She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Before she knew what was happening, he was lifting her up and she was grabbing on to the top of the stall’s glass panels. Suspending herself at his hip height, he entered her core with a hard shove, the penetration slicing through her with an erotic sharpness. And as he began to move inside of her, an unusual tingling flowed throughout her body, as if her blood had turned to sparkles.

So hot. So heavy. So hard. And then his mouth was at her breasts, his dark head moving as wet suction locked on her nipples.

How great that his hair was already growing in, she thought in the back of her mind.

And then she didn’t think about anything at all. Her orgasm was no ripple—it was a roar, a great fireball that incinerated her from the inside out, the sensations wiping everything out of her consciousness except the pleasure. Three thrusts later, and he came along with her, locking his hips into her pelvis, his sex filling her up.

But Assail didn’t stop. He kept going, ravishing her, moving his mouth from her breasts to her neck, where he nipped and sucked at her. Gritting her teeth, she tried not to make any sound. This was not upstairs, where there was privacy. No, he had come to her down in the basement, as if he had been too impatient to wait.

At least his cousins and Markcus were upstairs cooking, her grandmother supervising them with frustration as the men tried to provide for her.

But that could change at any moment.

“I want more,” Assail said in her ear. “I want…more from you.”

Snaking a hand up the back of his neck, she pulled him closer. “Then take it. Take all of me—”

A lance of something so pleasurable it stung made her forget herself and she cried out as she lost her hold on the shower stall. With a squeak, her hand slipped down the glass, shifting her position, crashing them together, arms, legs, bodies tangling as slippery skin and awkward angles conspired to send her into a fall.

Assail scrambled to catch her as his arousal popped free, and then she was down on the floor by the drain.

She started to laugh. She couldn’t help it.

“Okay, that was a traffic accident,” she said as she looked up at him. “Good thing I—”

She stopped as she realized he wasn’t laughing with her. And then his expression registered properly. Pain, dark and torturous, had drawn his face in tightly.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

That was when she noticed the faint red tinge to the water that was escaping through the drain. Shit. Her period.

“I’m not hurt,” she chided. “It’s a woman thing.”

As he helped her to her feet, he seemed profoundly unsteady. “I am so sorry.”

“What for? It happens once a month.”

Assail just shook his head and gathered her close. “I am…so very sorry.”

Sola rolled her eyes as she put her arms around him and gave him a squeeze. “I’m perfectly fine.”

With gentle brushes, he nuzzled her neck, kissing her softly before hanging his head.

They stayed there for so long, the water began to lose its temperature, and even then, he didn’t seem to want to leave.

“We have to get out,” she told him. “They’ll wonder what we’re up to—and chances are, at least your cousins will get it right.”

Making the decision for them, she cut the water off and stepped out. There were two towels hanging on the rod, and she took them both off, offering him one.

She could have sworn his hand shook as he accepted it.

“Did Dr. Manello have anything to say about your—”

“It all went fine,” he replied roughly. “I’m fine.”

Assail turned away to dry off and she watched his muscles shift under his smooth skin. Even though it had been just a few days, she could swear he was regaining some of his bulk already—but probably, as with her thinking that his hair was coming in, that was optimism over accuracy on her part.

“Assail, what’s wrong?”

He stopped, his head dropping as if in defeat. “I am…I just am so sorry.”

“I don’t understand what for.” She wrapped the towel around herself. “Everything is good. We’re good. I’m good. You’re good.”

As she continued on in that vein, she wondered who she was trying to argue that to: him or her.

* * *

—

Exactly how the hell did he think this was all going to work, Assail wondered as he left the steamy bathroom and went back up to the first floor.

How did he think he was going to be with a human for the rest of their lives?

Opening the cellar door, he cleared his throat as all the eyes in the kitchen shifted to him.

“Marisol is coming directly. If you all will just excuse me? I’m afraid I slipped and fell in the bath—bathroom, I mean.”

The lie sounded ridiculous to his own ears, and only Marisol’s grandmother nodded as if that made perfect sense. Then again, she was incentivized to believe in the virtue of her granddaughter—and at least his cousins and Markcus stayed silent on the subject.

With his head in a tangle, Assail strode off for the stairs to his own room, and when he got to the second floor, he stripped everything off and went into his loo. Willing the lights on, he looked at himself in the mirror.

Under the illumination coming from the ceiling, he appeared downright evil, great shadows where his deep-set eyes sat within his skull, his body as yet unsated even by the intense session in Marisol’s shower, the Chosen’s vein he had just taken powering him up.

The loginess that came with feeding had yet to kick in and he prayed it would soon.

He was dangerous like this, a bonded male so close to his female and yet unable to have her fully.

And by that, he meant more than just her sex.

Putting his head into his hands, he ran his tongue over the sharp points of his descended fangs.

He hadn’t meant to bite Marisol. Or rather…when he had told her he needed more and she had answered for him to have all of her, there had been no proper context for her consent. He had taken her vein with love, he had had her in the way he so desperately wanted, but in doing so he had…

Violated her.

Marisol had had no idea what he’d been asking for. And thus he had done the unforgivable.

After she had slipped and the contact at her throat had been broken, he had immediately realized what he’d done in his feeding-crazed state. Licking the wound closed in a clandestine manner, he had been too horrified with himself to tell her everything—and now, he was up here with a pit in his stomach and a pain in his heart.

Why in hell had he thought they could go on without her knowing? Fates…why had he assumed all would be well? For one, he was going to live centuries longer than her. How could he explain his not aging as she grew older? Indeed, he was going to look as though he were in his late twenties until about a decade before he died—and the same would be true of his cousins.

And then there was the feeding issue. He would have to take the vein of a female vampire on a regular basis—and now that he was healthy, he was liable to react like this.

He wanted Marisol, not anyone else. So he was bound to come at her as he had tonight, starved, demanding…and taking her vein.

Oh, and as for daylight? It was fine for him to play that bullshit night owl card up to a point. But how about when the seasons changed and there were over fourteen hours of daylight? Sixteen? What was he going to do when, on some nice summer afternoon, his female wanted to go for a picnic? How was he going to handle that?

Other than bursting into flames in front of her, that was.

“Assail?”

Closing his eyes, his entire body stooped at the sound of her voice. “Marisol…my love.”

“I think you need to tell me what’s going on here.”

After the longest time, when he could see no other way about things, he said in a hoarse voice, “I agree. Unfortunately.”

FORTY-TWO

As the mobile surgical unit rumbled through the streets of downtown, heading for the bridge to Caldwell’s other side, Jane went into one of the overhead compartments and took out a clean sheet. Flipping the soft white fabric free of its folds, she laid it across the body and then pulled things up so that the civilian’s face and head were covered. Then she took a seat next to Vishous.