When you had had attention forced on you, when your body had been taken against your will, when you had been a toy used and abused at the whims of a malicious other, calendar nights could put the distance of an era between you and your nightmare, and geographic miles could likewise reinforce the difference between the there-and-then and the here-andnow, but you never lost your adaptive behavior. Like the slave bands tattooed around his neck and his wrists, and the S-shaped scar that intersected his face, and the way he preferred to be invisible even outside of hostility, his marble had been carved in a certain way. And as with the statues he currently walked by, his evolution was as irreversible and structural as their forever-frozen poses.

A millennium from now, the statues would still be as they were—and so he would ever be as he was. His artist was dead, too. He knew this because he had killed her and slept beside her skull for a century . . . and yet there had been a corner turned for him, an unexpected fresh start that had eased him in ways that even he was coming to trust.

Love had done more than turn his black eyes back to yellow.

Yet he still walked in silence.

Stopping in front of one of the lineup of bedroom suites, he went to knock—

The door opened sharply, and on the other side, the Chosen Layla was dressed in jeans and a SUNY Caldwell sweatshirt, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, her glowing beauty the kind of thing that didn’t need makeup or fancy clothes for enhancement.

The look of abject terror on her face was wholly at odds with all of her casual, night-at-home-with-thekids attire.

“Qhuinn’s going to be fine,” Z said. “They’re taking him in the OR now, and Manny is confident there’s going to be a good result.”

“Thank the Virgin Scri—” Layla stopped herself. “Oh . . . sorry, old habits die hard. I keep forgetting She’s gone.”

“Just please don’t bring up Lassiter’s name right now, especially if it’s with gratitude. He’s liable to show up so he can enjoy the praise, and I’ve had a long night already.”

The female smiled. “I will thank our angel in private then.”

When there was a cooing sound from deeper inside the room, Z looked in. Across the antique rug, between a museum-quality inlaid bureau of Italian provenance and a Scottish writing desk from the 1800s, the dual Pottery Barn cribs were a splash of modern, some-assembly-required in the midst of all the Old World luxury. One crib was done in pink, the other in blue.

“Would you like to come in and see them?” Layla stepped back. “They love visitors, and Rhamp particularly adores you.”

Z thought of those two human girls, out in the winter darkness alone in daddy’s BMW. As he walked across the room, he wondered if they’d gotten home safe.

You have a daughter. Some night, she may need help from a human. How’d you like him to treat her?

He went over to say hi to Lyric first, but that was not how it worked out. In the midst of all the pink frills of her crib, her sturdy little brother was holding on to his feet and doing some kind of baby pull-up thing with his chunky torso. The moment Z leaned over the rail, the kid stopped his infantrobics and shifted his eyes over, those peepers narrowing into an assessment that penetrated into places a grown-ass male would just as soon not have anybody go.

Much less a bag of carbon-based molecules that only had pooping and consuming down pat.

Except then the young started to smile. Instantly, that intensity was cut off and there was nothing but toothy grin—in spite of how ugly Z was with the scar that ran down his face. Then again, one of the things he liked about these young was that they had never not known males who had deformities. Their stepdad, Xcor, had a harelip they were well used to, so there was no scaring them with what was doing on Z’s puss.

Although on that note, one couldn’t be too sure Rhamp was going to be scared of anything. He was like his sire in that regard. Qhuinn wasn’t ever afraid.

“They like to switch cribs,” Layla said as she ruffled her son’s dark hair. “Rhamp insists on being in Lyric’s space sometimes. She doesn’t mind. I feel like he’s checking the crib rails to make sure she’s safe. It’s the funniest thing.”

“He’s right to look after her.”

“Well, she looks after him, too.”

“That’s as it should be.”

Z reached out and ran his forefinger down Rhamp’s chubby cheek. As the kid grabbed hold and squeezed, the compression was surprisingly strong. Then it was a case of tug . . . tug . . . tug . . . and all the time, the kid was cheery as he stared up. Even though Zsadist was a fully grown male capable of great violence.

“How do they know?”

As Z heard his voice hit the airwaves, he wanted to curse. He’d meant to keep that to himself.

Second time tonight. Maybe he needed to go see Doc Jane for some oral cavity Imodium.

“Know what?” Layla asked softly. “About who to trust, you mean?”

“People are dangerous. Especially to those who are weaker. And you don’t get weaker than a young.”

