Page 56 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

As Lyric was led off, Dev stayed right where he was.

Funny, he hadn’t had any kind of concrete plan coming here, just vague ideas that were noble in theory, utterly ridiculous in practice.

Listening to that speech had been time well spent, however.

As the words had drifted around and fed and watered the assembled acolytes, he had clarified things.

So yes, he knew what he wanted now.

“Would you like to wait in my dressing room?” the demon asked him with a wide, winning smile. “It’s very loud in here. Come on, I’ll show you the way.”

Even though the door with the gold star on it was only about ten feet away.

“Give us a minute.” As Devina—oops, sorry, Valentina —spoke to her staff and reps, she took his arm in a light grip. “I have to take care of our guest and get him settled.”

Aware that jealous eyes were locking on him, Dev allowed himself to be steered through that special door, and then, for the first time in a decade…

He was alone with his mother.

As she closed them in, she leaned back against the panel.

When there was only silence, he went for a wander over to the dressing table. A mirror, with rows of lights running up both sides, was perched over a tabletop scattered with compacts, wands, pencils, and potions. He picked up a perfume bottle.

Poison. By Dior.

“I know it’s you,” she said in a soft voice. “I can’t see you… but a mother knows.”

Pivoting back around, he held up the fragrance. “I didn’t know you could still get this.”

“There is nothing I can’t get.”

He laughed with a hard edge as he put the bottle down. “That is not true.”

“Anything material, that is—” Her voice broke. “Will you not let me see you properly? It has been… so long.”

“What about all your hangers-on out there. Don’t you need to get back to them?”

“They can wait. Forever.”

When he turned around, he released the lock on his essence—and he had to admit, she was a good actress. The demon let out a choked gasp and slapped a hand over her mouth. As tears flooded those gorgeous black eyes, she rushed forward—

Dev shoved his palm out. “Give it a rest. I know who you are, so just like the bullshit you’re peddling to all those humans isn’t necessary or interesting in the slightest, neither is any kind of sloppy reunion here.”

“Must you be so cruel.”

Now he laughed honestly. “Coming from you? That’s rich. And spare me the acting. Let’s get real, Mom .”

Her face tightened into a mask. But her voice remained level. “Why did you bring a vampire here.”

“You were the one to invite her, not me.”

“Curious company you’re keeping. Is it true you saved her life in the middle of a street?”

“From you, no less. It was your billboard that went flying off the top of that building—”

“What would your father think, you consorting with the enemy like that.”

Dev cocked a brow. “Oh, you think I’m with him?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I haven’t seen him, either.” He frowned as the tension in her eased. “Yeah, don’t worry, I don’t like him any more than I like you. The acrimony is totally equal. Your ego can stay intact.”

“That’s not why I asked.”

“Isn’t it.”

“No.” She shook her head sharply, her luscious hair catching the flat artificial light and gleaming as if the sun were behind her. “I don’t want you anywhere near your father. Ever.”

“Careful, Mom. Your territoriality is showing.”

“It’s got nothing to do with that. He’s evil, and I love you. And I don’t want you hurt by him.”

“ He’s evil?”

Valentina—Devina—whatever the fuck she was calling herself—paced around, her outrageously tall stilettos making a soft pattern of noise on the short-napped purple carpet.

“I’m not who I used to be. I’m not who you used to know.” She stopped and stared at the closed door as if seeing through it, seeing all the humans who had gathered around her. “You may think that what I do on the stage is an act. It’s not.”

When he didn’t respond, the demon glanced over her shoulder. “I mean every word—”

Dev clapped slowly a couple of times. And then dropped his arms. “You want your Oscar now? Or should we wait until later.”

Those gleaming black eyes stared across at him for the longest time. “There’s such darkness in you.”

“Have you checked out our family tree? You think I’m going to show up as the goddamn Easter Bunny?”

“Why did you come here.” She turned fully around, and smoothed her purple dress. “Tell me. Whatever it is, I’ll do it. I’ll give it to you. Name it.”

Dev’s brows slowly lowered. Then he laughed. “Damn, you’re good. I’ll give you that—”

“What can I do for you.”

When she just kept looking across at him, going nowhere, patient to wait as if she didn’t have anything else in the world to do, he felt the strangest pull at the center of his chest. Oh, but he wasn’t stupid.

