“Are you okay?” he whispered to Helania as he looked over her pale face.

She shook her head slowly and spoke in a rough, low voice. “I know it was him,” she said urgently. “Oh, God . . . it was him that night. And maybe he killed Isobel, too.”

As she began to tear up, he put his arms around her and she sank into his chest until he was holding her upright. It was then that the Brothers looked over.

“I’m sorry,” Butch muttered. “I behaved unprofessionally. It won’t happen again.”

Helania lifted her head off Boone’s pec. “Are you kidding me? I want to shoot him, too.”

“No one’s shooting anybody,” Vishous cut in. Then he rolled his eyes. “And you know people be losin’ their shit if I’m the one saying something like that.”

“You’re sure that’s who it was,” Butch asked Helania. “You have no doubts.”

“I know what I scented. I’ll take a polygraph. Or blind test me in a lineup, I will pick him out a thousand times correctly.”

“Okay.” Butch looked up at Vishous. “I want Syn held down here in a patient room with full guard until further notice. He should be considered a suicide risk, so strip the place of anything he can stab, cut, or hang himself with. I’m going to go search his room up at the mansion now and we need to get him to talk. Get Xcor down here. If there’s anyone who can get him to open up, it’s his goddamn boss. And I want that shit recorded.”

Vishous nodded. “You got it.”

“But first, you need to update Wrath while I confirm details here with Helania.”

As the other Brother departed, Boone had no doubt that everything was going to be executed exactly as Butch wanted, and that was a relief.

Dear God, the idea that it was one of their own who was the killer? Boone couldn’t believe it—and yet as he remembered those red eyes flashing in that alley and thought about what the Bastard had said to him as they’d stood over the mutilated body of that human assailant?

He didn’t doubt that Syn was capable of killing for sport. Butch looked around and cursed. “Damn it, I left my pad out in the corridor.”

“Do you want me to go get it?” Boone asked, even as he went back over to block the photographs with his body.

“No, it’ll be fine.” The Brother focused on Helania. “Can you tell me again exactly what Syn was wearing the night you saw him with Mai in the club?”

She nodded and walked across to the table. Sitting down, she put her hands out in front of herself, and Boone got the impression it was to prove she wasn’t hiding anything.

“He had a black knit hat that he’d pulled down low. Dark sunglasses. And all black clothes.”

“Can you be really specific as to what kind of clothes? A cloak like you? Or—”

“Leathers. Black muscle shirt, I think. And then a leather jacket.” Boone spoke up, indicating his body. “Like mine?”

“Yes, exactly like yours.”

“What kind of shoes? Or boots?” Butch asked.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “And before you ask, I didn’t see his face really. I’ve got to admit that. But his scent is unmistakable.”

“You’re doing great. You’ve given me more than enough, and way more than I thought we’d get tonight.” The Brother took out his gold cross again. “See? What I say. On His time.”

Helania sat back and looked over at Boone. “You know, if I hadn’t come here for my check-up, I don’t know how I would ever have run into him.”

“It was just meant to be,” Boone said.

Helania glanced at Butch again. “What happens to him now?”

“He waits down here while I search his rooms and see what I can find. If there’s any trace of Mai’s blood or scent on anything? Any evidence like meat hooks hanging in his frickin’ closet or a piece of clothing from any victims? Then I take him to Wrath and present everything to the King, along with your testimony—just like if I were up in front of a judge with it. Wrath decides Syn’s fate.”

Helania’s eyes narrowed. “And what is most likely to happen with that?”

The Brother was silent for a moment. “If Syn is the killer? He will not be living at the end of it. That I can promise you—”

“I want to be there. When he dies.” She sat forward and grabbed a hold of the Brother’s sleeve. “Do you understand. Nothing is more important to me than that. I want to see him killed. That’s the only way my sister can rest in peace.”

Butch rubbed his face like he had a headache. “We don’t know for sure that Syn killed your sister.”

Boone spoke up. “But there could be a connection there. A very likely connection.”

“Yeah.” Butch got to his feet. “I have a feeling there might well be.”

