Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(79)

Balz blinked. And then felt himself go red in the face. Which was totally a flush from the alcohol. ’Cuz Miller Lite packed one helluva punch.

“You are?”

“Yes.” She shrugged. “I really am.”



* * *



Erika had to look away from Balthazar. Like she was frickin’ twelve and had just admitted to having a crush on Billy Wittenhauer in seventh grade.

Which was something that had actually happened, so the metaphor, simile, whatever, truly did apply.

Or maybe it was just a comparison, she conceded. Instead of anything grammar-glamorous.

“I’m glad I’m here, too,” he said.

There was a period of silence, and she was aware that there was a big question she wanted to ask him, maybe “the” big question. She wasn’t sure she could handle the answer, though. So she asked a less dire one on the dip-your-toes-in-cold-water theory.

“That brunette woman…” She took another swig from her beer. “What is she? Really.”

Balthazar’s brows went together over his eyes. “You sure you want to do this right now?”

“As opposed to when, next Christmas?”

He tipped his beer to her. Then he apparently gave up on the couching-terms thing. Like, entirely: “She’s a demon.”

Erika sat back. And yet wondered why she was even slightly surprised.

Well… because it wasn’t every day you woke up and realized you were in a Conjuring sequel. And she really should have a response. A shocked face, at least. Maybe a curse or two breathed softly.

Instead, she felt absolutely nothing.

“A demon.” More beer. She needed a loooooot more beer. “As in, pea soup, spinning heads, Linda-Blair-type demon?”

Like there was another kind?

“That’s what you humans call them.”

Annnnnnnnd that was a lead-in to the real question.

So she kept going with what they were on: “She’s what you are fighting.”

“Not by choice, but yes.” He put his hand on his bare pecs. “She’s in me, Erika. Do you understand what I’m saying.”

As the little hairs on the back of her neck stood up, she thought about her dream of the shadow. Then she focused on him properly. Funny, how this man wasn’t a stranger anymore. Then again, they had so much in frickin’ common after tonight that things had changed. He was more like a friend now.

No, that wasn’t the right word, was it. “Friend” was not how she thought of him.

Not when she looked at his lips.

But whatever, the not-a-stranger thing was why she had asked him to come to her “apartment” that wasn’t really an apartment. If he’d been a straight suspect, a thief, a possible killer, she’d have taken that Honda right over to HQ and called for backup to go raid the garage and bring him in.

None of this was normal, however. Not one goddamn thing, not what he was able to do with her brain, not that brunette, certainly not the shadows. So yeah, Balthazar was a thief, but what would turning him in do for her or anybody else? He’d just manipulate the minds and memories of anyone who showed up with handcuffs. Work of a moment.

So instead of losing him into the night, and understanding nothing about what had happened to them, she’d rolled her own dice and taken a chance that he wouldn’t hurt her. Which was no chance at all, really. He’d only ever tried to keep her safe— Wow, she thought abruptly. He was still half naked.

And what a view at her kitchen table.

Funny what you noticed… and didn’t, depending on how stressed you were.

She cleared her throat. And stammered anyway. “So you’re… she’s possessed you?”

He looked down at her empty napkin holder. When he nodded, that chill on her nape got worse.

“How can you get her out?”

“I need that Book,” he replied. “The one that was at the triplex. That’s why I was there the night I met you. And then tonight, I went to the bookshop because I Googled rare booksellers in Caldwell and it was the first that came up. I thought maybe I could get a lead or some background on the thing.”

“I went there for the same reason.” She tapped the side of the bottle with her fingernail—and then promptly irritated herself with the sound. “I have an idea about how we might be able to get some information on it. But it’s going to have to wait until morning.”

“What’s your plan—”

“What are you.”

There, she was out with it. The big question. The one that she was most worried about the answer to.

And when he didn’t immediately respond, she shrugged. “You might as well tell me. You said that the less I know, the more free I am, but that’s not true when you’re sitting in my kitchen in a sheet.”

After a moment, he nodded. “I agree.”

But then he didn’t say anything else.

As the silence stretched out, she got up from her chair. Maybe it was the half of a Miller Lite. Maybe it was just how much she had seen in the course of the night.

Maybe it was because of all the places life had taken her—most of them being really fucking god-awful—the idea that something otherworldly was in her house seemed more meh than emergency.

When she went around her table and stood in front of him, he looked at her, the heavy cords of muscle that ran up the sides of his neck flexing as he tilted his head back.