J. Ward: Dark Lover

The man cursed as he examined the neck wound. He looked at Beth. "Your blood's not strong enough. Marissa, get over here."

Beth was fighting back tears as she lifted her wrist from Wrath's mouth and looked up at the blond woman.

Marissa hesitated. "Are you okay with my feeding him?"

Beth offered Wrath's dagger handle first. "I don't care who he drinks from if it will save him."

Marissa cut herself easily, as if she'd done it many times before. Then she lifted Wrath's head up and pressed the wound to his mouth.

His body jolted like it had been hooked up to a car battery.

"All right, let's move him," said the man who'd taken charge. "Marissa, you keep that wrist right where it is."

Beth took Wrath's hand as the men got him up off the barn floor. They carried him as gently as they could over to

Vishous's SUV, laying him out flat in the back. Marissa and Beth got in with Wrath as Butch and Vishous took the front seat. The other man disappeared.

As the Escalade roared over the back roads, Beth stroked Wrath's arm, up and down his tattoos. The skin was cold.

"You love him so very much," Marissa murmured.

Beth looked up. "Is he drinking?"

"I don't know."

In the surgical suite's anteroom, Havers snapped off his latex gloves and threw them into a bio-trash container. His back ached after having spent hours leaning over Wrath, stitching up sections of the warrior's intestine and fixing the wound in his neck.

"Will he live?" Marissa asked as she came out of the OR. She was weak from all the blood she'd given. Pale, but intense.

"We'll know soon enough. I hope so."

"As do I." She walked past him, refusing to meet his eyes.

"Marissa-"

"I know you are sorry. But I am not the one to whom you should offer your regrets. You might start with Beth. If ever she is ready to hear you."

As the door slid shut with a hiss, Havers closed his eyes.

Oh, dear God, the pain in his chest. The pain of deeds that could never be undone.

Havers sagged against the wall, pulling the surgical cap off his head.

Thankfully, the Blind King had a true warrior's constitution. He was stout of body, fierce of will. Although he wouldn't have survived without Marissa's nearly pure blood.

Or, Havers suspected, the presence of his dark-haired shel-lan . Beth, as she was called, had stayed by his side throughout the operation. And even though the warrior had been unconscious, his head had stayed turned toward her. She'd spoken to him for hours, until she had only a hoarse whisper left.

And she was still in there with him now, though she was so exhausted she could barely sit up. She'd refused to let her own wounds be examined, and she wouldn't eat.

She just stayed with her hellren .

With a lurch, Havers went over to the deep prep sinks. He gripped the stainless-steel gunnels and stared at the drains. He felt like throwing up, but his stomach was empty.

The brothers were outside. Waiting for news from him.

And they knew what he had done.

Before Havers had gone in to operate, Tohrment had grabbed him around the throat. If Wrath died on the table, the warrior had vowed, the brothers were going to string Havers up by the feet and beat him with their bare fists until he bled out. Right in his own house.

No doubt Zsadist had told them everything.

God, if only I could go back to that alley , Havers thought. If only I hadn't gone there at all .

And he should have known never to approach a member of the brotherhood with such a treasonous request. Not even the soulless one.

After he'd made the offer to Zsadist, the brother had stared down at him with those terrifying black eyes, and Havers had immediately realized he'd made a mistake. Zsadist might have been full of hate, but he wasn't a traitor against his king, and he was offended that he'd been asked.

"I'll kill for free," Zsadist had growled. "But only if I were going after you. Get out of my sight before I get out my knife."

Rattled, Havers had rushed away, only to find himself being tracked by what he'd assumed must be a lesser . It was the first time he'd ever been close to one of the undead, and it was a surprise that the society member was so fair of hair and skin. Still, the thing was pure evil and ready to kill. Trapped in a corner in the alley, scared out of mind, Havers had started talking, as much to get the job he wanted done as to keep himself from getting slain. The lesser had been skeptical at first, but Havers had always been persuasive, and the word king , used liberally, had gotten its attention. Information had changed hands. The lesser had walked off. And the die was cast.

Havers breathed deeply, bracing himself to go out into the hall.

At least he could pledge to the brothers that he'd done the best he could with the surgery.

Although that hadn't been because he'd wanted to save his own life. Such an acquittal was impossible. He was going to be put to death for what he'd done; it was just a question of when.

No, in the OR, he'd performed to the best of his ability because it was the only way he could make up for the atrocity he'd committed. And because those five heavily armed males and that fierce human man waiting outside had looked like their hearts were breaking.

But neither of those had been his truest motivator.

He'd been galvanized most by the burning pain in that dark-haired Beth's eyes. He knew well that horrified, impotent expression. He'd been wearing it himself as he'd watched his shellan die.

Havers washed his face and went out into the hall. The brothers and the human looked up at him.

"He has survived the surgery. Now, we have to see if he holds on." Havers went over to Tohrment. "Do you want to take me now?"

The warrior stared down at him with hard, violent eyes. "We'll keep you alive to care for him. And then he can kill you himself."

Havers nodded and heard a soft crying sound. He looked over to see Marissa clasping a hand to her mouth.

He was about to go over when the human male stepped in front of her. The man hesitated before holding out a handkerchief. She took what he offered and then walked away from them all.

Beth put her head down on the far corner of Wrath's pillow. He'd been transferred to a hospital bed from the operating table, though he was not going to be moved into a normal patient room. Havers had decided to keep him in the OR in case he needed to be operated on again on an emergency basis.

The white-walled facility was cold, but someone had put a heavy fleece on her. Evidently, they'd also wrapped a blanket around the bottom half of her body, too. She couldn't remember who had been so kind.

As she heard a clicking sound, she glanced over at the mountain of machines Wrath was hooked up to. She measured each one of them without having much idea what the readouts meant. Provided that none of the alarms were going off, she had to imagine it was okay.

The sound came again.

She looked down at Wrath. And shot to her feet.

He was trying to talk, but his mouth was so dry, his tongue was thick.

"Shhh." She gripped his hand. Put her face in his line of vision in case he opened his eyes. "I'm right here."

His fingers twitched in hers. And then he faded away again.

God, he looked like hell. Pale as the ceramic tiles on the OR's floor. Eyes sunk deep into his skull.

He had a thick bandage on his throat. His belly was wrapped in gauze and cotton pads, with drains leading out of the wound. There was an IV pumping fluids and painkillers into his arm and a catheter bag hanging off the bedside. A tangle of EKG wires were stuck on his chest, and an oxygen sensor was clipped onto his middle finger.