Chapter SEVENTY-ONE

Ehlena rode home in the back of a black Escalade with Rehv curled up in her lap. The two of them were mashed into the rear section, but she didn't care that there was barely enough room for his huge body alone. She wanted him this close.

Needed to put her hands on him and keep them there.

As soon as they'd torn the hooks out of his shoulders, she'd done the best she could with the horrible wounds left behind, quickly packing them with sterile gauze that she taped in place. The second she was done, Zsadist had picked him up and carried him out of that godforsaken chamber, with her and Vishous providing guard.

Xhex had been nowhere to be found on the trip out.

Ehlena tried to reassure herself that the female had gone to join the aboveground fight with the slayers, but the rationalization didn't stick. Xhex never would have left Rehvenge until he was safely free from the colony.

As fear flickered through Ehlena's chest, she tried to calm herself by stroking the stripe of thick dark hair that ran down Rehvenge's head. In response, he turned his face into her, as if needing the comfort.

God, he might have symphath in him, but he had proven where his heart was: He had destroyed the princess and protected them all against those terrifying creatures in the masks and robes. Which said everything about whose side he was on, didn't it? Without him somehow taking control of the colony, there was no way any of them, including the Brothers who'd been fighting lessers on the lawn, would have gotten out of there safely.

She glanced up at the others in the SUV. Rhage was wrapped in leather jackets, naked and shivering, the color of congealed oatmeal. They'd had to pull over twice so he could throw up, and given the way he was swallowing with such force, they were going to have to do that again soon. Vishous was next to him and didn't look much better. The guy's heavy legs were draped over Rhage's lap-and with his head turned to the side and his eyes squeezed shut, it was pretty obvious that he had a concussion from where the princess had struck him. And way up front, Butch was in the passenger seat, reeking of a sickly sweetness that was no doubt making Rhage's stomach worse.

Tohrment was behind the wheel, driving steadily and smoothly.

At least she didn't worry about how they were getting home.

Rehvenge stirred and she immediately focused on him. As his amethyst eyes struggled to open, she shook her head.

"Shh...just lie there." She stroked his face. "Shh..."

He shifted his shoulders and abruptly winced so hard his neck cracked. Wishing there were more that she could do for him, she retucked the blanket that had been wrapped around him. She'd given him as many painkillers as she dared, as well as antibiotics for the shoulder wounds, but she'd held back on antivenin, as he didn't appear to have been bitten.

Given the way the princess had been carnaged, apparently those spiders and scorpions stung only on command, and Rehv had been spared that for some reason.

Abruptly, he grunted and strained, his hands pushing into the floor beneath him.

"No, don't try to sit up." She gently held his chest down. "Just lie with me here."

Rehvenge collapsed back against her lap and brought one of his hands forward. As he found her palm, he mumbled, "Why...?"

She had to smile. "You ask that a lot, you know."

"Why did you come?"

After a moment, she said quietly, "I followed my heart."

Evidently, that didn't make him happy. On the contrary, he grimaced as if in pain. "Don't...deserve...your..."

Ehlena stiffened in alarm as he started bleeding from his eyes. "Rehvenge, stay still for me." Trying not to panic, she reached for her backpack full of supplies, wondering what kind of medical crisis he was having.

Rehvenge caught her hands. "Just...tears."

She stared at what appeared to be blood on his cheeks. "Are you sure?" When he nodded, she took a Kleenex out of her parka and dabbed his face carefully. "Don't cry. Please don't cry."

"You shouldn't...have come for me. You should have...left me there."

"I told you," she whispered, wiping away more. "Everyone deserves to be saved. It's the way I look at the world." As she met his beautiful, iridescent eyes, they seemed even more magical as they shimmered with their wash of red tears. "It's the way I look at you."

His lids squeezed shut, as if he couldn't bear her compassion.

"You tried to protect me from all this, didn't you," she said. "That was what the showdown at ZeroSum was about." When he nodded, she shrugged. "So why don't you understand my need to save you, if you did the same for me?"

"Different...I'm a...symphath..."

"You're not all symphath, though." She thought of his marking scent. "Are you."

Rehvenge shook his head reluctantly. "But not enough...vampire...for you."

