While John waited for Xhex to respond to his question, he focused on the words he'd written, tracing them with his pen, darkening them as he passed over them again.

He probably shouldn't be making demands given the shape she was in, but he needed something back from her. If he was going to expose his blanket chest of not-so-hot, he couldn't be the only one getting that kind of naked.

He also really wanted to know what was doing with her, and she was the only one who was going to tell him.

As the silence droned on, all he could think of was... shit, she was shutting the door on him. Again. On one level it so wasn't a surprise and therefore shouldn't have mattered. God knew he'd been on the receiving end of her rejections plenty of times.

The reality was that it felt like another death for him to face--

"I saw you. Yesterday."

Her voice yanked his head up. What? he mouthed.

"He kept me in that bedroom. I saw you. You came in and went to the bed. You left with a pillow. I was... beside you the whole time you were there."

John's hand lifted to his cheek and she smiled a little. "Yes, I touched your face."

Jesus Christ...

How, he mouthed.

"I'm not sure precisely how he does it. But that was the way he got me in the first place. We were all in that cave where Rehv was being kept in the colony. The symphaths had come in and Lash got me--it happened so damned fast. I was suddenly off my feet, being dragged out, but I couldn't fight and no one could hear me scream. It's like a force field. If you're inside, and you try to breach it, the shock is painful and quick--but it's more than aversion. There's a physicality to the barrier." She lifted her palm and pushed at the air. "A weave. The strange thing is, though, you can have other people in the same space. Like when you came in."

John was dimly aware that his hands hurt for some reason. Glancing down, he saw that he'd cranked them into fists and the pad was digging into his flesh. So was the Bic he'd been writing with.

Flipping to a new page he scribbled, I wish I'd known you were there. I would have done something. I swear I didn't know.

When she read what he wrote, she reached out and put her hand on his forearm. "I know. It's not your fault."

Sure felt like it on his end. To have been right with her and not had a clue that she was--

Oh. Shit.

He wrote fast, then flashed, Did he come back. After we'd been there.

When Xhex shook her head, his heart started beating again. "He drove by, but kept on going."

How did you escape, he signed without thinking.

While he scrambled for a fresh page, she said, "How did I get out?" As he nodded, she laughed. "You know, you're going to have to teach me sign language."

He blinked. Then mouthed, Okay.

"And don't worry. I'm a fast learner." She took a deep breath. "The barrier had been strong enough to keep me in since the moment that he took me. But then you came and left and..." She frowned. "Were you the one who did in that slayer downstairs?"

As his fangs punched out into his mouth, he mouthed, Fuck, yeah.

Her little smile had the edge of a dagger. "Nice job. I heard the whole thing. Anyway, it was after everything went quiet that I knew I had to get out or..."

Die, he thought. Because of what he'd done in that kitchen.

"So I was--"

He held his hand up to stop her, then wrote fast. When he showed her his words, she frowned and then shook her head.

"Oh, of course you wouldn't have done it if you'd known I was in there. But you didn't. And it sounded as if you couldn't help it. Trust me, I'm the last person you need to apologize to for slaughtering one of those bastards."

True, but he still got a case of the cold sweats thinking of how he'd inadvertently endangered her.

She took another long inhale. "So anyway, after you left, it became apparent the barrier was weakening, and when I was able to punch my fist through a window, I knew I had a shot." She lifted one of her hands and looked at the knuckles. "I ended up taking a runner through the doorway. I figured I was going to need the extra force working with me and I was right."

Xhex shifted around in the bed, wincing. "I think that's where I got the tear. On my inside. I got wrenched badly breaking out--it was like pulling my body through concrete that was about set. I hit the hallway wall hard as well."

There was the temptation to believe the bruises he'd seen on her skin were a result of her escape. But he knew Lash. He'd stared into the face of the guy's cruelty enough times to be absolutely sure that she'd been put through a lot at the hands of the enemy.

"That's why I needed to be operated on."

The statement was voiced in a clear and level way. Trouble was, she did not meet his eyes.

John flipped to a new page, wrote six letters in capitals and tacked on a question mark. When he turned the pad around, she barely glanced at the REALLY?

