Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(9)

The fighter did not lower his standards, did not bend to any kind of battle stress, and never got tired or admitted defeat.

Except, apparently, in this situation.

“I gotta go.” Balz tried the pockets in his leathers, even though he always kept his hand-rolleds in his jacket. But like he expected V’s nicotine sticks to sprout like mushrooms on his ass? “I just… gotta go.”

“Where? Seriously. Where are you going?”

“I’m already in Hell,” Balz replied grimly. “The precise location of my body is irrelevant.”

With that, he took off, dematerializing into the cold, damp spring air. The only thing he knew for sure was that he had to stay awake. As long as he had even the thinnest grasp of consciousness, the demon couldn’t get at him, at least not fully.

What he needed was some wakey-wakey that was more reliable than his will alone.

Time to go downtown.





CHAPTER THREE




Caldwell Insurance Building

13th and Trade Streets

As the demon Devina sat in her secret basement lair, surrounded by her clothing collection and all her precious shoes and accessories, she was feeling pretty fucking premenstrual: She was irritated to the point of wanting a shotgun, seriously considering cracking open a pint of H?agen-Dazs chocolate chocolate chip, and she might—might—be getting teary. The only thing she had going for her was that she wasn’t bloated.

Then again, when you could conjure up your body at will, you didn’t have to worry about water retention.

She wasn’t about to get her period, though.

That goddamn fucker, Balthazar. That cheating fool.

And oh, he’d been sneaky, too, hiding that human woman in the way-back of his mental meat locker while he deliberately stayed awake.

After a good couple of days of not being able to get to him, she’d been so damned excited when he’d slipped up and fallen asleep by that house fire smudge-fest in the ’burbs. All she’d needed was a momentary departure of his conscious mind and she’d jumped at the chance to take him on her terms again.

Say what you would about the vampire, but dayum. He had a magic wand between his legs, he really did.

Except the second she’d gotten her hands on him, literally, she’d received a nasty surprise from his memory banks, sure as if he were a house-trained dog who’d left a pile of shit on the living room rug. A woman, a human woman, with an average face and a suit that was right out of T.J. Maxx, was on his mind.

Unbelievable. Even though Devina was the fuck of the century, once again, some idiot with a cock was looking in an opposite direction when they should have been seeing her, and her alone.

And this wasn’t the only time she’d been jilted. Jim Heron, her one true love, hadn’t wanted her—had chosen a pasty-faced virgin over her, for fuck’s sake. Then Butch, the Black Dagger Brother, had likewise passed because he was married. Mated. Whatever. And sure there were other fish in the sea, but as for all the other humans in Caldwell? They were easy marks for her and therefore uninteresting except for a now-and-then orgasm on her part.

Maybe a murder if she was bored and felt like playing.

Well, and she had been making entrées out of some of their hearts.

“Fat lot that’s gotten me.”

As her temper—which was on a hair trigger on a good night—started to boil over, she went on a stomp up and down the racks and racks of haute couture fashion she had collected over the years. Even though the silks and satins, velvets and brocades, were usually enough to buoy even her worst mood, none of it helped.

All she wanted to do was wreck something.

That was the thought that went through her mind as she came up to her Birkin display. And of course, something already had been wrecked there, hadn’t it.

“Thank you, Mae,” she snapped.

Struggling to control herself, she focused on her babies, her favorites among favorites, her prides and joys. The gold-leafed table supporting the Hermès purses was a good eight feet long and six feet wide, and on it were more than a dozen Birkins in different sizes, colors, and skins, all arranged on Lucite stands that ascended in height, forming a veritable Mont Blanc of beauties. She had lisse porosus crocodile in rose tyrien, and black matte niloticus croc, and Horseshoes that were combinations of rouge casaque and black, as well as ètoupe and gold, and white and gris. There were also four ostriches, two lizards, and a Touch.

The only thing she refused to have were the 25s. Too small. She liked the 30s and the 35s.

“You would never forsake me,” she whispered to them as if they were good little children. “You are always here for me.”

Yeah, assuming no one came in like a serial killer and brutally dismembered somebody in her collection.

The demon needed to brace herself before she could bear to look at the top of the display, at the highest Lucite stand… at the crucifix on her altar to the atelier’s very best creation.

“Oh, God…” She clutched the center of her chest as the pain hit as fresh as it had when she’d found the bag destroyed. “Oh…”

For the last three nights, she had not been able to bear the sight of the burned Birkin corpse. But she hadn’t been able to get rid of it, either.

Then again, the Himalayan crocodile with the diamond hardware was the rarest and most spectacular of all the world’s handbags—and even more valuable because she had the matching diamond bangle. With a central snowy-white skin that faded on both sides to browns, grays, and a sprinkling of blacks, not only was the masterpiece a shining beacon in her collection, it was the very finest testimony to the fact that the best things in life were not actually free.