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  Zsadist got out of the car and came around the hood. After a century of being half-starved by choice, he was now packing a good two hundred eighty-five pounds on his six-foot-six frame. The scar on his face remained obvious, and so did his tattooed slave bands, but thanks to his shellan, Bella, his eyes were no longer black pits of hatred. For the most part.

  Without saying anything, the two of them manhandled Rhage over to the car and stuffed his massive body into the backseat.

  "You poofing it home?" Z said as he got behind the wheel.

  "Yeah, but I need to clear the scene." Which meant using his hand to fry-clean the lesser blood that was splattered everywhere.

  "You want me to wait?"

  "No, get our boy home. Mary's going to want to see him ASAP."

  Zsadist scanned the vicinity with a quick head twist. "I'll wait."

  "Z, it's cool. I won't stay here alone long."

  That ruined lip lifted into a snarl. "If you're not at the compound by the time I get there, I'm coming for you."

  The Beemer took off, back tires kicking up mud and snow.

  Jesus, Z really was backup.

  Ten minutes later V dematerialized to the compound, just as Zsadist was pulling in with Rhage. As Z took Hollywood inside, Vishous looked around at the cars parked in the courtyard.

  Where the hell was the Escalade? Butch should be back by now.

  V took out his phone and hit speed dial. When he got voice mail, he said, "Hey, buddy, I'm home. Where are you, cop?"

  As the two of them called each other constantly, he knew Butch would check in soon enough. Hell, maybe the guy was getting busy for the first time in recorded history. It was about time the sorry SOB shelved his obsession with Marissa and got a little sexual relief.

  And speaking of relief… V measured the light in the sky. He figured he had about an hour and a half of darkness left, and man, he was twitchy as shit. There was something going on tonight, something bad in the air, but with his visions gone, he didn't know what it was. And the blank slate was making him mental.

  He fired up his cell again and hit a number. When the ringing stopped, he didn't wait for a hello. "You will get ready for me now. You will wear what I bought for you. Your hair will be bound and off your neck."

  He waited to hear the only three words he cared about and they came right away, the female voice saying, "Yes, my lheage."

  V hung up and dematerialized.

  Chapter Three

  ZeroSum was doing excellent business lately, Rehvenge thought as he looked at the tallies. Cash flow was strong. There was growth in the sports booking receipts. Attendance was up. God, he'd owned the club for how long now? Five? Six years? And it was finally cranking enough income that he could take a deep breath.

  It was a despicable way of making money, of course, what with the sex and the drugs and the booze and the betting. But he needed to support his mahmen and, up until recently, his sister, Bella. Then there was the blackmail overhead he had to cover.

  Secrets could be so expensive to keep.

  Rehv looked up as the door to his office opened. As his chief security officer came in, he could smell the lingering scent of O'Neal on her and he smiled a little. He liked being right. "Thanks for taking care of Butch."

  Xhex's gray eyes were direct as always. "I wouldn't have if I hadn't wanted him."

  "And I wouldn't have asked if I hadn't known that. Now, where are we?"

  She sat down opposite his desk, her powerful body as hard as the marble he was resting his elbows on. "Nonconsensual sex in the mezzanine men's room. I took care of it. The woman is pressing charges."

  "Was the guy walking after you were through with him?"

  "Yeah, but he was wearing a new pair of earrings, if you know what I mean. I also found two minors on the premises and kicked them out. And one of the bouncers was taking kickbacks from the line, so I fired him."

  "Anything else?"

  "We had another OD."

  "Shit. Not our product, though, right?"

  "Nope. Outside junk." She pulled a small cellophane bag out of the back pocket of her leathers and tossed it on his desk. "I managed to snag this before the EMTs arrived. I'm hiring some extra staff to deal with the situation."

  "Good. You find that freelancer, you bring his ass to me. I want to take care of him personally."

  "Will do."

  "You got anything more for me?"

  In the silence that followed, Xhex leaned forward and linked her hands together. Her body was all tight muscle, nothing but hard angles except for her high, small breasts. She was deliciously hermaphroditic, although fully a female so far as he'd heard.

