The Black Dagger Brotherhood_ An Insider's Guide - J. R. Ward [131]
“Fair enough.”
She stared up at him, focusing on the scar that ruined his face.
No, not ruined, she thought. He would always be beautiful to her. A beautiful horror of a male . . .
Getting over him was going to be as hard as getting past her captivity.
“There’s never going to be anyone else like you,” she murmured. “For me . . . you will always be the one.”
And that was her good-bye to him, she realized.
Z came to her, and knelt by the side of the bed, keeping his yellow, glowing eyes downcast. After a moment he took her hand, and she heard a metallic sound . . . then he pressed one of his daggers into her palm. The thing was so heavy she almost needed two hands to hold it. She looked at the black blade, the metal reflecting light like a pool at night.
“Mark me.” He pointed to his pectoral, right above the star-shaped scar of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. “Here.”
With a quick lean, he reached to the bedside table for the little dish of salt that had come with her food. “And make it permanent.”
Bella hesitated for only a second. Yes, she thought . . . she wanted to leave something that endured on him, some small thing that would serve to remind him of her for as long as he breathed.
She shifted around and braced her free palm on his opposite shoulder. The dagger grew lighter in her hand as she took the vicious point of the weapon to his skin. He twitched as she dug into him and blood welled, trickling down onto his ribbed stomach.
When she was finished, she put the knife aside, licked her palm, and sprinkled salt onto it. Then she pressed her open hand to the cuts she’d made over his heart.
Their eyes held as the B she’d made in the Old Language fused permanently into him.
This scene was taken out of the Butch/Marissa material that was moved from Lover Eternal to Lover Revealed. My reasoning was because of my usual length and pacing concerns—I thought this early visit to his family that I saw in my head was just too much. There was already a lot going on in Butch’s book, and leaving this in (and going further with it) was a distraction that was largely unnecessary, given the way the O’Neal dynamic gets tied up at the end of the story.
That being said, it’s so cool to read. Remember, this was written back at the beginning of Rhage’s story, when Butch is still getting acclimated to the Brotherhood’s world—and its restrictions:
Butch caught the remote as it came flying at him without moving from his prone position on the couch. His body was sublimely comfortable: Head on the padded armrest. Legs stretched out. Red Sox throw blanket tucked around his feet. As it was around seven a.m. the shutters were down, so the Pit was dark as midnight.
“You turning in?” he asked as V stood up. “Right in the middle of Shaun of the Dead? How can you stand the suspense?”
Vishous arched his back as he stretched his heavy arms. “You know, you sleep less than I do.”
“That’s because you snore and I can hear it through the wall.”
V’s eyes narrowed. “Talking about noise, you’ve been quiet the last couple of days. You want to tell me what’s doing?”
Butch picked his glass of Scotch up from the floor, balanced it on his stomach, and reached for the bottle of Lagavulin that was on the coffee table. As he poured himself some more hooch, he watched the brown rush flicker in the blue-gray glow of the TV.
Damn, he was really throwing back the stuff lately.
“Talk, cop.”
“My old life came calling.”
Vishous scrubbed his hair until it stood up on its ends. “How so?”
“My sister v-mailed me yesterday on my old phone. Her new baby’s getting baptized. Whole family’s going to be there.”
“You want to go?”
Butch tilted up his head and took a long drink. The Scotch should have burned its way to his stomach. Instead it just eased on down the well-trodden path.
“Maybe.”
Although he had no idea how to explain what had happened to him.
Yeah, see, I got fired