J.R. Ward - Lover Mine

She’d just never had that particular experience before. . not with the three thing, but with the “good” part.

Thanks to John Matthew’s blood and Doc Jane’s handiwork, she was up and around the night after the rollout with Lash, and she knew she was back to her normal self because she’d put her cilices on again. And trimmed her hair. And been to her house on the Hudson River to get clothes and weapons.

And spent about. . four hours making love with John.

She’d also met with Wrath and it looked like she had a new job: The great Blind King had invited her to come fight with the Brotherhood. In the wake of her initial shock, he’d maintained that her skills were much needed and welcome in the war—and gee, yeah, kill some lessers ?

Great. Idea. She was so on board with that.

And speaking of on board, she’d moved into John’s room properly. In his closet, her leathers and her muscle shirts were hanging next to his, and their shitkickers were lined up together, and all her knives and her guns and her little toys were now locked up in his fireproof cabinet.

Their ammo was even stacked together.

Too frickin’ romantic.

So, yup, business as usual.

Except. . well, except for the fact that she’d been reduced to sitting on this big bed, rubbing her sweaty palms on her leathers for, like, the last half hour. John was having a workout down in the training center before their ceremony and she was glad he was busy elsewhere.

She didn’t want him to see her nervous like this.

Because it turned out, in addition to a phobia about medical crap, there was another little glitch in her hardwiring: The idea of standing up in front of a ton of people and being the focus of attention during their mating made her want to vomit. Guess it shouldn’t have been a total surprise, though. After all, in her job as an assassin, the whole point was to remain unseen. And she’d long been an introvert by both circumstance and character.

Pushing herself back to the pillows, she leaned against the headboard, crossed her feet at the ankles, and grabbed the remote. The little black Sony number discharged its duties with admirable flair, the thing firing up the flat-screen and switching the channels until they flicked by quick as the beat of her heart.

It wasn’t just the fact that there were going to be so many witnesses to her and John’s ceremony. It was because getting hitched made her think of the way things should have been if she’d had a normal life. On nights like this, most females were getting dressed in gowns made just for the occasion and being strewn with family jewels. They were looking forward to being presented to their intended by their proud fathers, and their mothers were supposed to be sniffling now as well as when the vows were exchanged.

Xhex, on the other hand, was walking down the aisle by herself. Wearing leathers and a muscle shirt, because that was all she’d ever owned for clothes.

As the TV stations flipped before her eyes, the distance between herself and “normal” seemed as great a divide as that of history itself: There would be no recasting of the past, no editing the peaks and valleys of her story. Everything from her mixed blood, to the kindly mated couple who had raised a nightmare, to everything that had happened to her since she’d left that cottage. . all of it was written in the cold stone of the past.

Never to be changed.

At least she knew that the wonderful male and female who had tried to raise her as their own had finally had a babe of their bloodline, a son who had grown up strong and mated well and given them a next generation.

All that had made the leaving of them so much easier.

But everything else in her life, save for John, had not had a happy resolution. God, maybe that was the cause of her nerves as well. This mating stuff with John was such a revelation, almost too good to be true—

She frowned and jacked upright. Then rubbed her eyes.

She couldn’t be seeing what was on the screen correctly.

It wasn’t possible. . was it?

Scrambling for the right button on the remote, she turned up the volume. “. . Rathboone’s ghost haunting the halls of his Civil War mansion. What secrets await our Paranormal Investigators team as they seek to uncover. .”

The narrator’s voice faded from hearing as the camera drew closer and closer upon a portrait of a male with dark hair and eyes that were haunted.

Murhder.

She’d know that face anywhere.

Leaping up, she rushed at the TV—but like that was going to help?

The camera panned back to show a beautiful parlor and then shots of the grounds of a white plantation house. They were talking about some kind of live special. . during which they were going to try to flush out the ghost of a Civil War abolitionist who so many maintained still roamed the halls and the grounds of where he’d once lived.

Tuning in to the commentary again, she desperately tried to catch where the mansion was located. Maybe she could. .

Just outside Charleston, South Carolina. That’s where it was.

Stepping back, she hit the bed with her calves and sat down. Her first thought was to flash there and see for herself whether it was her former lover or a real live ghost or just some talented television producers making a lot of noise.

But logic overrode the impulse. The last time she’d set her eyes on Murhder, he’d made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her. Besides, just because there was an old oil painting that resembled the male didn’t mean he was taking up res in that old manse playing Casper.

Although that was a helluva portriat. And terrorizing humans actually did sound right up his alley.

Shit. . she wished him well. She totally did. And if she wasn’t convinced she’d be as unwelcome as the secret she should have told him about after they’d gotten involved, she would have made the trip.

The fact was, however, sometimes the best thing that you could do for someone was stay away from them. And she’d given him her address on the Hudson. He knew where to find her.

God, she hoped he was okay, though.

The knock on the door brought her head around. “Hello?” she said.

“Is that a come-in?” a deep male voice answered.

She got to her feet and frowned, thinking that sure as hell didn’t sound like a doggen . “Yeah. It’s unlocked.”

The door swung wide to reveal. . a trunk—as in a wardrobe trunk. A Louis Vuitton wardrobe trunk from back in the day. And she assumed the guy holding it was a Brother—given the shitkickers and leathers showing down below.

Unless Fritz had eschewed the vanilla lifestyle for something out of V’s playbook. And put on a hundred pounds.

The LV lowered enough so that she got a clear shot at Tohrment’s face. The Brother’s expression was serious, but then, he wasn’t a Lite-Brite kind of guy. Never had been. . and given where his life had ended up, never would be ever.

He cleared his throat and then inclined his head toward what was up against his chest. “I’ve brought you something. For your mating.”

“Um. . well, John and I haven’t registered anywhere.” She motioned for him to come in. “Not like Crate and Barrel carries handguns. But thanks.”

The Brother stepped through the jamb and put the trunk down. The thing was five feet tall and about three feet wide and seemed to be the kind to split wide down the middle.

In the quiet that followed, Tohrment’s eyes traced over her face and yet again she had this odd sense that the guy knew too much about her.

He cleared his throat. “It is customary upon the mating of a female for her family to proffer vestments for the ceremony.”

Xhex frowned again. Then slowly shook her head from side to side. “I have no family. Not really.”