  The cop should feel lucky, he thought. Xhex didn't have sex that often, and then only when she found the male worthy.

  She also didn't waste time. Usually. "Xhex, talk."

  "I want to know something."

  Rehv eased back in his chair. "Is this going to piss me off?"

  "Yup. Are you looking for a mate?"

  As his eyes started to glow purple, he tilted his chin down and stared at her from under his brows. "Who said I was? And I want the name."

  "Deduction, not gossip. According to GPS records, your Bentley's been by Havers's a lot lately. I happen to know Marissa is unattached. She's beautiful. Complicated. But you've never cared about the glymera. You thinking about mating her?"

  "Not at all," he lied.

  "Good." As Xhex's eyes nailed into him, it was obvious she knew the truth. "Because it would be crazy for you to give it a shot. She'd find out about you—and I'm not talking about what goes down here. She's a member of the Princeps Council, for chrissakes. If she knew you were a symphath, that would compromise both of us."

  Rehv rose to his feet and palmed his cane. "The Brotherhood already knows about me."

  "How?" Xhex breathed.

  He thought about the little lip/fang thing he and the Brother, Phury, had shared and decided to keep that on the down-low. "They just do. And now that my sister's mated to a Brother, I'm a member of the frickin' family. So even if the Princeps Council found out, those warriors would keep them at bay."

  Too bad his blackmailer was unaffected by the ways of the Normals. Symphaths, he was learning, made very bad enemies. No wonder his kind were hated.

  "You sure about that?" Xhex said.

  "It would kill Bella if I were sent to one of those colonies. You think that hellren of hers would stand for her being upset like that, especially as she's pregnant? Z's one mean-ass motherfucker and he is very protective of her. So, yeah, I'm sure."

  "She ever guessed about you?"

  "No." And though Zsadist knew, he wasn't going to tell his mate. No way he'd put Bella in that position. Laws read that if you knew of a symphath you had to report him or her or face prosecution.

  Rehv came around the desk, relying on his cane now that Xhex was the only one around. The dopamine he shot himself up with regularly kept the worst of the symphath urges at bay, enabling him to pass for a Normal. He wasn't sure how Xhex managed it. Wasn't sure he wanted to know. But the thing was, with his sense of touch gone, he had to use a cane or he was liable to fall. After all, depth perception got you only so far when you couldn't feel your feet or legs.

  "You don't worry," he said. "No one knows what either one of us are. And it's going to stay that way."

  Gray eyes stared up at him. "Are you feeding her, Rehv." Not a question. A demand. "Are you feeding Marissa?"

  "That's my business, not yours."

  She shot to her feet. "Goddamn you—we agreed. Twenty-five years ago when I had my little problem, we agreed. No mates. No feeding with Normals. What the hell are you doing?"

  "I'm in control and this conversation is over." He checked his watch. "And what do you know, it's closing time and you need a break. The Moors can lock up."

  She glared at him for a moment. "I don't leave until the job is done—"

  "I'm telling you to go home, not being nice. I'll see you tomorrow night
."

  "No offense, but fuck you, Rehvenge."

  She stalked over to the door, moving like the killer she was. As he watched her go, he was reminded that this security stuff for him was nothing compared to what she was capable of.

  "Xhex," he said, "maybe we were wrong about the mating."

  She sent an are-you-stupid? frown over her shoulder. "You shoot yourself up twice a day. You think Marissa wouldn't notice that eventually? How about the fact that you have to go to her brother the good doctor for the neuromodulator you rely on? Besides, what would an aristocrat like her say about all… this?" She swept her arm around his office. "We weren't wrong. You're just forgetting the whys of it all."

  The door eased shut behind her and Rehv looked down at his numb body. He pictured Marissa, so pure and beautiful, so different from the other females he was around, so different from Xhex… who he fed from.

