Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8) - J.R. Ward Page 0,1

that was cut short and a classically handsome face--but his blue eyes were lifeless, with about as much reflection as old asphalt.

A dead man walking. With nothing to lose.

"Hey," R.I.P. called out to greet them. "You guys need some ink?"

"He does." The one with the piercings nodded at his blue-eyed buddy. 21

"And he's got the design. It's a shoulder piece." R.I.P. gave his instincts a chance to weigh in on the project. The men didn't eye Mar inappropriately. There was no casing of the cash register and no one went for their metal. They waited politely--but with expectation. Like either he did what they wanted, or they'd find someone else who would. He eased back into position, thinking they were his peeps. "Cool. I'll be finished in no time here."

Mar spoke up from behind the counter. "We were supposed to be closing in less than an hour--"

"But I'll do you," R.I.P. told the one in the center. "You don't worry about the time."

"And I think I'll stay," Mar said, eyeing the one with the piercings. The blue-eyed guy's hands came up and moved with distinct gestures. After he was finished, the pierced one translated, "He says thanks. And he's brought his own ink, if that's okay."

Not exactly the norm, and against the health code, but R.I.P. had no trouble being flexible for the right customer. "No prob, my man." He got back to work with the carp and Keri resumed her bitten lip and little-girl moaning routine. When he was finished, he was not at all surprised that Sarah, after having watched her friend go through "agony," decided that she wanted a refund instead of some pretty, rainbow-colored ink of her own. Which was good news. It meant that he could get to work on the guy with the dead eyes right away.

As he snapped off his black gloves and cleaned up, he wondered what in the hell the design was going to look like. And exactly how long it was going to take Mar to get inside the pierced guy's pants. Former was likely to be fairly good.

And the latter . . . he'd give that about ten minutes, because she'd caught his mismatched stare and Mar was a fast worker--not just behind the counter.

Across town, away from the bars and tat shops on Trade Street, in an enclave of brownstones and cobbled lanes, Xhex stood in a bay window and stared out of wavy antique glass.

She was naked and cold and bruised.

But she was not weak.

Down below, on the sidewalk, a human female strolled along with a little yappy dog on a string and a cell phone up to her ear. Across the way, people in other elegant walk-ups were drinking and eating and reading. Cars 22

went by slowly out of both respect for the neighbors and fear for their suspension systems on the uneven street.

The Homo sapiens peanut gallery couldn't see or hear her. And not just because the capacities of that other race were so diminished in comparison to those of vampires.

Or in her case, half- symphath vampires.

Even if she turned the ceiling light on and screamed until her voice box gave out, even if she waved her arms until they fell out of their sockets, the men and women who were all around would just keep up whatever they were doing, unaware that she was trapped in this bedroom, thick in their midst. And it wasn't as if she could pick up the bureau or the bedside table and break the glass. Same with kicking down the door or crawling through the bathroom vent.

She'd tried all that.

The assassin in her had to be impressed by the pervasive nature of her invisible cell: There was, quite literally, no way to get around, through, or out of it.

Turning away from the window, she paced around the king-size bed with its silk sheets and horrible memories . . . and went by the marble bathroom . . . and kept going by the door that led out into the hall. Given the way things went with her captor, it wasn't as if she needed more exercise, but she couldn't keep still, her body twitchy and humming. She'd done this against-her-will thing once before. Knew how the mind, like a starved body, could cannibalize itself after too long if you didn't feed it something to churn over.

Her favorite distraction? Mixed drinks. After having worked in clubs for years, she knew legions of cocktails and concoctions and she ran through