“Tell me,” she prompted. “No.”

“I will love you anyway.”

Xcor stiffened, and then slowly turned to her. His face was marked by harsh shadows—that were nothing compared to the ones in his eyes. “You know not what you say.”

“I love you.” She put her hand on his arm and held his stare steadily, challenging him to deny what she felt. “Do you hear me? I love you.”

He shook his head and looked away. “You do not know me.”

“So help me to do that.”

“And run the risk of you throwing me out? You say you want to spend the time we have together. I will guarantee that won’t happen if you know me any better than you do the now.”

“I would never throw you out.”

“My mahmen already did. Why would you be any different?” He shook his head again. “Mayhap she knew what course I would take. Mayhap … it wasn’t because of the lip.”

Layla was well aware that she had to tread carefully. “Your mother eschewed you?”

“I was placed with a nursemaid … someone … until she left me, too.”

“What of your father?” she asked tightly. Even though she knew some of that.

“I thought he was the Bloodletter. That male told me he was my sire, but later I learned that was not the case.”

“Have you never … attempted to discover who your father is?” Xcor flexed his hands then curled them tight. “I have come to believe that biology is less indicative of family than choice. My males, my soldiers, they chose me. They chose to follow me. They are my family. Two individuals who brought about my conception and birth and then deserted me when I was incapable of surviving on my own? I need not learn of their identities nor their whereabouts.”

Pure fear sliced through Layla’s heart as she imagined him first as a young newly born, and then as a little boy incapable of defending himself, and finally a pretrans going through the change unattended.

“However did you survive?” she breathed. “I did what I had to. And I fought. I have always been good at fighting. That is the only legacy my parents gave me that has been of value.”

“How did your transition … how did you make it through the change?” This was an honest question, as it had not been included in his scribed volume.

“I gave the whore who serviced me the cottage I stayed in. I had to pay her or she would not have allowed me to take her vein. It seemed like a fair trade, my life for my shelter. I figured I could find another place to live, and I did.”

Layla sat up and pulled the sheets to her chin. “I couldn’t do that to a young. I just couldn’t.”

“And that is why you are a female of worth.” He shrugged. “Besides, I was a failed conception. I’m quite sure that both of them would have rather I had died in the womb or the birthing canal—probably even if it killed my mahmen. Better to have a young passed on than to bring the likes of me into existence.”

“That is wrong.”

“That is life, and well you know it.”

“And then you went into the war camp.”

Xcor glanced over at her, his expression hard. “You are determined to get this out of me, aren’t you.”

“You do not have to hide with me.”

“Do you want to know how I lost my virginity, then?” he snapped. “Do you?”

She closed her eyes briefly. “Yes.”

“Oh, wait. Perhaps I should be more specific. Would you like to know when I fucked a female for the first time—or is it when I had sex for the first time? Because they are not one in the same. The former cost me ten times the going rate with a prostitute in the Old Country, and the first thing she did afterward was run for the river and bathe me off of her. I actually wondered whether she was going to drown herself, she hit that water so hard.”

Layla blinked back tears. “And … the other.”

His face grew dark with rage. “I was fucked by a solider. In front of the war camp. Because I lost to him in a fight. I bled for hours afterward.”

Closing her eyes, she found herself mouthing a prayer. “Still want me now?” he drawled. “Yes.” She opened her lids and looked at him. “You are not unclean to me. And you are not any less of a male.”

The smile on his face scared her, for it was so cold and distant. “I did it to others, by the way. When I beat them.”

The sorrow she felt was so deep and abiding, it was beyond tears. And she knew exactly what he was doing. He was pushing her away again, challenging her to leave so she wouldn’t tell him to go. He had done it before, and what else could you expect from a male who had been shunned his entire life.

“Still want this? Still think you love this?” When she didn’t respond, he indicated his face and then his body as if they belonged to someone else. “Well, female, what do you say?”

FORTY-NINE

Vishous left the Brotherhood mansion alone and told nobody where he was going. It wasn’t that he was hiding anything, it was just that Butch was out in the field with Rhage, John Matthew and Tohr, Wrath was at the Audience House with Phury and Z, and yada, yada, yada.

Oh, and Jane was down in the clinic.

Which was fine.

So yeah, he had no one to tell and nobody whose radar was trained on his whereabouts. S’all good.

The snowstorm of the night before had left a cleanup problem in its wake, and as V dematerialized to the outer rim of Caldwell’s urban downtown, he saw all kinds of what he expected: some removal progress, but really, still a shitload of white stuff covering all manner of parked cars and apartment buildings, the main roads down to two lanes, the alleyways impassible, the sidewalks uncleared.

The address he re-formed in front of was a three-story Victorian that had been cut up into a trio of flats. Lights were on in each of the levels, and the humans inside were chilling, winding down from work.

Or … in the case of the apartment he was interested in, getting stoned.

Shifting his position up to the roof of the building across the street, he lit a hand-rolled and watched. And waited. The particular human he was waiting for was not yet home, and he knew this because he’d done some research on good ol’ Damn Stoker.

Turned out “he” was a woman. A Ms. Jo Early, who happened to work at the Caldwell Courier Journal.

The fact that she was female had kind of impressed him, actually. He’d assumed the clarity of voice and non-emotional presentation of facts in that blog meant a male set of fingers were doing the walking, but come on. As if his shellan wasn’t the same?

Jane was as tough as they came, and more clear thinking than he was.

Like, for example, he was quite sure Jane wasn’t in a funk over the status of their mating. No, she was working at her job saving lives. He was the one doing the Dr. Phil bullshit—

Okaaaaaaaaaay, let’s try and not make everything about ourselves, shall we, he thought.

As he smoked and tried to get his brain off his relationship, his gray matter did indeed take him in another direction. Too bad it wasn’t much of an improvement. Assuming he wanted a little peace.

As he had been sitting at his desk during the day and checking YouTube videos and Facebook pages and Insta accounts for vampire sightings by humans, he had been tempted by an old email addy of his, one that he’d abandoned as soon as Doc Jane had come into his life.

Well, actually, he’d stopped using it pretty much after he’d met Butch.

The handle, which was a pseudonym, and its associated Gmail account, was one he had registered on websites where subs went begging for Doms, both inside the species and out.

There had always been volunteers for him, back in the day. Females and males, men and women, all of whom were looking for a certain kind of experience—and V had had a routine that he followed with them. First, he’d meet them out at clubs or through references and screen them, picking and choosing the most attractive ones—or the ones who he thought would put on a good show. Then he’d take them to his pent-house at the top of the Commodore and play around with them until he got bored. Whenever he was done, he’d kick them out.

A few he saw more than once. The vast majority had been one and dones.