Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #9) - J. R. Ward Page 0,131

chill ran through her, sure as if there were a draft in the room. But then she shook her head. “You wanted me, healer. When you came back here and saw me in that bed—your scent was nothing about the condition I was in, and you are a coward if you pretend otherwise. Hide if you will, healer—”

“My name is Manny,” he snapped. “Manuel Manello. I was brought here to help you—and in case you haven’t noticed, you’re on your feet. So I have. Right now? I’m just waiting until you people rip into my brain again and leave me strapped to separate night from day and dreams from reality. This is your world, not mine, and there is only either/or.”

Their eyes locked together, and in that moment, if the facility had been on fire, she would not have been able to look away . . . and neither, she realized, would he.

“If it could work,” she said roughly, “if you were allowed to come and go as you pleased, would you stay with me.”

“Payne—”

“My question is clear. Answer it. Now.” As his brows rose, she could not tell whether he was excited or repulsed by her brashness, and she did not care in that moment. “The truth is what it is, spoken or not. So we might as well have it all out.”

He slowly shook his head. “Your brother doesn’t think—”

“Fuck my brother,” she countered. “Tell me what you think.”

In the strained silence that followed, she realized what she had just said, and wanted to curse anew. Dropping her head, she stared at the floor, not in meekness, but out of frustration. Females of worth did not use words like that, and they did not pressure people for a tea towel, much less something like this.

Indeed, a proper female would stand by as the eldest male of her family handled the big decisions in her life, shaping the course of everything from where she lived to unto whom she was betrothed.

Outbursts. Sex. Swearing. Any more of this and she was going to make Vishous’s wishes come true, because her healer—Manuel, that was—would find her so unattractive he would beg to be taken away from her with no memories of their time together.

Would she never fit the Layla standard of feminine perfection?

Rubbing her temples, she muttered, “You are both right—just for the wrong reasons. You and I could never last, because I am not a good match for any male.”

“What?”

Tired of everything . . . of him and her brother, of herself, of females and males in general . . . she waved him off and turned away. “You say this is my world? You have that so very wrong. I do not belong here any more than you do.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Verily, he might as well get the true picture of things on his way out. What the hell.

She stared over her shoulder. “I am the daughter of a god, Manuel. A deity. That glow you call forth from me? It is her very essence as an entity. That is what she is. As for my father? He was nothing but a sadistic bastard who imparted unto me the urge to kill—that was his ‘gift.’ And do you want to know what I did with it? Do you?” She was aware that her voice was rising but was singularly disinclined to quiet herself. “I killed him, Manuel. And for that crime against mine bloodline, for that offense against the standards of behavior for females, I was imprisoned and held for centuries. So you are too right. Go—and do it now. It is for the best. But do not think that I fit in here any better than you do.”

With another curse, she pushed past him and strode out into the corridor, figuring Manuel would find himself freed very shortly—

“It was your brother. Wasn’t it.”

The calm, low words echoed down the barren hallway, stopping not just her feet, but her heart.

“I saw the condition he’s in,” Manuel said in a deep voice. “Any chance your father did that to the guy?”

Payne slowly turned back around. Standing in the middle of the corridor, her healer was showing neither shock nor horror, just an intelligence she was coming to expect from him.

“Why would you think that,” she said in a dead tone.

“When I operated on him, I saw the scars, and it’s pretty clear someone tried to castrate him. Extrapolating? From my limited interaction with him, I’d say he’s