“You can make sure she’s taken care of,” Xhex said flatly. “You don’t want to run the risk of her remains being desecrated.”

Before he could reply, Vishous stuck his head into the farmhouse. “Xhex. I need you to come back home with me right now.”

The heartbeat of silence that followed took Murhder back to his Brotherhood days. There were some combinations of words spoken in certain tones of voice that you didn’t want to ever hear.

And that right there?

Was one of them.

John sat naked on an exam table down in the training center’s clinic, hands on his thighs, fingers fiddling with the stitched edge of the blanket he’d wrapped around his waist. Doc Jane and Dr. Manello, a.k.a. Manny, had stepped out into the corridor to talk, and on the patient side of the door they’d closed, he tried to translate the low murmurs.

It was like reading tea leaves. Just vague hints.

He was dead bone tired, but he was not going to lie back. He’d tried that, and had felt a rolling panic, sure as if he were trapped or tied down. Yup, sitting up was better.

The fact that the two docs, whom he considered friends, had put some distance between themselves and their patient for their little chat, suggested they didn’t know what the fuck was going on with the bite mark. Which was just awesome considering a black stain had developed in the last two hours, what had been red and swollen when he’d checked it at the gym now looking downright corroded—

As his instincts pricked, John sat up straighter and looked toward the door. Then, right on cue, a dark spice emanated from his body, the rich scent a calling card that, for once, he was not interested in sporting.

Xhex plowed through the exam room door at a dead run, all but wiping out on the tile floor as she pulled up short, thanks to the snow that was on her boots. Those gunmetal-gray eyes went to his shoulder. Narrowed. Stayed there.

“What the hell happened?” she demanded.

She was still dressed for out in the cold, her cheeks windburned red, her hair even spikier than usual. The fact that she did not carry another male’s scent suggested that she and Murhder had left things at an embrace, but he wondered how long that would last.

“John?” she said. “Are you okay?”

He watched her as she approached the exam table, and when he didn’t respond, she waved her hand in front of his face like she was thinking he’d fallen into a vertical coma.

To distract himself, he looked toward the door that was slowly easing itself shut. Evidently Vishous had come to the training center with her, because the Brother was outside in the corridor talking to the doctors. Made sense. He was both a medic and the son of the great Virgin Scribe.

They would be asking about the Omega, John was quite sure.

“John?”

He lifted his hands, wincing as his shoulder let out a holler. I saw you two together. You and Murhder—and don’t you dare bitch at me for following you to those woods. The fact that you went into a clinch with the guy totally justifies my—

“There’s nothing going on between us—”

Don’t tell me there’s nothing happening. I saw the way you looked at each other. John shook his head. I’m such a goddamned fool. I wasn’t even worried when people talked about him coming up here. I figured I had nothing to be concerned about.

“It’s not like that.”

The door burst open and Vishous came steaming in like he was about to go to battle.

“Let’s see what you got, son,” the Brother said. “I have a way with these things.”

For the first time, John resented the “son” thing. He was a grown-ass male who had seen real action in the field. Not some pretrans getting bullied by his classmates.

But he told himself nothing would come from starting a fight with anybody.

Besides, he was abruptly distracted by Xhex stepping aside, crossing her arms and staring at the tiled floor. You didn’t need to be one of her kind to judge her mood; she was a black hole off to the left, the toxic load of her emotions such that she nearly dimmed the overhead light.

Good, John thought. Even though that made him a bastard. But he was abruptly done with being the nice guy. He was always following the rules, doing the right thing, watching out for others. And what did it get him?

“Don’t be alarmed.”

As V spoke up, he glanced at the Brother—and recoiled. Vishous was taking off the lead-lined black glove that always covered up his curse, his glowing palm revealed in all its deadly glory.

Goosebumps prickled in warning all down John’s arms and his guts churned. That thing was capable of incinerating whole buildings, part blowtorch, part atom bomb.

To hell with your finger-of-God shit. V had been born with the Big Fucking Bang.

And the guy was extending it toward John.

“I’m not going to touch you,” V said grimly. “I just want to have a conversation with that wound.”

