Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8) - J.R. Ward Page 0,7

it difficult to breathe. The idea that Xhex was probably dead by now ate him alive . . . and what was worse was imagining the way she might have died.

John knew who'd taken her. There was only one logical explanation: While she had gone into the labyrinth and helped to free Rehvenge, Lash 32

had shown up, and when he'd disappeared so had she. Not a coincidence. And though no one had seen anything, there had been about a hundred symphaths in the cave where Rehv had been and a lot going on . . . and Lash was not your garden-variety lesser.

Oh, no . . . he was apparently the son of the Omega. The very spawn of evil. And that meant the cocksucker had tricks.

John had seen a few of his fancy dancies up close and personal during the fight at the colony: If the guy could palm up energy bombs and go noseto-nose with Rhage's beast, then why couldn't he snatch someone right from under everyone's noses. The thing was, if Xhex had been killed that night, they would have found a body. If she was breathing, but had an injury, she would have telepathically reached out symphath-to -symphath to Rehvenge. And if she was alive, but needed a little vacation, she would have left only after she was sure everyone else was home safe.

The Brothers were working off the same logical assumptions, so they were all out looking for lessers. And although most of the vampires had left Caldwell for out of state safe houses after the raids, the Lessening Society, under Lash's rule, had turned to drug dealing to make ends meet, and that went down mainly around the clubs here in town on Trade Street. Trolling seedy alleys was the name of the game, with everyone looking for things that were undead and smelled like a cross between a bled-out skunk and a Glade PlugIn.

Four weeks and they'd found nothing other than signs that lessers were moving product on the street to humans.

John was going insane, mostly from all the not-knowing and the fear, but partially from having to hold his violence inside. Although it was amazing what you could do when you had no choice--he had to appear normal and levelheaded if he wanted to be a part of this, so that was what he presented himself to be.

And this tattoo? It was a stake shoved into the territory he was in. His declaration that even if Xhex hadn't wanted him, she was his mate and he would honor her, alive or dead. Here was the thing: People felt the way they did and it wasn't their fault or yours if the connection was one-sided. It just . . . was.

God, he wished he hadn't been so cold when they'd had sex the second time.

That final time.

Abruptly, he cut off his emotions, putting that genie of sadness and regret and rejection back into its bottle. He couldn't allow himself to break down. He had to keep going, keep searching, keep putting one foot in front 33

of the other. Time was moving forward even though he wanted to slow it down so that they had a better chance of finding her alive. The clock was not interested in his opinions, however. Dear God, he thought. Please let me not fail in this. 34

THREE

"Induction? What, like it's a fucking club?" As the words bounced around the inside of the Mercedes, Lash tightened his hands on the steering wheel and stared out the windshield. He had a switchblade in the inside pocket of his Canali suit and the urge to out the blade and slice this human's throat open was goddamned tempting. Of course, then he'd have a dead body to deal with and blood all over the leather.

Both of which were bores.

He looked across the seats. The one he had picked out of a cast of hundreds was your typical bottom-feeding, drug-dealing, shifty-eyed motherfucker. The kid's history of child abuse was written in the old circular scar on his face--perfectly round and the size of the burning end of a cigarette--and his hard life on the street was in his smart, twitchy eyes. His greed was in the way he looked around the inside of the car, like he was trying to figure out how to make it his own, and his resourcefulness was obvious by how quickly he'd made a name for himself as a go-to dealer.

"More than a club," Lash said in a