Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood #5)

Jane was out of time. And she knew it in the same way she knew when a patient was taking a turn for the worse. Her internal clock went off, her alarm starting to beep.

"I don't want to let go of him," she said to no one.

Her voice didn't travel far, and she noticed that the fog seemed more dense... so dense it was starting to obscure even her feet. And then it dawned on her. They weren't obscured. With cold dread she realized that unless she did something, she was going to dissolve and take her place within the wall of ambient-nothing. She would be forever alone and lonely, pining for the love she'd once felt.

A sad, shifting ghost.

Now she was finally struck by emotion, and it was one that brought tears to her eyes. The only way to save herself was to let the yearning for Vishous go; that was the key to the door. But if she did it, she felt as if she were abandoning him, leaving him alone to face a cold, bitter future. After all, she could imagine how it would be for her if he died.

In a surge the fog grew even thicker and the temperature dropped. She looked down. Her legs were disappearing... first up to her ankles, now to her calves. She was leaching out into the nothingness, dispersing.

Jane began to cry as she found her resolve and wept for the selfishness of what she had to do.

How did she let go of him, though?

As the fog crawled up to her thighs, she panicked. She didn't know how to do what she must¡ª

The answer, when it came to her, was painful and simple.

Oh... God . . . Letting go meant you accepted what couldn't be changed. You didn't try to hold on to hope in order to coerce a change in fortune... nor did you battle against the superior forces of fate and try to make them capitulate to your will... nor did you beg for salvation because you assumed you knew better. Letting go meant you stared at what was before you with clear eyes, recognizing that unfettered choice was the exception and destiny the rule.

No bargaining. No trying to control. You gave up and saw that the one you loved was in fact not your future, and there was nothing you could do about it.

Tears fell from her eyes into the swirling mist as she released all pretense of strength and let go of her fight to keep her tie to Vishous alive. As she did, she had no faith or optimism, she was empty as the fog around her: An atheist in life, she found in death she was the same. Believing in nothing, now she was nothing.

And that was when the miracle happened.

A light fell from overhead, sheltering her, warming her, suffusing her with something that was just as the love she had felt for Vishous had been: a benediction.

As she was pulled upward like a daisy plucked from the ground by a gentle hand, she realized that she could still love who she loved, even though she wasn't with him. Indeed, their divergent paths did not dissect and desecrate what she felt. It layered her emotions with a cloak of bittersweet longing, but it didn't change what was in her heart. She could love him and wait for him on the far side of life. Because love, after all, was eternal and not subject to the whims of death.

Jane was free... as upward she flew.

Phury was about to lose it.

But he had to get in line if he was going to go mad, because all the brothers were on a thin edge. Especially Butch, who was pacing around the study like a prisoner in solitary confinement.

No sign of Vishous. No calls. No nothing. And dawn was coming like a freight train.

Butch stopped. "Where would you do a funeral for a shellan?"

Wrath frowned. "The Tomb."

"You think maybe he'd taken her there?"

"He's never been too keen on the whole ritual deal, and with his mother having forsaken him... ?" Wrath shook his head. "He wouldn't go there. Besides, he'd have to know that's one of the places we'd look for him, and he's so damned private. Assuming he's putting her down, he wouldn't want an audience."

"Yeah."

Butch started up with the pacing again as the grandfather clock rang in four thirty a.m.

"You know what?" the cop said. "I'm just going to check it out, if that's cool. I can't stay in here a second longer."

Wrath shrugged. "Might as well. We've got nothing else to go on."

Phury stood up, unable to take the waiting any longer either. "I'm going with you. You'll need someone to show you where the entrance is."

Because Butch couldn't dematerialize, the two of them got in the Escalade, and Phury powered the SUV over the lawn and into the forest. With the sun coming up so soon, he didn't bother with a roundabout way, but gunned right for the Tomb.

The two of them were utterly silent until Phury pulled up to the entrance of the cave and they got out.

"I smell blood," Butch said. "I think we've got them."

Yeah, there was the barest trace of human blood in the air... no doubt from V having carried Jane inside.

Shit. Jogging into the cave, they headed for the back, slipping through the disguised entrance and going down to the iron gates. One side was open, and there was a trail of wet footsteps down the center of the hall of jars.

"He's here!" Butch said, relief carrying his words more than his breath did.

Yeah, except why would V, who hated his mother, bury the female he loved according to the Scribe Virgin's traditions?

He wouldn't.

As they started down the hall, Phury's sense of doom was triggered... especially as they got to the end and he saw an empty spot on the shelving, where a lesser's jar was missing. Oh, no. Oh... God no. They should have brought more weapons. If V had done what Phury feared he had, they were going to need to be armed to the nines.

"Hold up!" He stopped, tore a torches from the wall, and handed it to Butch. After he nabbed one for himself, he grabbed Butch's arm. "Be prepared to fight."

"Why? V might be pissed off that we came, but he's not going to get violent."

"Jane's the one you're going to want to watch for."

"What the fuck are you talking ab¡ª"

"I think he might have tried to bring her back¡ª"

A brilliant flash of light exploded up ahead, turning everything into noontime.

"Fuck!" the cop barked in the aftermath. "Don't tell me he would?"

"If Marissa died and you could pull it off, wouldn't you?"

The two of them took off and burst into the cave. Only to stop dead.

"What is that?" Butch breathed.

"I... I have no idea."

On slow, quiet feet they walked down to the altar, transfixed by the sight ahead. Sitting in the middle of the lintel stone was a sculpture, a bust... of Jane's head and shoulders. The composition was done in dark gray stone, the likeness so exact it was like a photograph. Or maybe a hologram. Light from candles flickered over the features, casting shadows that seemed to animate them. At the far right end of the slab there was a smashed ceramic jar, the Brotherhood's sacred skull, as well as what looked like a mangled, oil-covered heart.

On the far side of the altar, V was propped up against the wall of names, his eyes shut, his hands in his lap. One of his wrists was tied up tightly with a strip of black cloth, and one of his daggers was missing. The place smelled like smoke, but there was none in the air.

"V?" Butch went over and knelt down next to his roommate.

Phury left the cop to deal with V and headed for the altar. The sculpture was a perfect likeness of Jane, so real it could have been her as she breathed. He reached out, compelled to touch the face, but the instant his forefinger came into contact with it, the bust lost all form. Shit. It wasn't made of stone but ash, and now it was nothing more than a loose mound of what must be Jane's last remains.

Phury looked over at Butch. "Tell me V's alive?"

"Well, he's breathing, at any rate."

"Let's get him home." Phury looked at the ashes. "Let's get them both home."

He need something to carry Jane in, and he sure as hell wasn't going to use a lesser jar. He glanced around. There was nothing.

Phury took off his silk shirt and spread it flat on the altar. It was the best he could do and they were out of time.

Daylight was coming. And there was no negotiating with its arrival.