See? Exactly what he wanted to talk over with José.

Thinking back to his former partner, Butch tried to imagine what the man would say—and he could almost hear José’s voice: When you can’t connect the dots, get more dots.

Maybe what Butch needed to do was reach out to the race and appeal for help through social media. He could just open up the phone lines and the confidential email box and see what came back to him. He’d have to give Mai’s family a heads-up about it at nightfall, but then he could drop a post in the closed Facebook group for the race and send out an email blast to everyone who’d been by the Audience House.

And then what, he wondered—

When his cell phone went off, he nearly fell backward. And as he hung in the balance between landing on four legs and falling on his head, he had a crazy thought that José had psychically picked up on the vibe that he was needed and had mysteriously dialed the seven numbers that were connected with Butch’s new phone.

The chair hit the stone floor properly and Butch snapped up the Samsung. Turning the screen over, he—

Oh.

Accepting the call, he said, “Hey, Boone, what’s doing—” The barrage of words coming at him was so jumbled and frantic, all he could think of was, Fuck. For the most part, Boone was sensible, a measured and balanced kind of guy. Like, in that alley tonight: When Syn had been going nuts on some human, Boone had had the presence of mind to take care of an injured woman.

So whatever this was? Was serious shit.

“Slow down, son,” Butch interrupted sharply. “You gotta speak more clearly.”

It took a couple of tries—but then the message got through, and all Butch could do was close his eyes and curse. This was bad. Really fucking bad. And P.S., what the fuck was that kid doing at Helania’s apartment overday—

Oh, who the hell was he kidding? He knew exactly why Boone had gone over there. And now the worst complication that could happen between members of the opposite sex had come home to roost.

’Urprise!

Popping his lids, he checked his watch. And of course it was one in the afternoon.

“Okay, Boone, here’s what I want you do—no, I’m going to take care of everything. But unless you want her to get pregnant, you need to lock yourself in a room—what? Yes, I know she’s suffering, but if you get in there with her, you’re going to end up with a young in about eighteen months. You need to lock yourself away from her now. Things are only going to get worse. In the meantime, I’ll get Doc Jane and she’ll be to you ASAP.”

There were some more jumbled syllables, and Butch cut them right off. “Get yourself locked in. I’ll handle the rest.”

As he hung up and dialed the Pit, he had to shake his head. See . . . this was why you did not get involved with witnesses.

Things could go from sucky to totally tits up in the matter of hours. Although he had to admit, the needing thing?

Even with all his homicide experience, he would never have seen this one coming.

Boone wanted to think the Brother Butch was wrong. He wanted to believe the best of himself, that he was a gentlemale first and foremost, that he had self-control and restraint—that he could therefore take care of Helania as she twisted and contorted on that cold tile in the bathroom. He wanted to confidently expect that he could rise above her needing, and cover her with a light sheet, and stand over her with a bath-sized towel, fanning her to cool her down.

With everything that Helania meant to him, he truly wanted to believe that he could put her needs before his own as they waited for help to come.

In the end, however, as the hormone surges she was wracked with got more and more intense, he had no choice but to do what the Brother instructed. And it even got so bad that he not only put himself in the bedroom and closed the door, but also pushed the mattress against the panels to try to keep things shut.

Which, when he thought about it, was stupid. If he was strong enough to move the bed over there, he was strong enough to shift it back.

But that was beside the point.

As he curled up on the floor in the bedroom, his knees all the way against his chest, his arms locked around them, his body shivering not from being cold, but from the paralyzing sexual need that crushed him . . . he squeezed his eyes shut and prayed that he didn’t go to her.

Not because he didn’t want to get her pregnant.

But because he did.

The idea that he could be free from his family’s legacy . . . and start his own, with Helania? It was the kind of destiny he hadn’t even known he could pray for. And now, with the possibility right in front of him?

Well . . . in the room next door?

A happy family was the only thing he could picture. The only thing he wanted. The only way he could keep going in what had been feeling like an empty void of late. Mated to Helania, with young . . . he would have purpose. Grounding. A place and a bloodline that he had created with love, not been born into.

Except . . . he didn’t know what Helania wanted. And in the absence of being sure where she stood, he couldn’t take a chance. When females went through their needing, all males in the vicinity were affected to some degree—but a male who was emotionally tied to the female to begin with? Who had clearly bonded to her? Boone’s sexual urges were nearly as bad as her own—

The bing! that went off beside him brought his head up and he looked at his phone.

