Lover At Last: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood

by J. R. Ward

  Indeed, he feared he was going to crack before she did.

  Taking his leave, he went up the stairs and into the kitchen. The first thing he did was go over to his phone, in case she had called or in the event that Audi of hers had finally moved after seven nights of going nowhere fast: The damn thing had been parked in front of that house since he’d paid his visit, as if she mayhap knew he’d put a tracer on it.

  Checking the screen, he saw that someone had called him, but it was a number that was not in his contact list.

  And there was a voice mail.

  He was not interested in fielding some human’s mis-dials, but as there was a chance it was a lesser breaking protocol, he knew he had to listen to the message.

  As he accessed it, he walked in the direction of his humidor. He’d been smoking a lot lately, and probably doing too much coke. Which was painfully counter-intuitive—if one was already twitchy and frustrated, adding stimulants to that internal chemistry was gasoline to a fire—

  “Hola. This is Sola’s grandmother. I am trying to reach…an Assail…please?” Assail stopped dead in the middle of his living room. “Please call me back now? Thank you—”

  With a feeling of dread, he cut the message off and hit Call Back.

  One ring. Two rings—

  “¿Hola?”

  Indeed, he didn’t know her name. “This is Assail, madam. Are you all right?”

  “No, no—I am not. I found your number on her bedside table so I call. There is something wrong.”

  He gripped his iPhone hard. “Tell me.”

  “She is gone. She came home, but then she leave out the door right after she arrived—I hear her go? Except all of her things, her backpack, her car, it is all here. I was sleeping and I hear downstairs, someone is moving. I call out her name and no one answered—then I hear this hard noise—loud sound—and so I come down. The front door is open, and I fear she has been taken—I do no know what to do. She always told me, we do not call the police. I do not know—”

  “Shh, it is all right. You did the correct thing. I’m coming directly.”

  Assail ran to the front door without bothering to communicate with the twins; nothing was on his mind except getting over to that little house as fast as he could.

  A second was all it took to dematerialize, and as he resumed form in the front yard, he thought that of all the scenarios he’d run through in his mind for coming back, this was not it.

  As the grandmother reported, the Audi was parked on the street at the end of the walkway. Just where it had been. But what was of note? There was a scramble of messy footfalls disturbing the snow, the trail crossing the lawn to the street in a diagonal pattern.

  She’s been kidnapped, Assail thought.

  Goddamn it.

  Jogging up the squat steps, he hit the doorbell and stamped his feet. The idea that someone had taken his female—

  The door opened and the woman on the other side was visibly shaken. And then she seemed further taken aback as she took him in with her eyes. “You are…Assail?”

  “Yes. Please let me in, madam, and I shall be of aid to you.”

  “You are not the man who came before.”

  “Not that you saw, madam. Now, please, let me in.”

  As Marisol’s grandmother stepped aside, she lamented, “Oh, I do not know where she is. Mãe de Deus, she is gone, gone….”

  He glanced around the tidy little living room, and then stalked out into the kitchen to look at the back door. Intact. Opening it wide, he leaned out. No footprints other than those he’d left a week ago. Closing things back up and locking the dead bolt, he returned to her grandmother.

  “You were upstairs?”

  “Sí. In the bed. As I said, I was asleep. I hear her come in, but I was half-awake. Then I hear…that sound, of someone falling. I say I come down, then the front door opens.”

  “Did you see a car drive off?”

  “Sí. But it was very far away, and the license plate—nothing.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I called you fifteen, maybe twenty minutes after. I went to her room and looked around—that is where I found the napkin with your number on it.”

  “Has anyone called?”

  “No one.”

  He checked his watch, and then grew concerned about how pale the elderly woman was. “Here, madam, sit down.”

  As he settled her onto the floral couch in the living room, she took out a dainty handkerchief and pressed it to her eyes. “She is my life.”

  Assail tried to remember how humans addressed their superiors. “Mrs.—ah, Mrs….”

  “Carvalho. My husband was Brazilian. I am Yesenia Carvalho.”

  “Mrs. Carvalho, I need to ask you some questions.”

  “Can you help me? My granddaughter is—”

  “Look into my eyes.” When the woman did, he said in a low voice, “There is nothing I will not do to bring her back. Do you understand what I’m saying.”

  As he sent his intention out into the air between him, Mrs. Carvalho’s eyes narrowed. Then, after a moment, she calmed and nodded once—as if she approved of his means, though there was a good chance they were going to be violent. “What do you need to know?”

  “Is there anyone you can think of who would want to hurt her?”

  “She is a good girl. She works at an office nights. She keeps to herself.”

  So Marisol hadn’t told her grandmother anything about what she really did. This was good. “Does she have any assets?”

  “Money, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “We are simple people.” She eyed his handmade, tailored clothes. “We have nothing but this house.”

  Somehow he doubted that, even though he knew little of his woman’s life: He found it hard to believe she hadn’t made some cash doing what she did—and she certainly didn’t have to pay taxes on the kind of income she’d been bringing in from the likes of Benloise.