  He wanted Marissa, was half in love with her at this point. And the male in him wanted to claim what was his even though his drugs made him impotent. Except surely he wouldn't hurt what he loved, even if his dark parts were out? Right?

  He thought of her, wearing her lovely haute couture gowns, so properly dressed, so genteel, so… clean. The glymera was wrong about her. She wasn't defective; she was perfect.

  He smiled, his body flushing up with a burn that only hardcore orgasms could douse. It was getting to be that time of the month, so she would be calling him soon. Yeah, she would need him again… soon. As his blood was diluted, she had to feed with gratifying frequency, and the last time had been almost three weeks ago.

  She would be calling him within days. And he couldn't wait to be of service to her.

  V got back to the Brotherhood's compound with minutes to spare, materializing just outside the gatehouse's front door. He'd hoped his kind of sex would have taken the edge off of him, but no, he was still bladed as shit.

  He went through the Pit's vestibule and disarmed along the way, all tensed up and so ready for a shower to get the smell of the female off him. He should have been hungry; instead, all he wanted was some Grey Goose.

  "Butch, my man!" he called out.

  Silence.

  V walked down the hall to the cop's bedroom. "You crashed?"

  He pushed open the door. The king-sized bed was empty. So maybe the cop was up at the main house?

  V jogged through the Pit and put his head out through the vestibule's door. A quick glance around at the cars parked in the courtyard and his heart went snare drum on him. No Escalade. So Butch wasn't at the compound.

  With the sky beginning to lighten off to the east, the glow of day stung V's eyes, so he ducked back into the house and sat down behind his bank of computers. Firing up the coordinates on the Escalade, he saw that the SUV was parked behind Screamer's.

  Which was good. At least Butch wasn't wrapped around a tree—

  V froze. Slowly, he pushed his hand into the back pocket of his leathers, a horrible feeling coming over him, hot and prickly like a rash. Flipping open the Razr, he accessed his voice mail. First message was a hang-up from Butch's number.

  As the second message clicked on, the Pit's steel shutters started to come down for the day.

  V frowned. There was only a hissing sound coming from the voice mail. But then a clatter had him yanking the phone away from his ear.

  Now Butch's voice, hard, loud: "Dematerialize. Dematerialize now."

  A scared male: "But—but—"

  "Now! For fuck's sake, get your ass out of here…" Sounds of muffled flapping.

  "Why are you doing this? You're just a human—"

  "I am so sick of hearing that. Leave!"

  There was a metallic shifting, a gun being reloaded.

  Butch's voice: "Oh, shit…"

  Then all hell broke loose. Gunshots, grunts, thuds.

  V leaped up from his desk so fast he knocked his chair over. Only to realize he was trapped inside by daylight.

  Chapter Four

  The first thing Butch thought when he came around was that someone needed to turn that faucet off. The drip, drip, drip was annoying.

  Then he cracked an eyelid and realized his own blood was pulling the Kohler routine. Oh… right. He'd been beaten and he was leaking.

  This had been a long, long, very bad day. How many hours had he been interrogated? Twelve? Felt like a thousand.

  He tried to take a deep breath, but some of his ribs were broken, so he picked hypoxia over more pain. Man, thanks to his captor's attentions, everything hurt like a motherfucker, but at least the lesser had sealed up that gunshot wound.

  Just to keep questioning going longer.

  The only saving grace to the nightmare was that not one thing about the Brotherhood had passed his lips. Not a thing. Even when the slayer went to work on his fingernails and between his legs. Butch was going to die soon, but at least he could look Saint Peter in the eye and know he wasn't a squealer when he got to heaven.

  Or had he died and gone to hell? Was that what all this was about? Given some of the shit he'd pulled on earth, he could see why he'd ended up in the devil's guesthouse. But then wouldn't his torturer have horns, like devils did?

  Okay, he was flirting with Looney Tunes here.

  He opened his eyes a little farther, figuring it was time to try to separate reality from mind-grinding nonsense. He had a feeling this was probably his last shot at consciousness, so he should make it count.

