Page 74 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

Dev!” Lyric moved his head into her lap. “Dev—no, no, no… Dev!”

She was drawing in a deep breath and getting ready to scream when she heard something outside the house. Ignoring whatever it was, she just kept saying his name again—until abruptly, the sound outside grew so loud she could no longer ignore it.

Lifting her head to the shattered glass sliders, she frowned as she focused on the lake beyond.

In the midst of the ice surface, there was a great hole, as if a rock the size of a football field had been dropped by the hand of the Creator.

As more lightning flashed, bubbles rose out of the black, oily water—and the force of them abruptly turned into a geyser.

Something was emerging out of the depths, rising higher and higher, and as a ringing chorus of dread swamped not just her mind, but her body, she knew that whatever was coming for her, coming for Dev, was unlike anything she had ever seen.

Or anything she could survive.

She’d been looking for magic, but not this kind… dearest Lassiter, not like this. The enormity of the evil was incomprehensible as it manifested, so vast that it blocked out the mountains and the sky.

The heir to the Omega. The entity that existed only to hunt and kill her species—

Lash’s essence rushed at the house, and as the great waves of darkness zeroed in on her and Devlin, she threw herself over him—for all the good that would do.

Besides, he was barely breathing.

Bracing herself, she knew that dark energy was going to wipe them both out, and she screamed—

All at once a figure appeared before them. A female.

Valentina Disserte?

From… Resolve2Evolve? Yes, it was, in all her purple-dressed glory, her dark hair up in a bun, the grapey perfume Lyric had smelled when they’d met saturating the air. Except… the face was different now. Very beautiful, yes, but the features were not exactly what they’d been.

After a moment of eye contact, the woman turned around.

And then a strong female voice reverberated through the entire Northeast, it seemed: “No! He is my son, and you will not hurt him.”

The female planted her stilettos and surrounded them all with a shimmering force field. And then, as a great roar began, she separated herself out, took two running steps, and leaped off the porch at the dark energy.

And something… happened.

Just before the evil slammed into the house, some kind of merger occurred in the sky, and the resulting luminescent waves exploded across the horizon, northern lights except in red and gold and purple, so much purple.

After that there was only darkness, inside the house, outside at the lake with the hole in the center, over all of the whole world, it seemed.

But Lyric didn’t give a shit.

Looking down at Dev’s face, she felt the cold in his skin and panicked. She didn’t have a phone on her, she had no idea where they were, and she wasn’t sure whether anybody could help them anyway. This was not mortal business: It was in the realm of immortality, and the implications terrified her.

“I love you, too,” she said desperately to him. “Dev, I love you…”

There was a great release speaking the words, but they were too late, he was too far gone—

Snap!

The female entity reappeared in front of them, still in her purple skirted business suit, but that long, luscious brunette hair was an absolute mess, and the silk blouse was untucked.

“Goddamn him,” it muttered as she threw out her hand and a lit cigarette appeared between her fingers. “He always was a good fuck.”

She looked down as she exhaled. And promptly her annoyed expression left her flushed face.

The female lowered herself beside Dev. “My boy. My beautiful boy…”

Devina. The demon. Dev’s mahmen .

“Bring him back,” Lyric begged. “With everything I’ve heard about you, I know you’re powerful enough. You can raise the dead. You can bring him… back.”

She was crying now, the tears flowing freely onto her flannel nightgown.

“He is the one thing I love most in all the world,” Devina said. “And so I won’t do that to him. I can’t.”

“ What .” Lyric slapped a hold on that arm. “Please, you have to, he can’t die like this—”

“If I bring him back, he’ll have me in him again. He wouldn’t want that, even if you were with him and you love him like you say you do—he’d be back where he started.” A bloody tear formed at the corner of one of those black eyes. “He hates his father and me, and I don’t blame him.”

“You can’t let him die—”

“But you can do something about this.”

“What?” Lyric frowned. “I have no magic, I have—”

“You have a piece of him in you. I can sense it. I don’t know how it happened, and it doesn’t matter, really.

But you… give that back to him. Let his essence flow from you back into him, a mixture of the two of you, your mortality cleansing me and his father from him, clearing the decks, so to speak. ”

There was such sadness in the female, but also a resolve.

“Take his hand, Lyric—and question nothing. Just feel and let it flow back into him.” The demon glanced out toward the broken glass.

“And don’t worry, you’re safe, because Lash isn’t coming back here.

He’s an asshole, but I promised him a blow job later and I’m very good at that.

Turns out he’s missed me, the piece of shit—and I’m doing my damnedest to not be charmed by that. ”

The entity tilted her head as she rose to a full stand. “My son’s chosen wisely in you. You’re going to do well together. Now, wake him up with the kiss of life, and know that this is where you two end… and also where you begin. Save the one I love most in the world, for both you and me.”

Riding a sense of fear and disbelief, Lyric refocused on Dev, staring into his sightless eyes. Then she took a deep breath, closed her lids, and pressed her mouth to his.

Prepared to attempt the most important thing in the world.