Page 69 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

Dev had always hated where he came from.

Who his parents were. What they did, what they were doing, and what they would do in the future.

He had recognized them by inches as he had grown up, his realization starting with the vicious little games they played with each other and then propagating properly to the dark magic that had surrounded all three of them, the evil that had seeped from their pores, the hatred they had shown the world and others.

In secret, he had developed his own powers.

And then when he’d felt like he was ready, when he was confident in his ability to mask himself in their presences, to hide in thin air, to disappear from their senses… he had gotten the fuck out.

There had been no big blowout, no coming to them hurt and in search of explanations he knew would just be lies to calm him down—and no looking back, either.

In the aftermath? Just the dull, solitary life he had lived for so long, and been prepared to continue to endure, using only enough magic to make sure they never, ever could find him.

They would know he still existed, however. He was sure to leave just enough of a footprint so they were certain that he had chosen the estrangement—and was keeping it in place on purpose, not because he’d eradicated himself somehow.

Every day that dawned was a way to stick it to the pair of them.

His existence, on the earth but not with them, was the payback they deserved, and he knew they were suffering.

In their own fucked-up ways, they both loved him, and immortality being what it was, he was more than prepared to make them hurt for eternity.

Except then, one snowy night in Caldwell, New York, everything had changed.

And it was changing again now, as the blond female he had come to love in such a short time ceased to breathe.

The vampires clustered around her, all but one of them males, all but one of them armed, let out a collective explosion of grief as they recognized what had transpired—

“Come on, now,” the female medic at Lyric’s head urged. “We’re not doing this. No, we’re not doing this—”

She looked up to the dark-haired one who had not left Lyric’s side. “Chest compressions on your sister. Now.”

So that’s the brother , Dev thought.

Just as the male started pumping her chest, the vampires Dev had been in the closet with skidded back into the room.

“And I need someone’s vein—let’s try to get some blood into her!”

The ghost brought forward a syringe full of something, and she injected whatever it was directly into the vein at the side of Lyric’s throat. Then she pressed her fingertips in to check for a pulse—

The doctor did what she could to hide her expression.

And that was when Dev floated forward.

Keeping himself invisible to the lot of them, he settled himself at Lyric’s feet. Then he raised his arm. Calling up that cursed nature of his, he did what he had always refused to do.

He intervened in the matter of life and death, and used the very thing that he hated most about himself.

Extending his palm, he summoned his very essence, concentrating it into an aura of light that was both black and white, a combination of evil and goodness.

Then he prepared to will some of his own life-force into Lyric, to give her a measure of himself.

It felt like the right thing to do, but he wasn’t sure, especially as he remembered her horror that she’d had sex with him.

Perhaps the betrayal she felt went so deep, she would have refused the help?

Too late, and there wasn’t a way to ask her.

Anyway, she already had his heart. She might as well have part of his soul—

As he sent the spark into her, there was a crack of energy, the smell of ozone, and a series of concentric rings that vibrated through the air, riffling through peoples’ clothing and hair, pushing their bodies around.

And then Lyric took a great, gasping breath, drawing in oxygen as her heart restarted.

I love you, Dev thought at her. With all that I am.

Meanwhile, as everybody recoiled in shock… her brother looked up and over his shoulder. At Dev.

As their eyes met, he thought that that was a neat trick of the male’s. Except maybe he just sensed something was amiss—or maybe, because of the amount of magic required to do what he did, Dev had briefly revealed his presence.

In any event, time to go.

Dev backed up. Then turned away.

He passed through the apartment door as if it didn’t exist, and then he threw up a screen in the hallway. They were going to have to get Lyric out somehow. The least he could do was make sure he covered them.

Then he would see about the rest of things.

He intended to make good on his offer to those two vampires in that closet: He was more than ready to bring his father’s enemy directly to Lash.

After all these years, he was in a mind to join the fight now.

On the right side of history.