That gunmetal gray stare of hers swung away and locked on the far corner. "It could have been an injury I sustained fighting him. But I hadn't been bleeding internally before I got out, so... there you go."

John exhaled and thought of those scratched and stained walls he'd seen in that room. What he wrote next made him ache.

When she looked at what he'd put on the page, her face grew tight to the point of anonymity. It was as if he were staring at a stranger.

He glanced down at his words: How bad did it get?

He shouldn't have asked, he thought. He'd seen the condition she was in. Had heard her scream in the OR and been right in front of her as she had a nervous breakdown. What more did he need to know?

He was writing up an I'm-sorry when she spoke in a thin trail. "It was... okay. I mean..."

His eyes locked on her profile and he willed her to continue.

She cleared her throat. "I don't believe in fooling myself. Doesn't serve any purpose. I was pretty clear on the fact that if I didn't get out, I was going to die soon." She slowly shook her head back and forth on the white pillow. "I was getting really goddamned weak from lack of blood and the fighting. Thing is, I was okay with the dying part, actually. I still am. Death is nothing but a process, albeit typically a painful one. Once it's over and done with? You're fine because you don't exist and all the bullshit is over."

For some reason, the fact that she was so blase made him anxious and he had to rearrange himself on the little chair to keep from pacing.

"Was it bad?" she murmured. "I'm a fighter by nature. So to some degree it was nothing special. Nothing I couldn't handle. I mean, I'm tight. I lost it in the clinic because I hate medical crap, not because of Lash."

That past of hers, he thought to himself.

"I will tell you this." Her eyes shot back to his and he actually jerked away at the burn in her stare. "What will make it bad? What will make the last three weeks totally unbearable? If I don't kill him. That will be insupportable to me."

The bonded male in him sat up and howled, to the point where he wondered if she knew he wouldn't be able to let her be the one to off the motherfucker: Males protected their females. It was the universal law if you had the cock and balls.

Plus the idea of her going anywhere near that guy made John mental. Lash had already taken her once. What if he pulled that cloaking shit again?

They weren't going to get a second chance to get her back. No way.

"So," she said. "I showed you mine. Your turn."

Right. Okay.

Now he was the one staring into that far corner. Jesus Christ. Where to start.

He flipped to a fresh page on his pad, put the Bic nib down, and...

Whole lot of nothing came to him. The problem was, there was too much to write, too much to tell her, and wasn't that depressing as shit.

A sharp knock brought both of their heads around.

"Goddamn it," she said under her breath. "Give us a minute!"

The fact that there was someone waiting for an audience on the other side of the door didn't exactly put him in a sharing kind of mood. That, coupled with the communication barrier and his innate cover-it-up tendencies, made his head hum.

"Whoever it is can hang outside all night and all day as far as I'm concerned." She smoothed the blanket over her stomach. "I want to hear what you have to say."

Funny, that was what unlocked him, and he wrote quickly.

It would be easier to show you.

Her brows went in tight together when she read that, and then she nodded. "Okay. When."

Tomorrow night. If you have clearance to go out.

"It's a date." She lifted her hand... and put it lightly on his forearm. "I want you to know--"

The knock that cut her off had them both cursing.

"We need a minute!" she snapped before refocusing on him. "I want you to know... that you can trust me."

John locked eyes with her and was instantly transported to a different plane of existence. Mighta been heaven again. Who the fuck knew or cared. All he knew was that there was only her and him together, the rest of the world drifting away into a fog.

Was it possible to fall in love with someone twice, he wondered dimly.

"What the hell are you doing in there?"

Rehv's voice on the other side of the door broke the moment, but didn't erase it.

Nothing ever could, John thought, as she pulled back and he got up to his feet.

"Come in, asshole," she snapped.

The instant the mohawked male stepped into the room, John felt the change in the air and he knew, as they looked at each other and stayed silent, that they were communicating as symphaths did.

To give them privacy, he headed for the door, and just as he was ducking out, Xhex said, "Will you be back?"

