Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last

nights, they were going to need a vein.
    Which meant she
had
to come.
    Although…damn. He couldn’t say he really appreciated the reasonwhy. The idea of someone else at her vein kind of made him want to go Ginsu on whoever it was.
    All things considered, his obsession was a little sad, particularly in its manifestations: Every night for the past week, he’d hung around after First Meal, waiting, looking casual, talking to the godforsaken Lassiter—who was actually not that bad a guy when you got to know him. Matter of fact, that angel was a font of information about the house, and so into his crap TV that he didn’t seem to notice how many questions were clustered around the subject of the females. The Primale. Whether there was any hooking up going on anywhere, with anybody outside of mated couples.
    Pausing by his computer, he turned off
The Howard Stern Show
, cutting short another round of Baba Booey bashing; then he left his room, stalking past the vaulted wall that retracted whenever Wrath or Beth wanted to come or go from their quarters. Hitting the carpeted stairs, he emerged at the head of the hall of statues.
    Or hall of buck-ass naked dudes, as he thought of it.
    Rounding to the right, he went by the king’s study, which was closed, and descended the grand staircase into that incredible foyer. On the way down, he bitched about the time, wishing he didn’t have to go. Business was business, however, and—
    He was halfway to the mosaic floor below when the female he had wanted to see emerged from the billiards room and headed in the direction of the library.
    “Selena,” he called out, going across to the balcony and leaning on all that gold leaf.
    As he looked over the drop, her head lifted, and her eyes rose to his own.
    Pound. Pound. Pound.
    His heart got loud as a war chant in his chest, and his hands automatically went to his coat, making sure that the front stayed closed. She was a female of worth, after all—and he didn’t want to frighten her with his weapons.
    Oh, man, she was beautiful.
    With her dark hair twisted high off her nape, and her diaphanous robe draping her body, she was far too precious and gentle to be around anything violent.
    Or anything like him.
    “Hello,” she said with a slight smile.
    That voice. Sweet Jesus, that voice…
    Trez went on full high-tail, doing a down-and-around at a dead run. “How are you?” he said as he all but skidded to a halt in front of her.
    She bowed a little. “Very well.”
    “That’s good. That’s real good. So…” Fuck. “Do you come here often?”
    He wanted to smack himself in the head. What, like this was a bar? Shit—
    “When I am called, yes.” Her head tilted to one side, her eyes narrowing. “You’re different, aren’t you?”
    As he glanced at the dark skin of his hands, he knew she wasn’t talking about chromatics. “Not that different.”
    He had fangs, for instance—that wanted to bite. And…other things. That happened to be getting aroused just being in her presence.
    “What are you?” Her stare was steady and strong, as if she were assessing him on some level deeper than sight or hearing or scent. “I cannot…place it.”
    That is not for you.
    As his brother’s voice checked in, Trez pushed it aside. “I’m a friend of the Brotherhood’s.”
    “And the king’s, or you would not be here.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Do you fight with them?”
    “If they call on me.”
    Now her eyes shone with respect. “That is right and proper.” She bowed again. “Your service is laudable.”
    Silence cropped up between them, and as he racked his brain for something, anything, he was reminded of all that fucking he’d been doing. Now, that shit he was able to tee up at a moment’s notice. Polite conversation, on the other hand? Talk about your foreign languages.
    God, he hated thinking of any of that around her.
    “Are you all right?” the Chosen asked.
    And that was when she touched him. Reaching out, she put her hand on his forearm—and even though there was no skin-to-skin contact, his body felt the connection all over, his arms and legs stilling, his mind going into a kind of blankness, as if he were in a trance.
    “You are…incredibly beautiful,” he heard himself say.
    The Chosen’s eyebrows shot up.
    “Just being honest,” he murmured. “And I’ve got to tell you…I’ve been waiting to see you all week.”
    Her hand, the one that touched him, retracted and rose to the collar of her