Page 66 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

Some ten blocks away, Shuli was in full pursuit of the enemy, and his two boys were with him. They were very careful about the trail, though, because none of them were supposed to be in the field tonight.

Grief. Injury recovery. Yada, yada, yada.

Except they had work to do. This pair of lessers they’d tracked starting down on Twentieth Avenue had been on a slow walk—but for only a block or so.

Before there could be any proper interception, the shorter of the slayers had checked his phone, said something that didn’t carry, and things had suddenly sped up as the enemy had taken off at a quick jog to the north and west.

If the goal was to get one and work it over for intel, anything more than a solo lesser was complicated and unnecessarily dangerous. So the plan had been to try to split the pair up, with L.W. doing the abducting.

On the other hand, however, if the lessers had been called home to the master? Well, then wasn’t that the lottery win they hadn’t expected.

Of course, L.W., who had the impulse control of a handgun with no safety, just wanted to reach out and touch the targets. But this was the agreement the three of them had made: No hotdog bullshit. Logic over emotion, always—and they always stayed together.

And so they ran. Quietly.

As the rows of shitty walk-ups changed to better housing, and then stores, businesses, and restaurants, he had no fucking clue where they were headed.

Until he caught an inkling. It was hard to pinpoint exactly when he realized where they might be going—except his brain just refused to work the coordinates because, really, what were the chances.

And then, as the lessers made the turn off Market, went down another couple of blocks, and linked up onto Lincoln…

Their targets passed right in front of the apartment building they’d all fought behind just the other night.

That was when he started to get worried.

A quick look at Rhamp’s face, and he knew he wasn’t the only one. L.W. didn’t seem to care either way—at least until the slayer rounded the corner to the rear of the address and entered the parking area that was still marked with CPD evidence tags and yellow tape. Then even he seemed to catch on.

They pulled up short behind a pickup truck.

At that precise moment, up on the fourth floor, a set of drapes opened and a window sash lifted, without any visible hands moving things around. But the magician shit wasn’t what he was worried about.

“Oh, fucking hell,” he muttered as a figure stepped into view.

There was only one person in the world who had long blond hair like that—and then Lyric jumped back in alarm. As her arms raised over her head and shock distorted her face, he had a really bad fucking feeling about all this.

At that moment, Rhamp shot forward—

L.W. grabbed him and held him hard. “Let me go in—”

“She’s my fucking sister—”

“And that’s why I’m going in—”

The pair of them got right into it, aggressions misdirected.

Meanwhile, Shuli stared upward and just froze in place.

Every drive in him was screaming that he needed to get to Lyric, he needed to save her, and meanwhile, that pair of lessers they’d been tracking headed for the back door into the building—

Lyric screamed.

Instantly, the dam broke. L.W. up and dematerialized, and Rhamp—too distracted by emotion to be able to ghost out—leaped forward into a run and started shooting at the lessers up ahead.

His suppressor killed most of the noise, but his aim was crap.

As bullets pinged off all kinds of things, Shuli hauled his own ass and added some lead of his own.

He managed to drop one slayer, but the other hit that rear door with a key and a panic scramble.

Into the lowest level of the building it went.

As Rhamp rushed up on the downed lesser , the male had the presence of mind to palm one of his daggers, and do a dispatch on the move. Then even before the flash of light and burst of sound faded, the guy was at the back door—

Shuli yanked him away by jumping on him. “You don’t know what’s in there! We need to call for backup—”

“Lyric is in there,” the fighter spat. “You remember, the female you’re in love with. Get with the fucking program—”

Rhamp settled the argument by shooting the back lock and ripping open the steel panel. Left with no choice but to protect his buddy, Shuli jumped through the jambs and covered left, while Rhamp covered right.

The slayer who’d penetrated the entry was wounded, but still up on its feet: Little drops of foul-smelling black oil dotted the concrete floor, disappearing into the elevator.

