At least one half of them could be improved.

“So what’s up?” Trez scanned the dark, moody club, his monitoring both second nature and a matter of training: Shadows tended to be watchers, but after working with Rehv and now being the head of this den of iniquity, the shit was his primary interface.

Big Rob cracked his knuckles. “Alex broke up an argument about an hour ago between two non-regulars. Both men were kicked out, but the aggressor came back and is circling the sidewalk outside.”

The blonde emerged from the bathroom, clothes where they needed to be, makeup retouched, hair pulled back instead of all over everywhere—but more to the point, her chin was level, her eyes calm and focused—and that secret smile on her lips took her essentially average looks into enticing territory.

As she walked into the crowd, Big Rob’s eyes followed her and so did a lot of men’s. But she didn’t seem to care, her confidence all she needed as an escort.

Trez rubbed the center of his chest and wished he could whammy his own self and turn things on a dime like that. Then again, all the self-improvement in the world wasn’t going to change the fact that the s’Hisbe wanted him back as a breeding stud for the rest of his natural life.

“Boss?”

“Sorry, what?”

“You want us to disappear the guy?”

Trez rubbed his face. “I’ll go deal with him. What’s he look like?”

“White boy, black clothes, Keith Richards hair.”

“That narrows it down,” Trez muttered.

“You’ll see him out front. He’s not in line.”

Trez nodded and cut around the thick of the crowd, heading for the door. On his way, he looked over all the people, unconsciously searching for signs of conflict that could escalate from posturing bullshit to bowling-alley knockdown.

Even Goths could be frat boys if you pumped enough alchie into them.

Halfway to the exit, he caught a flash of something metallic off to the right, but as he stopped and reached out with senses other than his eyes, he couldn’t find anything. Resuming his stride, he pushed his way out of his club, nodded to Ivan and the new guy, who were manning the entrance, and took a wander down the wait line, which was full of the usual suspects.

Although not the Kevin Spacey kind, of course. And more’s the pity—he loved the guy in that movie.

No one out on the sidewalk fit B.R.’s description.

Guess whoever it was went for a wander.

As Trez pivoted to head back for the door, he got hit in the face with the beams of a trolling car, and the sting made him pull a vampire and shy away from the light. Blinking to clear his vision, he somehow made it to the front of the line and—

“What the f**k—he doesn’t belong here! Why’re you letting him in!”

As Trez realized he was the subject up for discussion, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. The mouthpiece with the attitude was about five-ten, one hundred and fifteen pounds—and not a girl. Clearly, motherfucker suffered from terrier syndrome, his beady little eyes all fired up as he glared at Trez, his Stampy McStampy drill making him breathe heavy.

Probably played a lot of World of Warcraft or whatever it was—and that made him forget that if you were going to be a bigoted big-mouth, you’d better be able to back shit up.

Trez leaned down to the guy and gave him a moment to soak up the size difference—and what do you know, bitch’s mouth closed and stayed that way.

“I own this place,” Trez said in a low voice. “So the question is, why the f**k should I let you in.” He glanced at Ivan. “He’s not welcome here. Ever.”

There was some conversating at that point, but he was done. As a Shadow, he was used to being stared at—regular vampires didn’t know what to do with his kind, and frankly, he didn’t really care for them, either. In fact, he’d been brought up to believe that the two shouldn’t mix—at least until Rehvenge had stepped up to the plate and helped him and his brother in their exile. At first he’d been distrustful of the guy—until he’d recognized that Rehv was as they were: a foreigner in a closed club of folks he didn’t respect.

Oh, and as for the human world? Everyone assumed he was black and attached their own racial associations, good and bad, to that—but there was the irony. He was neither “African” nor “American,” so none of that shit applied to him in spite of the fact that his skin happened to be dark.

That was humans for you, though—self-absorbed to the point where they just had to see themselves in all situations. Meanwhile, there were whole other species walking among them, and they were none the wiser.

Although … that being said … if some misguided dumb-ass tried to pull the racial shit with him at his own front door? Then the idiot could f**k off.

Back inside the club, the strobe lights and the noise hit him like a brick wall and he had to force himself to break through the resistance. The flashes were just way too bright and the sound was worse, ricocheting around the inside of his skull until whatever was playing became an unintelligible mess.

What the hell was his staff thinking? Who’d made the call to crank it up so high—

Oh … shit.

Rubbing his eyes, he blinked a couple of times and … yup, there it was, in the right quadrant: a lineup of jagged lines that shimmered like sunlight through blown glass.