At first, he thought she was talking to Rehv but then the male snagged his arm and stopped him. "My man? You coming back?"

John glanced over to the bed. He'd managed to forget his pad and pen on the little side table, so he just nodded.

"Soon?" Xhex said. "Because I don't feel tired and I want to learn sign language."

John nodded again and then knuckle-tapped with Rehvenge before heading out into the OR.

As he walked by the empty gurney, he was glad that V had finished cleaning up and wasn't around. Because for the life of him, John wouldn't have been able to hide the smile on his face.

In silence, Blay walked side by side with Qhuinn through the underground tunnel that led between the training center and the mansion's foyer.

The sounds of their two sets of shitkickers mingled, but that was it. Neither he nor Qhuinn said anything. And there was no touching.

Absolutely no touching.

A while ago, before his big admission to the guy, before things had broken down between them, Blay would simply have asked what was on Qhuinn's mind because clearly he was in a churn about something. Now, though, what would have once been just an afterthought seemed like an inappropriate intrusion.

As they came out through the hidden door under the mansion's grand staircase, Blay found himself dreading the rest of the night.

Sure, there wasn't much left to it, but two hours could seem like a lifetime under the right circumstances. Or the wrong ones, as the case was.

"Layla should be waiting for us," Qhuinn said as he went to the foot of the stairs.

Oh... great. Just the kind of diversion he was looking for.

Not. After having seen the way that Chosen stared at Qhuinn, he just didn't feel up to getting a boatload of that shy crushing again. Especially not tonight. The near miss with Xhex had left him curiously raw.

"You coming?" Qhuinn asked, his frown pulling in the piercing on his left eyebrow.

Blay flicked his stare down to the hoop that rounded the guy's full lower lip.

"Blay? You okay? Look, I think you need to feed, buddy. Lot been going down lately."

Buddy... Christ, he hated that word.

But fuck him, he needed to get a grip. "Yeah. Sure."

Qhuinn gave him an odd look. "My bedroom or yours?"

Blay laughed harshly and started up the stairs. "Does it really matter?"

"No."

"Exactly."

When they got to the second floor, they went past Wrath's study, the doors of which were shut, and headed down the hall of statues.

Qhuinn's room was the first they came to, but Blay pressed on, thinking that something could finally be on his turf, his terms.

Opening the door wide, he left the thing as it was and ignored the soft clicking sound when Qhuinn shut them in together.

In the bathroom, Blay went to the sink, turned on the faucet and bent over, splashing his face. He was drying himself off when he caught the scent of cinnamon and knew Layla had arrived.

Bracing his palms on the marble, he leaned into his arms and sagged. Out in his room, he heard their voices mingling, the lower and the higher trading places for airtime.

Throwing the towel down, he turned and went to face the music: Qhuinn was on the bed, his back against the headboard, his boots crossed, his fingers linked over his thick chest as he smiled over at the Chosen. Layla was flushed as she stood next to him, her eyes on the carpet, her smaller, daintier hands twisting in front of her.

As Blay came in, the two of them looked over at him. Layla's expression didn't change. Qhuinn's did, though, closing up tight.

"Who goes first?" Blay asked, approaching them.

"You," Qhuinn muttered. "You go."

Blay wasn't about to hop on the bed, so he went over to the chaise and sat down on the foot of it. Layla drifted toward him and sank to her knees before him.

"Sire," she said, offering her wrist.

The TV flipped on and the channels started changing as Qhuinn clicked the whacker at the screen. He settled on Spike and a replay of UFC 63 Hughes vs. Penn.

"Sire?" Layla said.

"Forgive me." Blay leaned down, taking that slender forearm in his big palms, holding firmly but without too much pressure. "I thank you for your gift."

He struck as gently as he could and winced as she jumped ever so slightly. He would have retracted his fangs from her to apologize, but that would have required another puncture when he resumed drawing against her vein.

As he fed, his eyes flicked to the bed. Qhuinn was all about the MMA fight on the screen, his right hand lifted and curled into a fist.

"Fuckin' A," the guy muttered. "That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!"

