Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8) - J.R. Ward Page 0,50

estate. It was what he'd grown up around, and undoubtedly he would see it as his due.

John's heart started to beat hard and fast.

The Lexus stopped in front of a garage, and when the door was up, it went in. A moment later, the little slayer walked through a garden to the back of one of the nicer brownstones.

Rhage appeared right next to John and signed, You go in the rear with me. Vishous and the boys are going to dematerialize in through the front door. V's already on the porch and says there's no steel. When John nodded, the two of them flashed down onto a slate terrace--just as the lesser popped the door into what looked like a gourmet kitchen. They waited a moment, frozen in time and space, as the slayer turned off the security system.

The fact that the thing needed to be disarmed didn't necessarily mean Lash wasn't inside. Lessers required time-outs to recharge on a regular basis and only an asshole left himself unsecured.

John just had to believe what he was looking for was in that house. 116

FIFTEEN

Xhex was sitting in the wing chair by the window when she heard the noise up above on the roof. The muffled bump-bump was loud enough to pull her free of the mental aerobics she did to keep herself sharp. She looked to the ceiling. . . .

Downstairs, the security system went off and her precision hearing picked up the beep-beep-beep-beep-beep of it being disarmed. And then there were the light footsteps of the lesser who brought her food--Something was off. Something . . . just wasn't right. Sitting forward in her chair, she tensed up from neck to foot and cast out mental feelers. Although she couldn't send symphath signals, her ability to sense emotional grids was compromised but workable . . . and that was how she knew there was somebody other than that slayer around the house. A number of bodies. Two out the back. Three in the front. And the emotions of the individuals who had surrounded the brownstone were appropriate to those of soldiers: deadly calm, utterly focused. But they were not lessers.

Xhex shot to her feet.

Jesus . . . Christ. They'd found her. The Brothers had fucking found her.

And the ambush was executed with perfect timing. Downstairs, she heard a shout of surprise, a scramble of bodies, and then the pounding of boots as hand-to-hand combat was thrown around and back-up came roaring in from another direction.

Even though no one but Lash could hear her, she started to yell as loud as she could in the hopes that for once, she could reach out beyond the invisible walls of her cage.

John Matthew couldn't believe the lesser hadn't known they were there. Unless the fucker was compromised in some way, it should have tweaked to the fact that there were vampires all around the place. But oh, no--it just went about its biz, stepping inside while leaving the damn door 117

open.

First order of infiltration was control, and as soon as John was over the brownstone's threshold, he subdued the lesser by cranking the bastard's arms behind its back, forcing it facedown on the tile, and sitting on its ass like a grand piano. Meanwhile, Rhage blasted past on surprisingly light feet just as V and the boys emerged into the kitchen from the dining room. As the first level of the house was searched fast, John felt a tickling go down his back . . . as if a razor-sharp knife was tracing his spine. Looking around, he couldn't tease out the origin of the sensation, so he banked the instinct.

"Cellar," Rhage hissed.

Vishous headed down with the Brother.

With his boys left to guard his back, John was able to focus his attention on the lesser beneath him. Fucker was too quiet, too still. Breathing, but that was it.

Had it hit something on the way down to the floor? Was it leaking?

Usually they fought back.

Kicked gas cans, for fucking instance.

As he searched for signs of bleeding or other injury, John shifted his head around without giving the slayer a chance to get free. Grabbing onto the fucker's hair, he pulled up-He found something, all right . . . but it sure as shit wasn't caused by the tackle. On the left side of the slayer's neck, there were two puncture wounds and a circular bruise caused by sucking.

Qhuinn came over and kneeled down. "Who's been workin' your neck, big guy?"

The lesser didn't reply as