Page 37 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

L.W. had meant to send himself away from the alley, the fighting, the cop-bots.

And he’d managed to do that. The problem? No clue where he’d ended up.

And when he’d returned to his corporeal form, he’d also meant to be up on his feet, but he failed at that. He was flat on his back—and not like in a hospital bed, or even the bed he used at Shuli’s. This mattress was ice cold, as if he was outside—

He turned his head. The blurry structure next to him was certainly a big house, and there were all kinds of lights glowing everywhere inside. But it was not Shuli’s white, building-blocks mansion.

Bringing up his hand, he—

Why was his whole arm covered in snow?

Craning his neck, he looked down his body.

There was snow on top of him, and as the wind gusted, more of it blew over onto his legs and torso, further dusting his leather jacket—and getting into it.

Alarm bells started ringing in his head.

How long had he been out here? He’d intended to go to the Brotherhood’s garage downtown to be triaged—which was what you were supposed to do for injuries in the field.

That was where Rhamp would have taken Shuli.

Where the fuck was he?

And how many hours had he been here?

Forcing his eyes to focus, he… got nowhere with that.

Shouldn’t he be cold?

As his addled mind struggled to assess his body temperature, he let his head fall back into the snow, and as it lolled into an uncomfortable position he realized he had a far more pressing problem.

The first tip was the subtle whirring sound.

The second was the shifting all around the house: Shutters. Coming down because daylight was like a freight train gunning for Caldwell.

Phone. He needed to get his phone—

Good plan, but he didn’t have gloves on and his fingers were stiff as claws.

“Help…” he croaked out. “Heeelp…”

His voice was so weak it didn’t carry over the wind, and all he could do was watch as the glow through all those windows was gradually reduced.

Until it was gone.

The utter darkness was a shock, even though it shouldn’t have been, and he looked up at the night sky.

Clouds had rolled in, and he felt cheated that he couldn’t see the stars or the moon—which was probably proof that he wasn’t thinking right.

He needed to get to that house, somehow, not worry about what his last sight was.

Forcing himself to roll over, he threw out his dagger hand and shoved his frozen fingers into the snowpack like they were a grappling hook.

Using what felt like the last of his strength, he tried to pull his body forward, but he just brought snow to himself—and the same was true when he tried with his left reach.

He wasn’t a fucking quitter, though.

So he paddled uselessly for a while, packing the shit around his head and shoulders.

Time for a breather.

Turning his head to the side again, he laid his cheek down on the snow, his breath whiffling the flakes—

The light of dawn arrived faster than he expected and he closed his lids.

His vision was so bad, it didn’t really matter if they were open, and glaring to the east sure as hell wasn’t going to stop the sun from rising and doing what it was going to do to him: Up in smoke. He was gonna be up in smoke.

Not dissimilar to those fucking lessers —

Wrath.

The sound of his name was such a surprise, his eyes opened again. For some reason, the sun’s brilliant, blinding light seemed to be right next to him, and this was confusing on so many levels. But also, why would the great glowing ball of death be saying his—

Worry not, son of the King. I shall send her. But in return, you must tell them the truth.

Okay, not the sun as it turned out. And what the fuck was this? “Tell… who,” he wheezed.

All of them.

Lifting his head, he glared at the apparition. “Don’t know… what you’re talking about.”

A wave of such intense cold came at him, he felt his heart stop, sure as if he were being freeze-fried on the spot.

You are your father’s son, and that is a curse upon my species.

Justlikethat, the light was gone, and all he could do was shake his head. He supposed it was so like him to fight with a savior showing up at just the right time—then again, it was undoubtedly just a hallucination—

Another light now, far dimmer. The actual sun popping up over the horizon this time?

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Heeeeeeelp!”

Okay, now that was how you yelled for assistance.

And as L.W. drew in a breath, the scent that he woke up to on so many days courtesy of his dreams ran through his nose and went directly into his blood.

