Page 30 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

The hell she was going home like a good little girl.

Lyric gave the males a good minute or so to ghost down to Dev’s building.

Then she closed her eyes and dematerialized as well.

When she re-formed, it was on the snowpacked roof of a walk-up kitty-corner behind his address, and she kept herself hidden by staying behind an exhaust chimney for the heating system.

From her vantage point, she could see a back parking lot, and all kinds of windows with drapes pulled or blinds down.

Counting up from the bottom, she focused on the fourth floor, and tried to orientate herself.

Dev had a corner flat—but at which end? Or did his studio face front?

She’d never looked, because his blackouts cut the view.

Crap, she was all turned around. Meanwhile, her heartbeat was loud in her ears, and as the wind whistled past her head, she braced herself for…

Nothing happened.

Impatiently brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes, she stared down at the shallow area with the cars squeezed in between piles of dirty, packed snow. The security lights that shined from the roof were so bright, there weren’t a lot of shadows or places she couldn’t visualize.

“Oh, God, Dev…”

What if things had gone haywire after she’d left and he’d been attacked on the way back to his apartment?

She waited a little longer, then stepped out from behind the industrial-sized duct. Going over to the edge of the roof, she counted the snow-streaked cars to give her mind something to do. Then she went back to all the windows on the fourth level.

And kind of expected to see flashes of gunfire and hear the screams of humans escaping a melee.

Still nothing.

But come on, what did she expect? For those three fighters to chase a couple of the undead out into that parking area, stab the bastards back to their maker, and then flash her the thumbs-up so they could all forget about this?

Well, put like that, the answer was… yes. Yes, she did.

Instead, this was the real world.

On that note, she closed her eyes and did the best she could to calm herself so she could change positions.

When she was finally able to dematerialize, it was just across the lot to the roof of Dev’s building.

The wind was even stronger, as things were considerably taller than the walk-up, and as her body got bumped back and forth in the gusts, she thought about all the things that could get swept away and go airborne.

There was so much more ductwork and venting here, as well as a kiosk-like build-out in the center of everything—which she guessed was the top of the access stairwell.

No security lights and no cameras, at least not that she could see.

There was plenty of ambient light, though, probably even for humans—and they clearly came up here in the better weather, going by the grouping of lawn chairs weighted down with snow.

Oh, wait. There were some paths of footprints. Maybe because workmen had had to come up recently?

Annnnnnnnnnnnnd now what.

Heading for the ledge, she wanted to brace her hands on the lip as she leaned over, but she didn’t have her mittens and it was all ice and snow.

The yawning drop to the sidewalk made her stomach flip-flop, but at least she got herself orientated. She was looking over the front of the building now, the cleared steps of the entry and its twin lampposts directly beneath her.

Crossing the whole of the expanse, she checked the back exit.

How had her brother and the fighters gotten in?

Then again, as this was a human building, they could have just willed the locks to turn.

Or if they’d wanted to be sneaky, they could have traveled through the glass of any window or the seams in a loose door—probably not the ductwork.

Even though there would be no steel mesh to keep vampires out, it was way too dangerous to—

Someone came out of the back door.

Lyric’s heart stopped in her chest and she inhaled deeply through her nose. Which was stupid and maybe proved her brother’s point that she had no business being here: There was no chance of catching a scent at this height.

Oh… shit. Whoever it was had very white hair—was it an old person? Or a slayer?

She leaned farther out—

Her boot slipped, her balance tipped, and she careened toward the void.

Just as she started to go into free-fall, a blare of light spilled out from the roof access door. The fact that she turned to look at the illumination was what brought her body back to rights, the treads of her waterproof trail shoes catching hold in the snow just before she toppled over the ledge.

Except maybe it would have been better to free-fall.

