Lover Enshrined by J. R. Ward Read Free Book Online Page A

Hard to believe his fat, housebound mother and his worn-out farmer father weren’t in there waiting for him.
    They musta passed a while ago, he thought as he walked over. He’d been the youngest of their seven kids, and both had been smokers.
    The screen door had almost no screen and a frame that was rusted out. When he opened the thing, it squealed like a stuck pig, squealed like Big Tommy, just like the one back home had. Knocking on the second door didn’t get him no answer, so he took off his cowboy hat and pushed into the house, using his hip and his shoulder to bust free the lock.
    Inside smelled like cigarette smoke, mold, and death. The first two were stale. The death was fresh, the kind of juicy, fruity stuff that made you want to go out and kill something so you could join the party.
    And there was another smell. The lingering sweet scent in the air told him the Omega had been here recently. Either that or another slayer.
    With his hat in his hands, he walked through the dark front rooms and into the kitchen in the back. That was where the bodies was. Two of them on their stomachs. He couldn’t tell the sex of either because they’d been decapitated and no one was in a dress, but the pools of blood from where their heads should have been mingled, kind of like they was holding hands.
    It was real sweet, actually.
    He glanced across the room, to the black stain on the wall between the harvest gold fridge and the spindly Formica-topped table. The bomb burst meant a fellow slayer had bit it and bit it hard at the hand of the Omega. Evidently the master had fired another Fore-lesser .
    Mr. D stepped over the bodies and cracked the fridge. Lessers didn’t eat, but he was curious what the couple had in there. Huh. More memories. There was an open package of Oscar Mayer bologna, and they were almost out of mayo.
    Not that they had to worry about making sandwiches no more.
    He closed the fridge and leaned back against the—
    The temperature in the house dropped by twenty degrees, like someone had cranked a central-air unit on so the dial read, Freeze Your Nuts Off . The wind followed, roughing up the still summer night, gathering in force until the farmhouse groaned.
    The Omega.
    Mr. D came to attention just as the front door blew open. What came down the hall was an inky mist, fluid and transparent, rolling along the floorboards. It coalesced in front of Mr. D, rising up into a male form.
    “Master,” Mr. D said as he bowed at the waist and his black blood raced in his veins out of fear and love.
    The Omega’s voice came from a vast distance and carried an electronic cadence with static. “I am appointing you Fore-lesser .”
    Mr. D’s breath caught. This was the highest honor, the single most powerful position in the Lessening Society. He’d never even hoped for it. And maybe he could actually hang for a spell in the job. “Thank—”
    The Omega misted forward and blanketed Mr. D’s body like a coating of tar. As pain took the place of every bone in his body, Mr. D felt himself get spun around and pushed face-first into the counter, his hat flying from his hands. The Omega took control, and things happened that Mr. D would never have consented to.
    There was no consent in the Society, though. You had only one yes, and that was the one that got you into it. Everything else that came after, you had no control over.
    When what seemed like centuries passed, the Omega stepped out of Mr. D’s body and clothed himself, a white robe covering him from head to foot. With ladylike elegance, the evil arranged his lapels, his claws having disappeared.
    Or maybe they’d just been worn to stubs after all the ripping and tearing.
    Weak and leaking, Mr. D sagged against the pitted countertop. He wanted to get dressed, but there wasn’t much left of his clothes.
    “Events have come to a head,” the Omega pronounced. “The incubation is done. It is time now to shed the cocoon.”
    “Yes, suh.” As if there was another