Life gets in the way, John signed as he refocused on the screen.

They both started cheering for the last man standing, as it were.

It was such a shame, John thought to himself, that it took death to make him appreciate the living so much.

When he’d assumed that he had an infinite amount of time in front of him, there had been a lack of urgency to catch up and connect with those who mattered. Thanks to the sense that he could do something like this on any given night, he’d fallen into a complacency that allowed the unimportant to overshadow the truly critical.

Youth wasted on the young.

Life on the living.

“Are you sure you’re okay, John?” Blay asked.

“The good news is that night is almost over,” Murhder said as he closed the door to the patient room. “They can’t make me take you back now. I won’t be able to drive you to your house in Ithaca in time.”

God, he hated the idea of letting her go.

Sarah smiled a little. “No sunlight for you.”

He didn’t like the dark circles under her eyes, or how pale she was. As she and Jane had worked in the lab, analyzing samples and consulting with Havers, the race’s longtime healer, Murhder had brought them a proper meal made to his exact specifications by Fritz. Chicken. Rice pilaf. Green beans. Rolls, and pie for dessert. Coffee.

That had been an hour ago … right around the time they had confirmed with Havers that a synthetic version of growth hormone, human in derivation, would at least theoretically work—and “work” apparently meant “might not completely kill the guinea pig.” Not that Murhder particularly cared one way or the other.

He had fought for so long: Lessers, humans if he had to, his Brothers if there was an argument. After that, he had fought Xhex’s relatives. Those scientists.

Insanity.

That last one had been the longest-lived of his foes.

Now, though, he was ready to put down his swords, his shield. He was prepared to lay himself bare to fate’s decree for him, the life-or-death outcome not anything he had any control over—and not something he was overly worried about.

It was breathtakingly easy. And calm.

A placid acceptance smoothing choppy waters.

He refocused on Sarah. She was pacing around the patient room, and though he wanted to bring her ease, he knew better than to try to quell her nervous energy.

“Havers is sourcing the somatropin from a confidential contact at a New England hospital.” Sarah put her arms around herself and continued to walked back and forth in the short space. “We should be able to get it by three in the afternoon. If you …” She stopped and cleared her throat. “Assuming you can tolerate it, and depending on what your body does, we can get a second dose for John.”

She stopped abruptly and faced him. “Are you sure you want to do this?” When Murhder nodded, she came forward with urgency. “I need you to understand the risks here. We have no idea how you’re going to react to a dose sufficient to simulate what goes on during the transition. I know you’ve arranged for a feeding beforehand, but this is—”

Murhder stepped up to her and put his finger on her lips. “Shh. We have some time now. Let’s not waste it.”

“Murhder, I’m serious. I’m worried about this. All the logical conclusions in the world sometimes make no sense—”

“There’s hot water over there.” He pointed over his shoulder. “How does a shower sound. I’ll wash your back, you wash mine?”

She leveled a stare on him. “You’re not going to talk to me about the experiment, are you?”

“Nope. My mind’s made up.”

Her face was still all intense, her eyes flashing, her lips pursed, but she let him draw her into the tiled bathroom. And then he was checking out the shower. The stall took up one whole wall and even had a bench. Handrails. Grips to steady oneself.

He couldn’t have designed it better himself.

Sliding the glass door back, he fired up the hot water and turned to his female. “I want to taste you. All of you.”

She had put on a lab coat at some point, and one by one, he unfastened the three big buttons down the front. Dropping it off her shoulders, he went for the scrubs underneath, pulling the boxy blue top up and over her head, easing the loose blue bottoms down past her thighs.

Her underwear was gone. She had a sports bra on and nothing else.

“I borrowed this,” she murmured as she snapped the tight nylon band around her breasts. “They have extra ones for the trainees in case something snaps during the drills.”

Murhder was totally distracted by the sight of her sex, but he got back to work with the undressing of her, sliding his thumbs under the sports bra and moving it up. As her breasts popped free, he couldn’t resist. He latched on to one of her nipples, licking, sucking, kissing.

As she speared her fingers through his long hair, and urged him ever closer to her naked skin, he tore the shirt he’d borrowed in half, buttons popping off and bouncing over the tile floor, the silk ripping. He was no kinder with the slacks, yanking, jerking—

Finally, they were naked.

