Lover Arisen, page 30
“You could come with me. I could keep you safe—”
“I have my own life.”
“You could bring it with you.”
“A homicide detective’s job? Really? How’s that going to work.”
Balthazar opened his mouth. Closed it.
“It’s okay.” She smiled in a sad way. “I have only one thing to ask.”
“Anything. Whatever you want.”
Her eyes traveled all around his face, and then went lower, to his chest, to his straining arousal.
“Before you leave me,” she said, “let me know you. Let me know… all of you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Back in Devina’s lair, the demon refocused on the door her supposed true love had just waltzed out of, and her first instinct was to shrew her way after him and demand an accounting for exactly why he wasn’t falling in line like the good little love soldier he was supposed to be. Fuck the Omega shit. She didn’t care who he was. Civilian vampire, dumbass human, seat of all evil in the universe? His lineage wasn’t her slowdown.
She was owed him. It was like a transaction where she’d ponied up the money, but the merchandise hadn’t arrived.
Unable to curb her anger, determined to go out into Caldwell and drag him back here by all that Cali-surfer hair of his, she extended her Louboutin forward through the door…
Something in her snapped and she stopped.
It was such a defining moment, such an abrupt shift, that she could have sworn she heard the sound of a tree limb cracking off its trunk. And in the immediate aftermath, her vengeance instantly rebounded, her impulse to take what was hers resurging—
Except it happened again. As she put her foot out for a second time, she heard that weird noise and couldn’t proceed.
Looking over her shoulder, she glared at the Book. It remained open, although for once, it wasn’t acting up. It was just mounted on its invisi-stand, floating at the wall, still and silent.
Devina ran her fingers through her hair and pulled the two halves of her blouse back together. When that didn’t feel like enough of a glow-up, she went over to her three-sided, floor-to-ceiling mirror and pulled an all-angle pivot, checking herself out.
All she saw was perfection: Perfect body, perfect face, perfect hair, perfect smile.
“Have some dignity,” she told her reflection. “Enough with the chasing.”
When she finally turned away from the gorgeous brunette in all the glass, she was calmer, her pot off the boil, even if it was still next to the stove. With a calm, deliberate stride, she headed back over to the Book.
Her therapist had always preached, Breathe and relax. Just breathe and relax when things got dramatic. The woman had maintained it was because emotion changed, but reality didn’t, and to the extent to which one could frame emotions, both positive and negative, one could remain in control even when the world was spinning in ways that screwed you.
Back during Devina’s fifty-minutes-once-a-week era, she’d disregarded the advice. Now? After Jim Heron, the man she’d been obsessed with, had picked a goddamn virgin over her… after a string of losers had passed on her… after she’d pity-fucked countless humans… it was time to find her spine. No more fury surges, no more stamping around and begging for attention.
“I’ve started this,” she said to the open pages of the Book. “And I’m going to finish it. What am I missing.”
For the first time, her eyes focused properly on the wording that had been created for her and her alone. No more skipping over and catching bits and pieces, no more skimming. She read each and every word, and let them sink in:
Love is perfect, but does not require perfection.
Read this three times in a row without ceasing.
That which you project shall come back unto you.
Regard a cherished object as you wish to be regarded. Cradle upon the palm as you wish to be held. Embrace to your bosom that which is inanimate and feel for it as you wish to be felt for.
The choice of object is critical. The more meaningful, the better outcome.
When the connection is made, the window will open and your desire shall appear. Grasp he who shall be revealed, pull him forth, and be united.
A moment of love is free to you as a sentient being. All who exist are deserving of love.
But if you seek an eternity, you must sacrifice that which you seek.
A true love must die for yours to survive.
Balance in all things.
Balance in all things, she thought. That was some Scribe Virgin shit.
Just for good measure, she ran through the lines two more times in the same fashion, setting each of the words to memory. It was strange. She’d missed a lot of them, even though she’d assumed she’d read every letter of every syllable.
Then she put her hand on the page, splaying out her fingers. A sudden warmth suffused her palm, and as you would a dog, she petted the parchment. Old Devina—the Devina who had existed two and a half minutes ago—would have stomped and yelled and then run off into chaos. New Devina was not going to do that.
A true love must die for yours to survive.
How had she missed that part before? Especially when the shit had gone disco and all the lines had lit up like a rainbow? Why hadn’t she seen this?
But like that mattered. What was important was that she needed to follow directions—sure, she’d done the first part just fine, but there was a second step here.
And if the Book’s spell required her to ruin true love to get the job done with her lover? Fine. She was going to enjoy the moment that that blond Adonis with the Omega in his DNA came crawling back to her, brought to heel by the prescription laid out by the spell.
Retracting her hand, she considered her options.
Then she started to smile.
Well, she knew just where to go with this, didn’t she.
* * *
As Balz stared down into the glowing eyes of a human female who he’d give anything and everything to if he could, he wanted to deny what she’d said. He wanted to tell her that, actually, there already was a homicide detective in his world—and other humans, too. Manny Manello, for example. And Doc Jane. And Sarah. And Mary.