  But he feared that a ransom call was not going to be forthcoming.

  “I do not know what to do.”

  “Mrs. Carvalho, I do not want you to worry.” He got to his feet. “I shall handle this promptly.”

  Her eyes narrowed again, belying an intelligence that made him think of her granddaughter. “You know who did this, do you?”

  Assail bowed low as a measure of respect. “I shall bring her back to you.”

  The question was how many people he was going to have to kill to get that done—and whether Marisol herself was going to be alive at the end of it.

  The mere thought of bodily harm to that woman had him growling in his throat, his fangs descending, the civilized part of him shedding as the skin from a cobra.

  Whilst Assail left the modest house, he had a feeling what this was all about, and if he was right? Even just twenty minutes into the kidnapping, he might well be too late.

  In which case, a certain business associate of his was going to learn new lessons in pain.

  And Assail was going to be the man’s teacher.

  EIGHTY

  Layla stayed in the Mercedes. It was warm in the interior, and the seat was comfortable, and she felt safe within the confines of the great steel cage around her. And she had a landscape of sorts to ponder: The headlights shone brightly in front of the car, the beams reaching out into the night quite some distance before fading.

  After a while, flurries began to float downward through the illumination, their lazy, circuitous routes suggesting that they didn’t want their descent from the clouds above to end.

  As she sat in silence, cycling the engine on and off as Qhuinn had taught her to do during cold weather, her mind was not blank. No, her mind was not empty at all. Although she stared straight ahead and took note of the silent snowfall, and the straightaway of the road, and the peaceful farmland…what she saw was that fighter. That traitor.

  That male who seemed always with her, especially when she was by herself.

  Even as she sat alone in
this car out in the middle of nowhere, his presence was tangible, her memories of him so strong, she could swear he was within reach. And the yearning…dearest Virgin Scribe, the yearning she felt was nothing she could share with any of those whom she loved.

  It was such a cruel fate to have a reaction like this to one who was—

  Layla jerked back in the seat, a shout breaching her lips and resonating through the interior of the car.

  At first, she was unsure whether what had materialized in the beams was in fact real: Xcor appeared to be standing with his boots planted on the road ahead, his huge, leather-clad body seeming to absorb the twin beams of light as a black hole would.

  “No,” she barked. “No!”

  She wasn’t sure who she was talking to, or what she was denying. But one thing was clear—as he took a step forward, and then another, she knew that the soldier was not a figment of her mind or her terrible desires, but very much real.

  Put the car in gear, she told herself. Put it in gear, and hit the gas pedal hard.

  Flesh and blood, even as terrifyingly fierce as his, was no match for an impact like that.

  “No,” she hissed, as he came ever closer.

  His face was exactly as she had remembered: perfectly symmetrical, with high cheekbones, narrowed eyes, and a permanent frown between his straight brows. His upper lip was twisted up, such that he appeared to be snarling, and his body…his body moved like a great animal’s, his shoulders shifting with barely restrained power, his heavy thighs carrying him forward with the promise of brutal strength.

  And yet…she was not afraid.

  “No,” she moaned.

  He stopped when he was but a foot from the car’s grille, his leather coat blowing out to the side of him, his weapons gleaming. His arms were down at his sides, but they did not stay that way. He reached up, moving slowly….

  To remove something from his back.

  A weapon of some kind. Which he laid upon the vehicle.

  And then his hands, those black leather-clad hands, went to the front of his chest…and he took two guns out from under that coat. And daggers from the holster that crossed his pectorals. And a length of chain. And something that flashed but which she didn’t recognize.

  He put it all on the hood of the car.

  Then he stepped back. Held his arms aloft. And turned in a slow circle.

  Layla breathed hard.

  She was not of a warring nature. Never had been. But she knew instinctively that within the code of the warrior, to disarm yourself before another was a kind of vulnerability not easily taken. He remained deadly, of course—a male of his build and training was capable of killing simply with bare hands.

  He was offering himself to her, however.

  Proving in the most visible way possible that he meant her no harm.

  Layla’s hand went to the row of buttons on the side panel beside her and froze there. She was not still, however—she breathed heavily, as if she were in flight, her heart pounding, sweat dotting her upper lip….

  She unlocked the doors.

  The Scribe Virgin help her…but she unlocked the doors.

  As the punching sound reverberated around the interior, Xcor’s eyes closed briefly, his expression loosening, as if he had been given a gift he had not expected. Then he came around….

  When he opened the far side, cold air rushed in, and then his big body folded itself into the seat beside her own. The door shut solidly, and they turned to each other.

  With the interior lights glowing, she was able to get an even better look at him. He was breathing heavily, too, his broad chest pumping up and down, his mouth slightly open. He looked harsh, the thin veil of civility stripped from his features—or more aptly, it had likely never been there. And yet though others would have called him ugly because of his deformity, to her…he was beautiful.

  And that was a sin.

  “You are real,” she said to herself.

  “Aye.” His voice was deep and resonant, a caress in her ears. But then it cracked, as if he were in pain. “And you are with young.”

