"Well, never mind. That's not so romantic. That's more like g*y Bible Belt stuff." He giggled. "Gay! Hee hees."

"You're funny and cute. That's why I love you," Damien said, kissing Jack smack on the mouth and causing Duchess to bark happily.

"Okay, barf," Aphrodite said.

"Oh, and I have one more question," Jack said, frowning at Aphrodite.

As he started to put his hand up, I said, "Yes, Jack. What is it?"

"Where do we potty?"

"Potty? Did he really just say potty?" Aphrodite giggled until she snorted. We ignored her.

"That's easy," Stevie Rae said around a giant yawn. "Venus, would you show them?"

"You have a bathroom?" What? There was working plumbing in the tunnels?

Venus sneered a guess-you-don't-know-everything look at me. "Bathrooms, actually. With showers."

"Hot water showers?" Jack said enthusiastically.

"Of course. We're not barbarians," Venus said.

"How?" I said.

"They're in the depot building above us," Stevie Rae said. "We've done a lot of exploring in the building. It's totally boarded up, so no one can get in, except from the basement entrance, so we control who comes and goes."

"And we don't let just anyone in," Venus added, looking a little dangerous.

Okay, honestly, I was liking her less and less with every second. And this time it had nothing to do with her drooling over Erik.

"Exclusssssive. My kind of place," Aphrodite said, then she burped.

"Anyway"--Stevie Rae rolled her eyes at Aphrodite--"we were checking out the depot and we found two locker rooms--a guy's and a girl's. We figured they were for the depot employees. There's even a gym up there, too. Dallas did the rest." She plopped tiredly back on her pillows, giving Dallas a go-ahead-and-tell-the-rest-of it gesture.

Dallas shrugged nonchalantly, but his grin said he knew he'd done something cool. "I just found the water main connection to the depot and opened it up. The pipes were all still good."

"That's not all you did," Stevie Rae said.

He grinned at her and again I caught a thing between them. Hm&helliv- fp;I was definitely going to get the scoop from Stevie Rae later.

"Well, I also figured out how to turn on the electricity. That started the water heaters again, and then Aphrodite's credit card got us the extra-long extension cords and such that I spliced into the old tunnel lighting system. A little work here and there, and we have hot water up there and electricity down here."

"Wow," Jack said. "That's really cool."

"Impressive," Damien agreed.

Dallas just kept grinning.

"So do you want to use the facilities or not?" Venus said. I thought she sounded grumpy, or maybe "bitchy" was a better descriptive word. "Yeah!" Jack said happily. "I could definitely use a hot shower before we go on duty."

"Uh, what's the status on your hair-care products down here?" Shaunee asked.

"Oh, girl. I took care of that first thing after I got my sense back. Do not worry. I got you covered," Kramisha said, standing up and brushing crumbs from her butt-hugging jeans.

"Excellent," Erin said. "Let's go."

I hung back as everyone started to file out of Stevie Rae's room.

"Hey, Z, you wanna be my roomie again?" Stevie Rae looked exhausted, but she was smiling her old smile at me.

"Absolutely," I said. Our gazes slid over to Aphrodite, who was still perched on the end of her bed, half-leaning against Darius.

"Aphrodite, go get yourself a sleepin' bag. You can crash in here, too," Stevie Rae said.

"Okay, look. No damn way am I sleeping with you," she said, trying hard not to slur her words. "Our Imprint is not that kind of Imprint. And even if I was g*y, which I'm not, you are not my type."

"Aphrodite, I was not makin' a move on you. That's just stupid," Stevie Rae said.

"I'm just letting you know. I'm also letting you know that I'm breaking this damn Imprint the first second I can figure out how."

Stevie Rae sighed. "Don't do somethin' that's gonna hurt either one of us. I've had enough with stuff hurtin' for a while."

I'd been listening to the exchange between them with frank interest. I mean, I'd been Imprinted with my human boyfriend, Heath, so I knew something about being linked to a human through the magic of blood. I also knew something about breaking an Imprint--and it could be very painful.