But as soon as he generated the list, the primary fault in the argument became readily apparent: Each one of those people had given up their human identity and existence. So it wasn’t so much that humans couldn’t be in his world. It was that they had to pick.
Butch O’Neal had left homicide even before he’d learned who he really was.
The others had given up their lives on the human side when they chose to be with their vampire mates. Doc Jane was dead as far as the humans in her life knew. Sarah had pulled out of her scientific work. Mary and Manny had functionally disappeared.
“I’m not going to want to leave you,” he said roughly.
“And I’m not going to want you to go.” She ran her hand up his arm. “You make me feel alive and I didn’t know how much I needed that until I met you.”
He lowered himself back to her lips. “It’s the same for me.”
This time, when he kissed her, it was gently, reverently. And even when he deepened things, he took his time, savoring her lips against his own and the slickness of her tongue.
Easing back, he said, “Can I touch you? I don’t have to… see you.”
There was a pause. And then she whispered, “I’m sorry—”
“No, you don’t apologize. Ever. But I would like to… touch you.”
“I’ll explain, later. I just don’t want to ruin things. If they haven’t already been—”
“Not ruined. Not at all.”
She nodded, but he could sense the tension in her.
“Can I kiss you some more?” he asked.
“Oh, God, yes.”
Dropping his head down once again, he stroked her mouth with his own. And licked his way inside. And waited until her arousal was back… before he put his palm onto her shoulder… and moved it down to her arm… and over to her waist.
When he hesitated, she shifted and he felt her hand on top of his own. She was the one who brought him to her breast—
The groan she let out was hot as hell, but he reined in his lust. Which was easy to do as he learned her contours, the t-shirt so thin, the soft fabric a second skin. As he cupped her, he circled her nipple with his thumb, and she was both tender and taut under his touch, the weight of her tantalizing, that arousal of hers ramping up as he caressed her… and then he couldn’t wait anymore. He had to explore with his mouth. Moving down onto her neck, he gritted his molars to keep from raking his fangs across her jugular on his way to where he wanted to be.
When he was in between her breasts, he trailed kisses up one of the rises. Her nipple was tight and made for his mouth, and even though he wanted to tease her, tease himself, he failed on that. Sucking her in through the shirt, he nursed at her, tugging, pulling, as he continued to stroke the other side with his dagger hand.
She was writhing beneath him now, restless, starved. And he was so there with her, his cock pounding between his legs, so desperate to get into her that he started to shake with need. He told himself he was going to be able to make it good for her and last longer than the first penetration—but he wasn’t sure about that. The good news? He was going to be ready for another round immediately. Another three or four. A dozen.
He had never been like this for any other female or woman.
Ever.
“I need you…” she groaned as she arched against him.
The sight of her breasts, so peaked under that thin shirt, undulating up to his mouth, was almost enough to make him come, and he forgot any kind of take-his-time as her hands left his shoulders and went in between their bodies, to the waistband of her jeans.
“I can do that.” He brushed her fingers away. “Let me.”
He was fast with the button, faster with the zipper, and then he was hooking his thumbs and drawing the Levi’s down, down, down. Her panties were simple and blue—and ridiculously, he noted that they matched the color of the sofa. He left them in place.
He had plans for them.
She kicked off her shoes and he took her socks off along with the jeans in a coordinated move that, in his mind, he gave himself a gold medal for. Then he wasn’t thinking much. Except for his hair-trigger instincts, which continued to monitor the house above them and the cellar around them, he was all about his female.
He felt like the only thing a piece of shit like him could do for a woman like her was give her pleasure.
And that was one thing he would not fail.
His lips drifted down onto her stomach, and when he got to the top edge of her underwear, he took his tongue and licked under them. Then he moved over to the side of her hip. The panties were kept in place by banding that had “Calvin Klein” on it, and he looked up at her. On the far side of her breasts, she was watching him, her eyes blazing, her mouth open. With every hard, panting breath she took, her nipples shifted under the shirt, under the wet spot where his mouth had been on her.
Fucking hell. He was so sexed up.
Baring his fangs, he snagged the elastic and snapped it in half. Then he did the same with the other side.
Her knees tightened on him, her thighs flexing.
Taking the free flap that covered her core between his teeth, he drew it off… and there she was. Glistening, swollen, begging for him.
He wanted to go down on her, but he was on the verge of ejaculating as it was—and call him sentimental, but he wanted to come inside of her first. Not into her sweatpants.
Rising up from her, he put his hands to the bulge at the front of his hips. Then he lowered the waistband. His cock broke out of confinement, all but exploding free, and when she saw his length and his girth, her fingernails bit into her own thighs.
The sight of her spreading herself even farther was what did it.
Palming his erection, he lunged forward and ran his head up and down her hot, slick flesh. As she cried out and squeezed her eyes shut, she jerked back on the cushions and her neck strained. Then she pulled her knees up.
