Dearest Ivie Read online

  She cared about one and only one thing: some sign of hope.

  A twitch of his hand or foot that seemed intentional. A blood test that said his immune system was waking up in its new home. A monitor that announced his major organs were coming back to life.

  The stress and suffering were unimaginable, and in the back of her mind, she recognized that however much she had assumed she'd sympathized with her patients' families before, had known what they were going through, could put herself in their shoes...all that had been bullshit.

  Until you walked this path and tried to measure the sliding scale of Hell, you had no clue what it was like. The brain compulsively read into every small piece of data, the tipping between hope and loss constantly bottoming out on one side or another. And just when you thought you couldn't do it for one more night? For one more hour? For a single second?

  You got up and you ate something you couldn't taste and rubbed your gritty red eyes...and plugged right back into it.

  On that note, Ivie checked her iPhone. Tuesday. It was Tuesday.

  So it had been three days since the transplant.

  Seventy-two hours.

  "I brought you some coffee."

  Ivie turned and looked up. It was Havers, and he seemed as exhausted as she felt. "Oh, thank you."

  She didn't want it, but she took the mug and drank from it because she needed fluids, the caffeine was a godsend, and moreover, the fact that the healer himself had thought to bring her something? She was amazed at the gesture.

  They both refocused on Silas.

  "What do you think?" she asked.

  "I don't know. I'm looking for signs of a change."

  "How much longer?"

  "It's hard to say. In humans, it takes a couple of weeks, but our systems run so differently from theirs, it's hard to use that as any kind of benchmark."

  They stayed there for the longest time, her sitting with crossed legs in the tangle of hospital blankets on the bed that was also her sofa and her desk, him standing beside her, straight-spined and bow-tied.

  "Thank you for trying," she said hoarsely.

  "I just pray this works."

  "Me, too."

  There was resignation in both their voices, and Ivie recognized it for what it was: the first sign that they were coming to terms with what was clearly a tragic failure.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Miracles, however, do happen.

  Just when all felt lost, when all signs were on the negative, when Ivie had begun to counsel herself that things had not gone as they had hoped and she needed to face the hard truth...

  Silas came back.

  And not with a whimper, but a roar.

  Ivie was lying down, her head on the pillow, her eyes on him, when she felt her lids start to droop. Staff had come in about twenty minutes before to take another blood sample from him and adjust his support meds, but now it was just the two of them again.

  Later, she would wonder what made her check on him one last time--maybe it was reflex; perhaps it was destiny knocking on her proverbial door.

  But she forced her eyes open and...saw that he was lifting a hand.

  At first, she had no idea what she was looking at. He hadn't moved since he'd crashed and had had to be revived.

  Was this a seizure--

  As she sat up, he moved his hand around--seemed to be lifting it up to try to look at it. And then the other side rose as well.

  Ivie jumped off the bed and hit the anteroom so fast, she was a cartoon character of herself, capable of smashing through walls and leaving a cutout of her running body.

  Struggling with the sterile gowns and headdresses, her hands fumbled and she dropped things and then couldn't get her feet into the bootie bottoms of the damn suit.

  When she finally broke the seal and heard the hiss of the higher pressure being released, she felt like she was too late or too...

  "...Ivie...Ivie...dearest Ivie......"

  Silas was moving his head back and forth, his arms starting to pinwheel, his legs pumping restlessly under the sheets.

  "I'm here! I'm here!"

  Her voice was muffled and tinted with an electronic whine as it came through the speaker on the head cover.

  But he turned to her. And seemed to recoil.

  She put her palms out. "No, no, it's me, I promise. It's me in here."

  Ivie patted the suit. And then she was holding his hand and looking into those amazing pale eyes of his through the mask. "Silas?"

  His face was like a skeletal version of what it had once been, the bones threatening to break through his skin, his eyes sunken in their sockets, his cheeks drawn in. His skin was gray and dry, his black hair hidden by the cooling unit on his head. His arms were thin as twigs, the flesh hanging off them in loose folds from where his muscles had atrophied.

  And as he met her stare and started to smile...he was the most beautiful male she had ever seen.

  "Why?" He motioned with a floppy hand at her headgear.

  "You've had a bone marrow transplant. We need to not get you infected with anything. This is...for your protection..."

  At that point, she started weeping, and she honestly couldn't have said why. As tears streamed down and her mask got fogged up, there was no parceling the emotion she felt; it was one giant ball of love and relief and fresh terror this was a brief resurgence that was going to fail.

  "Bone...marrow...?"

  His voice was so weak and raspy, she could barely hear it, but it was the best thing that had ever entered her ears.

  "A new immune system for you." She squeezed his hand. "A fresh start. A donor who helped. Four days ago..." She babbled along, repeating words and phrases, trying to will him to understand.

  "New...immune..."

  "That's right--"

  A knocking on the glass sounded out, and Ivie glanced over her shoulder. Rubes was on the outside, jumping up and down, her hair like copper coils unsprung and leaping out of a box. She was holding up what looked like a CBC report and pumping a thumbs-up over and over again.

  It was working. His new immune system was waking up. And working.

