The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,198

back and crossed his long legs knee to ankle. “This is a much better outcome than us having to kill you.”

“I am not pleased with this.”

“It’s better than a coffin,” Rhage said.

The drug dealer glanced over. “That is correct.” With that, Assail turned on his heel and headed for the door. “You know where to find me if you have further inquiries or require assistance with a raid.”

Butch let the male out, escorting him to the house’s front door.

It wasn’t until the Brother was back and had reshut them all in together that anyone said a thing.

“If that is the Forelesser,” Wrath said, “the Omega will know instantly.”

“But he changes them every fifteen minutes,” V said. “And one of us didn’t kill him. Maybe he’ll just anoint the next one and move along.”

“Maybe.” Wrath nodded to the cardboard box. “Get rid of that when you go to confirm the corpse.”

“I can go,” Butch offered. “And take him out of the game permanently.”

V shook his head. “You can’t dematerialize. Too dangerous—”

All at once, everyone’s phone went off, the collective pings, bongs, and whistles like someone had cranked up a Sesame Street epi.

As everyone went for their pockets, Rhage wondered what the hell it could be about. Tohr was off rotation at home. Rehv hated phones. And Lassiter had been forced to give up group-texting after V had disabled the function on the idiot’s Samsung—besides, it would have been a chorus of Denis Leary’s “I’m an Asshole,” which everyone had put as the angel’s ringtone.

“Oh, shit,” someone said.

Rhage had to read twice what had been sent. Then he let his arm fall down to his side and closed his eyes.

“Somebody had better fucking tell me what the mourning is all about,” Wrath said roughly.

“It’s Selena,” Rhage heard himself reply. “She’s gone down.”

Sitting on the rumpled bed at his place at the Commodore, iAm found himself checking maichen’s robing, looking for anything that was out of place, wrinkled, cockeyed. He was not sending her back to the Territory looking as if she had been sexed but good.

Even if she had, in fact, been.

“Tomorrow night,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Good.” Shit, he wasn’t sure whether he could wait that long. “That’s tight.”

Motioning her closer, he arranged the hood in his hands so that, as he put it over her head, the mesh was in the right place. He hated covering her features once again. It was as if he were imprisoning her even though she was free to come or go as she pleased.

Relatively free, that was.

“Until the morrow,” she said, her beautiful voice muffled.

He reached out and took her hand. He intended to squeeze it and let her go, but he found himself not able to release the grip.

“maichen.” He took a deep breath. “What would you say if I offered you a place here? Here in Caldwell, I mean. If I took care of you and kept you safe here in the city.”

It definitely wouldn’t be in this condo; that was for sure—s’Ex was no doubt going to resume using the four walls and a roof as a fuck palace as soon as the mourning was over—

Oh, wait. That was when they were going to want Trez.

Whatever.

It would be somewhere else.

As she hesitated, he said, “You wouldn’t have to serve anyone. You could be free.”

You could be with me, he thought.

Which was, yeah, nuts, but time was feeling really damn short lately, and he just didn’t want to wait about anything. Especially anything that was on the feel-good instead of the get-you-in-the-nuts scale.

“You’d be safe,” he repeated. “On my life, I would keep you safe. And there’s a whole world out here, things for you to do and places to explore, schools to attend. The humans are mostly idiots, but they’d leave you alone.”

In a flash, the fantasy spun out like a gold thread, images of him cooking for her at Sal’s, introducing her with pride to his waiters, maybe bringing her to the compound for a meal.

He studiously ignored the whole run-from-the-s’Hisbe thing.

“iAm,” she whispered.

Shit. That tone of hers said it all.

And he wasn’t going to hear it. “You could have a real life out here. You’re so much better than just a maid for other people. You could really live.”

With me, he finished to himself.

Oh, God, he was so done-for with her. And whereas he might have chalked it up to his finally getting laid, it was so much more than that. In his soul, he somehow knew her.

Over on the side table,