Lover Mine(192)

Lash's chest was going up and down, his skinless throat flexing while he drew his breath and blew it back out. As light dawned on him and he got a picture of what was coming, lidless eyes stretched in their sockets and his lipless mouth pulled off his teeth in a smile that was the stuff of horror movies.

He tried to say something, but he couldn't quite get it out.

Which was good. He'd already said too much, done too much, hurt too much.

Time had come for his reckoning.

In his arms, John felt Xhex gathering her strength and he watched as she took her other hand from her wound to aid in gripping his weapon. Her stare burned with hatred as she took over from there, a sudden surge of power in her body lifting her arms to form an arch above Lash's sternum.

The bastard knew what was coming, though, and blocked the blow by covering his chest.

Oh, hell, no. John shot out and grabbed both of the guy's biceps, forcing the asshole flat onto the ground, exposing the expanse she needed to hit, giving her the clearest and best shot.

As her eyes rose to John's, there was a telltale sheen of red across them, her tears making her irises glow: All the pain she'd borne in her heart was as exposed as Lash's ugliness, all the burden on her and in her made manifest in her stare.

When John nodded at her, his dagger in her hands swept down and hit Lash directly in the heart. . . .

The evil's scream echoed in between the buildings, ricocheting back and forth, gathering in volume until it became the great Pop! that accompanied a vivid flash of light.

Which took Lash back to his unholy sire.

As the sound and illumination faded, all that was left was a faint scorched circle on the asphalt and the stench of burned sugar.

Xhex's shoulders went limp and the dagger blade squeaked across the pavement as she fell backward, her strength gone. John caught her before she hit the ground, and she stared up at him, her tears mixing with the blood on her face and running down her neck, past the vital beating pulse that was her life force.

John held her tight against him, her head fitting perfectly under his chin.

"He's dead," she sobbed. "Oh, God, John . . . he's dead. . . ."

With his hands occupied, all he could do was nod so that she knew that he was agreeing with her.

End of an era, he thought, looking over at Blay and Qhuinn, who were fighting side by side with Zsadist and Tohrment against the slayers who had shown up.

God, he had the oddest sense of continuity. He and Xhex might have briefly stepped out of the way of the war, taking this momentary respite at the side of the struggle trail. But the fight in the shadows of the alleys in Caldwell was going to continue without . . .

Her.

John closed his eyes and buried his face in Xhex's curling hair.

This was the end game she'd wanted, he thought. Get Lash . . . and get out of life.

She had exactly what she'd wanted.

"Thank you," he heard her say roughly. "Thank you . . ."

Against the tide of sadness that overtook him, he realized that those two words were better than I love you. They actually meant more to him than anything else she could have uttered.

He had given her what she wanted. When it had really mattered, he had done right by her.

And now he was going to hold her as her body grew colder and she drifted away from where he was going to stay.

The separation was going to last longer than the number of days he knew her.

Taking her slick palm, he flattened it once more. And then with his free hand, he signed against her skin in slow, precise positions:

L. O. V. E. U. 4. E. V. E. R.





SIXTY-EIGHT





Death was messy and painful and largely predictable . . . except when it didn't feel like behaving and decided to exercise its bizarre sense of humor.

An hour later, as Xhex opened her eyes a crack, she realized she was in fact not in the foggy folds of the Fade . . . but in the clinic at the Brotherhood's mansion.

A tube was being pulled out of her throat. And her side felt like someone had parked a rusty spear in it. And somewhere over on the left, gloves were being snapped off.

Doc Jane's voice was low. "She coded twice, John. I got the bleeder in her gut . . . but I don't know--"

"I think she's awake," Ehlena said. "Are you coming back to us, Xhex?"

Well, apparently she was. She felt like hell, and after having sliced open a variety of stomachs over the years, she couldn't believe she still had a heartbeat . . . but yeah, she was alive.

Hanging by a thread, but alive.

John's pasty white face entered her line of vision, and in contrast to the ill cast of his skin, his blue eyes were like fire.

She opened her mouth . . . but all that came out was the air in her lungs. She didn't have the strength to speak.

Sorry, she mouthed.

He frowned. Shaking his head, he took her hand and smoothed it. . . .