Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood #5)

John was antsy as he waited in the mansion's brilliantly colored foyer. He and Zsadist always went out for an hour before dawn, and there had been no change of plans as far as he was aware. But the Brother was nearly half an hour late.

To kill some more time, John took another trip across the mosaic floor. As always he felt as if he didn't belong in all the grandeur, but he loved and appreciated it. The foyer was so outrageously fancy it was like standing in a jewelry box: Columns in red marble and some kind of green-and-black stone supported walls festooned with gold-leafed curlicue thingies and light fixtures with crystals. The staircase up was a majestic expanse of red carpet, the kind of thing a movie star would pause dramatically at the top of, then swoop down to a black-tie party. And the pattern beneath your feet was of an apple tree in bloom, the bright palate of spring resplendent and glimmering thanks to millions of sparkling pieces of colored glass.

His favorite thing, though, was the ceiling. Three stories up there was an astonishing stretch of painted scenes, with warriors and stallions leaping to life as they went into battle with black daggers. They were so real it was as if you could reach up and touch them.

So real it was as if you could be them.

He thought back to when he'd first seen it all. Tohr had been taking him to meet Wrath.

John swallowed. He'd had Tohrment for such a short time. Mere months. After a lifetime of feeling ungrounded, after having floated along for two decades without any family-gravity to anchor him, he'd been given a glimpse of what he'd always wanted. And then with one bullet both his adoptive father and mother were gone.

He'd like to be big enough to say he was grateful he'd known Tohr and Wellsie for the time he had, but that was a lie. He wished he'd never met them. The loss of them was so much harder to bear than the amorphous ache he'd had when he'd been by himself.

Not really a male of worth, was he?

Without warning, Z strode out of the hidden door under the grand staircase, and John stiffened. He couldn't help it. No matter how many times he saw the Brother, Zsadist's appearance always made him think twice. It wasn't just the facial scar or the skull trim. It was the deadly air that hadn't been lost, even though he was now mated and going to be a father.

Plus tonight, Z's face was cast-iron tight, his body even tighter. "You good to go?"

John narrowed his eyes and signed, What's going on?

"Nothing you need to worry about. Are you ready." Not a question, a command.

When John nodded and zipped up his parka, the two of them went out through the front vestibule.

The night was the color of a dove, the stars faded by a thin saturation of clouds that was backlit by a full moon. According to the calendar spring was coming, but it was just in theory, if you went by the landscape: The fountain in front of the mansion remained out of commission for the winter, empty and waiting to be refilled. The trees were like black skeletons reaching to the sky, pleading with their bony arms for the sun to get stronger. Snow lingered on the lawns, stubbornly hanging in over ground that was still frozen solid.

The wind held a cheek-slapping chill as he and Zsadist walked over to the right, the pebbles of the courtyard shifting under their boots. The compound's security wall was off in the distance, a twenty-foot-tall, three-foot-thick bulwark that encircled the Brotherhood's property.

The thing was strung with security cameras and motion detectors, a good soldier packing a shitload of ammo. But all that was just small potatoes, really. The true keep-out was the 120 volts of electrical charge that ran across the top in curls of barbed wire.

Safety first. Always.

John followed Z down the snow-patched lawn, passing battened-down flower beds and the drained swimming pool in the back. After a gentle decline they reached the forest edge. At this point the monster wall hung a sharp louie and shot down the mountainside. They didn't follow it, but penetrated the tree line.

Beneath thick pines and densely branched maples there was a pad of old needles and leaves and not much undergrowth. Here, the air smelled like earth and cold air, a combination that made the inside of his nose tingle.

As usual, Zsadist led. The paths they took each night were different and felt random, but they always ended at the same place, a short-stack waterfall: The brook that came down the mountainside threw itself off a little cliff, then formed a shallow pool some nine feet across.

John went over and put his hand into the gurgling rush. As his palm pierced the tumble, his fingers numbed out from the cold.

In silence Zsadist crossed the stream, leaping from rock to rock to rock. The Brother's grace was that of the water, flowing and strong, his footing so sure it was clear he knew precisely how his body would react to each shift of muscle.

