The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp)

by J. R. Ward

  So they knew just how to act.

  As Nyx walked off, she willed the candles to extinguish their flames one by one. Until there was nothing but a shroud of darkness over her sister’s final resting place.

  In the end, Nyx did not find what she had come looking for.

  It was kind of a theme with the prison, wasn’t it. The first time she had gone underground, she’d been searching for Janelle—and ultimately been denied. The second time? No Jack, anywhere.

  As she reemerged aboveground, coming out of his handmade passageway, she walked off without any direction . . . eventually making circles around one particular bush that had all the grace and beauty of a porcupine. Full of prickers and with leaves the color of dust, it seemed like the right kind of proverbial sun to orbit.

  Given how she was feeling.

  The Brothers and her grandfather came out as well, and the males stood together and talked, hands on hips, heavy-jawed faces nodding in the way males did when they had seen and done something serious.

  She let them go.

  She had different problems than they did.

  While they were discussing options for clearing out the bodies, and then strategies for finding where the prison had gone, she was steaming angry.

  The rage—wait, that was the blond Brother’s name, wasn’t it—the Rhage she was feeling was out of line, but undeniable. And it took her at least three trips around her bush to realize where it was coming from.

  No body.

  Jack’s body hadn’t been down there. Not in the Command’s private area, and not when she had insisted on going farther into the partially collapsed Hive.

  So he had left with the rest of the prisoners. Or he was somewhere in the tunnel system—either avoiding her or maybe dying.

  Or he was out in the world. Without her.

  Whatever it was, she couldn’t find him—and she was pissed off. Damn it, if he had only come with her. If he had put that secret tunnel to use with her, he could have had exactly what he’d been looking for—

  “Nyxanlis?”

  At the sound of her formal name, she shook herself back to attention. Her grandfather had come over, and he was looking as if he wasn’t sure whether her brain had broken.

  “I’m fine?” She put it as a question because she wasn’t sure what he had asked her. Wasn’t sure that she actually was “fine.”

  “We’re going to the farmhouse. All of us.”

  “Okay.” As her eyes went to the trapdoor, she saw that one of the Brothers was kicking earth over the panel, keeping it hidden. “I’ll come with.”

  Like she had any other place to go?

  One by one, the Brothers dematerialized, and she had a thought about what Posie was going to do when these warriors with their black daggers strapped handles down on their huge barrel chests showed up in the side yard.

  She’d better go now so she could help with the inevitable hospitality that would be offered, Nyx thought as she ghosted out . . .

  . . . and yet as she traveled in a scatter of molecules, she did not head home.

  She rerouted.

  When she resumed her corporeal form, it was in front of the abandoned church, the place she had gone at the start of everything, the clue that the pretrans—now known as Peter—had given her.

  Moonlight fell over the chipped clapboards and penetrated through the arched window cutouts where those stained glass windows had once been.

  Taking out a burner phone, she texted her sister just so no one worried when she didn’t show up immediately. She didn’t give her location, though.

  She needed a minute.

  As that Brother with the blue eyes went back to meet what had to be his nephew for the first time, maybe she should have been there. But Posie had taken care of the young, and it was clear a strong bond had formed between the pair of them. She would handle things.

  Nyx silenced her phone and started walking. She stopped halfway down the flank of the church and remembered dematerializing up to the sill to peer down into the tangled roof collapse.

  Continuing on, she went to the cemetery and pulled open the gate.

  In and among the headstones, there was a scorch mark in the earth a good seven feet long and four feet wide, all the ground cover burned away, the soil black as night, the graves around it charred on their edges. She’d been right about one thing, then. The guard had gone up in smoke when the sun had come out.

  The crypt’s door was solidly shut, and she had a random thought that that stone panel had gotten more action in the last few days than the previous couple of decades: Peter. Herself. The guard. And there must have been other guards from the prison who had come out to check on things. That was what had led to the shutdown.

  She wasn’t sure why she had to go in. It wasn’t like there had been anything inside the crypt except the sarcophagus. But for her peace of mind—assuming she ever found any of that ever again—she had to retrace her steps tonight.

  That was the only way she was going to make it through the day, stuck indoors with nothing but her incessant thoughts, her dragging sadness, and this irrational anger that—

  At first, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at.

  As she pulled the heavy door open, and the hinges creaked, and the interior was revealed . . . there appeared to be a pile of clothes in the far corner down on the dusty marble floor.

  Clothes that were the color of shadows.

  And that was when she caught the scent.

  “Jack!” she screamed as she rushed in.

  From out of his delirium, Jack heard his name called.

  His brain told him this was significant. This was important. This . . . meant something.

  But he didn’t have enough energy to lift his head. Move his facedown body. Shift even an arm or a foot. He’d been bleeding for quite a while now, ever since—

  “Jack, oh, God, Jack . . .”

  Gentle hands rolled him over on his side, and that was when his eyes provided him with a vision he had been praying for. The visage above him was that of an angel, an inexplicable angel. His female. His beloved female.

