Forever, page 31
The lips of the portrait began to move, as if the King were trying to tell her something—but before she could attempt to translate, a black tide rushed into him, the roiling cascade of letters overtaking him as he began to scream in agony. There was a tight swirl of utter darkness… and then an explosion that wiped all of it away, leaving only blank pages.
As Rahvyn sat back and put her hands up to her face, letters started to fall from the top to the bottom, like rain.
Or snow. Yes, it was snow because of the way the flurrying symbols collected at the bottom of the book’s display.
“I am not a savior,” she whispered. “I cannot—”
A portion of the Book’s pages lifted in the middle and then it went pffffffffffffffffffft.
Rahvyn shook her head, a sense of impending doom tightening her throat. “But what happens if I leave here? I do not know if it compromises you in some way—”
The Book closed itself abruptly. After which its knurled, ugly cover pulsated, as if it were flexing.
“You can take care of yourself,” she murmured.
The sharp clap was an affirmative if she’d ever heard one.
“But I’d rather stay here with you—”
The Book flopped itself open, and when the windowpane reappeared, Lassiter’s face was back again, the portrait not something created by a mere artist’s hand, but a faithful representation of what the fallen angel actually looked like. And that was when she realized… it was no drawing at all. It was a contemporaneous, live-time viewing of him, and given the flickering light playing over his grim features and the uneven rock wall behind him, she guessed that he was alone in a cave and before some sort of fire.
“He is wrong,” she said roughly. “I am not the Gift of Light.”
The Book clapped again, and did not stop, the urgency of the two sides impacting and falling back, impacting and falling back, like a military drummer’s beat to march with.
She thought of the portrait of the King, consumed by that dark tide.
Then the two males she did not recognize. And Lassiter.
The King.
Like three tarot cards sequentially laid upon a table, the answer to a question she had not asked.
“Their destinies are connected, aren’t they.” As she spoke, Rahvyn told herself not to get to her feet. And stood up anyway. “But where do I find—”
The collection of letters reappeared and composed another representation. Except what was shown to her… made no sense at all.
“The golden arches?” she said with confusion.
CHAPTER TWO
RUMBLE IN THE jungle.
In the end, Lassiter decided to leave his hideout because his empty stomach was turning his south-of-the-equator into a seat of unrest. Still, as he dematerialized and traveled through the cool spring night in a scatter of molecules, he had no real thought of where he was going to get some food.
Well, he knew one place he was not going. Even though Fritz, the Brotherhood’s butler, rode herd on an amazing bunch of doggen chefs, and he missed the crepes suzette like they were a family member, he couldn’t bear the idea of going to the mansion.
He just needed something simple and uncomplicated, caloric, but not fancy.
It wasn’t until he re-formed that he realized he hadn’t been out in the sun for days now. That more than transient “hungry” was the issue. As an immortal energy source, he needed to absorb sunlight to be at his strongest—
Lassiter tilted his head and looked up. Not to the sky, though.
The golden arches before him were glowing like a false sun, and for a split second, he wondered if maybe he could go up to them and try to grab some of that yellow light. It seemed more appetizing than the Big Mac that was more likely to be in his future—
Beeeeeeeeeeeep.
“Get the fuck outta here, whaddya doin’?”
He jumped back. The F-150 that had almost mowed him down had been murdered, everything blacked out from the windows to the rims to the body paint—and the guy behind the wheel was as manicured as his truck, his black hair and goatee paired with black clothes, his dark, nasty attitude like a cultivation so that everything about him was badass-uniform.
With an engine roar, the truck sped off to crush the drive-thru lane, and Lassiter watched it go with a feeling of nostalgia.
He missed Vishous. Even though the brother never had a nice word to say—because he was a grumpy little Tigger of a trained killer.
With a sense of nostalgia, he reflected that making sure that fighter was simmering at a constant parboil of irritation had been a professional calling. And who didn’t like to be successful at their endeavors, even if there was a low barrier to achievement when it came to poking that particular bear.
Easier to tee up than a golf ball.
When another car went by, this time a geriatric sedan with an exhausted woman behind the wheel who seemed to be either going in late to work or coming home from a long shift of work, he focused on the restaurant’s windows. Inside the well-lit interior, there were all kinds of humans milling around, the place kind of busy given the late hour.
Walking forward, he marveled that his subconscious had sent him back to this particular McDonald’s. As he pulled open the door, he still couldn’t remember what exactly he’d ordered for Tohr here all those years ago, and he was content to let his mind churn over that. It was better than so many other subjects—
Okay, wow. Things had changed. A bank of self-serve soda machines took up the wall next to the opposite exit, and gone was the lineup of open-air cash registers. Now there was a clutch of vertical order stations with people touch-screening their meals in, and the preparers working with the food were fewer and farther between.
It all seemed so impersonal, although if he were looking for companionship when ordering a Happy Meal, that was pretty pathetic, wasn’t it.
Stepping up to one of the screens, he hated the digitalization of the experience, and it was only after he’d made his choices and turned toward the pickup monitor mounted up near the ceiling—
A blond man the size of a house was pivoting around from receiving his meal, and holy calorie load. The amount of hamburgers and fries and sundaes on that tray suggested he was feeding a family of four—except he went off alone to the drink fill station, his pro wrestler’s body clearly used to sorting a load like that.
Next in line was a powerfully built woman in workout clothes who had short hair and an air like she could castrate a guy just by looking at him.
It was when a customer with a long, streaked-blond mane sauntered in along with a buddy who had a skull trim that he sent a glare up to the ceiling.
“If the ghost of Peter-frickin’-Steele walks through that door next, I’m leaving.”
