Staring down at his magnificent pectorals, she saw the leather thong necklace he wore with its piece of quartz in it—but that was not what she was looking at. Bruises. There were big bruises all over his chest and shoulders, the deep purple welts staining his tan skin.

“It’s okay—they don’t hurt.”

He must have found the switch himself because they were instantly back in the dark. But when he tried to keep kissing her, she turned her head aside and pushed at him again.

“You’re hurt,” she said into the void. “I want to know what happened.”

Murhder hadn’t even thought about the black and blue marks. He’d seen them in the mirror as he’d undressed in Xhex’s boss’s bathroom, but they were no big deal. By morning, they would already be faded—and even the bullet wound on his leg was nothing more than a surface graze. He was perfectly fine, the battle bruises nothing more or less than he’d ever gotten when he’d headed out into the field and engaged with the enemy.

“Murhder, seriously.” Sarah’s voice was brimming with concern. “What happened? You’re hurt.”

“No, I’m not.”

“So that’s what, paint? Come on.”

He wanted to track what she was saying and respond appropriately. But she was wriggling around in his hold and that was causing the kind of fiction that males had a hard time focusing through: His cock was hard and ultra-sensitive, her core warm and tight, the slip and slide going right to his head and fritzing out his higher reasoning.

As much as he tried to hold himself back, he started to come, his arousal ejaculating in a series of pumps deep inside of her. He fought it as best he could, gritting his teeth and cursing, and when that got him nowhere, he attempted to pull out—but she squeezed her legs on his hips and arched against him, saying his name in frustration and pleasure.

He didn’t mean to start pumping again, but the next thing he knew they were straining against each other, their bodies taking over, the need for the release, the joining, the connection, overriding everything else.

At least temporarily.

When they finally stopped, he relied on the wall to help him stay upright, his breath punching out of his mouth, his body throwing off all kinds of heat as he braced his weight on his arms so he didn’t crush her.

He felt her hands make their way up his throat … to his face.

“How did you get hurt?” she said in the dark.

Not a demand. A worried plea.

Murhder closed his eyes. He wanted to lie to her and tell her he got distracted and was hit by a car—not exactly a fib, given what had happened in front of Wrath’s Audience House. But that was just going to alarm her more, and he already knew that lying to her was never going to sit right with him.

Abruptly, the lights came on again, the punches of their ignitions echoing in the concrete facility. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw a lineup of shooting booths and then paper targets hanging at various distances down a target range.

When he looked back at Sarah, she was blinking in the glare, her human eyes requiring more time to adjust than his did.

With reluctance, he loosened his hold on her waist and let her disengage and slide down to the floor. She picked up her scrubs and got them back on with an efficiency that he respected. He didn’t want anyone to see her naked, either.

As she yanked up the bottoms, she stared at his bare torso. And then looked into his eyes with a very clear you-better-start-talking-now-mister glare.

“I was trained to fight,” he said in a dull voice. “And I fought tonight.”

He pulled up the slacks and did the fly thing. Then he picked the borrowed shirt off the concrete floor and pulled it onto his shoulders. Unable to stand still, he paced up and back by the shooting stations. Each booth had ear protection hanging on a peg. Boxes of ammo stacked on the left. Yellow-tinted eyewear.

“We’re hunted,” he muttered with his back to her. “And not by humans. I was trained to protect the species. It was what I used to do.”

“No longer, then? You’re doing something else now?”

She sounded almost relieved, as if she recognized the danger he had faced.

“I’m not fighting anymore.” He focused on the target straight ahead of him and hated himself. “I had a problem.”

“Physically?”

Could he still shoot well, he wondered. That target was fifty yards away. There was a time when it would have been no big deal for him to hit a thimble at that distance.

He thought about that first slayer’s backup nearly killing him at point-blank range. If John hadn’t come along when he did, by some stroke of luck … Murhder would be dead now.

“What kind of problem did you have?”

“A mental one.” As he touched the side of his head, he could not bear to turn around and look her in the eye. “I lost my mind. Just cracked.”