Balz drove into her with one thrust of his hips, and as much as he wanted to watch her, his lids slammed down. Good thing. He was liable to pop his eyeballs out of their sockets if he watched himself go in and out of her.
She was tight and she was fire and she was wet.
His body took over, one hand locking on her hip, the other grabbing on to the arm of the couch. He started to pump, forward and back, and he had to see her, he had to look—
Erika was sprawled under him, her head rocking to the beat of his thrusts, her torso straining, her mouth open as she hauled air in like she was on a sprint. With a flush on her cheeks and the blood pulsing in her jugular vein, he knew she was getting close, so close.
Slipping his hand between his body and hers, he thumbed the top of her sex, brushing it just once.
His name exploded out of her mouth and she went rigid. As her core rhythmically tightened against his cock, her orgasm teed off his own.
Just as he started to come, at the moment his ejaculations began to fill her up and mark her as his own, he caught one last sight of her face. Her lids had partially opened and only the whites of her eyes were showing.
And then he lost all sense of time and place and self as well.
It was a perfect little death for them both.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Lassiter had always refused to carry a cell phone.
Okay, fine. Sometimes he took one with him, but it was only really when he was in the mood to share TikToks or YouTube shorts. Some of the shit on the Internet was funny or instructional or cute as fuck, and he knew that the brothers needed a pick-me-up from time to time. Tonight, when he’d left the Brotherhood mansion to come to Havers’s clinic, he’d deliberately not taken his with him because he hadn’t wanted to be interrupted.
As he stepped out of Rahvyn’s hospital room, however, he still managed to get a text from the Brotherhood. A group text, as it were: Even though he was invisible, and no one else knew he was on-site, somehow a cadre of brothers had formed a lineup on the wall outside. Like they knew he was in there.
Rhage was over on the left, a Tootsie Pop stick locked between clenched teeth like he’d just finished getting to the center without much licking. Next to him was Zsadist, the brother’s skull trim especially tight, his scarred face as always a thing of nightmares. And then there was Butch, in his fancy threads, and V, who was not smoking, for once. Phury was at the far end.
Lassiter didn’t need to ask where Tohr was. With Wrath, of course, as no doubt were the Band of Bastards. The King was not going to be left unguarded, especially not on a night like tonight.
“I know you’re there,” V muttered.
As Lassiter revealed himself, he put his palms forward, all halt-and-desist. “I wasn’t hiding myself.”
Not from them, at any rate.
“You missed our meeting.”
As V put the condemnation out there, the other brothers were silent, but they were looking like a firing squad, all that black leather hiding bulges so the medical staff and the civilians weren’t alarmed. But come on, as if anybody could look at them and not know that they killed things for a living?
“I’m sorry,” he said to V. “I had to take care of something.”
“Who the hell is she.” Vishous pointed at the closed door to the hospital room. “And what did she do to Nate.”
Lassiter glanced over his shoulder. To his eyes, the panel fell away and he could see Rahvyn as clearly as when he’d been by her side. She was still asleep, but not peacefully so. Her brows were tight over the bridge of her nose and she twitched in her hands and her feet, like she was running in her dreams.
“What did she do to that kid,” V snapped.
“The same thing that she did to your brother Sahvage,” Lassiter murmured. Then he refocused on the group. “It’s not dissimilar to what your shellan enjoys, Rhage. Nate’s outside the scope of mortality now. Nothing can kill him, which is a blessing and a curse that he will have to balance out for himself.”
V stepped up close, those diamond eyes of his narrowing. “My mahmen saved his Mary.”
“She did. Yup.”
The brother jabbed his finger at the door again. “You’re saying that female is as powerful as my mahmen.”
“No, I’m not.”
“So she just pulled that kind of hat trick out of nowhere? Twice.”
Lassiter leaned forward. “She’s no comparison to your mom.”
“So what is she—”
“She’s more powerful.” As all kinds of you’re-shitting-me hit that harsh, goateed face, Lassiter shrugged. “She is the Gift of Light. And if you want the vampire species to survive with Devina on the planet, you’re going to need her.”
“Why have we not heard of her before,” Phury asked. “The Chosen have never spoke of such a—”
“This is bullshit,” V announced. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lassiter had to smile at the brother. “Get your panties in a wad if you want, V, but I’ve got news for you. Your sign-off is not required when it comes to the universe. The Creator does what he wants, not what you approve of.”
Phury spoke up again. “Maybe it’s somewhere in the Sanctuary’s library. Or maybe the Chosen who didn’t survive the raid all those years ago knew about it.”
“Or maybe the Scribe Virgin didn’t want anybody to know,” Lassiter countered. “No offense to her, but she wasn’t much for challenges to her power. And the female who brought back Nate tonight is unlike anything else in the universe.”
“Motherfucker,” V muttered.
“What are you pissed about. She saved that young male. Brought him back and healed the pain of your brother and his shellan. You should be thanking her.”
“Yeah, that curse was about my mahmen, not that female.” V patted around his pockets like he was looking for a smoke. “I swear, the more you know…”