  Nyx was talking to him, her mouth moving, her eyes wide and scared. And though he wanted to reassure her, he couldn’t seem to speak.

  It was all right, though. Even if this last moment was all he had?

  His prayers had been answered. All he had wanted, as he had lain here dying, was to see his female one last time. And here she was—

  Nyx was putting something to her ear. A device of some sort, thin and glowing. And she was talking into it, urgently.

  Then she put whatever it was away in a pocket, pulled back her sleeve, and bared her fangs. For a moment, he was confused—and then he realized . . .

  No, he thought. She didn’t have to. It was enough that she was here, although he would have spared her witnessing his last moments if he could have—

  Abruptly, the scent of her blood reached his nose, and it stirred something deep within him, a heat, a drive . . . something vital.

  She put the puncture wounds she had bitten into her own flesh to his mouth, and he meant to say no. He intended to turn her generosity away . . . because the last thing he wanted was her trying to save him, failing, and having to live with some misplaced sense of blame.

  But the instant her blood dropped onto his lips, his survival instinct took over.

  Jack latched on and drank deep, swallowing what she gave him, nursing at the source of strength. As he swallowed the heavenly wine of her blood, electricity flowed through his body, animating him within moments. And her taste was so good, so overpowering, that he closed his eyes so he could concentrate on it. Savor it. Relish it.

  When he opened his lids later—it could have been two minutes or twenty—there were people with them inside the crypt, big males with black daggers on their—

  Jack’s eyes locked on one he recognized.

  Rhage. The Black Dagger Brother, who he had not seen for . . . a century? Since he had been
falsely accused.

  Would there be trouble, Jack wondered. Would he be treated as an escaped prisoner?

  The idea of being sent back underground was enough to get him to release the vein that was saving him.

  “Jack,” Nyx said. “You’re not finished.”

  He looked up at her. He wanted to tell her no, it was fine. It was enough.

  Instead, Rhage came over and knelt down. The Brother’s blue eyes were so intense, they seemed to glow blue.

  After a long moment of staring, the warrior rubbed his face.

  “Welcome back, brother mine,” he said hoarsely.

  Nyx wanted to give the two males time to connect. Or was it reconnect? She had a feeling they didn’t know each other well—or perhaps at all.

  And given the way they were staring at each other, it was clear they were both shell-shocked.

  But this was still a life or death situation.

  “Jack, you have to keep drinking before we can move you and get you medical attention.”

  His eyes swung up to her. And then a slight smile played at his lips.

  “I love you,” he said on a croak.

  Nyx promptly forgot about everything: The males standing around inside the crypt—including her grandfather. The fact that Jack had some kind of a raw wound on the inside of his leg that had leaked out an alarming amount of blood. The reality that they were just outside one of the prison’s entrances, and if there was anyone left in there who was dangerous, they were sitting ducks.

  She glanced at the Brothers. They all had weapons in their hands, and it was clear they were ready to fight.

  Okay, fine. Maybe she didn’t have to worry about any kind of attack with them around. But still.

  Refocusing on Jack, she stroked back the hair that had loosened from his braid.

  “I love you,” he repeated. His voice was so weak, the words barely carried. Yet given how everyone went still, it was clear they had been heard.

  “I love you, too,” Nyx said as she blinked back tears. “Now please, keep drinking—”

  “You had the courage to go in,” he interrupted. “You . . . had the courage to go in. I needed to find the courage to get out. For you, I wanted to get out.”

  “You did.” She caressed his hair, his face, his shoulder. And as much as she wanted to hear everything he had to say, it was more important for him to feed. “We’ll talk later. Just take this—”

  “No.” He pushed her arm away when she tried to put her wrist back to his mouth. “I am revived enough.”

  As if to prove the point, he went to sit up—and to his credit, his torso did make it to the vertical. But then he looked down at the wound on his leg and wobbled.

  “We need to wrap that up,” the goateed Brother said. “Before you even think of moving.”

  There was a ripping sound, and someone passed their shirt over.

  “I‘ll go get the station wagon,” her grandfather said as he went to leave. “It’ll take me ten minutes.”

  Damn it, Jack wasn’t going to drink any more from her. Licking the wounds at her wrist closed, Nyx settled for holding his hand as he hissed and groaned while his thigh was wrapped up.

  And then she was his primary support as they got him up on his feet to see if he could stand.

  Which was when she noticed he had something in his hand.

  It was her windbreaker. He had her windbreaker somehow.

  “Pass card,” he said.

  Nyx glanced up his drawn face. “What?”

  Lifting the windbreaker, he unhooked his arm from hers and unzipped one of the pockets. The card that came out was smudged with blood. His.

  “This was in the pocket.” His voice got stronger with every syllable. “When the barricades retracted, I went back to where I’d first seen you, back to where you had come in through. I’d been bitten by that animal from the basket before I killed it, and I was sure that I was going to bleed out—except as I collapsed against the wall, the exit opened. I had your windbreaker around my neck and . . . this saved me. I used it twice.”

