Xhex's knife flew from her hand a split second after she saw the lesser come around the corner and level a gun muzzle right at John's back.

Her dagger traveled hilt over tip through the air, crossing the distance in the blink of an eye, winging past John's ear so close she prayed to a God she didn't believe in that he wouldn't suddenly decide to turn his head for any reason.

Just as the slayer pulled the trigger, her blade caught him in the meat of his shoulder, the impact shifting his torso, the pain making him drop his arm.

Which meant John took the slug in the leg instead of the heart.

As her male went down, she leaped over him with a war cry.

Fuck Butch O'Neal. This kill was hers.

The lesser was scrambling as he tried to disengage her weapon from his torso--at least until he heard her yell. Then he looked toward her and shrank back in horror--which suggested her eyes were glowing red and her fangs were fully extended and flashing.

She landed in front of him, and as he cringed and put his hands up to shield his face and neck, she didn't move: Her backup dagger stayed by her side and her third-stringer remained holstered on her thigh.

Other plans for this boy.

Using her symphath side, she burrowed into the slayer's brain and popped the tops on his memories so that all at once, he felt the impact of every horrible thing he'd ever done and every terrible act that had been perpetrated against him.

Lot of shit. Looooot of shit. He'd apparently had a thing for underage girls.

Well, wasn't this going to be satisfying on so many levels.

As he went down to the floor, he screamed and clutched his temples-- like he had a chance in hell of stopping the deluge--and she let him suffer and wallow in his sins, his emotional grid lighting up in all the sectors that indicated fear and loathing and regret and hatred.

When he started to bang his skull against the dirty wallpaper, leaving a black stain where his ear was, she planted one and only one thought in his mind.

Planted it like an ivy streamer... a poison ivy streamer that would take hold and infiltrate and own his mental real estate.

"You know what you have to do," she said in a deep, warping voice. "You know the way out."

The slayer dropped his arms and revealed his wild eyes. Under the weight of what she'd released, and as a slave to the dictate she gave him, he grabbed the hilt of her dagger and ripped it out of his flesh.

Turning the point back toward himself, he double-gripped the weapon, his shoulders tensing as he prepared to send the blade on a rocking descent.

Xhex halted him, freezing him so she could kneel down right beside him. Going face-to-face, she looked into his eyes and hissed. "You don't go after what's mine. Now be a good boy and gut yourself."

A splatter of black blood hit her leather pants as the guy nailed himself right in the stomach and dragged the blade crosswise, making a nice messy hole of things.

And then on her mental command, even as his eyes were rolling back in his head, he withdrew the weapon and handed it to her hilt first.

"You're welcome," she muttered. Then she stabbed him in the heart and in a flash, he was gone.

As she pivoted around, the sole of her boot squeaked on the wet floor.

John was looking up at her with eyes that were not dissimilar to the slayer's, his stare peeled so wide he was showing no lid at all on the top or the bottom.

Xhex wiped her first blade on her leathers. "How bad are you?"

As John gave her a thumbs-up, A-OK, she realized the house was quiet and looked around. Everyone was still standing: Qhuinn was just straightening from a decapitation, and wheeling around to see if John was okay. And Rhage was coming in at a run from the kitchen with Vishous on his heels.

"Who's hit--" Rhage skidded to a halt and stared at the hole in John's leathers. "Man, three inches up and to the left and you'da been a soprano, buddy."

V went over and helped John to his feet. "Yeah, but at least he could have taken up knitting with you. You could've taught him how to crochet socks. Brings a tear to the eye."

"If I recall, I'm not the one with the wool fixation--"

As a wheezing boiled up from the living room, Vishous cursed and rushed to Butch's side as the guy all but fell into the hallway.

Oh... man. Maybe she needed to revise the "everyone standing" thing. The former cop looked like he had food poisoning, malaria, and H1N1 all at the same time.

She focused on Qhuinn and Rhage. "We need a car. He and John need transport back to the mansion--"

"I'll take care of my boy," Vishous said gruffly as he became a crutch for Butch and escorted him back over to the living room couch.