Of course, the Creator wasn’t going to hear him, and even if He did, the ya-gotta-be-kidding wasn’t going to make any impression. But come on, obvious much?
“And Vishous would never drive a truck,” Lassiter muttered as his number popped up in the pole position on the your-meal-is-ready screen.
After he got his Big Mac and his fries, he went over and stared at the drink choices with his cup. He picked Coke because he felt like death and surely caffeine and sugar would perk him up?
There were lots of seats to choose from, and he zeroed in on a pair of benches right in the front windows because it was far away from Not Really Rhage, Not Actually Phury and Z, and Also Not Xhex.
Out on the street, cars passed by on the rural road at a lazy rate. He was far from Caldwell, just off the Northway at one of those exit conglomerations of fast-food joints and gas stations, the branded structures crammed in tight on either side of an overpass. He wasn’t exactly sure how far into the Adirondack Park he was, but he remembered choosing this location for its proximity to the great outdoors.
When he was on his way to reclaim Tohr.
What the hell had he brought the guy? Not that it mattered.
The food tasted really pretty good, and the Coke did perk him up. As he sat by his little lonesome, he watched the people come and go: An old man in a black suit shuffled in, his white hair precisely tended to, his eyes bright in spite of his age. A woman with a long, black braid down her back and a body that suggested she could meet a full-grown male more than halfway in a ground game fight.
A pair of guys, one with dark hair and a Goth vibe, the other a redhead who was dressed like James Spader ca. Pretty in Pink.
“Where’s the dually baby carriage,” he said under his breath. “You’re slacking.”
As a couple consisting of a brunette man in a very nice jacket and tie and a blond woman who was dressed like she was going to the opera waltzed in, Lassiter tossed his napkin and crossed his arms over his chest. Sure, the Creator was capable of great things, but why in the hell He would waste His time corralling all these doppelgangers into a Mickey D’s in upstate New York on a random…
What day of the week was it?
He couldn’t immediately remember, and as part of his brain churned over the calendar, he shook his head at the vastness of hours ahead and behind him—as well as the seven billion people on the earth. So many lives being lived minute by minute, all of the cycles of birth and death churning in a constant consumption and release of energy on a rock ball hurling through space. Reduced to its granular details, everything was just a bunch of physics calculations in a fruit salad of governing rules. Utterly pointless in the grand scheme of things.
Except for love. Love was like the core of the earth, a transformational warmth that turned a cold marble into a place of forests and sunsets… and a carbon-based life form at the mercy of biology into someone who remembered to leave a light on so their spouse wouldn’t trip on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Love was life to the dead, and make no mistake about it, a person could be a corpse even if they had a heartbeat.
Even if they were immortal.
When a fine-fellow-well-met with a mohawk and an amethyst silk suit pimped into McDagger-con, Lassiter pulled a fuck-it and got to his feet. The reason for the leavin’ was as ridiculous as this display of almost-theres.
Then again, he should be glad a nearly Rahvyn wasn’t opening any doors and ordering a McFlurry.
He was liable to break in half—
“It was a double cheeseburger.”
Lassiter froze in a crouch of bench evacuation. That voice. That… unforgettable voice.
Closing his eyes, he breathed in and smelled meadow flowers. And as he braced himself to turn around, he couldn’t decide whether the Creator was just being cruel or if destiny’s ultimate navigator was going to make it fucking impossible for him to go black-hole on the mission he’d been given.
Feeling like he was moving through quicksand, Lassiter twisted to the right—and lost the ability to speak. The female who was never very far from his mind was standing in front of him, a tray in her hands with a single hamburger, a small soda, two napkins, and a straw on it.
As their eyes met over the modest meal, the connection snapped into place, even as he knew they could never truly be together.
“Would you like fries with that,” he whispered as he stared into the face of his one, true love.
Continue Reading…
Lassiter
J.R. Ward
More from this Series
Claimed
Book 1
More from the Author
Darius
Lassiter
The Viper
Lover Arisen
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© JAN COBB
J. R. WARD is the author of more than forty novels, including those in her #1 New York Times bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood series. There are more than fifteen million copies of her novels in print worldwide, and they have been published in twenty-six different countries. She lives in the South with her family.
JRWard.com
Facebook.com/JRWardBooks
Twitter: @JRWard1
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/J-R-Ward
SimonandSchuster.com
BY J. R. WARD
THE BLACK DAGGER BROTHERHOOD SERIES
Dark Lover
Lover Eternal
Lover Awakened
Lover Revealed
Lover Unbound
Lover Enshrined
The Black Dagger Brotherhood: An Insider’s Guide
Lover Avenged
Lover Mine
Lover Unleashed
Lover Reborn
Lover at Last
The King
The Shadows
The Beast
The Chosen
The Thief
The Savior
The Sinner
Lover Unveiled
Lover Arisen
THE BLACK DAGGER LEGACY SERIES
Blood Kiss
Blood Vow
Blood Fury
Blood Truth
THE BLACK DAGGER BROTHERHOOD: PRISON CAMP
The Jackal
The Wolf
The Viper
THE BLACK DAGGER BROTHERHOOD WORLD
Prisoner of Night
Where Winter Finds You
A Warm Heart in Winter
THE LAIR OF THE WOLVEN
Claimed
Forever
FIREFIGHTERS SERIES
Consumed
NOVELS OF THE FALLEN ANGELS
Covet
Crave
Envy
Rapture
Possession
Immortal
THE BOURBON KINGS
The Bourbon Kings
The Angels’ Share
Devil’s Cut
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ISBN 978-1-9821-8020-1
ISBN 978-1-9821-8021-8 (ebook)
J.R. Ward, Forever
