Lover Awakened

groans of the others and realized they were in deep shit. No matter how civilized they pretended to be, males couldn't help but respond to a female in her fertile time, and their sexual urges would increase as the needing progressed and strengthened.

If it weren't daylight they could have saved themselves by getting away. But they were trapped in the compound, and by the time it was dark enough for them to get out, it would be too late. After prolonged exposure, males would instinctually resist leaving the female's vicinity. No matter what their brains told them, their bodies would fight the call to get away, and if they did depart from her, they would suffer withdrawal pangs that were worse than their cravings. Wrath and Rhage had outlets for their response, but the rest of the Brothers were in trouble. Their only hope was to numb themselves out.

And Bella… Oh, God… She was going to hurt more than all of them combined.

V rose from the table, steadying himself on the back of his chair. 'Come on, Phury. We need to start smoking up. Now. Z, you're going to her, right?'

Zsadist shut his eyes.

'Z? Z, you're going to serve her—right?'

John looked up from the kitchen table as the phone rang. Sal and Regin, the family's doggen, were out getting groceries. He picked up the call.

'John, that you?' It was Tohr on the downstairs line.

John whistled and took another bite of his white rice and ginger sauce.

'Listen, school's canceled for today. I'm calling all the families now.'

John lowered his fork and whistled an ascending note.

'There's a… complication at the compound. But we should be back on tomorrow or the night after. We'll see how things go. In light of this, we've moved up your appointment at Havers's. Butch is going to come get you right now, okay?'

John whistled twice, in little short puffs.

'Good… he's a human, but he's cool. I trust him.' The doorbell rang. 'That's probably him—yeah, that's Butch. I can see him on the video monitor. Listen, John… about this therapist business. If it creeps you out, you don't have to go back, okay? I won't let anyone make you.'

John sighed into the phone and thought. Thank you.

Tohr laughed softly. 'Yeah, I'm not much for the emotive crap either—Ouch! Wellsie, what the hell?'

There was a rapid conversation in the Old Language.

'Anyway,' Tohr said into the phone. 'You text-message me when it's done, okay?'

John whistled twice, hung up, and put his dish and fork into the washer.

Therapist… training… Neither one was something to look forward to, but all things being equal, he'd take whatever shrink he was going to see over Lash any day. Hell, at least the appointment with the doc wouldn't last more than sixty minutes. Lash he had to deal with for hours.

On the way out he picked up his jacket and his notebook. As he opened the door the big human on the front stoop smiled down at him.

'Hey, J-man. I'm Butch. Butch O'Neal. Your taxi.'

Whoa. This Butch O'Neal was… well, the man was dressed like a GQ model, for one thing. Under a black cashmere coat he had on a fancy pin-striped suit, an awesome red tie, a bright white shirt. His dark hair was pushed off his forehead in a casual, finger-brushed way that totally rocked out.

And his shoes… wow. Gucci, really Gucci… black leather, red-and-green band, shiny gold stuff.

Funny, he wasn't handsome, not in a Mr. Perfect kind of way, at least. The guy had a nose that had clearly been busted once or three times, and his hazel eyes were too shrewd and too exhausted to be classified as attractive. But he was like a cocked gun: He had a steely intelligence and a dangerous power about him that you respected. Because the combination was a flat-out killer, literally.

'John? We cool here?'

John whistled and stuck out his hand. They shook and Butch smiled again.

'So you good to go?' the man asked a little more gently. Like he'd been told John had to go back to Havers's to 'talk to someone.'

God… Was everyone going to know?

While John shut the door, he imagined the guys in his training class finding out, and wanted to throw up.

He and Butch walked over to a black Escalade with darkened windows and some serious chrome on the wheels. Inside, the car was warm and smelled like leather and the awesome aftershave Butch was wearing.

They took off and Butch hit the stereo, Mystikal pumping through the car. As John looked out the window at the flurries and the peach light that was bleeding from the sky, he really wished he were going anywhere else. Well, except to class.

'So, John,' Butch said, 'I'm not going to front. I know why you're heading to the clinic, and I wanna tell you, I've had to go to the shrink, too.'

When John looked over with surprise, the man nodded. 'Yeah, when I was on the police force. I was a homicide detective for ten years, and in homicide you see some pretty f'ed up stuff. There was always some deeply sincere guy with granny glasses and a steno pad bugging me to talk. I hated it.'

John took a deep breath, oddly reassured that the guy hadn't liked the experience any more than he was going to.

'But the funny thing was…' Butch came to a stop sign and hit a directional signal. A second later he shot out into traffic. 'The funny thing was… I think it helped. Not when I was sitting across from Dr. Earnest, the share- your-feelings superhero. Frankly, I wanted to bolt the entire time, my skin crawled so bad. It was just… afterward, I'd think about what we'd talked about. And, you know, he had some valid points. It kind of cooled me out, even though I'd thought I was fine. So it was all good.'

John cocked his head to one side.

'What did I see?' Butch murmured. The man was silent for a long time. It wasn't until they pulled into another very ritzy neighborhood that he answered. 'Nothing special, son. Nothing special.'

Butch turned into a driveway, stopped at a pair of gates, and put down the window. After he hit an intercom button and said his name, they were allowed to pass.

When the Escalade was parked behind a stuccoed mansion the size of a high school, John opened his door. As he met Butch on the other side of the SUV, he realized the guy had taken out a handgun: The thing was in his grip and hanging by his thigh, barely noticeable.

John had seen this trick before. Phury had armed himself in a similar way when the two of them had gone to the clinic a couple of nights ago. Weren't the Brothers safe here?

John looked around. Everything seemed really normal, for a big-money estate.

Maybe the Brothers weren't safe anywhere.

Butch took John's arm and walked quickly to a solid-steel door, all the while scanning the ten-car garage behind the house, the oak trees on the periphery, the two other cars parked by what looked like a kitchen entrance. John jogged to keep up.

When they were at the back door Butch showed his face to a camera, and the steel panels in front of them made a clicking noise, then slid back. They went into a vestibule, the doors closed behind them, and then a freight elevator opened up. They took it down one level and stepped out.

Standing in front of them was a nurse John recognized from before. As she smiled and welcomed them, Butch put the handgun away in a holster under his left arm.

The nurse swept her hand toward a hallway. 'Petrilla is waiting.'

Squeezing his notebook, John took a deep breath and followed the woman, feeling as if he were going to the gallows.

Z stopped in front of his bedroom door. He was just going to check on Bella and then he was going to make a beeline for Phury's room and get himself good and stoned. He hated any kind of drugged-out feeling, but anything