Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #4) - J.R. Ward Page 0,178

I want it to be me instead of him," he said.

Oh... so this was about an act of aggression directed toward Rehvenge, not about feeding her. She should have known. She'd seen the look Butch had given Rehv just before getting into the car. He obviously still held a grudge from before.

"Never mind," Butch said, putting himself back into his pants and zipping up. "None of my business."

She had no reply for him, but he didn't seem to expect one. He handed her her clothes, didn't look at her as she dressed, and the second her nakedness was covered, he opened the back door.

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Cold air rushed in... and that was when she realized something. The inside of the car smelled of passion and feeding-thick, heady fragrances that were enticing. But there was not one hint of the bonding scent. Not one hint.

She couldn't bear to glance back at him as she walked away.

It was close to dawn when Butch finally pulled into the compound's courtyard. After parking the Escalade between Rhage's deep purple GTO and Beth's Audi station wagon, he walked over to the Pit.

After he and Marissa had parted, he'd driven around the city for hours, following the paths of meaningless streets, passing by nonexistent houses, stopping at traffic lights when he remembered to. He'd come home only because daylight was going to flash over the land very soon and it just seemed like the thing to do.

He looked to the east, where the barest hint of radiance showed.

Walking out to the center of the courtyard, he sat on the edge of the fountain's marble pool and watched as the shutters came down over the windows of the main house and the Pit. He blinked a little at the glow in the sky.

Then blinked a lot.

As his eyes started to burn, he thought about Marissa and remembered every single thing about her, from the shape of her face to the fall of her hair to the sound of her voice and the scent of her skin. Here in privacy, he let his feelings out, giving in to the aching love and the hateful yearning that refused to leave him be.

And what do you know, the bonding scent made an appearance once again. He'd somehow managed to withhold it when he'd been around her, feeling as though marking her wasn't fair. But here? Alone? No reason to hide.

As the sunrise gathered momentum, his cheeks flared with pain, like he had a sunburn, and his body twitched with alarm. He forced himself to stay because he needed to see the sun, but his thighs trembled from the urge to run, and he wasn't going to be able to hold them for long.

Shit... he was never going to catch daylight again, was he? And with Marissa out of his life, there would be no kind of sunshine for him. Ever.

The darkness owned him, didn't it.

He released the lock on himself because he had no choice, and the instant he did, his legs raced across the courtyard. Hurling his body through the Pit's vestibule, he slammed the innermost door and breathed roughly.

There was no rap music playing, but V's leather jacket was tossed on the chair behind the computers, so he was around. Probably still at the big house doing a postgame wrap-up with Wrath.

As Butch stood by himself in the living room, the familiar urge to drink hit hard, and he could see no good reason not to give in. Dumping his coat and his weapons, he headed for the Scotch, poured himself a long/tall, and brought the bottle out with him from the kitchen. Going over to his favorite couch, he lifted the glass to his lips and while he swallowed, his eyes fell on the newest issue of Sports Illustrated. There was a picture of a baseball player on the cover and next to the guy's head, in big yellow print, was a single word: HERO.

Marissa was right. He did have a hero complex. But it wasn't about some kind of an ego trip. It was because maybe if he saved enough people he could be... forgiven.

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That's what he was truly after: absolution.

Flashbacks from his younger years started to play like pay-per-view, except sure as shit this wasn't a movie he'd choose to order. And in the midst of the show, his eyes slid to the phone. There was only one person who could ease him about this stuff, and