Rhamp didn’t even blink. He wheeled around and took the open stairwell.

Shuli followed again.

In perfect coordination, they hit the steps two at a time, bolting around each landing as they hit ’em. And Shuli told himself this was going to be fine. They’d dealt with shit like this before.

Really—

Fuck.

When they got to the fourth floor, there was no question which way to go.

He could scent a lesser , but there were no drops of blood on the carpet.

Didn’t matter. Lyric was the point; they could get to the wounded slayer later.

Clearly of the same mind, Rhamp took off running once again, and as he let out a whistle—

From out of nowhere, something stepped into their path.

A little old lady in an apron with a tray full of food.

Rhamp nearly mowed her over, and then, as a chaser, he pointed a gun at her head.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa—” Shuli barked.

Just as L.W., for reasons that couldn’t be explained, came down the stairs from up above, even though he’d no doubt tried to dematerialize into the apartment itself.

Yeah, this was going just great for their first night out.

As Lyric tried to process the words she’d just heard, she stared at the paled-out, snow-eyed lesser who’d shut them all in together.

Going on some kind of reflex, she put her palms forward, but in her fucked-up head, she couldn’t tell if she was trying to stop the slayer or Dev—or what had just been said.

Father.

Father?

And if she needed any confirmation that this was not a dream, this was in fact a terrible, living nightmare, it was the look that Dev gave her, his hooded, oddly colored eyes grave, his expression a tight mask—

It all happened so fast. Dev jumped on the lesser , grabbed it by the head, and jerked the skull around with such violence, the crack of the spinal cord was like an axe going through hardwood. Then he dropped the body off to the side and wheeled around to her.

Moving back until he was against the door, he fanned his hands as if he were holding out the whole world from them. Meanwhile, across the way, cold air entered the apartment, riffling the drapes, stealing all the warmth out of the space.

Or maybe the latter was the shock wave that was running through her body.

“I was going to tell you.”

“Tell me what exactly.” She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t— “Oh, God, that was why you weren’t surprised about the fight behind this building.

Or why I never had a car. Or why I had a shadow apartment.

It was why you never bothered to ask me out during the day…

or put out any questions about my life. You knew what I was. ”

“I’m sorry—”

A sudden surge of rage helped with the whole chills thing. “Oh, you can fuck off with that—”

“You lied, too.” He shook his head sharply as a distant banging sounded out. “I didn’t see you volunteering what you were or avoiding me because you thought I was human. I’ll accept what I did was wrong, but don’t pretend you weren’t keeping your own secrets for your own reasons.”

Lyric exhaled in a rush. “No, you’re not going to put this back on me—”

“You told me you weren’t looking for anything. So what were my obligations exactly.”

She marched over to him. “You’re the son of the Omega. You are my enemy .”

“Grandson,” he said levelly. “To be accurate. And don’t confuse me with my parents or my bloodline. I have lived my own life, away from their shit, for the majority of my adult—”

“Your mahmen . The demon, Devina, is your…”

The world started spinning so she threw out an arm to steady herself—and when he tried to help her, she recoiled away from his touch. This was not the magic she’d had in mind, this was not what she’d—

“You’re pure evil,” she hissed. “And you mask yourself in the world. You’re worse than everything I’ve been trying to get away from. You’re a violent, murderous illusion—”

“When have I ever hurt you!”

“Now! You’re hurting me now !” Abruptly, she slapped both hands over her mouth as her stomach rolled. “Oh, God… I had sex with you. You came inside of me—”

As that muffled banging continued, Dev squeezed his lids closed like she’d stabbed him in the chest.

“I can’t do this,” she mumbled. “I can’t—I’ve got to get out of here, I have to—”

Just as she went to take a step back, something locked on to her ankle, and she felt a searing pain. As she yelped and looked down, blood welled through the hem of her blue jeans—

Laughter bubbled up from the lesser who, for some reason, was right at her feet. Even with a broken neck, it had managed to drag its body over and wield a knife with enough strength to cut her to the bone.

