to the curls of his biceps to that eight-pack he was sporting like he did ten thousand sit-ups before he had a protein bar with his egg whites in the morning— “I know you want to keep me safe,” she said in a low tone. “Thank you for that. Seriously. But the sad truth about life is that sometimes we can’t always get what we want. And hey, I’ve been fighting for a really long time with things that aren’t actually in front of me. Who knows… maybe I’ll win against a shadow.”

It was a stupid thing to say. Even more stupid to think it could be true. She had seen what that attack had done against a man like this one, and he had seventy-five pounds of muscle on her. At least.

“Just take my memories again,” she told him, “and let me go live my life, however it turns out.”

He was quiet for a very long time. Quiet for an eternity.

And she just sat there. Like a bump on a log, her father would have said.

“Learned helplessness,” she murmured.

Balthazar jerked to attention. “Sorry?”

“I was a psych major in college. Learned helplessness is a maladaptive behavior pattern where someone feels like there’s no cause and effect to their actions. It leads to a collapse in problem-solving strategies and generalized apathy.” She held up her forefinger. “What’s interesting in my case here is not that I can’t see the cause and effect, it’s more like I don’t know what behavior is actually mine or what kind of a world I live in. Anyway, that’s why I’m a zombie—and it’s too bad I can’t rewrite my final paper on this whole thing.”

“Rolling Stones,” he blurted.

“What?”

“The song. I couldn’t remember the song.”

Are we having the same conversation? she wondered.

“You can’t… always get… what you waaannnt.” He cleared his throat and sang a little more loudly. “You can’t always geeeeet what you wannnnt.”

When he stopped there, she said, “Wow. You…”

“Can’t sing at all.”

“Yeah, I mean really. It’s—”

“Bad. Real bad. Couldn’t-hold-a-tune-in-a-basket bad. Alley-cat bad. A step down from tone-deaf.”

Erika started to smile. Then she laughed. “I’m no opera singer, either.”

“I promise never to do it again.”

“No, you don’t have to.” She shrugged. “It’s kind of nice to think that not everything about your body is perfect.”

His eyes shot to hers, and she flushed as she looked away.

And that was when everything changed between them. Sure, they were both sitting where they had been, and he was still getting over—God, slitting his own throat—and she was in another kind of recovery. But suddenly there was a charge in the air.

That had nothing to do with fear.

Maybe she should have stuck with the cheese-eating, date side of things. Because this sexual charge right here? It had nuclear one-night stand written all over it, and given that she had clearly lost her mind… she couldn’t think why such a thing was a terrible idea.

Erika glanced back and met that hooded, hot stare of his.

“You know what the last part of the song was?” Balthazar asked in a deep voice.

“Song?” she parroted as she focused on his lips.

He leaned into her, all bare muscle and that amazing cologne that suddenly flared in the air, like he’d magically reapplied some. “The last part of the chorus to that song. ‘But if you try sometimes, you just might find…’?”

Don’t do it, the reasonable part of her demanded. Like if she filled in the blank, she was not only acknowledging whatever was flaring between them, she was saying “yes” to a question he hadn’t even asked— “You get what you need,” she finished breathlessly.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE




Nate’s parents came running down a long, white corridor in a dishevel of arms and legs, a flapping of jackets, a flurry of panic. They were holding each other’s hands as if their grips were all that would keep them from being carried out by a vicious tide, and with their eyes wide and their mouths open like they were screaming, they were the very picture of terror.

Rahvyn had not been introduced to either one of them. But in these circumstances, it was obvious who they were.

From her perspective, sitting on the hard tiled floor with her legs tucked under her, she stared up at them as they raced by. They didn’t look at her. They didn’t even seem to see her. They had one and only one priority—and yet she wanted to jump up and embrace them. And tell them she was sorry and that somehow this was all her fault.

Maybe if she hadn’t tried to help the human on the ground?

Maybe if…

Shuffling her sore body around, she brought her knees up and rested her cheek on the bony apex of her legs. The destination for Nate’s parents was the patient room down at the far end of the hall. Outside of the closed door, a gathering of members of the Black Dagger Brotherhood was a fierce knot of well-armed worry. She did not know all of them, but she recognized the Brother Rhage, who had blond hair and eyes that were very blue, and the Brother Butch, who was dressed in a formal fashion, rather than in togs of war. There were a couple of others… and also her first cousin, Sahvage.