A large figure cut a shadow through the glare coming out of the stairwell, and she had an instant regret. She had no weapons, no training, and if this was the slayer she’d sent her brother to kill—

Whatever it was turned its head toward her. And that’s when she heard an all-too-familiar voice—and not her brother’s or L.W.’s or Shuli’s.

“Lyric? What are you doing out here?”

Oh, fuck .

Dev.

Getting into the apartment building had been the work of a moment, and Shuli was glad that at least the entry had been no-drama.

The other two had waited for him to arrive around back, and then even before they’d gotten a plan together, someone had come out of the rear door—not that they couldn’t have opened the thing, but hey, easy peasy thanks to the unwitting welcoming party.

The basement had been clean—both from a housekeeping perspective and because it was lesser -free—so they’d found the open stairwell and gone up to the lobby on the first floor.

Nothing.

No baby-powder bullshit. No sounds of any struggle. No guns discharging anywhere.

“Up,” Rhamp said softly.

L.W. and Shuli nodded, and they silently ascended in formation, with Lyric’s brother in front.

At every level… nothing.

Well, no lessers . There were a lot of humans behind the numbered doors—which was a big change from the walk-ups and buildings Shuli usually swept through: The real estate in the field was always vacated and crumbling.

Here, you had voices, televisions, food smells.

And on the whole, he never had any problems with those rats without tails, at least not until they were inducted into the Lessening Society—hell, he got very close to countless women on a very regular basis.

At the moment, though? He found himself hating everybody in the building.

Okay, not all of them, he corrected as they continued upward. Just the man Lyric was clearly seeing.

Holy fuck. It had been plain as the expression on her face she was involved with someone—and it was also very obvious that whoever it was, she wasn’t saying anything about him.

Had to be a human.

As Shuli stepped off onto the fourth floor, his eyes scanned the hall.

Which one of the doors was his? Probably better not knowing—given how protective Rhamp was of his sister, if they found the fucker, things were going to get real messy, real quick, and not because of anything to do with a slayer.

Hell, Shuli was feeling a little fangy himself.

Make that a lot fang-ish, even though he had no right.

They kept going on the ascent, saying nothing, communicating through eye contact, not that there was much to talk about.

When they got to the top floor—lucky number seven—they stopped and listened. Tested the air for scents. Looked around—

A sudden creak and thump shot his head to the left.

Next to the stairwell, a door marked “Roof Access” was closing next to him, and he flared his nostrils. No scent of lesser .

Meanwhile, Rhamp leaned over the stairwell banister and looked all the way down to where they’d started their march. L.W. was the one who wandered, stalking halfway down the hall.

After glancing around, Shuli reached out and quietly cranked the door’s knob.

There was a dead bolt mounted on the jamb, but as he pulled things open just a little, he saw that the slug had been removed from its internals, and the hole it was supposed to plug into was stuffed with what looked like paper.

Flaring his nostrils, he leaned into the chilly staircase, and caught sight of the door at the top bouncing closed. Thanks to thermodynamics, the heat from the hall wafted upward, greedy for its liberation into the cold, so he got nothing.

If it had been a slayer who’d passed by here in the hall to get the door? They would have left plenty of nasty-scented molecules lingering in the air. The half-life on that shit was a good two weeks.

“Guess she was wrong,” Shuli muttered as he eased back and shut things.

“Or it left.” Rhamp shrugged as he straightened and turned away from the drop. “We could stake out, but I’m supposed to be in the field with John Matthew. A position here would be hard to account for.”

L.W. was still walking away from them, looking at the closed doors of all the apartments like he was playing rock, paper, scissors with each one—and the rock was his shitkicker.

“I agree we need to just move on.” Shuli shook his head. “His Royal Fuck-Shit-Up’ness is going to want to be west of here, in a zip code that has a much, much lower median income and a far higher likelihood of crossing paths with something that smells like a human grandma.”

Plus he really wanted to get the fuck out of here. The idea Lyric was with somebody else made him want to get shitfaced on absinthe and fucked by someone with dark hair again—

He and Rhamp jerked around to the stairwell at the same time.