  “I am.”

  He closed his eyes again, but now it was as if he’d been struck by a body blow. “I saw you.”

  “When?”

  “At the clinic. Nights and nights ago. I thought they had beaten you.”

  “The Brotherhood? Why ever—”

  “Because of me.” His eyes opened, and there was such anguish in them, she wanted to comfort him in some way. “I would never have chosen for you to be in this position. You are not of the war, and my lieutenant should never, ever have brought you into it.” His voice grew deeper and deeper. “You are an innocent. Even I, who have no honor, recognized that instantly.”

  If he had no honor, why had he disarmed himself just now, she thought.

  “Are you mated?” he said roughly.

  “No.”

  Abruptly, his upper lip peeled back from tremendous fangs. “If you were raped—”

  “No. No, no—I chose this for myself. For the male.” Her hand went to her abdomen. “I wanted a young. My needing came, and all I could think of was how much I wanted to be a mahmen to something that was mine.”

  Those narrowed eyes closed again, and he brought up a callused hand to his face. Hiding his irregular mouth, he said, “I wish that I…”

  “What?”

  “…I were worthy to have given you what you desired.”

  Layla again felt an unholy need to reach out and touch him, to ease him in some way. His reaction was so raw and honest, and his suffering seemed rather like her own whenever she thought of him.

  “Tell me that they are treating you well in spite of your having aided me?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Very well indeed.”

  He dropped his hand and let his head fall back as if in relief. “That is good. That is…good. And you must forgive me for coming here. I sensed you, and found I was unable to deny myself.”

  As if he were attracted to her. As if he…wanted her.

  Oh, dearest Virgin Scribe, she thought, as her body warmed from the inside out.

  His eyes appeared to latch onto the tree out in the field beyond. “Do you think of that night?” he said in a soft voice.

  Layla looked down at her hands. “Yes.”

  “And it pains you, does it not.”

  “Yes.”

  “Myself as well. You are e’er on my mind, but for a different reason, I venture to guess.”

  Layla took a deep breath as her heart pounded anew in her ears. “I’m not certain…it is so different from your own.”

  She heard his head snap around.

  “What did you say?” he breathed.

  “I believe…you heard me quite well.”

  Instantly, a vital tension sprang up between them, shrinking the space they inhabited, bringing them closer even though neither of them moved.

  “Must you be their enemy,” she thought aloud.

  There was a long silence. “It is too late now. Actions have been taken that cannae be undone through words nor vows.”

  “I wish it were not so.”

  “On this night, in this moment…I wish that as well.”

  Now her own head turned quickly. “Mayhap there is a way—”

  He reached out and silenced her with his fingertip, laying it ever so gently upon her mouth.

  As his eyes focused on her lips, a nearly imperceptible growl vibrated out of him…but he didn’t allow it to continue for long, shutting the sound off as if he didn’t want to burden her, or mayhap frighten her.

  “You are in my dreams,” he murmured. “Every day, you haunt me. Your scent, your voice, your eyes…this mouth.”

  He shifted his hand around and brushed her lower lip with his callused thumb.

  Closing her lids, Layla leaned into the touch, knowing that this was all she would ever get from him. They were on opposite sides of the war, and though she knew not the particulars, she had heard enough in the household
to know that he was right.

  He could not undo what he had done.

  And that meant they were going to kill him.

  “I cannae believe you let me touch you.” His voice grew hoarse. “I shall remember this for all my nights.”

  Tears speared into her eyes. Dearest Virgin Scribe, for all her life, she had waited for a moment like this….

  “Do not cry.” His thumb went to her cheeks. “Beautiful female of worth, do not cry.”

  If any had told her someone as harsh as he was capable of such compassion, she would not have believed them. But he was. With her, he was.

  “I shall go,” he said abruptly.

  Her instinct was to beg him to be careful…but that would mean she was wishing Wrath’s dethroner well.

  “Lovely Chosen, know this. If e’er you need me, I shall be there.”

  He took something out of his pocket—a phone. Facing it toward her, he lit up the screen with the touch of a button. “Can you read this number?”

  Layla blinked hard and forced her eyes to focus. “Yes. I can.”

  “That is me. You know how to find me. And if your conscience demands you give this information to the Brotherhood, I will understand.”

  He couldn’t read the numbers, she realized—and not for lack of visual acuity.

  Whatever kind of life had he led, she wondered sadly.

  “Be well, my beautiful Chosen,” he said, as he stared at her with the eyes of not just a lover, but a hellren.

  And then he was gone without another word, leaving the car, picking up his weapons and arming himself…

  …before dematerializing into the night.

  Layla immediately covered her face with her hands, her shoulders beginning to quake, her head sagging, her emotions overflowing.

  Caught in the middle, between her mind and her soul, she was torn asunder even as she remained whole.

  EIGHTY-ONE

  “Come in.”

  As Blay spoke up, he glanced over the top of A Confederacy of Dunces—and was surprised to find Beth walking into his room.