“Because of PTSD? From fighting.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I just couldn’t pull myself together anymore.”

“That’s not uncommon for people who—”

“It wasn’t related to my job.” He paused. “Xhex was sold to BioMed—you remember, she told you she’d been experimented on? Well, I was determined to find her … a lot of things went wrong. She ended up getting herself out and then I couldn’t—I just didn’t let it go, you know. I needed to make sure they didn’t do anything like that to anyone else. So I kept hunting the humans who hurt her, the humans you work for.”

Now, he glanced over his shoulder. “That’s how I knew Nate’s mahmen. I knew her. I failed to rescue her. But she ended up getting out and eventually found me.”

“So that’s why you were at the lab that night.”

“Yes.”

He went back to staring at the targets. It was a safer bet for keeping his composure. Sarah’s eyes were too … kind.

“You and Xhex …” she started.

“We were lovers. Not any longer, though. Those times are far in the past for she and I, and there are no regrets on either side. We’re just friends.”

“I’m glad. Even though I have no right to be.”

“You have every right.”

“We both know that’s not true.” Before he could say anything else, Sarah crossed her arms and stared down the target range, too. “What kind of enemy does the race have?”

“Sarah …”

“I can’t talk about us right now. I will break down in tears and I’m too tired for that. Please … just tell me who your enemy is.”

Murhder cursed under his breath and tried to remember something, anything about the Lessening Society. “It’s all a source of great evil. And by that, I’m not talking about a human with a mean streak. The Omega is much, much worse, and he can turn men into killing machines that are as immortal as he is until you stab them home. He is pure malevolence and has special powers to act on it.”

When she didn’t say anything, he rubbed his aching head. She was just staring straight ahead of herself, but obviously not seeing anything.

“This really is a different world,” she mumbled. Then she shook herself and looked at him. “Is that what’s in John?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s some version of the Omega. They aren’t really telling me much.”

The shake of her head was not encouraging. “I wish I had more time.”

Murhder thought about what Xhex had said about Sarah, about him doing the right thing by the woman. Erasing her memory. Sending her back to her own world.

Then he touched the sacred shard of glass at his throat and looked back at the targets. He thought about getting Sarah out of that lab. He would have fought anything that came at her, protected her with his life.

Why was the Brotherhood’s decision about her staying any different?

This was bullshit. She didn’t have to go back, any more than the other humans working here did.

“I’m going to go talk to the King,” he announced. “And change his mind. You should be able to stay here as long as you like.”

There was a tense silence. And then she said the words he wanted to hear.

“I would like … to stay.” Her eyes were pools of warmth as she looked at him. “With you.”

Striding over to her, Murhder kissed her and brought her in close to his chest. “I’ll change their minds. I don’t know how, but I’ll do it.”

“Can I come with you?” she said into his shirt. “I’ve got some stake in all this—especially because Kraiten is going to want to take care of me—and by that, I don’t mean a conventional severance package. More like my head in a box.”

He pulled back. “You think you’re in danger?”

Fucking finally, Xhex thought as her phone went off with a text from John. It was the work of a moment for her to peel off from shAdoWs and dematerialize back to the mansion, and as she re-formed on the front steps of the Brotherhood’s great Gothic manse, she didn’t feel the cold at all. A combination of anger and relief made her numb.

He was back home apparently. Had been for a little while and had only just now thought to check in.

Like it was any other night. Like he didn’t have that shoulder wound no one could explain or heal. Like he hadn’t taken off without telling her a goddamn thing.

Racing up to the entrance, she yanked open the heavy door and shoved her face into the vestibule’s security camera. As soon as Fritz opened things wide, she burst into the grand foyer, the multi-colored, Russian tsar–like interior making absolutely no impression on her at all.

“Are you looking for the sire?” Fritz said as he jumped back so he wasn’t mowed over.

“John—yes, I’m looking for John.”

“He’s in the playroom.”

Xhex stopped. “What’s he doing there?”

“He just sent down an order for hot cocoa.”