J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 1-4 - J. R. Ward [545]
Mr. X shuddered. An atheist in life, he hadn’t thought of death as anything other than a dirt nap. Now, as a lesser, he knew exactly what was waiting for him when the master lost patience and “fired” him again.
And yet there was hope. Mr. X had found a little loophole, assuming the pieces fell together right.
By a stroke of luck, he might have found a way out of the Omega’s world.
Chapter Eight
Butch took three long, trippy days to wake up and he resurfaced from his coma in the manner of a buoy, popping out of the depths of nothingness and wobbling on top of reality’s lake of sights and sounds. Eventually, he put things together enough to understand that he was looking at a white wall in front of him and hearing a soft beeping in the background.
Hospital room. Right. And the ties on his arms and legs were now gone.
Just for kicks and giggles, he rolled over onto his back and pushed his head and shoulders off the bed. He kept himself upright because he liked the sensation of the room going around. It distracted him from his Whitman’s Sampler of aches and pains.
Man, he’d had bizarre, wonderful dreams. Marissa at his bedside caring for him. Stroking his arm, his hair, his face. Whispering to him to stay with her. That voice of hers had been what kept him in his body, what kept him back from the white light that any idiot who’d seen Poltergeist knew was the afterlife. For her, he’d somehow hung on, and going by the steady, strong beat of his heart, he knew he was going to make it.
Except, of course, the dreams had all been a gyp. She wasn’t here and now he was stuck in this bag of skin of his until the next badass thing took him down.
Goddamn it, just his rotten luck to have kept breathing.
He looked up at the IV pole. Eyeballed the catheter bag. Then glanced over at what appeared to be a bathroom. Shower. Oh, God, he’d give his left nut for a shower.
As he shifted his legs around, he was aware that what he was about to do was probably a very bad call. But he told himself, as he hung up the catheter bag next to his IV meds, that at least the room spins had mostly stopped.
A couple of deep breaths and he grabbed the IV pole to use as a cane.
Feet hit the cold floor. Weight eased onto his legs.
Knees buckled without hesitation.
As he fell back on the bed, he knew he wasn’t going to make it to the bathroom. With no hope of hot water, he turned his head and eyed the shower with naked lust—
Butch inhaled like he’d been cracked on the back of the head.
Marissa lay sleeping on the floor in the corner of the room, curled up on her side. Her head rested on a pillow and a beautiful gown of pale blue chiffon spilled over her legs. Her hair, that incredible waterfall of pale blond, that medieval romance novel rush of waves, was all around her.
Holy shit. She had been with him. She had truly saved him.
His body had newfound strength as he stood and lurched across the linoleum. He wanted to kneel down but knew he’d probably get stuck on the floor, so he settled for standing over her.
Why was she here? Last thing he knew, she didn’t want to have anything to do with him. Hell, she’d refused to see him back in September when he’d come to her hoping for…everything.
“Marissa?” His voice was shot to shit and he cleared his throat. “Marissa, wake up.”
Her lashes flicked open and she snapped upright. Her eyes, those pale blue, sea-glass-colored eyes, shot to his. “You’re going to fall!”
Just as his body swayed backward and he toppled off his heels, she leaped to her feet and caught him. In spite of her willowy body, she took all of his weight easily, reminding him that she was no human woman and was likely stronger than he was. As she helped him back onto the bed and pulled the sheets over him, the fact that he was weak as a child and she was treating him like one out of necessity bit into his pride.
“Why are you