  Vision was blurry. Hands… feet… yup, chained down. And he was still lying on something hard, a table. Room was… dark. Dirt smell meant he was probably in a basement. Bald lightbulb revealed… yeah, the torture tool kit. He looked away from the spread of sharp things, shuddering.

  What was that sound? A dim roar. Getting louder. Louder.

  As soon as it was cut off, a door opened upstairs and Butch heard a man say in a muffled voice, "Master."

  Soft reply. Indistinct. Then a conversation, with one set of footsteps pacing around, causing dust to filter down from the floorboards. Eventually, another door squeaked open, and the stairs next to him started to creak.

  Butch broke out in a cold sweat and lowered his eyelids. Through the cracks between his lashes, he watched what came at him.

  First guy was the lesser who'd been working him out, the guy from over the summer, from the Caldwell Martial Arts Academy—Joseph Xavier was his name, if Butch remembered correctly. The other was draped from head to foot in a brilliant white robe, his face and hands completely covered. Looked like some kind of monk or priest.

  Except that was no man of God under there. As Butch absorbed the person's vibe, he couldn't breathe from his repulsion. Whatever was hidden by that robe was distilled evil, the kind that mobilized serial killers and rapists and murderers and people who enjoyed beating their children: hatred and malevolence in an upright, solid form.

  Butch's fear level shot through the roof. He could handle being knocked around; the pain was bitch, but there was a definable end point marked by when his heart stopped beating. But whatever was hiding under that robe held mysteries of suffering the likes of which were biblical. And how did he know? His whole body was revolting, his instincts firing off to run, save himself… pray.

  Words came to him, marching through his mind. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…

  The robed figure's hood turned toward Butch with the boneless swivel of an owl's head.

  Butch slammed his lids shut and hurried through the Twenty-third Psalm. Faster… needed to get the words into his mind, faster. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters… He restoreth my soul; He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake…

  "This man is the one?" The voice that reverberated through the basement tripped Butch up, making him lose his rhythm: It was resonant and carried an echo, something out of a sci-fi movie with all that eerie distortion.

  "His gun had the Brotherhood's bullets in it."

  Get back to the Psalm. And do i
t faster. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil—

  "I know you wake, human." The echoing voice shot right into Butch's ear. "Look upon me and know your captor's master."

  Butch opened his eyes, turned his head, and swallowed compulsively. The face staring down into his was condensed blackness, a shadow come to life.

  The Omega.

  The Evil laughed a little. "So you know what I am, do you?" It straightened. "Given you anything, has he, Fore-lesser?"

  "I'm not finished."

  "Ah, so that is no. And you have worked him well, given how close to death he is. Yes, I can feel it coming to him. So close." The Omega bent down again and inhaled the air over Butch's body. "Yes, within the hour. Maybe less."

  "He'll last as long as I want him to."

  "No, he won't." The Omega started to circle the table and Butch tracked the movement, terror getting tighter and tighter, strengthening in the centrifugal force of the Evil's pacing. Around, around, around… Butch trembled so badly his teeth clapped together.

  The shaking dried up the second the Omega came to a halt at the far end of the table. Shadowy hands lifted up, grasped the white robe's hood, and pulled it off. Overhead, the bald light-bulb flickered as if its illumination were sucked in by the black form.

  "You are letting him go," the Omega said, that voice like a wave, filtered and enhanced by the air in turns. "You are leaving him out in the woods. You are telling the others to stay away from him."

  What? Butch thought.

  "What?" the Fore-lesser said.

  "The Brotherhood has among its weaknesses a paralyzing loyalty, do they not? Yes, paralyzing fidelity. They claim what is theirs. It is the animal in them." The Omega held out its hand. "A knife, please. I am of a mind to make this human useful."

  "You just said he was going to die."

  "But I'm going to give him a little life, as it were. As well, as a gift. Knife."

  Butch's eyes cracked wide open as an eight-inch hunting number changed hands.

  The Omega placed one hand on the table, put the blade to the tip of its finger, and bore down. There was a crack, like a carrot had been cut.