"And I'll go get the Hummer," Qhuinn said.

Just as he turned away, John slammed a fist into the wall to get everyone's attention and signed, I'm fine to fight--

"You need to get seen by the doctor," she said.

John's hands started to fly so fast she couldn't track the words, but it was pretty damn clear that he was not on board with getting benched just because of the slug of lead in his leg.

Their argument was interrupted by a brilliant glow that had her leaning to the side and glancing over her shoulder. What she saw explained so much and not just what had happened in the fight they'd all been in: on the ratty sofa, V had Butch in his arms and their heads were together, the pair of them so close there was no gap whatesoever between them. And in the midst of their embrace, Vishous's whole body was glowing, with Butch seeming to draw strength and healing from him.

V's obvious care and sympathy for the guy made her dislike him less-- especially as he turned his face and looked over at her. For once, his icy mask slipped and the despair showing in his eyes proved he wasn't a total asshole. On the contrary, he seemed to feel the pain of his Brother's sacrifice for the race. Truly, it ate him alive.

Oh, and... Butch was apparently his. Which explained why V had it in for her. He was jel that she'd had a piece of what he'd wanted, and as rational as he was, he couldn't stop resenting her for it.

Only once, though, she thought at him. And never again.

After a moment, V nodded, as if he appreciated the reassurance, and she returned the respect. Then she refocused on the males in front of her. Rhage had hopped on the hell-no-you're-not-fighting train, picking up the slack she'd left.

"I'm going back with you, John," she cut in. "We're going back together."

As John met her eyes, his emotional grid was lit up like the Vegas Strip.

She shook her head at him. "I'm going to keep to our deal. And you're going to take care of yourself."

With that, she resheathed her knives, crossed her arms over her chest, and leaned back against the wall, all going-nowhere-fast.


She'd saved his life.

Without a doubt, Xhex had given John his future back before he'd even known he was going to lose it: The only reason he was still alive was because she'd clipped that slayer in the shoulder with her knife.

So, yeah, he was grateful for all that, but he really wasn't interested in her playing nursemaid.

Besides, it wasn't as if candy striper was the highest and best use for her talents.

John glanced past her to the scorched mark on the floor--which was all that was left of the slayer who'd shot him. Goddamn... to think she'd done the worst of the damage without even touching the fucker? That was one fancydancy weapon she had in her mind. Shit, the horror on that bastard's face... Then he'd slit his own abdomen open. What the hell had he been seeing?

Now John knew why symphaths were feared and segregated.

And man, between that little show and the Heisman move she'd pulled out on the front lawn, he realized she was precisely what he'd always known her to be: a fighter to the core.

She could more than handle herself in the field--she was an out-and- out asset in the war. Which was why they both needed to keep going tonight and not waste time back at the house getting a Band-Aid put on his boo-boo.

Shoving himself up off the floor, he put weight on the injured leg and the thing howled like a bitch. But he ignored the yelling--as well as the conversation that sprang up all around him.

Cheap talk from the peanut gallery: free. Opinions about his leg: not worth the powder to blow up.

Selective deafness? Priceless.

What he was interested in was how many they'd killed tonight. And whether they'd gotten the ferret. Looking into the living room, he--

Rhage stepped in front of him. "Hey, hi! How are you?" Hollywood stuck his hand out. "I'd like to introduce myself. I'm the piece of meat that's going to force you headfirst into your buddy Qhuinn's Hummer as soon as it gets here. Just figured I'd introduce myself before I rope your ass and throw you over my shoulder like a bag of sand."

John glared at the guy. Not going anywhere.

Rhage smiled, his incredible beauty looking like something heaven sent. But that was just the external shit. Internally, he was straight from hell--in this situation. "Sorry, wrong answer."

I'm fine--

That piece-of-shit, motherfucker, cocksucking son of a bitch actually ducked forward, grabbed John on the wound, and squeezed the bullet's new home.

