J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 1-4 - J. R. Ward [690]
“Drive him home.”
Rehv smiled coldly. “How convenient for us all.”
Abruptly, Lash fell into whimper mode. “But we’re not going to tell my father—”
“Everything,” Rehvenge snapped. “Trust me, your daddy’s going to know fucking everything.”
Lash’s knees wobbled. And then the BMOC passed out cold.
Marissa walked into the Princeps Council meeting, not caring that for once everyone looked at her.
Then again, they’d never seen her in pants or with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. So surprise, surprise.
She took a seat, opened up her brand-new briefcase, and started going through applications for residence monitors. Although…she wasn’t really seeing anything. She was exhausted, not just from the work or the stress but because she really had to feed. Soon.
Oh, God. The idea of it made her sick with sadness, and she sank into thoughts of Butch. As she pictured him, that persistent, foggy echo in the back of her head returned. The thing was like a little bell chiming, reminding her of…what?
A hand landed on her shoulder. As she jumped, Rehv sat down next to her.
“Just me.” His amethyst eyes passed over her face and her hair. “It’s good to see you.”
“You, too.” She smiled a little, then glanced away, wondering whether she would have to go back to using his vein. Ah…hell. Of course she would.
“What’s doing, tahlly? You okay?” he asked smoothly. The question was so casual, she got the eerie sense he knew exactly how upset she was and somehow knew the cause. He’d always read her so well for some reason.
As she opened her mouth, the council leahdyre’s gavel pounded down at the other end of the glossy table. “I’d like to bring the meeting to order.”
The voices in the library dried up fast, and Rehv leaned back in his chair, a bored expression suffusing his hard face. With elegant, powerful hands, he folded his sable coat around his legs, overlapping the thing as if the room were thirty below, not a balmy seventy.
Marissa shut her briefcase and settled in, realizing that she’d assumed a similar pose to his, just without all the fur. Good heavens, she thought. How times have changed. Once she’d been terrified of these vampires. Utterly intimidated. Now, as she looked around at the exquisitely gowned females and the formally dressed males, she was just…bored by it all. Tonight, the glymera and the Princeps Council seemed like nothing more than an antiquated social nightmare no longer relevant to her life. Thank God.
The leahdyre smiled and nodded to a doggen who stepped forward. In the servant’s hands was a sheet of parchment stretched over an ebony board. Long streamers of silk ribbon hung from the document, the various colors reflecting each of the six originating families. Marissa’s line was pale blue.
The leahdyre looked around the table, his eyes studiously skipping over Marissa. “Now that we have the full council here, I would like to entertain the first order of business, said business to concern the passage of the recommendation to the king on the matter of mandatory sehclusion for all unmated females. First, as per the rules of procedure, we will give leave for commentary from the nonvoting members herein this room.”
There was quick assent from everyone…except for Rehvenge. Who was very clear about how he felt.
In the pause following his terse rejection of the motion, Marissa could feel Havers’s stare on her. She kept her mouth shut.
“Well done, council,” the leahdyre said. “I shall now call the roll of the six voting princeps.” As each name was read, the corresponding princeps rose, gave the consent of his or her bloodline and affixed the seal of the family’s ring upon the parchment. This happened without a glitch five times. And then the