“I love you,” Blay said quietly. “More than the first moment I saw you and less than I will as the sun sets tomorrow.”

Ehlena hesitated with the tangle of colorful wires. “Would you guys like a moment?”

“Oh, no, we’re good.” Clearing his throat, Blay motioned her to come closer. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have started babbling—”

Qhuinn grabbed Blay’s arm. In a rare moment of feeling, the male said, “Yes, you should have. You should always tell me what you need me to hear.”

Tears, unexpected and embarrassing, sprung to Blay’s eyes, making it seem like he was looking through antique glass. In a flash of paranoia, he blinked them away. What if these were their last moments together and he wasted them on blurry vision?

“I love you, too,” Qhuinn said softly. “And I’m going to be just fine. I promise.”

After everything Blay’s true love had been through—from the way his parents had hated and shamed him when he’d been growing up, to the Honor Guard beating by his own blooded bro

ther and three others, to the acting out and acting in of it all after his transition—it was rare for emotion to come through that facade of resolve and strength. As a result, when Qhuinn’s feelings were shown, they had a way of stopping the whole world. Blay never questioned his mate’s love, and he didn’t require the constant expression of it. He wasn’t needy like that. But oh, God, when he did see Qhuinn’s heart, it was like the sun coming out on a rainy day.

He had to stop and savor the warmth.

In the back of his mind, he heard Bitty’s voice: So you’re not properly mated?

Blay leaned down and kissed his mate. “In all the ways that matter.”

“What?” Qhuinn asked.

“Nothing.” Blay looked across Qhuinn’s bare chest at Ehlena. “I’ll get out of your way.”

The female in scrubs smiled. “We’re going to take excellent care of him. I swear it.”

* * *

Up at the mansion, Zsadist whispered down the Hall of Statues, heavy shitkickers silent over the Persian runner, big body moving through the still, lemon-scented air without a rustle, breathing even and inaudible as he passed by the Greco-Roman warriors that had been carved out of marble by human hands long dead and gone. All the stealth was not something he cultivated and not anything that was required given the safety and security of his home. But he had moved in the shadows as a shadow ever since his twin had gotten him out of Hell. He never liked to call attention to himself if he didn’t need to, whether it was traveling through a house, standing in a room, or sitting in a chair.

When you had had attention forced on you, when your body had been taken against your will, when you had been a toy used and abused at the whims of a malicious other, calendar nights could put the distance of an era between you and your nightmare, and geographic miles could likewise reinforce the difference between the there-and-then and the here-and-now, but you never lost your adaptive behavior. Like the slave bands tattooed around his neck and his wrists, and the S-shaped scar that intersected his face, and the way he preferred to be invisible even outside of hostility, his marble had been carved in a certain way. And as with the statues he currently walked by, his evolution was as irreversible and structural as their forever-frozen poses.

A millennium from now, the statues would still be as they were—and so he would ever be as he was. His artist was dead, too. He knew this because he had killed her and slept beside her skull for a century… and yet there had been a corner turned for him, an unexpected fresh start that had eased him in ways that even he was coming to trust.

Love had done more than turn his black eyes back to yellow.

Yet he still walked in silence.

Stopping in front of one of the lineup of bedroom suites, he went to knock—

The door opened sharply, and on the other side, the Chosen Layla was dressed in jeans and a SUNY Caldwell sweatshirt, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, her glowing beauty the kind of thing that didn’t need makeup or fancy clothes for enhancement.

The look of abject terror on her face was wholly at odds with all of her casual, night-at-home-with-the-kids attire.

“Qhuinn’s going to be fine,” Z said. “They’re taking him in the OR now, and Manny is confident there’s going to be a good result.”

“Thank the Virgin Scri—” Layla stopped herself. “Oh… sorry, old habits die hard. I keep forgetting She’s gone.”

“Just please don’t bring up Lassiter’s name right now, especially if it’s with gratitude. He’s liable to show up so he can enjoy the praise, and I’ve had a long night already.”

The female smiled. “I will thank our angel in private then.”

When there was a cooing sound from deeper inside the room, Z looked in. Across the antique rug, between a museum-quality inlaid bureau of Italian provenance and a Scottish writing desk from the 1800s, the dual Pottery Barn cribs were a splash of modern, some-assembly-required in the midst of all the Old World luxury. One crib was done in pink, the other in blue.

“Would you like to come in and see them?” Layla stepped back. “They love visitors, and Rhamp particularly adores you.”

Z thought of those two human girls, out in the winter darkness alone in daddy’s BMW. As he walked across the room, he wondered if they’d gotten home safe.