The scent they were looking for. Finally.

Lyric had not been mistaken.

“L.W.,” Shuli hissed as he took out one of his nines and kept it down at his thigh. “We got a party to go to.”

The heir to the throne might be big as a bus, but he could move like a sprinter when he wanted to.

The asshole was instantly front and center—and even took the lead down the stairs as they started to track the stink.

The three of them kept against the wall, moving silently, and at the floor below, they paused, even though the scent was still drifting up through the core of the building.

L.W. glanced back and met Shuli’s eyes. Then Rhamp’s.

When the heir nodded, they moved as a single unit. Down. Turn. Down. Turn—

They ran into two humans on the third landing, a couple on their way out, scarves wrapped tight on their necks, gloves being drawn onto hands.

Rhamp, who was bringing up the rear, did the duty, brushing their memories clear and inserting the ironclad conviction that it was too cold for them to go anywhere. Home was better.

Or something like that. Whatever thought he put in their brains, they instantly backtracked and disappeared.

Now was not the time for kibitzers.

As Shuli arrived at the lobby, he dipped into the vestibule. No smell, so he shook his head sharply.

The slayer had to be in the cellar.

When L.W. pointed to the secondary fire stairs at the far end, Rhamp nodded and jogged off, his shitkickers quiet over the carpeting, his weapons making a sweet chiming sound under his jacket that only fellow vampires would hear.

Before L.W. could continue the descent from their position, Shuli latched on to the male’s sleeve. Those pale green eyes swung around, and the two of them just stood there.

Time slowed down as the scent of the enemy wrapped around them, binding them together—and Shuli reached up to his face and put his forefinger under his eye. With a swipe, he removed the foundation he used to cover the teardrop that had been inked onto his skin.

Unlike the King’s son, the tiny outline was the only tattoo he had—and he had a thought, as they were suspended on the precipice of yet another engagement with the enemy, that as much as he hated the job he’d been force-fed…

He was going to take the shit seriously.

Especially after tonight. It wasn’t the audience with the King and the sparing of his ass that shined a light on his intention.

It was the dumb shit with Lyric, the fantasy that he had to let go.

She was out living her life, and he needed to get real and find a better purpose than mooning after that female.

As he had no other potential motivators, it might as well be keeping L.W. alive—and that was a noble calling: There were plenty of people engaging in the war, plenty of fighters and Brothers killing lessers and trying to get to Lash.

But there was only one who was supposed to watch out for the heir.

And whether L.W. liked it or not, they were stuck with each other.

“Doing his best” was going to be a lot more than a throwaway excuse from now on, goddamn it.

“Let me go first,” Shuli said in a low voice.

L.W.’s expression screwed down into the frustrated anger that was as much a part of the male as his frickin’ heartbeat.

And Shuli just shook his head at the guy. “Please. I’m not important. You are, and we don’t know what’s down there. Let me die as the target, and you can clean up.”

The curse that came back at him wasn’t a surprise. “Come on. Why the hell are you doing this—”

“Because I don’t have anything else in life, you dumb shit.” Shuli stepped around the other fighter. “And being remembered for trying to save you ain’t a bad way to go out. You can put it on my gravestone.”

On that note, he started his descent, and he was light on the balls of his boots, twinkle-toeing toward the well-lit hallway below. With every step, the stench of the undead got stronger—and so did his conviction.

No one knew how much longer they had left. So he might as well do something worthy while he was counting down the hours.

And what do you know.

When he hit the half landing, he glanced up over his shoulder. L.W. was where he’d left the heir to the throne, poised between standing on that top step and the rush his body was momentarily going to fall into.

For once, that harsh face wasn’t sporting aggression.

There was a sadness revealed that surely the male would have denied if he’d been called out on it. But everyone had their own demons.

Even fighters who fought with everybody.

Maybe them especially.