Lover at Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood #11)(139)
Author: J.R. Ward

With a nod, as if he’d been given an order, Tohr led the king back over to the altar and handed him the skull. Raising the collected blood high, Wrath said, "This is the first of us. Hail to him, the warrior who birthed the Brotherhood."

A war cry burst forth from the Brothers, their combined voices thundering in the cave; and then Wrath approached Qhuinn. "Drink and join us."

Roger. That.

With a sudden surge of strength, he grabbed that skull and looked right into the eye sockets as he brought the silver cup to his mouth. Opening the way to his gut, he poured the blood down his throat, accepting the males into him, absorbing their strength…joining them.

All around, the Brothers growled their approval.

When he was finished, he put the skull back in Wrath’s palms and wiped his mouth.

The king laughed deep in his massive chest. "You’re going to want to hang on to those pegs again, son…."

Annnnnnnnd that was the last thing he heard for a while.

Like a lightning bolt coming out of the sky and drilling him right in the head, a sudden burst of energy hit him, overtaking all of his senses. He jumped backward, finding the grips and locking on just as his body started to go into a seizure….

He had every intention of staying conscious.

But alas…sorry, Charlie. The maelstrom was too great.

As his body shook, and his heart flickered, and his mind fizzled like a firecracker, Boom! it was lights-out.

Chapter Seventy-one

"Sola, why you no tell me we have visitors?"

Sola paused as she put her backpack down on the countertop in the kitchen. Even though her grandmother was clearly waiting for an answer, she was not going to turn around until she was sure her expression showed none of the surprise she was feeling.

When she was ready, she pivoted on one boot.

Her grandmother was sitting at their little table, her pink-and-blue housecoat coordinating with the curlers in her hair and the flowered curtains behind her. At the age of eighty, she had the gracefully lined face of a woman who had lived through thirteen presidents, a World War, and innumerable personal struggles. Her eyes, however, burned with the strength of an immortal.

"Who came to the door, vovo?" she asked.

"The man with the" – her grandmother lifted her heavily knuckled hand and encircled her curlers – "dark hair."

Crap. "When did he stop by?"

"He was very nice."

"Did he leave his name?"

"So you did no expect him."

Sola took a deep breath, and prayed that her neutral affect stayed in place in spite of the grilling. Hell, after having lived with her grandmother for how many years, you’d think she’d be used to the fact that the woman was a one-way street when it came to questions.

"I wasn’t expecting anyone, no." And the idea that someone had come a-knocking made her put her hand on her bag. There was a nine in there with a laser sight and a silencer – and that was a very good thing. "What did he look like?"

"Very big. And the dark hair. Deep-set eyes."

"What color were they?" Her grandmother didn’t see all that well, but surely she would remember that. "Was he – "

"Like us. He spoke with me in the Spanish."

Maybe that erotic man she’d been tracking was bilingual – make that trilingual, given his strange accent.

"So did he leave his name?" Not that that would help. She didn’t know what the man she’d been tracking called himself.

"He said you knew him, and that he would be back with you."

Sola glanced at the digital readout on the microwave. It was just before ten p.m. "When did he come by?"

"Not that long ago." Her grandmother’s eyes narrowed. "You been seeing him, Marisol? Why you no tell me?"

At that point, everything flipped into Portuguese, their staccato speech overlapping, all kinds of I’m-not-dating-anyone interlacing with why-can’t-you-just-get-married. They’d had the argument so many times, they basically just reassumed their well-practiced parts in this overdone play.

"Well, I liked him," her grandmother announced as she got up from the table and banged the surface with her open palms. As the napkin caddy with its payload of Vanity Fair jumped, Sola wanted to curse. "And I think you should bring him here for a proper dinner."

I would, Grandmother, but I don’t know the guy – and would you feel this way if you knew he was a criminal? And a playboy?

"Is he Catholic?" her grandmother asked on the way out.

He’s a drug dealer – so if he is religious, he’s got incredible powers of reconciliation.

"He looks like a good boy," her vovo said over her shoulder. "A Catholic good boy." And that was that – for now.

As those slippers scuffed their way across to the stairs, undoubtedly there were all kinds of making the sign of the cross going on. She could just picture it.

With a curse, Sola dropped her head and closed her eyes. On some level, she couldn’t imagine that man being all warm and fuzzy just because a little old Brazilian woman opened the damn door. Catholic, her ass.

"Damn it."

Then again, who was she to be sanctimonious? She was a criminal, too. Had been for years – and the fact that she’d had to provide for herself and her grandmother didn’t justify all the breaking and entering.

Who did her mystery man support, she wondered as the next-door neighbor’s dog began to bark. Those twins? They’d looked really self-sufficient. Did he have kids? A wife?

For some reason, that made her shudder.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she stared at the you-could-eat-off-of-it floor that her grandmother cleaned every day.

He had no right to come here, she thought.

Then again, she had visited his place uninvited, hadn’t she –

Sola frowned and lifted her eyes. The window that was framed by those ruffled pink half drapes was jet-black because she hadn’t turned any exterior lights on yet. But she knew someone was there.

And she knew who it was.

Breath going short, heart starting to beat fast, she put her hand up to the front of her throat for some reason.

Turn away, she told herself. Run away.

But…she did not.

Assail had not meant to go to his burglar’s home. But the tracking device was still on her Audi, and when it had informed him that she’d returned to the address, he was incapable of not materializing there.

He did not want to be seen, however, so he chose the backyard, and how fortuitous: When his burglar walked into the kitchen, he got a full view of her – as well as her housemate.

The older human female was rather enchanting in an elderly kind of way, her hair in curlers, her robe bright as a spring day, her face beautiful in spite of her age. She was not happy, however, as she sat at the table and glared across at what Assail surmised had to be her grandaughter.