The sadness in him welled up, a rain cloud condensing over them both, and as she struggled for words, she touched his face again-and found that his skin was too cold for her liking. Shit...she was losing him in her arms. With every mile that took them closer to safety, his body was giving out on them both, his respiration growing logy, his heart rate slowing.

"Can you do something for me?" she said.

"Please...yes," he replied roughly, even though his eyes fluttered shut and he started to shiver. As he curled into a tighter ball, she could see his spine jutting through the skin of his back even through the blanket.

"Rehvenge? Wake up." When he looked at her, the purple in his eyes was that of a bruise, opaque and pained. "Rehvenge, would you please take my vein?"

In a rush, his lids peeled wide as though along with, We're going to Disneyland!, and, How about some drive-thru for dinner?, what she'd said was the last thing he'd expected to come out of her mouth.

As his lips parted, she stopped him before he spoke. "If you ask me why, I'm going to be forced to give you a time-out."

A small smile quirked the edge of his mouth, but then was lost. And even though his fangs had dropped down, their sharp tips suddenly revealed, he shook his head.

"Not like you," he murmured, touching his tattooed chest with a weak hand. "Not good enough...for your blood."

She shrugged out of one half of her parka and yanked up the sleeve of her turtleneck. "I'll be the judge of that, thank you very much."

As she put her wrist over his mouth, he licked his lips, his hunger rising so much, so fast, that color returned to his pale cheeks. And yet still he hesitated. "Are you...sure?"

She had an odd memory of the two of them in the clinic forever ago, jousting, circling each other, wanting and not taking. She smiled. "Absolutely. Positive."

She dropped her vein onto his lips and knew he wouldn't be able to resist her-sure enough, he tried to fight it...and lost. Rehvenge bit clean and sucked deep, a moan bubbling up as his eyes rolled back in bliss.

Ehlena stroked the hair that had grown out on either side of his mohawk and rejoiced quietly as he fed.

This was going to save him.

She was going to save him.

Not her blood, but her heart was going to save him.

As Rehvenge fed from his love's wrist, he was overwhelmed and overwrought, at the mercy of emotions more powerful than his mind. She had come for him. She had gotten him out. And even knowing all she did about him, she was letting him feed and staring down at him with kindness.

But wasn't that more a measure of who she was as a person than what she felt for him as a male? Wasn't this duty and compassion instead of love?

He was too weak to read her grid. At least at first.

As his body revived though, so did his mind, and what she felt became known to him...

Duty. Compassion.

And love.

A complex joy flared in his chest. Part of him felt like he'd won the lottery against crippling odds. But the core of him knew that what he was would drive them apart even if the rest of the vampire population never found out about his mixed blood: He was supposedly the head of that colony.

Which was no place for Ehlena.

He released her vein and licked his lips. God...she tasted good.

"Do you want more?" she asked.

Yes. "No. I've had enough."

She resumed stroking his hair, her nails rasping against his scalp. Closing his eyes, he felt his muscles and bones strengthen as what she had so graciously given him revived his body.

Yeah, it wasn't just his arms and legs coming to life. His cock swelled and his hips surged forward, even though he was half-dead and his shoulders were on fire. But hard-ons were what happened to male vampires when they'd taken the vein of their mate.

Biology. He couldn't help it.

As his body temperature stabilized, he uncurled from the heat-conserving crouch he'd been in, and in the process kicked off part of the blanket that was around him. Worried that he was flashing his cock, he reached down to pull the thing back into place.

Ehlena got there first.

And her eyes flared in the darkness as she tugged the cover back where it had been.

Rehv swallowed a couple of times, her taste still on his tongue and down the back of his throat. "Sorry about that."

"Don't be." She smiled and stared into his eyes. "You can't help it. Besides, it means you're probably out of the danger zone."

And into the erotic one. Great. Nothing like extremes to spice life up.

"Ehlena..." He released a long, slow breath. "I can't go back to the way things were."

"If you mean being a drug lord and a pimp, somehow I'm not crushed."

"Oh, that shit would be over with anyway. But no, I can't return to Caldwell."

"Why not?" When he didn't respond right away, she said, "I hope you do. I want you to."

The bonded male vampire in him was all, Yeehaw, sign us up. But he had to be practical.

"I'm different from you," he said again, like it was his theme song.

"No, you're not."

