Lover Revealed

and he was elaborating just to shut her up. 'So they are irrelevant. Now come over here. He needs you to be close to him.'

The contradiction between the Brother's face and his command to come closer tangled her up. So did the reality that that hand was the biggest help.

'He most certainly does not need me or want me here,' she murmured. And wondered once again why the hell he'd called her three nights ago.

'He's worried about you. That's why he wants you to go.'

She flushed. 'Wrong, warrior.'

'I'm never wrong.' With a quick flash, those navy-rimmed white irises flipped up to her face. They were so frigid that she stepped back, but Vishous shook his head. 'Come on, touch him. Let him feel you. He needs to know you're here.'

She frowned, thinking the Brother was crazy. But she walked to the far side of the bed and reached out to stroke Butch's hair. The instant she made contact, he turned his face toward her.

'See?' Vishous went back to staring at the wound. 'He craves you.'

I wish he did, she thought.

'Do you really?'

She stiffened. 'Please don't read my mind. It's rude.'

'I didn't. You spoke out loud.'

Her hand faltered on Butch's hair. 'Oh. Sorry.'

They grew quiet, both focused on Butch. Then Vishous said in a hard tone, 'Why'd you shut him down, Marissa? When he came to see you back in the fall, why'd you turn him away?'

She frowned. 'He never came to see me.'

'Yeah, he did.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'You heard what I said.'

As they locked eyes, it occurred to her that although Vishous was scary as all get out, he was not a liar. 'When? When did he come to me?'

'He waited for a couple weeks after Wrath was shot. Then he went to your house. When he got back, he said you wouldn't even come down in person. Man, that was a cold move, female. You knew he was feeling you, but you turned him away through a servant. Nice.'

'No… I never did that… He didn't come, he… No one told me he—'

'Oh, please.'

'Do not take that tone with me, warrior.' As Vishous's eyes shot to her face, she was too pissed off to care who or what he was. 'At the end of last summer I was flat on my back with the flu, thanks to feeding Wrath too much and then working in the clinic. When I didn't hear from Butch, I assumed he'd had second thoughts about us. As I… haven't had a lot of luck with males, it took me a while to work up the nerve to approach him. When I did, three months ago here in the clinic, he made it clear he didn't want to see me. So do me the favor of not blaming me for something I did not do.'

There was a long silence and then Vishous surprised the hell out of her.

He actually smiled at her a little. 'Well, what do you know.'

Flustered, she looked down at Butch and resumed stroking his hair. 'I swear to you, if I had known it was him, I would have dragged myself out of bed to answer that door myself.'

In a low voice Vishous murmured, 'Good deal, female. Good… deal.'

In the silence that followed, she thought about the events of the previous summer. The convalescence she'd taken hadn't been just about the flu. She'd been overwhelmed by her brother's attempt on Wrath's life—by the fact that Havers, ever the calm, even-tempered healer, had gone so far as to betray the king's location to a lesser. Sure, Havers had done it to ahvenge her because of the way she had been cast aside for the queen, but that in no way excused the actions.

Dear Virgin the Fade, Butch had tried to see her, but why hadn't she been told?

'I never knew you came,' she murmured, smoothing his hair back.

Vishous removed his hand, and yanked up the sheet. 'Close your eyes, Marissa. It's your turn.'

She looked up. 'I didn't know.'

'I believe you. Now close.'

After he had healed her, V walked over to the door, his big shoulders rolling with his gait.

At the air lock, he looked back over his shoulder. 'Don't think I was the only reason he healed. You're his light, Marissa. Don't ever forget that.' The Brother's eyes narrowed. 'But here's something to keep in mind. You ever hurt him on purpose and I will consider you my enemy.'

John Matthew sat in a classroom that was right out of Caldwell High School. There were seven long tables facing the blackboard, and all but one had a pair of trainees plugged into them.

John was alone in the back. Which was also just as it had been at CHS.

The difference between this class and the stuff he'd taken in school, though, was that now he took careful notes and stared up front like the chalkboard was running a Die Hard marathon.

Then again, geometry wasn't ever the subject on deck around here.

This afternoon, Zsadist was at the head of the class, pacing back and forth, talking about the chemical composition of C4 plastic explosives. The Brother was wearing one of his trademark black turtlenecks and a pair of loose nylon track pants. With that scar down his face, he looked exactly like he'd done what people said he had: killed females, desecrated lessers, attacked even his Brothers without provocation.

But the strange thing was, he was a helluva teacher.

'Now for detonators,' he said. 'Personally, I prefer the remote variety.'

As John turned over a fresh page in his notebook, Z sketched a 3-D mechanism on the board, some kind of box with wiring circuits. Whenever the Brother drew, what he put up was so detailed and realistic you could almost reach out and touch the thing.

When there was a lull, John checked his watch. Another fifteen minutes then it was time to have a light meal and hit the gym. He couldn't wait.

When he'd started school here, he'd hated the mixed martial arts training. Now he loved it. He was still last in the class in terms of technical skills, but lately he'd more than made up for that in rage. And his aggression had caused a realignment in social dynamics.

Back in the beginning, three months ago, his classmates had ridiculed him. Accused him of sucking up to the Brothers. Derided him for his birthmark because it looked like the pectoral star scar of the Brotherhood. Now the other guys watched it around him. Well, everyone except for Lash. Lash still rode him, singling him out, cutting him down.

Not that John cared. He might be in this class with the rest of the trainees, he might technically be living in the compound with the Brothers, he might supposedly be linked to the Brotherhood by the blood of his father, but ever since he'd lost Tohr and Wellsie, he was a free agent so far as he was concerned. Bound to no one.

So the other folks in this room were nothing to him.

He shifted his stare to the back of Lash's head. The guy's long blond hair was in a ponytail that rested smoothly down a jacket made by some fancy designer. And how did John know about the designer thing? Because Lash always told everyone what he was wearing when he walked in for class.

Had also mentioned tonight that his new watch was iced out by Jacob the Jeweler.

John narrowed his eyes, getting juiced up just thinking about the sparring the two of them would do in the gym. As if the guy felt the heat, Lash turned, his diamond earring sparkling. His lips lifted into a nasty little smile, then pursed as he blew John a kiss.

'John?' Zsadist's voice was hard as a hammer. 'Mind showing me some respect here?'

As John flushed and looked up front, Zsadist continued, tapping the board with a long forefinger. 'Once a mech like this is activated it's triggered by a variety of things, sound frequency being the most common. You can call in from a cell phone, a computer, or use a radio signal.'

Zsadist started drawing again, the scratch of chalk loud in the room.

'Here's another kind of detonator.' Zsadist stepped back. 'This one is typical of car bombs. You wire the