Blay concentrated on what he was doing and finished up quickly. As he released, he looked into Layla's lovely face. "You have been so gracious, as always."

Her smile was radiant. "Sire... you are as ever my joy to serve."

He extended his palm and helped her up, approving of her innate grace. And God, the strength she gave him was nothing short of miraculous. He could feel it powering him up even now, his head fogging out in deference to his body's focus on what he'd just given it.

What Layla had given him.

Qhuinn was still way into the fight, his fangs bared, not for Layla, but for whoever was losing. Or winning. Or whatever.

Layla's expression faded into a resignation that Blay knew waaaaay too much about.

Blay frowned. "Qhuinn. Are you going to feed?"

Qhuinn's mismatched eyes held the screen until the ref called the match; then the blue and the green irises slid to Layla. On a sensuous surge, the guy shifted over on the bed, making room for her.

"Come here, Chosen."

The three words, backed up by that low-lidded stare, was a sucker punch to Blay--trouble was, Qhuinn wasn't throwing anything special Layla's way. That was just how he was.

Sex in every breath, every beat, every move.

Layla seemed to feel the same way, because her hands fluttered around her robing, first to the sashed tie, and then to the lapels.

For some reason, Blay realized for the first time that she was fully naked under those white folds.

Qhuinn extended his hand and Layla's palm trembled as she put it against what he offered her.

"You cold?" he asked, sitting up. Underneath his tight T-shirt, his abs popped into a tight six-pack.

As she shook her head, Blay stalked into his bathroom, shut the door and turned on the shower. After stripping, he got under the spray and tried to forget all about what was happening on his bed.

Which was successful only to the point of taking Layla out of the picture.

His brain got stuck on a fantasy of him and Qhuinn stretched out together, mouths on each other's necks, fangs breaking the surface of velvet skin, bodies...

It was pretty common for males to get hard after feeding. Especially if they were thinking of all kinds of naked things. And the soap didn't help.

And neither did the images of what would come after the two of them penetrated throats.

Blay planted one palm on the slick marble and the other on his rigid cock.

What he did was quick and about as satisfying as a piece of cold pizza: good, but not even close to a real meal.

The second trip through the park didn't improve the situation and he refused his body the chance for a third. Because honestly. How skeevy. Qhuinn and Layla were taking care of business on the other side of the door while he was all Johnny Pneumonic in the hot water? Ew.

Getting out, he dried himself off, put on his robe and realized he hadn't brought anything in to get dressed with. As he turned the knob on the door, he prayed that things were where he'd left them.

And they were, thank you, Scribe Virgin: Qhuinn had his mouth to Layla's other wrist and was taking what he needed as the Chosen knelt beside him.

Nothing overtly sexual.

The relief that nailed Blay in the chest made him realize how angry he'd become--not just about this but everything that had to do with Qhuinn.

It was really not healthy. For anyone.

And besides, when everything boiled down, was it wrong that Qhuinn felt the way he did? You couldn't help who you were attracted to... and who you weren't.

Over at the closet, Blay pulled out a button-down and some black combats. Just as he turned around to head for the bathroom, Qhuinn lifted his mouth from Layla's vein.

The male let out a satiated groan and extended his tongue toward the wounds he'd made with his fangs. As a flash of silver glinted, Blay's brows popped. The ball piercing was a new one and he wondered who'd done it.

Probably Vishous. The pair were spending a lot of time together and that was how they'd gotten the ink for John's tat--Qhuinn had lifted the bottle.

Qhuinn's tongue lapped at the Chosen's skin, that metal winking with each pass. "Thanks, Layla. You're good to us."

He gave her a quick smile and then shifted his legs off the bed, clearly on his way out. Layla, on the other hand, didn't move. Instead of following suit and taking her leave, her head went down and her eyes locked on her lap--

No, on her wrists, which were flashing from under the yawning cuffs of her robe. As she swayed, Blay frowned.

"Layla?" he said, going over to her. "Are you all right?"

Qhuinn came right around the bed. "Layla? What's doing?"

Now they were the ones kneeling before her.

Blay spoke clearly. "Did we take too much?"