Because she needed convincing and he could think of no better way of proving the point, he took her hand and moved it under the blanket, putting it on his cock. The contact made him shudder from pleasure, his hips bucking, but he reminded his libido that he was doing this to show her exactly how different he was.

He guided her to his barb, to the place at his base that was slightly uneven. "Do you feel that?"

She seemed to work for control for a moment, as if she were struggling against the same erotic current he was. "Yes..."

The husky way she drew out the word made his spine lift and recede, making his arousal slide in her palm. As his breath got short and his heart pounded, his voice grew deeper. "It locks in place when I...when I come. I'm not like what you've had before."

As she explored him, Rehv tried to remain still, but the power in his body from the feeding, coupled with where her hand was, proved to be too enticing. He moved against her hold, arching in her lap, feeling strangely at her mercy.

Which was just another huge turn-on.

"Is that why you pulled out of me?" she said.

Rehv licked his lips again, remembering the feel of her core surrounding his-

The Escalade went over a bump in the road and he was abruptly reminded that the dark haven of the far back of the SUV was only semiprivate: They were not, in fact, alone.

But Ehlena didn't remove her hand. "Is that why?"

"I didn't want you to know about any of this. I wanted to...be normal for you. I wanted you to feel safe around me...and I wanted to be with you. That's the why of the lying. I didn't mean to fall in love with you. I didn't want that for you-"

"What did you say?"

"I...I'm in love with you. I'm sorry, but that's the way I feel."

Ehlena grew so quiet, he worried that in his delirium he had seriously misread everything between them. Had he merely projected onto her grid that which the weak part of him had needed to find?

Except then she dropped her mouth to his and whispered, "Don't hide from me ever again. I love you the way you are."

A rush of gratitude and holy shit and OMG and thank you, manna from heaven overrode everything logical, and Rehv reached up for her, holding her head with care as he kissed her. At that moment, he didn't give a fuck that there were complications way above and beyond their control, things that would drive them apart again as sure as the burning sun would rise at the end of the night.

To be accepted, though...to be accepted and loved for exactly who he was by the one he loved in return was too great a joy to be capsized by cold reality.

As they kissed, Ehlena started moving her hand under the blanket, her palm going up and down his hard shaft.

When he tried to pull back, she recaptured his mouth with hers. "Shh...trust me."

Rehvenge collapsed into the passion, riding the wave she called out of his body, letting her do exactly what she wanted to him. He tried to keep quiet, not wanting the others to know, and prayed that at least the two in the seats in front of them had passed out.

It didn't take long for his balls to cinch up tight and for his hands to crank down on her hair. Gasping against her mouth, he gave one last great thrust and came hard, soaking her hand and his stomach and the blanket.

When her touch drifted down to his barb and she felt the extension, he froze, praying she wasn't disgusted by the way he was built.

"I want to feel this inside me," she groaned against his lips.

As her words sank in, Rehvenge's body exploded in orgasm again.

Man...he couldn't wait for them to get wherever they were going.

Chapter SEVENTY-TWO

The following morning, Ehlena woke up naked in the bed she'd slept in before they'd all gone up to the colony. Next to her, Rehvenge's huge, warm body was as close to her as it could get, and he was awake.

At least in one sense of the word.

His erection was hot and hard against the back of her thigh, and he was rubbing it against her. She knew what was coming next, and she welcomed him as he rolled on top of her, mounted her, found his way between her legs. As he sank in deep and moved with sleepy instinct, her body echoed his rhythm and her arms went around his neck.

There were bite marks on his throat. A lot of them.

Bite marks on hers as well.

She closed her eyes, losing herself once again in Rehvenge...in them.

The day they had passed together in this guest room of the Brotherhood's hadn't just been about sex. There had been a lot of talking. She'd explained to him everything that had happened, including the inheritance and how she'd figured it all out, and how Xhex had not technically broken her vow to him when the female had headed for the colony.

God...Xhex.

No one had heard from her. And whatever joy and relief and triumph might have been felt at all of the Brothers and Rehvenge coming home without mortal injury was dimmed to the point of regret.

Rehvenge was going to go up to the colony at nightfall and search, but Ehlena could read in his face that he didn't think that was where she was.

It was just too odd and scary. No one had seen her body, but they hadn't seen her leave. Or caught sight of her outside of that chamber. It was as if she had just disappeared.

