A Bloom in Winter – Black Dagger Brotherhood Read Online J.R. Ward

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal, Vampires Tags Authors:
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Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
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“Stripe of . . . blood on the sleeve.”

Apex had deliberately laid the bastard out on his bed. ’Cuz you sleep where you lie. And in doing so, had got himself messied.

“Scent the blood . . . and there’s also a gold cufflink and his phone. In the bottom.”

Apex looked up at his camera with the eye that was working—and waited for the inevitable question.

“What the . . . hell are you thinking? Why are you fucking with us like this?” Remis breathed.

“I owe the Black Dagger Brotherhood,” Apex said to the camera. “And I know what you’re doing. Whestmorel and you are plotting against . . . the King. The Brothers liberated the prison camp . . . so I owe them and couldn’t let you destroy them—”

Remis put his head in front of Apex’s and then trained his sight at the same angle, right up at the monitoring unit.

Apex started laughing, even though it made him spit up even more blood. “Say . . . cheese, motherfucker. You’re on Candid Camera—”

Remis yelled like someone had stabbed him in the back. Because . . . someone had.

And out came the gun.

As everything went slo-mo, that muzzle swinging around toward Apex’s head, there was a sudden crashing, a splintering of glass—

As a great white wolf broke through the triple-paned window, took two tremendous leaps, and bit Remis in the face. The force of the attack was so vicious, it knocked the male over.

Unfortunately, the hoodies were also all armed. And they were somewhat trained.

Three aimed at the wolf.

One aimed at Apex.

“Callum!” he screamed. “Watch out!”

CHAPTER FORTY–THREE

With grim purpose, and a full complement of weapons, Tohr dematerialized to a historic Adirondack great camp that was bigger than the one Rehvenge had, and not on a lake. V had figured out which estate had been featured on the security feeds by doing image matching searches on the rooms during the day.

While the entire Brotherhood had watched Apex get tortured for information.

And what do you know, Whestmorel had bought the estate and all its acreage two years before.

As Tohr waited for his brothers to join him for the infiltration, he surveyed the house. The place was rambling and sided with a forest’s worth of cedar shingles, and lights streamed from out of countless diamond-paned windows. Parked up close to the front porch, there was a gray BMW and a black Suburban—

Tohr was the first to see the wolf off to the left; it was coming in low and fast over the snow—but the predator wasn’t focused on them. It was gunning for the house in a purposeful way that was not like a wild animal’s at all.

A wolven? Like Lucan?

Something’s going down, Tohr thought as another appeared. And another. And—

That first wolf threw itself at one of the front windows like it didn’t know glass was a thing. And just as the crash sounded out, the shooting started—

“Are we too late,” V said as he became corporeal, still staring at his phone screen. “Are—”

“We gotta get in there!” Tohr barked. “Now—”

As other brothers arrived, the two of them were already crossing the distance, while wolf after wolf threw themselves at the windows on the first floor. It was a Pella-nightmare, and he took advantage of the attack, jumping through one of the lupine-created apertures.

He landed with his forties up, and he picked off the male in the hoodie who was about to shoot Apex in the face, putting a bullet right through the side of the male’s skull. While all that gray matter vaporized out of the exit wound, V aimed at another male, who was about to shoot the first wolf. The brother’s weapon just discharged into thin air, though, because a second wolf got there before he did, the predator tackling the hooded assailant to the floor.

Two more left. Tohr pulled a quick pivot, squared his sight at the one taking cover behind half a bear that had been mounted like it was coming out of the wall. The first shot hit the grizzly.

The second entered the shooter’s shoulder. As the male brought his gun around and aimed at Tohr, they had a moment of their eyes meeting. Then Tohr pulled his trigger a nanosecond before his foe did—

His gun jammed, the malfunction freezing the mechanism inside his autoloader, causing the next bullet in his chamber to stay right where it fucking was. Which meant a clean shot, from out of that muzzle pointed at his own high thoracic region, was taken.

Pop!

Tohr jerked and put his hands to his throat by reflex, bracing for the pain, knowing his bulletproof vest was too low to save him—

The shooter was the one who went down to his knees.

Behind the guy, Mayhem jumped out of a hidden compartment in the wall on the far side of the bear, a female right on his heels. They both had guns—and given the way the male looked over his shoulder in complete shock, it was clear she had been the one with the dead right aim.



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