“Not everyone is dangerous. Look at you standing over the cribs of my young.”

He moved over to Lyric, and as soon as she saw him, she smiled, her eyes twinkling like stars in her baby face.

“You would kill to protect them,” Layla murmured.

“Damn right I would. They are my family, even though we are not of close blood.” As Z thought of those two human girls again, he was of a mind to try to strip his own damn memories. “Do you worry about them? Out in the world?”

“Not at the moment. Right now they are here, within my reach, every second of every hour. Later, though, I will. I imagine it will be similar to how I worry about Xcor out in the field. So many things can go wrong. A second can change a lifetime forever.”

Z rubbed the back of his neck. “I have to go.”

And yet he did not move.

“What consumes you, friend,” Layla prompted gently.

“I don’t like the vagaries of chance.”

“What’s making you think of fate tonight?”

“Nothing.” Just snowbanks. And children. And stabbings. “Nothing in particular.”

“Are you going to go see your Bella and Nalla? They were in the playroom last time I checked.”

He glanced at the Chosen. “Take care of yourself, and your precious ones.”

“I will. Take care of my beloved out in the field? I don’t know what I would do if . . .”

“I always have Xcor’s back.” He pictured the huge fighter with the disfigured upper lip and the jawline of an I beam. “We all watch after each other. Worry not, Chosen.”

And yet would it be enough, he wondered as he left.

Probably on most nights, sure. But on every night? Every single night? Mathematical probability said no on that one.

And young needed their fathers.

Guess Rhamp and Lyric were lucky in that regard. They had three of them.

Outside of the training center’s OR, Blay sat on the corridor’s concrete floor and leaned back against the concrete wall. The subterranean cold of everything didn’t register and he didn’t pay much attention to how hard everything was against his body. Hard was what was happening on the other side of that closed door. Hard was opening up someone’s insides, seeing a leak that was life-threatening, and being all I-know-how-to-fix-that.

There was a time when he’d thought he would go into medicine. He was getting over that now.

Especially as he imagined what was going on with Qhuinn’s abdomen at the moment. The only thing that made him feel even halfway okay about the knife removal was the fact that the male had had sex on the brain right up until Ehlena had slapped him silly with those EKG wires. Surely that meant something, right?

Blay looked down the hall toward the reinforced steel door that opened into the underground parking garage. Then he glanced down the other way, toward the gym, the Olympic-sized pool, and the target range. He could smell the distant chlorine, and someone was working out in the weight room, the rhythmic metal clanking going on for what seemed like forever. Probably Ruhn. Saxton’s male was a big lifter, even compared to the Brothers.

The guy would have been a great asset out in the field, but he was a certified pacifist now, and considering his history, no one could blame him—

The OR door swung wide, and Manny braced it open with his foot, a vision in blue scrubs and his surgical mask. The fact that he kept his hands behind his back suggested there was blood on those nitrile gloves, and as Blay’s stomach went storm-surge on him, he was determined not to throw up on himself.

“Qhuinn did great, and the knife missed all the expensive real estate.” The surgeon shook his head. “It’s a miracle. As always, someone was watching out for him.”

Blay put his hand over his heart, and as his head swam with relief, he was glad he was sitting down. “Thank you so much. Oh, my God, thank you.”

“Our pleasure. We’re just closing now. You can see him in a little bit.”

As the surgeon ducked back into the sterile area, Blay rubbed his face and shuddered inside his own skin. Images of crystal glasses caught just as they fell off the edge of tables, and of fingers narrowly saved from the bite of car doors, and of land mines missed by millimeters, flashed through his mind. And now, as Qhuinn’s body was set to rights again, Blay’s own part of the healing process could begin. With the mortal danger over, he had to coax his brain back into risk-awareness hibernation: After every narrow-margin save and each near miss, he always had to stuff his panic back in its lockbox.

Otherwise, he’d be perpetually quaking in his boots.

The thing was, they were all at risk, every night they went out into the field—especially with the Omega gone, and the trainees and others seeing a new shadowy threat downtown. At least with the Lessening Society, they’d known what they were fighting—

Shuffling sounds brought his head up.

A hobbling figure in a terry cloth bathrobe was coming down the corridor, its weight braced on a cane, its gait as steady and regular as a case of the hiccups. The head was down; the dark hair, which had begun to thin and go gray, was wet; the scent of chlorine was pervasive.