“How old were you?” she said softly.

“Fourteen.”

When Lydia closed her eyes and cursed, he shrugged. “Look, the honest truth is that no matter how old I was, I wasn’t going to save her. It didn’t matter how tall I was, how strong I was, what I weighed, you know? A fall into cold water from that height, when the person was already drunk, and maybe high? Add in a bad landing and there you have it.”

“You were a child.”

He laughed harshly. “Children are five. I was two years away from a learner’s permit.”

Lydia put her head in her hands. “What happened to you afterward? Where did you go?”

“I was put into the foster system, but I didn’t stick around for long. I dropped out of high school when I was sixteen and went off on my own. Eventually, I found a few people like me, so I wasn’t totally alone. It is what it is.”

“What about your father?”

Daniel flattened his mouth. “I don’t talk about him. Ever. Sorry.”

As he eyed the open doorway and measured the distance to bolt out of the room, he didn’t really have anywhere to go. And that was the ball buster. Everywhere he went, there he was.

And besides, Lydia still needed protecting.

“So that’s my story,” he concluded.

“Now I know why you think about emotions the way you do. And why you move around.”

As a wave of exhaustion hit him hard, he closed his eyes and swayed. “Man, I’m tired.”

“You could lay down.”

“I think I’m going to have to.”

And that was how he ended up giving her a pillow and taking one for himself. “Come here.”

As he settled on his back and put his arm out, she didn’t hesitate. She brought herself right against him, her head resting on his pec.

“Let’s try and get some sleep.” He could hear the mumbling in his voice and didn’t try to hide it. Why bother. “Tomorrow’s a new day.”

Without any preamble, his lids slammed down over his eyes, and his consciousness got sucked away from his will to stay alert. God, even if the house had been on fire, he couldn’t have fought the sleep.

Daniel was all but dead as he lay beside …

… the one and only human being he had ever told that story to.

TOWARD THE END of the night, Xhex went alone to Deer Mountain.

Leaving her motorcycle at one of the trailheads, she double-checked that her weapons were in place and then stepped onto what appeared to be a main trail. The beaten pathway was wide enough to accommodate a car, and relatively smooth, the occasional gnarled root the only hazard there was.

God, she hoped Blade wasn’t setting her up. But he’d told her he had a contact who knew about the labs—and would be waiting for her on the main trail.

As she walked along, she kept her hands on the guns that were holstered at her hips. Breathing deeply, she smelled fresh pine and clean dirt, and although she’d never really given a shit about the mother-nature, tree-hugger side of things, she had to admit …

It wasn’t half bad.

But she was far from relaxed. Even sympaths knew better than to trust sympaths.

She’d gone about a quarter mile, maybe more, when her phone vibrated inside her leather jacket. Taking it out, she smiled a little.

“I’m fine,” she said as she answered the call. “Really.”

Over the speakerphone, on the other end, Blay’s voice was warm. “Well, your boy here worries.”

“I know you do, John. But you’re out in the field tonight, and besides, you know what Blade said.”

There was a pause, and then Blay muttered, “He’s not real impressed with your brother.”

“I don’t blame you.” Her eyes scanned left to right as she spoke. “But this person meets me alone or not at all.”

Another silence. Then Blay asked, “He wants to know if you’re being careful.”

“I’m taking no chances. And the GPS locater around my neck is on—”

She stopped. Turned around. Sniffed the air that was traveling toward her, moving right across her face.

“Really. You two really want to play this game.”

There was a pause. And then both males dematerialized directly before her. She put her hands on her hips.

“Did you think I wasn’t going to notice you? Given that I’m downwind of your location?”

John Matthew smiled in a sheepish way and signed, I thought we were playing this cool.

“Me, too,” Blay murmured.

The pair of them had hopeful expressions on their faces, as if they were trying to appeal to her better nature—which was a joke because she didn’t really have one.

Well, except when it came to … well, the two fighters who stood in front of her.

“So you’re off rotation tonight?” she demanded.

With a nod, John Matthew said, And it was the original schedule. We didn’t weasel out of anything.

“Fuckers,” she bitched as she took two steps forward and rose up to kiss her mate.

Then she punched Blay in the shoulder. “Okay, you come if you’re going to, but you split off from me right now. My brother told me I had to do this alone and I’m not fucking this up because you two have protection issues. Are we clear? You stay back and out of sight, and make sure you don’t give yourselves away—which you did on purpose, didn’t you. Because you hate lying.”

This she directed to her mate, and he nodded like a dog who was asked if he wanted to go walkies.

He was kind of cute, really—as long as you ignored the width of his shoulders and all the weapons on his body. Then he looked like what he was, a trained killer who knew all kinds of tricks with all sorts of metal things that went click, click, bang, bang. At his side, Blay was the same. With his red hair cut in a high-and-tight, and his head-to-toe black leather, he was another page out of the don’t-fuck-with-us play-book.

She shook her head. “You’re going to scare the shit out of whoever this is.”

Unless they’re an enemy, John pointed out. In which case, we’re where we need to be and we’ll do what we have to.

“I’m not going to argue,” she said. “But we part ways now, and unless things go south, I can’t see you until I’m back at my bike.”

There was no reason to bring up the reality that they may have already compromised her. And at least the contact she was here to meet didn’t know where she’d entered the mountain’s preserve. There were a lot of ways into the massive acreage.

Maybe they were still okay.

Please be safe, John Matthew signed.

“Always.”

When she leaned in again for his mouth, he dropped his head down. As their lips met, she kept it brief.

And then after Blay gave her a formal bow, as was his way, the pair of them ghosted off, leaving nothing but thin air in their wakes.

Xhex turned and started walking again.

There was a timeless quality to the night, minutes passing like hours, with the inverse also being true, an hour going by at the blink of an eye. And yes, she would have dematerialized as well, but she wasn’t sure who she was going to see. Or exactly where on the trail they were going to meet.