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“Rahvyn,” he croaked.
This brought all kinds of heads in his direction, and to avoid meeting the eyes of his peanut gallery, he glanced at the monitoring machine he was hooked up to. Oh, look. He had a heart rate, his lungs were working, and he had blood pressure.
And he knew where he was: The Black Dagger Brotherhood’s subterranean training center. Which had, among its many attributes—including a very nice break room with a good television and a lot of free food, a weight room that he avoided like the plague, and a swimming pool that was as big as a lake—a hospital-grade clinic with its own OR, examination rooms, and recovery suites.
And what do you know, they’d put him in one of their medical beds.
“Where’s Rahvyn…” he mumbled.
“She’s just down the hall,” somebody said. “She’s fine.”
He wasn’t sure who was speaking—which suggested that though his memory was fine, his faculties were maybe not as a-okay as he was hoping.
“Can I see her?” No, that wasn’t forceful enough. “I will see her now.”
Someone stepped forward out of the gathered fighters.
It was Vishous, and of course, the guy was a wet frickin’ blanket: “Not yet. You’ve got some talking to do.”
For a split second, Lassiter thought of all of those doctor soaps he’d watched in the seventies and eighties. Marcus Welby, M.D. St. Elsewhere. ER. Fine, ER was in the nineties. Inevitably, there had always been some poor schlub in a hospital bed, people surrounding them, a dire prognosis saved by the brilliance of the medical staff—except when the show had needed a bad outcome so it could seem real.
And on the staff, there’d always been one brilliant, cynical sonofabitch everyone loved to hate.
As Lassiter’s vision sharpened a little further, he thought, Annnnnnd here we are, Caldie style.
V was like Hugh Laurie in House. Except smarter, and better-looking. And for once, the brother wasn’t smoking a Turkish hand-rolled. The rest of him was right, however. The goatee, the tats on the side of the face, the black hair, the black leather all over the body. And the expression of irritation and hauteur.
Like a Nobel Prize winner who’d been asked to read a grocery list.
“Where the hell have you been,” came the demand.
Lassiter glanced at the other brothers, and then the fallen angels. All of them were also waiting for an answer, just being less judgy about it, as if they might have recognized that sometimes, people had a right to take a couple of nights off—
“You have no right to flake out on us,” V snapped. “You don’t want my mahmen’s goddamn job, fine. But don’t take up space if you’re not going to do shit—”
“Fuck you,” Lassiter cut in. And then he went on a roll, rising off the bed as his voice rose in volume. “I fucked that demon so Balthazar could have his female, and I kept Devina occupied tonight while you all went into her lair—and I’ve done a dozen other stupid fucking things I shouldn’t have, to make sure none of you get hurt or disappointed as you live your lives. So excuse me if I need a goddamn break every once in a while!”
By the end of it, he was yelling, and when he finished, he flopped back down—and hit the back of his tender head again.
“Fuck!” he barked as he put a hand up there.
As he felt around and got no sense of wetness, he thought, well, at least he wasn’t leaking anymore.
Abruptly, Rhage leaned out of the group. “You want a Tootsie Pop? Eddie rudely turned me down back at the travel agency he assaulted, so I have an extra one.”
“To be fair, I passed out,” the angel muttered. “That’s not rude—”
“Yes, fuck, I want one,” Lassiter bitched as he put his hand out. “And can you unwrap it.”
Rhage played an excellent Fritz the butler, just without the wrinkles and the penguin suit: Split second later, there was a purple globe on a white stick front and center, and you know what? It tasted fan-fucking-tastic.
Man, thank God he wasn’t human. Or a mortal. He’d be dead or hooked up to a ventilator while they debated on when to pull the plug. Instead, he was going to be all right in another hour or two. Tops.
All because in the back of that Mini, Rahvyn had helped the healing process along immensely.
She’d followed him. The sneak.
He thought of her standing in front of him in the lee of that golden glow at the Mickey D’s, so resplendently beautiful, more lovely than he remembered, her eyes on his as she leaned forward as if—
He left me because of you! For me to have my love, you can never have yours!
As Devina’s voice barged in, Lassiter bolted up again, and immediately, the brothers and the angels leaned away, like they expected him to Exorcist-it and start golf-sprinkling pea soup.
