Lover Unleashed

breaths, he said, “You asked me whether I would stay if I could? In a heartbeat. You are beautiful and sexy and I don’t know what the hell your mother or anyone else is doing comparing you to anything or anybody. Nothing comes close to you . . . on any level.”

As he spoke, he was lethally serious and abidingly sincere . . . and the acceptance he offered was as generous as it was unique: She had never gotten it from anyone. Even her own brother wanted to deny her her choice of mate.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“It’s not a compliment. That’s just the way it is.” Manuel kissed her mouth softly, and lingered with the contact. “But the Goateed Hater is still right, Payne.”

“Goateed . . . Hater?”

“Sorry. Little nickname I dreamed up for your twin.” He shrugged. “But even still, I really think he does have your best interests at heart, and you do need someone other than me long-term—whether I can stay here or not is just part of the problem.”

“Not in my eyes.”

“Then you need to see more clearly. I’m going to be dead in another four decades. If I’m lucky. Do you really want to watch me age? Die?”

She had to close her eyes and turn her head away at the thought of him passing away. “Fates . . . no.”

In the quiet that followed, the energy between them changed, shifting from everything sexual . . . to a different kind of yearning. And as if he felt as she did, he tucked her in against his body, holding her tightly within his strong arms.

“If there’s one thing that I’ve learned as a doctor,” he said, “it’s that biology prevails. You and I can do all the deciding we want, but the biological differences are nothing that we can change. My life expectancy is a fraction of yours—at most, we’d get a ten-year window before I’m in Cialis land.”

“What’s that?”

“A very, very flat, gelded place,” he said drily.

“Well . . . I would go there with you, Manuel.” She pulled back so she could look into his beautiful brown eyes. “Wherever it is.”

There was a beat of silence. And then he smiled sadly. “I love the way you say my name.”

Sighing, she put her head on his shoulder. “And I love saying it.”

As they stood there, one against the other, she wondered whether it was for the very last time. And that made her think of her brother. She was worried about Vishous and needed to talk with him, but he had chosen to leave her with no way of finding him.

So be it. Difficult as it was, she would let Vishous go temporarily for now . . . and focus on the male who was with her.

“I have something to ask of you,” she said to her healer—Manuel, she corrected herself.

“Name it.”

“Take me into your world. Show me . . . if not everything, then something.”

Manuel stiffened. “I don’t know if that’s such a hot idea. You’ve been on your feet for just over twelve hours at this point.”

“But I feel strong, and I have ways of dealing with travel.” Worse came to worst, she could just dematerialize back here to the compound: She knew from the seeing bowls that her brother had surrounded this facility with mhis, and that was a beacon she could readily find. “Trust me, I shall be in no danger.”

“How would we get out together, though?”

Payne stepped from his hold. “You re-dress your body whilst I take care of everything.” When it looked like he was going to argue, she shook her head. “You say biology always wins? Fine. But I say to you, we have this night —why should we waste it.”

“More time together . . . is only going to make it harder to leave.”

Oh, how that hurt. “You said you would grant me a favor. I have put it upon you. Is your word not your bond?”

His lips thinned out. But then he inclined his head. “Fair enough. I’ll go change.”

As he headed back to their room, she returned to the office and picked up the phone, as Jane and Ehlena had shown her how to do. The dialing went well enough—and the butler doggen answered in a cheery voice.

This had to work, she told herself. This absolutely had to work.

In the Old Language, she said, “This is Payne, blooded sister of the Black Dagger Brother Vishous, son of the Bloodletter. I should wish to speak with the king, if he would grant me the courtesy.”

THIRTY-SIX

As Vishous burst into the Pit from the underground tunnel, he had to wipe his bloody face with his palm so he could keep going down to the bedrooms. He supposed it was a good thing that the mirror had mostly bull’s-eyed, because it meant there were few shards in him—but in truth, he didn’t really give a shit.

When he came up to Butch and Marissa’s door, he knocked. Hard.

“Gimme a minute.”

Butch didn’t take that long to open up, and he was still pulling his robe on when he did. “What is—” That was as far as he got. “Jesus Christ . . . V.”

Over the guy’s shoulder, Marissa sat up in their bed, her cheeks flushed, her long blond hair tangled, the covers pulled up to her breasts and held there. Drowsy satisfaction was quickly replaced with shock.

“I should have just called.” V was impressed at the calm tone of his voice, and he tasted copper as he spoke. “But I don’t know where my phone is.”

As his stare locked onto his best friend’s, he felt like a diabetic desperate for insulin. Or maybe it was more like a heroin addict pining for a needle. Whatever the metaphor, he had to get out of himself or he was going to lose his mind and do something criminally stupid.

Like get his blades on and turn that surgeon into so much hamburger meat.

“I caught them together,” he heard himself say. “But don’t worry. The human is still breathing.”

And then he just stood there, the question that he’d come to ask as plain as the blood on his face.

Butch glanced back at his shellan. Without hesitation, she nodded, her eyes sad and kind and so understanding that V was momentarily touched—even in his numbed-out state.

“Go,” she said. “Take care of him. I love you.”

Butch nodded at her. Probably mouthed an “I love you” back.

Then he looked at V and muttered gruffly, “You go wait in the courtyard. I’ll bring the Escalade around—and get a towel from the bathroom, would ya? You look like Freddy-frickin’-Krueger.”

As the cop peeled off for the closet and ditched his robe to get dressed, V looked at the male’s shellan.

“It’s all right, Vishous,” she said. “It’s going to be all right.”

“I do not crave this.” But he needed it before he became a danger to himself and others.

“I know. And I love you, too.”

“You are a blessing beyond measure,” he pronounced in the Old Language.

And then he bowed to her and turned away.

When the world came back into focus sometime later, V found himself sitting on the passenger side of the Escalade. Butch was behind the wheel, and the pedal-metal routine the cop was pulling meant some serious mileage had been covered: The lights of downtown Caldwell were not just in the distance; they were all around, glimmering through the front and side windows.

The silence in the SUV was as tense as a dagger hand and as dense as a brick. And even as they closed in on