It was Jane, texting him that she was just outside the door to the apartment.

Groaning, Boone went to stand up, and he nearly orgasmed as his cock bounced around, brushing his leg, knocking against the floor.

Fucking hell, he was still naked. Willing the light on, he located his slacks and managed to get his seesawing legs into them. Yanking on his shirt, there was no tucking it in. His hands were shaking too badly.

Moving the bed out of the way, he stumbled from the bedroom, training his eyes on the door Doc Jane was standing on the far side of. He did not allow himself to look toward the bathroom. He did not take any breaths in through his nose. He refused to permit his feet to turn his sorry ass around and propel his body into that bathroom and down onto that floor and in between his female’s legs.

He didn’t so much walk over to the apartment’s door as run headfirst into it, his loose inability to control his legs making proper balance impossible. Fumble . . . fumble . . . fumble with the doorknob. When that didn’t go well, he yanked at the damn thing—

It was locked. Dead bolted.

Somehow he sprang things and then—

“Oh, thank God,” he mumbled as he saw V’s mate standing in the basement hallway.

As Doc Jane entered and closed things behind herself, he backed up—or rather tripped over his bare feet and fell on his ass. Landing in a heap, he knew he was a total mess.

And going by the expression on the doctor’s face, she rather agreed. “Knock me out,” he mumbled. “Do it first so you won’t have to deal with me. I’m worried I’m dangerous. I can’t . . . think . . .”

Doc Jane’s mouth started to move, and Boone was instantly transported back to his sire’s Fade Ceremony, someone standing in front of him, communicating in what was theoretically English, but which made no sense to him whatsoever.

What did make sense?

The fact that V’s female put her old-fashioned doctor’s bag down.

Retrieved from it a syringe and a small clear bottle with a rubber top. And then promptly loaded some kind of drug into the belly of the needle.

As she knelt beside him, she said, “Roll up your sleeve for me?”

Roll. Up. Sleeve.

Got it, he thought.

He tore the thing off from the shoulder and threw it somewhere. Holding out his bare arm, he watched as she rubbed an alcohol square in a circle on his bicep and then poked him a good one.

Boone opened up his mouth to thank her.

But the shit was fast-acting. For real.

* * *

Helania’s body was a rope and the hormones flooding her system were angry hands on either end, twisting, twisting . . . pulling . . . until surely the fibers that made up her corporeal form would snap. Facedown on the tile, she was on fire from the inside out, nothing relieving her of the agony, the sawing need, the clawing, useless desire.

She had no idea where Boone was. But he had left her as she’d told him to.

At this point, she wasn’t even sure where she was.

Forcing her lids open, everything was blurry, so she blinked until a small sink became semi-apparent. Bathroom. She was in the bathroom.

Rolling onto her back, she felt a draft as her belly was exposed to the air. There was no corresponding cool place for her shoulders, though. The furnace inside her body had heated the tiles on the floor.

Relief, there had to be . . . some relief.

Again on her stomach. Now on her side. Legs straight. Legs up. One leg down and the other up. Shoulders flat, shoulders curved.

Nothing helped. But that was the nature of the needing. How could she possibly have missed the signs? Restlessness. Being too hot. Bacon and chocolate at that diner, both of which she ordinarily never had an interest in.

The fact that, for the first time in her life, she’d had sex without really knowing the other person for very long. Her uncharacteristic boldness now made so much sense. It had been a prodromal to this fertile time.

When had her last needing been? She could not recall.

Oh, God, Boone. She would have warned him to stay away if she’d been thinking more clearly, if she had caught the signs—

The cool breeze came from out of nowhere, as if someone had opened a window and let some of the outdoor air in. Except she had no windows to open—

Lifting her head, she looked up and did not understand what she was seeing. But it appeared as though a female angel had come and covered her in a white cloud. Wait . . . unless it was just a sheet?

“Hi,” the angel said. “I’m Doc Jane. I’m here to help you.”

Helania blinked a couple of times to see if the vision before her changed. Nope. Still a female angel with short blond hair, dark green eyes, and . . . a pair of blue doctor’s scrubs for clothes?