“I want to be there,” Helania insisted. “When he’s killed.”

“That will be up to Wrath. If we end up with a death sentence, you’ll have to petition the King to be a witness and see what he says.” The Brother put a hand on her shoulder. “But knowing him the way I do? He will understand completely where you’re coming from.”

* * *

To Helania, the ride back to her apartment in the Brotherhood’s fancy Mercedes seemed to take less than a breath. Okay, fine . . . maybe it was more like two deep inhales and a hiccup. But it was no longer than that.

And there was a further distortion to time as she exited the warm interior thanks to the elderly butler holding her door open: She couldn’t decide whether it had been days or seconds since she and Boone had first sat in the back of the car and driven out to wherever the Brotherhood was hiding all those facilities.

While she was playing around with theories of relativity in her head, Boone got out from the rear seat, too. And just as it had been in the training center’s parking area, the butler became flustered because he hadn’t had time to go around and do his duty with that door.

The two males said some things, and then she was thanking Fritz and the car was driving away on the snowpack.

“I just want to see you to the door,” Boone said. “I don’t have to stay.”

“It’s okay.” She shook herself. “I mean, I’d like you to come in. If you have a minute.”

So much for her bid for independence, she thought, as they walked to the front entrance of her building. And yet she wanted Boone to come down to her place and not just because she didn’t want to be alone. It was because she wanted to be with him—and not necessarily sexually.

She just needed to make sure all of that had actually happened, her seeing that warrior in the corridor . . . them talking to Butch about the losses of sisters and a father—

As she and Boone entered her building’s outer door, they paused by the rows of mailboxes while she got the right key out.

“I never expected the killer to be connected with the Brotherhood.” She put her key in the inside lock and turned. “I mean . . . he’s one of them, right?”

“No, he fights with them.” Boone helped her get the heavy weight open. “It’s a big difference.”

They were silent as they went down to the basement level, and she let them into her apartment.

“Wow,” he said as he closed them in. “This place is so clean.”

“I had to find something to do with myself during the day.” She took off her parka and hung it by her Pyre’s Revyval cloak, her hand lingering on those folds of black cloth. “It kept my mind off of things.”

When she looked over at him, he had taken a seat on her sofa and had one of her needlepoint pillows in his lap. His deft fingers were traveling over the orderly lines of stitching, tracing a hyacinth.

“This must have taken a long time to do,” he murmured. “It’s another excellent distraction.” She came over and sat down with him. “Keeps my mind engaged just enough so my thoughts don’t spin out of control.”

“Maybe I should take it up.” He put the pillow aside. “I could sell them and live off the proceeds.”

“It helps me pay the bills.”

“Well, I’ve given up sleeping, so I have extra time on my hands now.” They stared at each other. And when she leaned in his direction, she wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Things were better than they had been right after the needing, but there were so many unknowns.

Boone stopped her by putting his forefinger on her lips. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I specifically asked Doc Jane if, you know . . . if I’m not pregnant, whether the fertility lasts any longer than the symptoms. She said it doesn’t. So we don’t have to worry.” She frowned. “Unless things have changed for you.”

“You mean whether I want you?” He brushed her lower lip with his thumb. “They haven’t. I’m still not going to tell you no. Not now, not ever.”

She could have said something to him in return, communicated with words that though their situation was complex, her feelings for him were not.

Instead, she let her mouth do the talking by sucking his finger in between her lips and rolling her tongue around it.

The purr that came out of him was what she wanted to hear. And Boone’s next move was to retract his finger and replace it with his tongue as he licked his way into her. The kiss was everything she needed, and she arched against him as she wrapped her arms around his neck. When he pushed her back into the sofa, she let herself go.

Except she wanted him to know she wasn’t using him as a distraction. She did not want to think, it was true. But there were so many other reasons she needed him in this moment.

“Boone . . .”

“You don’t have to explain.” He pulled back. “I just want to be with you and I’ll take you any way I can get you.”

Helania stroked his face as she scented the dark spices that she had come to associate with him. “I don’t deserve you.”