Qhuinn went front and center with his own wrist, offering it to her. "Use me."

Shit, she'd fed John the night before. Maybe this had been too soon?

The Chosen's pale green eyes lifted to Qhuinn's face, and there was no spacy disorientation to her stare. Just a sad, ancient longing.

Qhuinn recoiled. "What did I do?"

"Nothing," she said in a voice that was too deep. "If you will pardon me, I shall take myself unto the sanctuary once again."

Layla went to get up, but Qhuinn captured her hand and tugged her down. "Layla, what's doing."

God, that voice of his. So smooth, so kind. And so was his hand as he reached up and hooked her chin, lifting her eyes to his.

"I cannot speak of it."

"Yeah, you can." Qhuinn nodded in Blay's direction. "He and I will keep your confidence."

The Chosen took a deep breath and her exhale was one of defeat, like she was out of gas, out of options, out of strength. "For truth? You shall remain silent?"

"Yup. Blay?"

"Yes, absolutely." He put his hand on his heart. "I swear. We'll do anything to help you. Anything."

She focused on Qhuinn, her stare locking on his. "Am I unpleasant to your eye, sire?" As he frowned, she prodded her cheekbones, her forehead. "Do I deviate from the ideal in a fashion which renders me--"

"God, no. What are you talking about? You're beautiful."

"Then... whyfore do I remain un-called-upon."

"I don't understand--we do call on you. Regularly. Myself and Blay and John. Rhage and V. You are the one we all ask for because you--"

"None of you use me for aught save blood."

Blay rose from his kneel and backed up until his legs hit the chaise and he found himself sitting down. As his ass bounced on the cushion, the expression on Qhuinn's face almost made him laugh. The guy was never caught off guard. Part of that was because he'd been exposed to so much over his relatively short life, both by choice and by curse. And part was his personality. He handled himself in all situations. Period.

Except this one, evidently. Qhuinn looked like he'd been smacked in the back of the head with a pool cue.

"I..." Qhuinn cleared his throat. "I... I..."

Ah, yes, another first. Stuttering.

Layla filled the silence. "I serve the males and Brothers within this place with pride. I give without receiving anything in return because it is my training and pleasure to do so. But I tell you this because you have asked and... I find I must. Every time I return to the sanctuary or to the Primale's home, I find myself increasingly empty. To the point that I think I may step aside. Verily..." She shook her head. "I cannot keep doing this even though it is all I ever saw my endeavors entailing. It's just... my heart cannot go on."

Qhuinn dropped his hands and rubbed his thighs. "Do you want... Would you want to keep going if you could?"

"Of course." Her voice was strong and sure. "I am proud to be of service."

Now Qhuinn was dragging a hand through his thick black hair. "What would it take... to fulfill you?"

It was like watching a train wreck roll out. Blay should have left but he couldn't move; he just had to witness the collision.

And naturally, Layla's brilliant blush made her even more beautiful. Then her full, lovely lips parted. Closed. Parted... closed again.

"It's okay," Qhuinn whispered. "You don't have to say it out loud. I know what you want."

Blay felt a cold sweat break out over his chest and his hands cranked down on the clothes he'd picked out for himself.

"Who," Qhuinn asked hoarsely. "Who do you want."

There was another long pause and then she said one word: "You."

Blay stood up. "I'll leave you two."

He was utterly blind as he made for the exit and he snagged his leather jacket on his way on instinct.

As he shut the door, he heard Qhuinn say, "We'll go very slowly. If we're going to do this, we're going to go very slowly."

Out in the hall, Blay put some fast distance between himself and his bedroom, and it wasn't until he came up to the double doors that led into the staff wing that he realized he was walking around in a robe. Slipping into the set of stairs that led to the movie theater on the third floor, he changed into his clothes in front of the dormant popcorn machine.

The simmering anger deep in his gut was a kind of cancer, eating him up. But it was so baseless. So useless.

Blay stood facing the shelves of DVDs, the titles on the jackets nothing but a visual pattern to his eyes.

What he ended up reaching for wasn't a movie, however.

It was a slip of paper from his coat pocket.

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