John screamed without making a sound and went down in a free fall, landing on the blood-soaked floor with a splash. Bringing up his leg, he tried to cradle his thigh, as if showing some belated TLC would convince the thing to calm down.

As it was, he felt like he had jagged glass jammed into his muscle.

"Was that really necessary?" Xhex demanded overhead.

Rhage's voice was no longer teasing. "You want to reason with him? Good luck. And if you think any slayer would do differently, you've got your head wedged. There's an obvious circular hole in the front of his leathers and he walks with a limp. Any half-wit asswipe's going to know what his weakness is. Plus he smells like fresh blood."

The rat bastard probably had a point, but Christ on a crutch...

It was entirely possible that John passed out from the pain, because next thing he knew, the self-proclaimed "piece of meat" was picking him up to carry him out of the house.

Yeah, whatever. That was a no-go. John shoved himself free of the guy's hold and tried to land without cursing or throwing up. With his mouth making up all kinds of fuck-oriented words, he limped past Butch, who was looking much better, and V, who'd lit up a hand-rolled.

He knew right where Xhex was: behind him, with her hand at his back like she knew he was wobbly and might go down at any minute.

Not a chance, though. Sheer grit got him to the Hummer and in the backseat on his own. Of course, by the time Qhuinn hit the gas, he had a cold sweat all over him and couldn't feel his hands or his feet.

"We did a body count," he heard Xhex say.

When he looked over, she was staring across the seat at him. Man... she was fucking beautiful in the distilled light from the dash up front. Her lean face had a smudge of black lesser blood on it, but her cheeks had high color and her eyes had a special sparkle to them. She'd gotten off on tonight, he thought. She'd enjoyed it.

Fuck him. She really was the perfect female.

And how many did we take out? he signed, trying to distract his inner nancy.

"Twelve of the sixteen new recruits as well as both of the slayers who came across the field with the ferret. Unfortunately, that new Fore-lesser was nowhere to be found--so we have to assume the little bastard bolted as soon as we infiltrated and took a handful of inductees with him. Oh, and Butch inhaled all of those downed except two."

At least one of which you dealt with.

"Actually both were mine." Her eyes held his. "Did that bother you? Seeing me... go to work like that?"

Her tone suggested she assumed it did and that she didn't blame him for feeling yucked-out. Except she was wrong.

Beating back the pain he was in, John shook his head and signed with floppy hands. It's an incredible power you have. If I looked shocked... it's because I'd never seen one of your kind in action before.

Her face tightened ever so slightly and she glanced out the window.

Tapping her on her arm, he signed, That was a compliment.

"Yeah, sorry... just the 'your kind' always throws me. I'm half-and- half, therefore I'm neither. I have no kind." She batted away her words with her hand. "Whatever. While you were passed out, V hacked into the Caldwell PD database with his phone. The police didn't find any IDs at the scene either, so we have nothing to go on except for that addy from the Civic's license plate. I'll bet that..."

As she continued talking, he let her words wash over him.

He knew all about that "no kind" thing.

Just one more way they were compatible.

Closing his eyes, he sent up a prayer to anyone who was listening, asking please, for God's sake, stop sending him signals that they were right for each other. He'd read that book, seen the movie, bought the sound track, the DVD, the T-shirt, the mug, the bobble- head, and the insider's guide. He knew every reason they could have been lock and key.

But just as he was aware of all that aligned them, he was even clearer on how they were damned to be ever apart.

"Are you all right?"

Xhex's voice was soft and closer, and when he cracked his lids, she was practically in his lap. His eyes traced her face and her coiled, leather- bound body.

Pain and a sense that time was running out for them made him toss out his filter and say what was truly on his mind.

I want to be in you when we get back to the mansion, he signed. As soon as I get a bandage on this fucking leg of mine, I want in you.

The flare of her scent in his nostrils told him she was so on board with that plan.

So at least one thing, aside from his cock, was looking up.