Under the warm spray, he found her lips again as his hands coasted over the curves of her body. Knowing this was probably his last time with her—even though it was only his third, if he counted right—he took his time, cupping her ass, kneading the flesh.

His fangs extended, and he wanted to go for her neck. But he held off.

Kneeling in front of her, he kissed his way down her abdomen, teasing her belly button with his tongue, cupping her breasts as he stared up at her.

“My Sarah …” he groaned as he circled her thigh with his hand. “Give me what I want.”

Lifting her leg, he put it over his shoulder and went in, leading with his tongue, delving into her sex, worshiping her with his mouth. Over the fall of the water, he heard her cry his name and then she fell back into the bench.

Perfect. He had more access this way.

He pleasured her with his mouth until she orgasmed against his lips, her hips undulating, her core kissing him back as she came. And he didn’t let her stop. There was too much to learn, especially as he added his long fingers, penetrating her, finding a new rhythm.

He watched her the entire time, her head back, the water falling, warm rain, on her closed eyes, her open mouth, her tight nipples and full breasts.

She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

And he wished they had more time.

Sarah stretched her arms up the warm tile of the shower and let her head go loose. She could not remember ever being so free with her body. She wasn’t thinking about whether her breasts had fallen off to the sides, or when she had shaved under her arms last, or if the man between her legs was pleasuring her because he thought he needed to in that way as opposed to actually wanted to.

She had nothing in her mind except the sensation of his fingers going in and out of her and the way that incredible tongue of his lapped around the top of her sex … and then she looked down to see what he was doing.

As she met his bright peach eyes, there were too many orgasms to count that followed.

And then he stopped.

Rousing herself, she lifted her seven-hundred-pound head and tried to focus—

He was smiling at her. And not in a Mr. Lover-Lover way. In a you-are-beautiful way.

She wanted to smile back. But she noticed how long his fangs were. How hungry his eyes were. How intense his scent was.

Sitting up, but keeping her legs spread, she parted his mouth with her forefinger and stroked one of his long canines.

“I want to know what it’s like.” When he immediately shook his head, she said, “This is my only chance. And I know you want it, too.”

His broad chest, with its strange circular scar, started to pump, and that purr vibrated up his throat. “Sarah …”

Resuming her sprawl on the bench, she tilted her head to the side, exposing her jugular. “Take me.”

There was no way to adequately describe the erotic way his lips parted and the razor-sharp tips of his fangs flashed in the overhead light.

“I won’t take too much,” he vowed in a guttural voice.

“I know. I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

She shook her head sadly. “I will always have more faith in you than you do.”

His eyes glowed neon as he moved up her body, taking her mouth in a bruising kiss. And then, between her legs, she felt him enter her again—but not with his arousal. It was his fingers, again. Two of them. Sliding in and out.

She should have been satiated by now, but he made her ravenous all over again.

And just as she began orgasming once more, he broke off from the kiss, and she braced herself for the penetration at her throat.

The strike did not come at her neck.

As the rhythmic constrictions of her sex filled her whole body with starbursts of ecstasy, she felt a blazing pain on the inside of her leg, where her thigh joined her torso … barely an inch from her pulsating core.

Crying out, her lids popped wide and she looked down to see his head lowered.

He was in her skin, in her vein, and oh, God, he started sucking, his satin lips pulling at the puncture wounds, his red-and-black hair fanning over her hips, his fingers still going in and out of her—

There were no words to describe what she felt, the overload of sensation taking her to another plane of existence, liberating her out of her corporeal form, sending her to heaven. The pain where his fangs had entered her was sharp as a knife and it reignited with every swallow he took, but the pleasure was a roar, a wildfire, all-consuming in its intensity and duration.

Sometime later, he lifted his head. His eyes were worried.

“More …” she said roughly. “I want more …”

That purr from him was so loud, it drowned out the fall of the water, and then he peeled back his lips and flashed his fangs.

This time, when he struck, she knew what to expect and she was greedy for the twin stings, well aware of the incredible pleasure that came next. He did not disappoint. More of that volcanic passion came back, otherworldly, unbelievable.