Lover Mine

workmanship of the rough- hewn steps, and the uneven walls—all of which seemed to indicate that the family never made this sojourn below, only the servants.

More proof this was not a vampire household. Underground quarters were among the most lavish in such homes.

Down on the lower level, the stone beneath their feet yielded to packed earth and the air grew heavy with cold dampness. As they progressed farther under the great mansion, they found storage rooms filled with caskets of wine and mead and bins of salted meats and baskets of potatoes and onions.

At the far end, Darius expected to find a second set of stairs that they could take back up out of the earth. Instead, they just came to a termination of the subterranean hall. No door. Just a wall.

He looked around to see if there were tracks on the ground or fissures in the stones indicating a hidden panel or section. There were none.

In order to be certain, he and Tohrment ran their hands over the walling surface and over the floor.

“There were many windows on the upper stories,” Tohrment murmured. “But perhaps if they kept her above, they could have drawn the drapes. Or mayhap there are windowless interior rooms?”

As the pair of them faced the dead end they’d hit, that sense of dread, of being in an incorrect place, swelled in Darius’s chest until breath was short and sweat formed under his arms and down his spine. He had a feeling Tohrment was suffering from a similar bout of anxious trepidation, for the male shifted his weight back and forth, back and forth.

Darius shook his head. “Verily, she appears to be elsewhere—”

“Very true, vampire.”

Darius and Tohrment wheeled around while unsheathing their daggers.

Looking at what had taken them by surprise, Darius thought... Well, that explains the dread.

The white-robed figure blocking the way out was not human and was not vampire.

It was a symphath.

FORTY-FOUR

As Xhex waited outside of the weight room, she regarded her emotions with dispassionate interest. It was, she supposed, like staring at a stranger’s face and taking note of the imperfections and the coloring and the features for no other reason than that they had presented themselves for observation.

Her urge for revenge had been eclipsed by an honest concern for John.

Surprise, surprise.

Then again, she’d never imagined seeing that kind of fury up close and personal, especially from the likes of him. It was as if he had an inner beast that had roared free from some interior cage.

Man, the bonded male was not something you fucked around with.

And she wasn’t kidding herself. That was the reason he’d reacted the way he had—and was also the cause of those dark spices she’d scented around him since she’d gotten out of Lash’s prison: Sometime during the weeks of her brutal holiday, John’s attraction and respect for her had jelled into the irrevocable.

Shit. What a mess.

As the sound of the treadmill got cut off abruptly, she was willing to bet Blaylock had pulled the cord out of the wall, and good for him if he had. She’d tried to get John to stop pulling a death-by-Nike, but when reasoning with him had gotten her absolutely nowhere, she’d taken up sentry duty out here.

No way she could watch him run himself into the ground. Listening to the punishment was bad enough.

Down the hall, the glass door to the office swung open and the Brother Tohrment appeared. Given the glow that emanated from behind him, Lassiter had come into the training center as well, but the fallen angel hung back.

“How is John?” As the Brother he walked over, his concern was in his hard face and his tired eyes, and also in his grid, which was lit up in the regret sectors.

Made sense on a lot of levels.

Xhex glanced at the weight room door. “Appears to have rethought a career change to marathoner. Either that or he just killed another treadmill.”

Tohr’s towering height forced her to tilt her head up, and it was a surprise to see what was behind his blue eyes: There was knowledge in his stare, deep knowledge that made her own emotional circuits fire with suspicion. In her experience, strangers who looked at you like that were dangerous.

“How are you?” he asked softly.

It was strange; she hadn’t had a lot of contact with the Brother, but whenever their paths had crossed, he’d always been particularly... well, kind. Which was why she always avoided him. She dealt much better with toughness than she did with anything tender.

Frankly he made her jumpy.

As she stayed quiet, his face tightened as if she’d disappointed him but he didn’t blame her for the shortfall. “Okay,” he said. “I won’t pry.”

Jesus, she was a bitch. “No, it’s all right. You just really don’t want me to answer that right now.”

“Fair enough.” His eyes narrowed on the weight room door and she got the distinct impression he was trapped outside of it as much as she was, shut down by the male who was suffering on the other side. “So you called up to the kitchen to get me?”

She took out the key John had used to let them into the guy’s former house. “Just wanted to give this back to you and tell you there was a problem.”

The Brother’s emotional grid went black and vacant, everything lights-out. “What kind of problem?”

“One of your sliding glass doors is broken. It’s going to need a couple of sheets of plywood to cover it up. We were able to reengage the security alarm so the motion detectors inside are on, but you’ve got a hell of a draft. I’ll be happy to fix it today.”

Assuming John either finished off the rest of the exercise machines, ran out of running shoes, or fell over in a dead heap.

“Which...” Tohr cleared his throat. “Which door?”

“The one in John Matthew’s room.”

The Brother frowned. “Was it broken when you got there?”

“No... it just spontaneously busted.”

“Glass doesn’t do that without a good reason.”

And hadn’t she given John Matthew one. “True enough.”

Tohr stared at her and she looked right back at him and the silence grew thick as mud. The thing was, though, as nice a guy and as good a soldier as the Brother was, she had nothing to share with him.

“Who do I talk to about getting some plywood,” she prompted.

“Don’t worry about it. And thanks for letting me know.”

As the Brother turned and walked back into the office, she felt like hell—which she supposed was yet another connection she had with John Matthew. Except instead of setting a land/speed record, she just wanted to take a knife and cut her inner forearms to release the pressure.

God, she was such a crybaby emo sometimes, she truly was. But those cilices of hers not only kept her symphath side in check, they helped her dim down the things she didn’t want to feel.

Which was abooooooout ninety-nine percent of emotion, thank you very much.