  Later, Ivie would reflect that the whole thing was like the first sign of spring that you noticed just as you had thought winter would never be over and the weather would never turn. It was that glorious jolt of happiness when you walked out of your house and the air was a little softer, and the scent of dirt was upon you, and there was a moisture in the air that had been missing since October.

  It was the crocus sticking its head out from the earth. The brand-new daffodil in the flower bed. It was the sprig of green grass and the verdant blush in a honeysuckle bush and the buds along the limbs of the trees.

  It was the promise of warmth and life and the banishment of winter's cruel frigidity.

  "...Ivie..." Silas whispered.

  "I love you," she said through the mask. "I'm so glad you're back."

  "Love you...dearest Ivie."

  Chapter Eighteen

  "Look, I don't mean to be direct about this, but I have to be."

  As Silas sat up in his isolation bed, he stared Ivie right in the eye and crossed his arms over his chest. Refusing to lay back against the raised pillows, he was a re-inflation of himself, a resurrection to where he had been--almost. He had weight to regain. His stomach issues were persisting. He was on a ton of drugs.

  But he was gloriously alive, wonderfully alert, and...

  ...as it turned out, horny.

  "When can I make love to you?" he said.

  Ivie sat on the bed beside him and couldn't keep the smile off her face. "Well, I'm assuming you can as soon as we get you out of here."

  "And when's that going to be?"

  Silas had skipped the petulant, sulky stage of recovery that some patients fell into and proceeded directly into Ready to Go. And not just about sex. He was ready to get back to his life, to their life together.

  "I think within a week?"

  The g
roan he let out was only partially comical. "This room is a fishbowl."

  "I know. But your immune system isn't quite there yet. We're close, so close, though. Hey, I don't have to wear a suit and mask anymore. This is huge."

  The truly miraculous thing was that his transplant had somehow recalibrated his entire body, changing its basis, its very cellular identity. In the previous seven nights, Havers had reduced the amount of anti-rejection drugs in his system and they had discovered...that he appeared to need none at all: Blood tests and tissue samples had shown that the donor's bone marrow and immune system had essentially "converted" Silas to the donor. So it wasn't a case of host versus graft, but graft turning host into graft.

  Doc Jane, as Ivie had come to know the Brotherhood's special physician, had been astounded. She evidently had come out of the human tradition and had indicated the transformation was unprecedented in her experience.

  But then again, vampires were a different species.

  "I want to be alone with you." Silas smiled. "For, like, a month straight."

  "That's my plan, too."

  "I mean, I've appreciated this incredible level of support from everyone, but I'm ready to have you get frustrated with me for normal things like forgetting to recap the toothpaste, and not putting my dishes in the washer, and leaving my socks around our bedroom."

  Sometimes the miracle people prayed for was nothing more exotic than "normal." And in the beginning, she had not trusted in the recalibration of things. She had waited for the other shoe to drop, the nightmare to return, the hell to be resumed.

  With each passing evening, however, she was able to let more of that go. They still had a long road ahead of them, though. There was a lot of recovery before them, but the big stumbling blocks had all been passed, surmounted by Silas's body's incredible resilience.

  And the wonderful thing? The donor had stopped by a number of times and they were going to see Ruhn out in the real world after they left. The male, once a stranger, felt like a part of them. Because, hello, without him, there was no "them."

  Pritchard had also been checking in, bringing reports from Silas's affairs and house and land holdings. He had a lot of money, as it turned out. A lot of investments. A lot of real estate.

  Also, a brother who he couldn't find. But maybe that would come later.

  Ivie certainly hoped so. There was an underlying sadness that this therapy had not been used to save Silas's father--but at least it was an option for any other males who had the defect. And accordingly, both she and Silas were desperate to find his brother who was also a carrier.

  On Ivie's side, her father had been in to visit and so had her mahmen. But the rest of her family was holding off until Silas was out of the hospital and further along.

  "You saved my life, Ivie," he said.

  "That was Havers, the doctors, and Ruhn."

  "No. You were the one I lived for. I fought for you. I could hear your voice, I could feel your presence--I held on to all that. Sometimes, I was tempted to give up and give in...but I knew you were fighting for me, for us, and I joined you in that battle. I love you, dearest Ivie."

  Taking his face in her hands, she kissed him and whispered, "I love you, too, my male."

  There were so many things to say, and hopes for the future, hopes and dreams now set to fly free. A world of possibility was now ahead of them, and it was as if stolen property had been returned to them, the precious jewel of time together back in their hands.

  "And I can't wait to make love with you, either," she muttered. "It's driving me nuts."

  Epilogue

  It was three weeks before Silas was finally free.

  Three long weeks.

  The delay was because of a scary setback with pneumonia, but Silas had bested the infection like he had beaten every other obstacle, with good humor and strength. In fact, he had called it the test drive of his new immune system--and Ivie loved seeing the pride he had in his cells' fantastic response.

  He was also finally gaining weight, and more than that, he was reveling in the health and wellness he had obviously not felt for so long.

  Their leaving the clinic had been a terrifying thrill, with goodbyes that were tearful and heartfelt all around. Ivie was taking a one-month sabbatical, but then she would return to work--and she was giving up her apartment. In a year.