"Oh, God, Ehlena...I'm coming..."

As Rehv's body jackhammered against her, she held on to her mate and let the sex take over, knowing that hard thoughts and sharp anxiety would be waiting for her on the other side of the orgasm. She heard her name being called out as Rehv released and then felt that exciting, rushing grab as he engaged deep within her.

All she had to do was think of it and her own orgasm erupted, carrying her over the edge.

When they were both satiated, Rehvenge rolled to the side, being careful not to try to separate them too soon. As his amethyst eyes focused properly, he brushed her hair back from her face.

"Perfect way to wake up," he murmured.

"I agree."

Their eyes met and held, and after a while, he said, "Can I ask you something? And it's not a why, it's a what."

"Hit me." She leaned up and kissed him quickly.

"What are you doing for the rest of your life?"

Ehlena's breath caught. "I thought...you said you couldn't stay in Caldwell."

His massive shoulders, which were still bandaged, shrugged. "Thing is, I can't leave you. Just isn't going to happen. Every hour next to you just makes that reality all the more clear. I literally...can't go unless you make me."

"Which is isn't going to happen."

"It...isn't?"

Ehlena framed his face with her palms, and the instant she did, he stilled. Which was something that happened every time she touched him. It was as if he were perpetually waiting for some kind of command from her...but then, that was what bonded male vampires were like, weren't they. Yes, they were stronger and more physically powerful than their mates, but the shellans ran the show.

"Looks like I'm spending my future with you," she said against his mouth.

He shuddered, as if he were letting his last doubts go. "I don't deserve you."

"Yes, you do."

"I'm going to take care of you."

"I know."

"And like I said, I'm not going back to what I did before here in town."

"Good." He paused, as if he wanted to reassure her even more and was searching for words. "Stop talking and kiss me again. My heart's made up and so is my mind, and there's nothing more you need to tell me. I know who you are. You're my hellren."

As their mouths met, she was well aware that there was a lot to sort out. If they lived among the vampires, they were going to have to continue protecting his symphath identity. And she didn't know what he was going to do about the colony up north-she had a feeling all that circling and worshiping business meant that he was in some kind of leadership role there.

But they were going to face all that and more together.

Which was the only thing that mattered.

Eventually, he pulled back. "I'm going to shower and go see Bella, okay?"

"Good, I'm glad." He and his sister had had only a brief, awkward hug before everyone had gone to bed. "Let me know if there's anything I can do."

"I will."

Rehvenge left the bedroom a half hour later, dressed in a pair of sweats and a thick sweater that one of the Brothers had given him. With no clue where to go, he tagged a doggen who was vacuuming in the hall and asked for directions to Bella and Z's bedroom.

It wasn't far. Just a couple of doors down.

Rehv went to the end of the hallway full of Greco-Roman statuary and knocked where he'd been told to. When there was no answer, he tried the next door up, through which he could hear Nalla's soft crying.

"Come in," Bella called out.

Rehv opened the way into the nursery slowly, unsure of the welcome he was going to get.

Across a room that had bunnies stenciled on the walls, Bella was sitting in a rocking chair, her foot working against the carpet, her young cradled in her arms. In spite of the tender treatment, though, Nalla was not happy, her fussy, whimpering dissatisfaction at the world painfully apparent.

"Hi," Rehv said before his sister looked over. "It's me."

Bella's blue eyes rose to meet his, and he watched her face go through all kinds of emotions. "Hi."

"Mind if I come in?"

"Please do."

He closed the door behind himself and then wondered if she wouldn't feel safe shut in with him. He went to reopen it, but she stopped him.

"It's okay."

He wasn't so sure of that, so he stayed across the room from her, watching as Nalla registered his presence. And reached out for him.

A month ago, a lifetime ago, he would have gone over and taken the young into his arms. Not now. Probably not ever again.

"She's so fussy today," Bella said. "And once again my feet are tired. I can't walk around with her in my arms for even a minute longer."

"Yeah."

There was a long silence as they both focused on the young.

"I never knew about you," Bella said eventually. "I never would have guessed."

"I didn't want you to know. Neither did Mahmen." As the words left his lips, he said a quick, silent prayer for their mother, hoping that she would forgive him for the fact that the dark, horrible secret was now known. The thing was, though, life had played out as it had, the revelation not his to control.