With a roar, Dev bared his front teeth. No fangs, but the fury was real. “You fucking bastard—”

On the attack, he dematerialized onto the slayer, tore the knife out of that grip, wielded it over his head—

With a fresh wave of lurching nausea, Lyric fell to the floor, her hands going to the wound and all the blood.

Annnnnnnd that was when L.W. broke into the apartment by shattering the door.

In a split second, she caught a glance of the wavy distortion she’d seen right before Dev’s eye color had registered for the very first time, and she knew L.W.

had somehow penetrated through the spell or whatever the barrier was.

And then right behind him, out in the hall, she saw that Shuli and Rhamp were dealing with an elderly woman holding a tray of food.

Except then the door mystically re-formed, as if it had never been hit by that powerful shoulder.

Before she could say a thing, the heir to the throne looked down at her and across at Dev. The roar that came out of the male next was surely something that everybody in the building heard—maybe all of Caldwell. But there was no stopping L.W., stopping any of this.

With two running leaps, he slammed into Dev, spun him around, and shoved him into the wall. Forcing Dev’s arm back, he made him drop the knife.

From out of her swirling confusion, she groaned. “He’s not human, he’s—”

Right beside her, at floor level, the lesser locked eyes with her and that demented smile came back. And he had something else in his hand.

Lyric told herself to pull it together and focus—

As another rhythmic thumping started to sound out at the door, the gun in the slayer’s hand came into sharp focus.

The lesser didn’t point it at her.

It smiled even wider and swung the weapon around. At L.W.

“No!” Lyric screamed.

Before she could think better of it, she jumped up and threw herself in front of the slayer, just as she heard the gun go off. There was some shouting after that, but she was suddenly cold and numb so it was impossible to detangle who was yelling.

Except she heard the enemy’s laughter.

That was the last thing she was aware of as she fell to the floor for a second time—

No, that wasn’t the last thing.

L.W. suddenly went flying across the room, the heir to the throne airborne and then some.

As he crashed into the little table she and Dev had eaten at in another lifetime, chairs went on a scatter and Dev was suddenly right with her, his face in front of hers.

His mouth was moving, those odd, all-wrong eyes he’d taken such pains to hide from her welling with tears.

In that moment, she split in half, one side remembering all the things they’d said and done together…

the other thinking of how many innocent vampires had been taken down by slayers, how many nights she and her mahmen had worried about the males in their lives out on the streets hunting, how many horrors had happened over countless centuries.

An ancient, bloody feud defining her life.

She thought back to the beginning of everything with Dev, the pair of them outside at the construction site, his jacket around her shoulders, his hard hat in her hands—when he’d told her he hated his mahmen and that she was dead.

And then she recalled what he’d just said, that he wasn’t his parents, that he had lived away from them and their evil doings…

But even if all that was true, none of it could matter.

History and her loyalty to her King made him forbidden.

Abruptly, there was a bright light, a smell of something burning—

The slayer. Stabbed by a kitchen knife if she recognized the handle correctly. Sent back to its maker by Dev.

To his… father.

“Lyric,” he said as he came back to her. “Stay with me… stay—”

Pulling up her loose sweater with a trembling hand, she looked down at the red stain blooming on the white turtleneck she had on underneath. The deadly wound was right in the center of her chest, the bullet meant for the heir to the throne finding her heart instead.

“Fuck you! This is about her!” Dev snarled over his shoulder.

Her eyes drifted over to whoever he was talking to. L.W. was growling like a guard dog, his tremendous fangs on full display, and yet he seemed to be frozen where he was, held in place by invisible restraints.

She opened her mouth to speak, and both males instantly silenced.

It took her two attempts to get the message out.

And she spoke to L.W. first.

“Get me home,” she told him roughly. Then she looked at Dev. “If I live… through this… I don’t want to ever see you again.”