  They both agreed it was important for them to develop their relationship at its own pace, and her moving in lock, stock, and barrel was too much pressure. But she was going to be staying with him for a lot of the time.

  As Silas's chauffeured Bentley pulled up in front of the mansion she had once entered for a job interview a lifetime ago, Ivie stared through the windows of its grand facade with great wonder. To think how far she had come since she had first arrived on this grand doorstep.

  Silas took her hand. "You ready?"

  "Oh, yeah."

  When the driver opened their door, she was the first to get out. Silas emerged more slowly, but his face was shining with happiness.

  Looking at the uniformed chauffer, he said, "Thank you, Johe. Why don't you take the night off?"

  "Oh, sire! Thank you!" The older male bowed low. "And may I say, welcome home. We have missed you."

  "Thank you, Johe."

  Silas smiled and waved when the Bentley eased away from the curb. And then Ivie offered her elbow to him.

  "My love?" she said.

  Silas hooked ahold of her arm and they started up the formal walkway. Gas lanterns sizzled on pretty iron stands, and she pictured what the lawn and plantings around the mansion were going to look like in the spring and summer.

  "So there's something I should tell you," he said as they came up to the huge front door. "Well, two things actually."

  "What's that?"

  He opened the way into the resplendent home. "First of all, Pritchard has the night off. She was a little disappointed to hear that bit of news, but there you have it."

  Ivie felt her body warm instantly. "Oh, really?"

  Silas shut them in together, and she dimly noted that he was back in his uniform of a cashmere sweater and slacks with expensive loafers. Everything was a little baggy, but like she cared? Still, they were going to have to loosen up his wardrobe some.

  Introduce him to blue jeans. Sweatshirts. A good pair of shorts in July.

  "And?" she prompted.

  He stopped in the center of the beautifully appointed open space. "I bought us a farm. In the valley over from your parents. Yes, yes, I know I should have asked you, but we need a place outside of the city for privacy and I know you want to be close to your family--and no offense, but I have gin rummy money I need to get back from your aunt--"

  She tackled him with a hug. "What are you like! You bought us a farm?"

  As he held her against his body, Ivie's heart was free, her soul was free, and it was at that moment that she knew the fall was over: Back when she had been in that bar and she had seen him and almost looked into his eyes, when she'd had a sense she was going to be forever changed...now she knew, down to her marrow--natch--that all was well and the new era in her life was going to be even better than anything that had come before--

  Silas's mouth found hers and suddenly she wasn't thinking anymore.

  It was all about sensation as they stumbled backward into the drawing room she had waited in when she had come to apply for the job.

  Clothes left their bodies, melting away and landing on the carpet, and then they were down on the rug in front of the crackling fire.

  "The drapes are pulled," he groaned against her mouth. "I had everything set, even the fire. For just this."

  He rolled her over and found his way in between her legs to enter her. In response, tears of joy speared into her eyes as she stared up at him and they began to move together.

  "I love you, dearest Ivie," he said to her. "And I'm going to live my whole life with that best characteristic of mine in the forefront."

  Ivie smile
d and giggled--yes, giggled. Because sometimes, even hard, tough females like her had too many champagne bubbles in their bloodstream to keep them inside.

  "Right back at you, my male," she replied. "I will love you with everything I am and all that I have..."

  At that point, they stopped talking and focused on making love.

  Until six p.m...the following evening.

  Dedicated to:

  Dearest Ivie and her beau, Silas.

  He is going to look great in a sweatshirt!

  Acknowledgments

  With immense gratitude to the readers of the Black Dagger Brotherhood!

  Thank you so very much to Meg Ruley, Kara Welsh, and everyone at Ballantine--these books are truly a team effort.

  With love to Team Waud--you know who you are. This simply could not happen without you.

  None of this would be possible without: my loving husband, who is my adviser and caretaker and visionary; my wonderful mother, who has given me so much love I couldn't possibly ever repay her; my family (both those of blood and those by adoption); and my dearest friends.

  And as always, with love and devotion to my WriterDog II, Naamah.

  BY J. R. WARD

  THE BLACK DAGGER BROTHERHOOD SERIES

  Dark Lover Lover Eternal Lover Awakened Lover Revealed Lover Unbound Lover Enshrined The Black Dagger Brotherhood: An Insider's Guide Lover Avenged Lover Mine Lover Unleashed Lover Reborn Lover at Last The King The Shadows The Beast The Chosen Dearest Ivie: A Black Dagger Brotherhood Novella

  BLACK DAGGER LEGACY

  Blood Kiss Blood Vow Blood Fury

  NOVELS OF THE FALLEN ANGELS

  Covet

  Crave

  Envy

  Rapture Possession Immortal

  THE BOURBON KINGS

  The Bourbon Kings The Angels' Share Devil's Cut

  About the Author

  J. R. WARD is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over thirty novels, including the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, the Black Dagger Legacy series, and The Bourbon Kings. There are more than fifteen million copies of her novels in print worldwide, and they have been published in twenty-six different countries around the world. She lives in the South with her family.