God knew he'd taken his best shot at keeping the veil of lies in place.

"Was she...How did it happen?" Bella asked in a small voice. "How did...you...happen?"

Rehvenge thought about how to phrase things, tried out some lines in his head, changed words and added new ones. The image of his mother's face kept intruding, though, and in the end he just looked at his sister and slowly shook his head from side to side. As Bella paled, he knew she had guessed the gist of it all. Symphaths had been known to snatch females from the general population before. Particularly the beautiful, refined ones.

That was part of the reason the sin-eaters ended up in that colony.

"Oh, God..." Bella closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry." He wanted so badly to go to her. So very badly.

When she opened her lids again, she brushed away tears and then straightened her shoulders as if she were gathering strength.

"My father..." She cleared her throat. "Did he mate her knowing the truth about you?"

"Yes."

"She never loved him. At least, not that I saw." When Rehv stayed silent, because he was not going to go into that mating if he could help it, she frowned. "If he knew about you...did he threaten to expose her and you unless she committed to him?"

Rehv's silence seemed to be enough of an answer, because his sister nodded tightly. "That makes more sense to me. It makes me very angry...but I can see why she stayed with him now." There was a hard pause. "What else aren't you telling me, Rehvenge."

"Listen, what happened in the past-"

"Is my life!" As the young squawked, Bella lowered her voice. "It's my life, goddamn it. A life that everyone else around me knew more about than I did. So you'd better fucking tell me everything, Rehvenge. If you want us to have any relationship at all, you'd better tell me everything."

Rehv exhaled hard. "What do you want to know first."

His sister swallowed hard. "That night my father died...I took Mahmen to the clinic. I took her because she had fallen down."

"I remember."

"She didn't fall down, did she."

"No."

"Not once."

"No."

Bella eyes shimmered, and as if to distract herself, she tried to capture one of Nalla's falling fists. "Did you...that night, did you..."

He didn't want to answer the unfinished question, but he was through with lying to his nearest and dearest. "Yes. Sooner or later he would have killed her. It was him or Mahmen."

A tear trembled on Bella's lashes and fell off, landing on Nalla's cheek. "Oh...God..."

As he watched his sister's shoulders huddle in, as if she were cold and in need of shelter, he wanted to point out that she still had him to turn to. That he would still be there for her if she wanted him to be. That he remained her Rooster, her brother, her protector. But he wasn't the same to her and never would be again: Though he hadn't changed, her perception of him had been completely altered, and that meant he was a different person.

A stranger with a shockingly familiar face.

Bella swiped under both her eyes. "I feel like I don't know my own life."

"Can I come a little closer. I won't hurt you or the young."

He waited forever.

And still longer.

Bella's mouth compressed into a tight line, as if she were trying to keep soul-racking sobs in. Then she reached out to him, taking the hand that had wiped away her tears and extending it to him.

Rehv dematerialized across the room. Because running would have taken too long.

Crouching down next to her, he took that palm of hers between both his hands and brought those cold fingers to his cheek.

"I'm so sorry, Bella. I'm so sorry about you and Mahmen. I tried to apologize to her for my birth...I swear to you I did. It's just...talking about it was too hard for her and me."

Bella's luminous blue eyes rose to his, the tears in them magnifying the beauty of her stare. "But why would you apologize? None of this was your fault. You were innocent...utterly innocent. This was not your fault, Rehvenge. Not. Your. Fault."

His heart stopped as he realized...that was what he had needed to hear. All his life he had blamed himself for being born and wished he could make amends for the crime against his mother that had resulted in...him.

"It wasn't your doing, Rehvenge. And she loved you. With everything she had, Mahmen loved you."

He didn't know how it happened, but suddenly his sister was in his arms, up tightly against his chest, she and her young in the haven of strength and love he offered.

The lullaby left his lips on nothing more than breath-there were no words to the gentle tune because his throat refused to let them through. The only thing that came out of him was the rhythm of the old ancient rhyme.

It was all they needed, though-that which couldn't be heard was enough to pull the past into the present and unite brother and sister once again.

When Rehvenge could go on no longer, even with as little as he was doing, he rested his head on his sister's shoulder and hummed to keep it going...

As all the while the next generation slept soundly, surrounded by her family.