“Bitty…”

“Help! Yes, help—we need to move him! But gimme your belt—your belt!”

There was a moment of pause, and then a searing pain in his right thigh.

“Lift his leg up higher—I need… to get… this around his—”

“Fuck.”

“I’m sorry.” Bitty’s voice came close to his ear. “I need to get the tourniquet on. You’re bleeding out.”

L.W. tried to focus on her face, he truly did. When he couldn’t manage that, he had to be satisfied with memory playing a patch job on all that he couldn’t bring out of the darkness. She was wearing red, he knew that—oh. No, that was his blood on her sweater.

“Hold on,” she said. “We’re going to bring you inside—”

“Can’t. No males allowed—”

“When it’s life or death, it’s allowed. Now, hang on.”

That leg of his proved to be a fucking nightmare, especially as they rolled him over onto his back, and someone propped his injured leg up at what felt like a seven-thousand-and-eighty-degree angle.

Then there was tugging, tugging, tugging—followed by a pinch that went right through his whole body.

When shit settled, the constriction was set very high up his thigh, right under his groin.

Helluva way for her to learn his anatomy, huh.

And after that? The single worst transport of his life.

There were all kinds of people around him now, hands biting into his arms, his legs, his shoulders, his ribs. It was like piranha snacking on him, and that was before they started walking him across the lawn.

And up the porch stairs.

He knew exactly when they got him inside. Light. Warmth. The smell of chocolate chip cookies.

Bitty’s voice barked out, “Call Doc Jane—”

She was right next to his head again, and for a female who was usually so quiet, she was giving orders tonight.

Especially as she announced, “He needs to feed—”

L.W.’s eyes popped open. “No, I’m good—”

The scent of her blood, delicious and enticing, burrowed into his nose, and in spite of the condition he was in—cold as a block of ice, probably hypoxic, definitely in clinical shock—he could feel himself getting aroused as his fangs dropped down from his upper jaw.

Bitty came into sharp relief, his panic giving his eyes the extra charge they needed to get with the fucking program: She was removing her wrist from her lips, her bright red blood running free from the twin puncture wounds she’d made in her own flesh.

A growl started to rumble through him.

And instantly, he projected into the future. What it would be like for her. How he would ruin her life, not just with what he did, but who he was, and what he brought along with him.

With a soul-deep conviction, L.W. knew if he took her vein right here, right now, there was no going back, for either of them. Yeah, they’d almost shared a kiss during that one date they’d gone on. But this feeding shit was…

Bad news. For her.

Between one blink and the next, he saw his mahmen , curled on her side on a twin bed in an empty room, crying with her hand locked over her mouth so she could be quiet enough not to wake him.

And it wasn’t just the one memory. There were so many that they ran together, like a painting that had been sluiced with water.

She was going to be that female. On a bed. Curled up around herself.

Either because he was killed in the field.

Or… because he did something out there so heinous, so extreme, she couldn’t reconcile his hatred and his actions with the male she thought she loved.

If he took her vein now? If he learned her taste?

He wasn’t going to be able to stop the bonding that was already happening on his side and save her from the car crash collision that was coming her way.

Better to quit this now—

“ No ,” he said as she brought her scored wrist forward.

With a fumbling, frostbitten hand, he pushed her arm away. “Anyone… but her.”

For all his eyes’ sloppy efforts, they didn’t spare him now. He was able to see with heart-wrenching clarity the shock, and then the hurt, transform the urgency in her face into a horrified shame. And the sight of how he’d hurt her was burned into him, a brand on his soul.

“No,” he repeated hoarsely. “Not you.”

Bitty fell back. Then looked down at her wrist.

As she brought the wound she’d made for him to her mouth to seal it closed, there was a sudden hush that came over everybody. That didn’t last, however. Another wrist was pressed against his lips, and biology took over when his freedom of choice would have denied the swallowing.

He drank, even though the deepest part of him was revolted.

More fuel for the rage, though.

Except it wasn’t like he needed it.