Oh, great, John thought. Let’s pull up a couple of chairs and watch the layers of my skin melt off like that guy’s face in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Doc Jane and Manny entered the exam room, but stayed back, the two white coats standing in identical arms-across-the-chest poses, literally pillars of medical knowledge and experience.

“Just breathe through it, John,” V said as he closed the distance between his hellfire curse and the bite mark.

John flinched. He couldn’t help it. And then warmth, like you’d feel when you were almost too close to a banked fire, radiated into his shoulder. As the heat intensified further, he had to fight not to pull away—except suddenly that wasn’t possible, even if he’d wanted to. Some kind of metaphysical lock had occurred between the brilliant white light glowing in V’s hand and the blackened wound, tendrils of energy emanating out of that palm and butterflying around the infection.

A grunting sound got John’s attention. V was straining, beads of sweat breaking out over his forehead, his chest pumping up and down, the muscles in his throat, shoulders, and chest bulking up—

Like a rubber band snapping, the connection was broken and Vishous careened back, slamming into a glass-fronted cabinet, breaking all kinds of things in a car crash way. John was also thrown to the side, and as strong arms caught him, he latched on.

To Xhex.

Her face was pale and she trembled, even as she had the strength to keep him from hitting the floor.

V cursed and pried himself off the busted shelving. Glass was everywhere—especially in his skin—and he peeled off his black muscle shirt.

Doc Jane went over and turned him around. He had several big shards sticking out of his back, like a porcupine.

“I’m going to have to deal with this,” his shellan said.

“We got bigger problems.” V unceremoniously pulled out a piece of glass and tossed the blood-tipped stabber on the floor. “That is not the Omega. And I don’t have a fucking clue what it is.”

Hours passed, and Xhex stayed with John the entire time. She worried he’d make her leave, but even though things were tense between them, he didn’t. Watching the medical team do their thing—taking samples to culture for bacteria and test antibiotic resistance, conferring with Havers, talking with Ehlena, the clinic’s nurse, having Payne come down for a healing assessment—Xhex relied on her symphath side to read the emotional grids of not just the team, but her mate.

The clinical staff, including V, were alarmed.

John was less so. Because his heart was breaking about Murhder, and that was the main thing for him.

And didn’t that just kill her.

“So here’s where we are.” Doc Jane stepped up to the exam table and put her hand on John’s knee.

Manny was right beside her. So was Ehlena. Vishous was off to the side, his back bandaged, his shirt on once more, the glass on the floor from the busted cabinet swept up a while ago by Fritz, the butler.

Xhex listened with half an ear to “no signs of infection,” “infiltration beyond the first layers of skin,” and “concern about the spread that’s occurring.” She was more interested in the doctor’s emotional grid. Jane was flat-out panicking. Underneath her calm demeanor and even voice, her emotional superstructure—which appeared to Xhex’s symphath side as a system of three-dimensional girders, like the shell of a skyscraper—was lit up in areas at the very core of her consciousness. Generally, the further out from that center, the more superficial the emotions, and the colors and pattern indicated what sector: happiness, sadness, anger, or fear.

What that doctor was currently feeling? Straight-up hot red terror as well as deep purple anger at herself for not having better answers. And the shit was at the very heart of her.

Do I have to stay here? John signed.

“No,” Doc Jane said. “You’re free to go. But we don’t want you on rotation until we know what’s happening.”

“What’s going to change?” Xhex asked. “About how much you know, I mean. You’ve looked into everything.”

Was that black stain going to take him over? Kill him? Or worse …?

“That’s a fair question. The Chosen Cormia is going up to the Scribe Virgin’s library as we speak. She’s going to search the volumes with all of the other sacred females. If there is something in them, it will be found.”

“Okay. That makes sense. But what if there isn’t?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

More conversation, none of it material. All Xhex wanted was a minute alone with her mate. An hour alone. A lifetime.

When they were finally by themselves again, he lay back on the table. Then instantly sat back up.

“John.” As she said his name, he looked at her. “No matter what happens, I’m with you. I got you. I love you.”

Shifting his eyes away, her hellren stared down at the floor and took a deep breath. As the silence stretched out, her anxiety climbed and she found herself breaking a cardinal rule. Out of respect for him, she did not read his grid—usually. Some things should be private, and she’d always wanted him to share of himself what he chose to, a gift given instead of a secret pilfered.