His mother had the superficial charm of a sociopath, and the follow-through of an atomic bomb—

A vibration went through the still air, causing a distortion similar to heat waves rising off asphalt, and then…

Dev gasped. It was gone. All the beauty, all the artifice, all the masking. Instead of a gorgeous, sexy woman in a purple dress and black heels…

His mother was a twisted, ugly creature, with skin like the bark of an old tree, a deformed face where the nostrils and the eyes were on the same level, and claw-like hands to match toes-in hoofed feet.

No more with the lovely locks of mahogany and copper, there were only sprigs of spiky gray tufts on the top of her head, and she didn’t have any ears.

She was… indescribably ugly. To a degree he never would have guessed at.

“I lie to them,” she said in a guttural distortion laced with sadness, “because it serves my need to help. To speak. To move them. If they saw who I really am, they would run from me for all the good reasons in their world. Devlin, I have stopped pretending I am someone I am not. I am not who you once knew.”

All he could do was stand there and refresh, again and again, the hideous vision before him… the monster who had mated with pure evil and brought him into existence.

She never, ever would have displayed this true nature of hers before.

“I am what I am, Devlin. I know that now, and having accepted my truth, I’m not interested in hurting anything anymore. It’s impossible to hate others when I no longer hate myself.”

“What happened,” he demanded roughly. “Why…”

“I lost you. That’s what happened.”

A single, glistening tear appeared in the corner of her fleshy eye, and seeped over the uneven, mottled skin of her sunken cheek.

“So I ask you again. What can I do for you? I know you didn’t come here for yourself—you’ve avoided me for a decade now and I can’t imagine you want to be here.

It’s that vampire, isn’t it. She’s touched you somewhere deep, and she’s the reason you came.

So say your purpose out loud for the both of us.

Something tells me you need to hear it, too. ”

When he spoke, he released the feelings he’d been repressing since the moment he’d looked into a vampire’s eyes in the middle of a cold, snowy street.

“I want you to tell him to stop it.”

The demon cocked her head, the bones cracking in her neck. “The war.”

“Yeah, the war. I want you to tell that asshole you mated with to stop going after vampires. Stop hurting them, stop killing them. Tell him to slaughter humans if he needs prey. Fuck knows there’s more of them around, and if he wins, he can rule the world.

That’ll give him something to do for a couple of years. ”

His mother’s disgusting stare searched his face.

And then in a soft voice, she whispered, “You love that female, don’t you.”

It was a long while before he could respond.

“No,” he lied. “Of course not.”

Back behind the event stage, Lyric was running on autopilot, smiling when she was supposed to, posing next to people, having the same near-miss-billboard conversation over and over again.

She was impatient to get back to Dev and leave for so many reasons.

What got her through was the bone-deep conviction that this was her last event.

The end finally came as she turned in place, ready for the next—and there was no one else in the loose line that had formed.

Marcia stepped up and shook her head. “You’re an absolute pro at this. Are you sure you want to quit—”

“Do you know where Dev is?” She craned a glance over all the heads, toward the door of the private dressing room. “I’m going to go find him.”

“Listen, I’m serious.” The manager stepped in front of Lyric. “When you rethink all this, call me. The next level is waiting for you—but don’t wait too long. You have to strike when the iron is hot, and that’s not forever.”

“Thanks, Marcia.” As she tried to look through the woman, she knew it was rude, but a sudden weird feeling was making her agitated. “Take care of yourself.”

Weeding through the tangle of staff, she got to the starred door of the—

It opened just before she could knock or go for the handle.

And for a third time, there Dev was, stepping out and closing things up behind himself.

“Oh, thank God.” Sagging, she could have hugged the man. “Have you always had perfect timing?”

He stared down at her for a moment. And then in a rough voice, he said, “Are you ready to go?”

“I was ready to leave as soon as I got here,” she muttered under her breath.

“Then let’s not waste any more time.”

With him in the lead, they made their way toward an exit sign, and then it was a case of concrete steps down, down, down.

As their footfalls echoed upward into the stairwell, she appreciated how he waited for her on the landings, their progress steady, just rushed enough without risking a slip-and-fall.

When they got to the bottom, he went over to a fire door.

But it was there that he hesitated.

Turning toward her, Dev seemed to retreat even as he stayed right in front of her, his eyes going remote, his jaw tightening. Except then he reached out and stroked her face, lingering with his hand on her shoulder.