Lover Awakened

'Your eyes,' she whispered. 'What's happened to your—'

Wrath cut in. 'Bella, your brother has asked that you stay here a little longer.'

Her surprise was so great, she looked away from Zsadist. 'What, my lord?'

'He doesn't want me to rule on your sehclusion right now, and he wants you to remain here.'

'Why?'

'No idea. Maybe you could ask him.'

God, as if things aren't confusing enough. She glanced back at Zsadist, but he was focused on a window across the room.

'You are, of course, welcome to stay,' Wrath said.

As Zsadist stiffened, she wondered how true that was.

'I don't want to be ahvenged,' she said loudly. When Zsadist's head whipped around, she spoke directly to him. 'I'm grateful for everything you've done for me. But I don't want anyone hurt trying to get at the lesser who kept me. Especially not you.'

His brows cranked down on his eyes. 'That is not your call.'

'The hell it's not.' As she pictured him going to fight, terror overrode everything. 'God, Zsadist… I don't want to be responsible for your going out and getting yourself killed.'

'That lesser's going to end up pine-boxing it, not me.'

'You can't be serious! Dear Virgin, look at you. You can't possibly fight. You're so weak.'

There was a collective hiss in the room, and Zsadist's eyes went black.

Oh… shit. Bella put her hand over her mouth. Weak. She'd called him weak. In front of the whole Brotherhood.

There was no greater insult. To merely insinuate that a male couldn't handle himself with strength was unforgivable in the warrior class, no matter the basis. But to come flat out and say so, in front of witnesses, was a complete social castration, an irrevocable condemnation of his worth as a male.

Bella rushed over. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean—'

Zsadist lifted his arms out of her reach. 'Get away from me.'

She put her hand back to her mouth as he stepped around her like she was a grenade. He headed out the door and his footsteps receded down the hall. When she was able, she met the disapproving eyes of his brothers.

'I will apologize to him immediately. And hear this now, I do not doubt his courage or his strength. I worry over him because…'

Say it to them, she thought. Surely they would understand.

'I love him.'

Abruptly the tension in the room eased. Well, most of it. Phury turned away and went to the fire, leaning up against the mantel. His head dipped down as if he wanted to be in the flames.

''I'm glad you feel that way,' Wrath said. 'He needs it. Now go find him and apologize.'

On her way out of the study, Tohrment stepped in front of her and gave her a level look. 'Try to feed him while you're at it, okay?'

'I'm praying he'll let me.'

CHAPTER 37

Rehvenge prowled around his house, going from room to room with a restless, punching stride. His visual field was red, his senses alive, his cane left behind hours ago. No longer cold as he always was, he'd ditched the turtleneck, hanging his weapons on his bare skin. He felt all of his body, reveled in all the power of his muscles and bones. And there were other things, too. Things he hadn't experienced in…

God, it had been a decade since he'd let himself get this far gone, and because this was engineered, a deliberate recession into the madness, he felt in control—which was probably a dangerous fallacy, but he didn't give a shit. He was… liberated. And he wanted to fight his enemy with a desperation that was downright sexual.

So he was also frustrated as hell.

He looked out one of the library's windows. He'd left the front gate wide-open, trying to encourage visitors. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

The grandfather clock chimed twelve times.

He'd been so sure the lesser would show, but no one had come through the gate, up the drive, to the house. And according to the periphery's security cameras, the cars that had passed by on the street were only those indigenous to the neighborhood: multiple Mercedes, a Maybach, several Lexus SUVs, four BMWs.

Goddamn it. He wanted that slayer, badly enough to scream, and the urge to fight, to ahvenge his family, to protect his turf, made sense. His bloodline reached back into the warrior elite on his mother's side, and aggression ran thick in him; it always had. Add to his core nature the anger about his sister and the fact that he'd had to rush his mahmen out of her home in broad fucking daylight, and he was a powder keg.

He thought of the Brotherhood. He would have been a good candidate for them, if they'd been recruiting before his transition… Except who the hell knew what they did anymore? They'd gone underground as the vampire civilization had crumbled, becoming this hidden enclave, protecting themselves more than the race they were sworn to defend.

Hell, he couldn't help thinking that if they'd been more focused on their job and less on themselves, they could have prevented Bella's abduction. Or found her right away.

Fresh anger stirring, he continued to walk through the house in a random pattern, looking out of windows and doors, checking monitors. Eventually he decided the aimless waiting was bullshit. He was just going to lose his mind wandering around here all night, and he had business to take care of downtown. If he set the alarms and they were triggered, he could dematerialize in the blink of an eye.

When he got up to his room, he went to his closet and paused in front of the locked cabinet in the back. Going to work unmedicated was not an option, even if it meant he had to use a gun instead of hand-to-hand on the lesser if the bastard showed up.

Rehv took out a vial of dopamine as well as his syringe and tourniquet. As he prepared the needle and wrapped the rubber tube around his upper arm, he stared at the clear fluid he was about to pump into his vein. Havers had mentioned that at this kind of high dose, paranoia was a side effect in some vampires. And Rehv had been doubling up the prescribed load for… Jesus, ever since Bella had been abducted. So maybe he was losing it.

But then he thought about the body temperature of that thing that had stopped in front of the gates. Fifty degrees wasn't alive. Not for humans.

He injected himself and waited until his vision came back and his body went away. Then he dressed warmly, grabbed his cane, and headed out.

Zsadist stalked into ZeroSum, totally aware of Phury's silent worry looming behind him like a damp fog. Good thing he found his twin easy to ignore, or all that despair would have sucked him down.

Weak. You're so weak.

Yeah, well, he was going to take care of that.

'Give me twenty minutes,' he told Phury. 'Then meet me outside in the alley.'

He didn't waste any time. He picked a working human whore who had her hair up in a chignon, gave her two hundred dollars, then practically pushed her out of the club. She didn't seem to care about his face or his size or the way he moved her around. Her eyes were not tracking at all, she was so high.

When they were out in the alley, she laughed too loudly.

'How do you want it?' she said, doing a little dance in her skyscraper heels. She stumbled, then put her hands up over her head and stretched in the cold. 'You look like you take it rough. Which is fine with me.'