  “Lean on your female,” the goateed Brother ordered. “You’re losing color in your face again. You’re about to pass out—”

  Jack went lax before the Brother finished, and Nyx caught her mate, grunting as his heavy weight had to be held up.

  But she refused any help from anyone.

  He was hers.

  She was going to get him to the car on her own.

  The next thing Jack was aware of . . . was softness. Softness under his body. Under his head. Along one side of him.

  His lids flipped open, consciousness returning with a speed and clarity that told him exactly how far Nyx’s blood had gone to revive him. And his first thought was—

  “I’m right here.”

  Nyx leaned forward and put her face in his line of vision. She was incredibly beautiful to him, with her dark hair pulled back, and her cheeks flushed from emotion, and her eyes glowing with unshed tears.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hi.” She smiled tentatively. “We have a doctor coming.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “That bite wound is really nasty. We can’t risk infection.”

  There was a pause as they both looked at each other, re-memorizing, re-affirming, re-establishing the connection that he had been sure was broken forever.

  He reached up and stroked her cheek. The side of her throat. “You’re alive.”

  “And so are you.”

  Jack glanced around at the homey decor. “Is this your home?”

  “It is. We’re in my bedroom.”

  Voices percolated from somewhere close by, low and calm. He recognized some of them from the crypt. “Am I really out?”

  “Yes, you’re really out. You’re free.”

  Jack took a deep breath. He wanted to celebrate—he truly did. “I’m glad,” he said because he didn’t want her to feel anything but joy.

  He, however, had left something behind. Someone. Who he had searched for and had not found, living or dead.

  Abruptly, Nyx leaned back from her kneeling position by the bed. And as she started motioning with her hand, he shook his head.

  “No,” Jack said. “I don’t need a doctor—”

  As a slight figure stepped into view, Jack thought . . .

  No, no. This was so unfair.

  This was a nightmare clothed in the symbols of a dream, the kind of thing that stung the heart when you woke up and realized your female was not with you and your son was still dead—

  “Father?”

  Jack’s body began to shake and he sat up slowly, as if he might wake if he moved too fast. Shifting his feet to the rug one at a time, he paused.

  When nothing changed . . . when Nyx still seemed to be beside him, and his son still seemed to be in front of him in the doorway, he stood up. If his injury hurt as his leg bore his weight, he didn’t feel it.

  He took a step forward. And then another.

  “Son?” he said hoarsely.

  Feeling as though he were taking a chance with his own life, he opened up his arms.

  “Father!”

  His young raced forward and grabbed on. And as the warmth of the slight body registered, and the familiar scent flooded his nose, Jack cradled the one he had sought in an embrace that took his breath away, even as it warmed his heart.

  After a moment of squeezing his eyes shut, he looked over the head of that which he had been convinced he had lost . . . to the love of his life.

  Who he had never expected to find.

  Nyx had to cover her mouth as she regarded the sight of Jack holding Peter to his big chest. The young was impossibly small against his father’s great strength, so it seemed right that the two of them were reunited at last.

  The young needed his sire’s protection in this world.

  Especially as they both got used to living in the up-above.

  Glancing through the open doorway, she nodded at Posie and her grandfather, wh
o were holding hands. When they ducked out of sight into the kitchen, she heard the back door open and close and guessed the Brothers were departing for now. They would return. On the car ride back home, Rhage, the blond one, had said they wanted as many details as possible about the prison and how it functioned and what kind of equipment it had.

  There would be time for that later, though.

  And a healer was coming any minute.

  Nyx refocused on Jack and the pretrans. The two had pulled back a little and were studying each other, both clearly looking for injuries.

  “Are you okay, father? Your leg is—”

  “I’m going to be perfectly fine.” Jack patted the young’s shoulder. “But how are you here? How do you know my Nyx?”

  “It was an accident, father.”

  “What?”

  Nyx spoke up. “Posie and I were driving home—”

  “And I ran out into the road,” Peter chimed in.

  “We hit him by mistake. It was a total accident.”

  “But they saved me. Posie nursed me back to health.”

  Yeah, on that note? Nyx was convinced that her sister had willed the pretrans to pull through: Posie had been utterly determined that he wasn’t going to die on her watch, and what do you know. Even the Grim Reaper had been afraid of the female’s cheerful brand of not-having-it.

  “Posie’s my sister,” Nyx explained. “My other sister. Anyway, that was how it all started. In his delirium, your son was talking about where he had come from, where he had escaped from.”

  Peter looked up at his father. “I wanted them to save you. I wanted her to go back and get you out because I wasn’t strong enough to.”

  Jack cupped his son’s face in his broad hand. “You did?”

  As the pretrans nodded, Nyx could only shake her head. “What can I say. It was meant to be.”

  When Jack held out an arm, she wasn’t sure what he was doing. But then she realized . . .

  Nyx got up on her feet and walked over in a daze. She paused, not wanting to crowd them, not wanting to intrude if she was somehow misreading the situation—

  Peter grabbed on and pulled her in, and then Jack wrapped his big, strong arms . . . around the both of them.