The Black Dagger Brotherhood (70 page)

from 1600 to present

My husband and I are moving into a new house. Which is great. Actually, it's almost a hundred years old, but it's new to us and our dog. My mother and her business partner and their crew have been working on it for a couple of months, and they're just about finished. I figure we'll be settling in a few weeks from now—and going through that wonderful process of figuring out where in the hell to put everything.

It's about ten thirty at night and I'm pacing through the house, going from empty room to room, dodging spray machines and cans of paint and the occasional sawhorse. The place is heavily perfumed in
eau
de
latex
and I have to be careful not to brush against any of the walls because most of them are barely dry. There is plastic matting over all the wood floors, and the windowpanes are smeared with goo so their frames can be painted.

Being here all alone is creepy. Shadows are created, thanks to the streetlights down below, and every dark corner looks like a place someone could jump out at me from.

And then someone does.

I'm in the dining room when Wrath condenses out of thin air right in front of me. I yelp and pull a Chaplin, arms pinwheeling as I tap-dance backward. Rhage catches me from falling as Butch and V materialize behind the king. Z comes in last, sauntering in from the living room as if he's been there all along.

 

Chaos reigns during the trip up the stairs in the form of deep male voices arguing with one another. As far as I can tell, the topic is treatment for fainting, and I hope to Christ the remedies aren't inflicted on me. Somehow I don't think cold showers, stink bombs, old episodes of
Barney
(evidently the annoyance factor is supposed to be restorative), shots of Lagavulin (which would serve only to knock me out entirely), or laps around the neighborhood naked fall under the accepted standard of care for light-headed humans. Although the trip to Saks doesn't sound so bad.

The third floor of the new house is a big, open space—basically a finished attic. Total square feet is only a little less than the first apartment I had with my husband, and the Brothers reduce the place to the size of a doghouse. Their bodies are huge, and unless they're standing right in the middle of the room, which has a cathedral ceiling, they have to stoop to fit under the sloping roof.

Wrath is the first to sit down, and he picks the spot against the far wall that is the head of the room. The rest circle around. I end up doing an Indian-style across from the king. Z is to my right. They are all dressed as they would for a meal at the mansion: Wrath in a muscle shirt and leathers; Phury and Butch wearing elegantly tailored designer casuals; V and Zsadist in nylon sweats and tight T-shirts; Rhage in a black button-down and dark blue jeans.