On the far side he walked up to the waterfall so he was across from John.

Their eyes met. Oh, man, Z had something to say tonight, didn't he.

The walks had started up after John had attacked another classmate and laid the kid out cold in the locker room shower. Wrath had made them a condition upon John staying in the training program, and he'd dreaded them at first, figuring Z was going to try to crawl all around his head. Up until now, however, they had always been about silence.

That wasn't going to be the case tonight.

John retracted his arm, walked downstream a little, and crossed over without Zsadist's confidence or dexterity.

As he came up to the Brother, Z said, "Lash is coming back."

John crossed his arms over his chest. Oh, great, the asshole John had put on a gurney. Granted, Lash had been beyond asking for it, coming after John, heckling and pushing him, turning on Blay. But still.

"And he's gone through the change."

Terrific. Even frickin' better. Now the bastard would be gunning for him with muscle.

When? John signed.

"Tomorrow. I've made it clear if he pulls any shit, he's out for good. You have problems with him, you come to me, we clear?"

Shit. John wanted to take care of himself. He didn't want to be watched over like a kid.

"John? You come to me. Nod your damn head."

John did so slowly.

"You will not aggress on the fucker. I don't care what he says or what he does. Just because he gets up in your face doesn't mean you have to react."

John nodded, because he had a feeling Z was going to ask him to again if he didn't.

"I catch you going all Dirty Harry, you're not going to like what happens."

John stared into the rushing water. God . . . Blay, Qhuinn, now Lash. All changed.

Paranoia took root and he looked at Z. What if the transition doesn't happen for me?

"It will."

How do we know for sure?

"Biology." Z nodded at a huge oak tree. "That thing is going to leaf up when the sun hits it. Can't help it, and the shit's the same with you. Your hormones are going to kick in hard-core, and then it happens. You can feel them already, can't you?"

John shrugged.

"Yeah, you can. Your patterns of eating and sleeping are different. So is your behavior. You think a year ago you would have taken Lash down onto the tile and pounded on him until he was breathing blood?"

Definitely not.

"You're hungry, but you don't like to eat, right? Restless and exhausted. Short-tempered."

Jesus, how did the Brother know all that?

"Been through it myself, remember."

How much longer? John asked.

"Until it hits? As a male, you tend to take after your father. Darius went through his a little on the early side. But you never really know. Some people can be where you are for years."

Years? Shit. What was it like afterward for you? When you woke up?

In the quiet that followed, the eeriest change came over the Brother. It was like a fog crept in and he disappeared¡ªdespite the fact that John could still see every detail of his scarred face and big body clear as ever.

"You talk to Blay and Qhuinn about that."

Sorry. John flushed. Didn't mean to pry.

"Whatever. Look, I don't want you to worry about it. We've got Layla lined up for you to feed from, and you're going to be in a safe environment. I'm not going to let anything bad go down."

John stared up at that ruined warrior face and thought about the classmate they'd lost. Hhurt died, though.

"Yeah, that happens, but Layla's blood is very pure. She's a Chosen. That's going to help you."

John thought of the beautiful blond. And of her dropping her robe right in front of him to show him her body for his approval. Man, he still couldn't believe she'd done that.

How will I know what to do?

Z craned his neck back and looked at the sky. "Don't need to worry about that. Your body will take charge. It will know what it wants and what it needs." Z's skull-trimmed head came back to level and he glanced over, his yellow eyes piercing the darkness sure as sunlight through a break in the clouds. "Your body is going to own you for a little while."

Though it shamed him he signed, I think I'm scared.

"Means you're smart. This is heavy-duty shit. But like I said... I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you."

Z turned away like he was feeling awkward, and John studied the male's profile against the backdrop of the trees.

As gratitude welled, Z cut off the thank-you John was gearing up to sign. "We'd better head home."

Crossing back over the river and heading for the compound, John found himself thinking about the biological father he'd never known. He'd avoided asking about Darius, because he'd been Tohr's best friend, and anything connected to Tohrment was hard for the Brothers to talk about.

He wished he knew where to go with his questions.