“Fuck me…”

Courtesy of the sex sesh in the bathroom, the blonde had gotten herself a new hardwiring job—and he was about to enjoy eight to ten hours of barfing, diarrhea, and searing head pain.

As all migraine sufferers did, he glanced at his watch. He had about twenty minutes before the fun and games started, and he couldn’t afford to waste them.

Walking faster, he pushed his way through the bodies, nodding to the working girls and his security team like everything was fine. Then he went into the staff-only back of the house, hit his office for his leather jacket and his keys, and exited stage left into the parking lot. His BMW was waiting for him, and as he got in, yanked the seat belt across his chest and hit the gas, he wished like hell he still lived at the Commodore—because then he could have had one of his bouncers do the driving.

Now that he’d taken up res at the Brotherhood mansion? Disinterested, third-party chauffeurs were a no-go.

Of course, he could call his brother. But iAm would offer his silent-treatment commentary the whole way home, and there was no need to subject himself to that loud noise: iAm was the only person he’d ever met who could make quiet harder on the ears than a jet plane taking flight.

As his phone went off, he thought, shit, he’d better call in and let everyone at work know he was down for the count.

Taking the cell out, he looked at the— “Great.”

But it wasn’t like he could send iAm to voice mail. Swiping his thumb across the screen, he put the thing up to his ear even though New York was a hands-free state.

His brother didn’t even give him a chance to “hello” shit. “You’re having a migraine.”

“You’re not supposed to be psychic.”

“I’m not. I just pulled in as you tore out. I’m right behind you—and there’s only one reason you drive off like that at one a.m.”

Trez glanced in the rearview, and was quite proud of himself—if he cocked his head in a certain way, he could actually see the pair of headlights.

“Pull over.”

“I’m—”

“Pull the f**k over. I’ll come back for the car once I get you home.”

Trez continued driving, heading for the Northway, thinking, nah, he could do this.

Good plan. At least until a car approached in the opposite lane—as it got closer, he was blinded completely and had no choice but to ease off on the gas. Blinking in the aftermath, he had every intention of nailing the accelerator and continuing on, except reality set in: He was running out of time, and not just in terms of the migraine.

The s’Hisbe were only going to up their warfare to get him back to the territories, and God only knew what their next move was going to be. So what this situation did not need was iAm watching his brother die right in front of him.

Trez had already done so much damage to the guy.

A Beamer fireball was not a good chaser to his track record.

Giving up, he pulled to the side, hit the brakes, and put his forehead down on his steering wheel. Even though he shut his eyes, the aura continued along its way, spreading out and moving gradually off to the upper edge. When it disappeared? Party time—and not in a fun way.

As he waited for iAm to stop next to him, he thought that it was ironic how doing the right thing sometimes felt like a total defeat.

FOUR

“Okay, what have we got here …?”

The question was more, what haven’t they got, Beth thought as she leaned over a freezer unit dedicated solely to ice cream.

Turned out pregnant women liked the sweet cold stuff. Okay, the pregnant Chosen, Layla, liked it—and Beth had delivered the same kind on schedule, every night for the last … how long had it been since the female’s needing?

God, time flew.

And as she counted the days, she was well aware she wasn’t thinking about Layla’s progression. What she was really adding up was how many hours she’d logged in that room, sitting close by … hoping that for once an old wives’ tale would come true.

She didn’t just go up there to be a kind housemate or supportive friend.

Nope. Although why the hell she thought she and Wrath needed a baby in the middle of all this drama was a mystery. Mother Nature, however, had forced her around some kind of corner and there was no going back, no making sense of it, no reasoning with the urge.

Not that she’d necessarily talked to Wrath about it lately. As if he didn’t already have enough on his plate. But come on, if she were able to kick-start her needing …

She just wanted to hold a piece of herself and of Wrath—and the more dangerous things became with the Band of Bastards, the more desperate that need became.

In some ways, it was the saddest commentary on where they were at.

At least something of him would survive if the Band of Bastards succeeded in killing—

The wave of pain at the thought was so great, she sagged against the freezer and it was a while before she could refocus on the mother lode of Breyers, Ben & Jerry’s, Häagen-Dazs and Klondikes.

So much safer to stress over which flavor she’d have tonight. Layla was always vanilla—it was the only kind she could keep down. But Beth was wide open on that one, and thanks to Rhage’s infamous appetite, there were, like, a gabillion choices.

As she searched for inspiration, the dilemma was a slice right out of her childhood, a modern-day echo of the days when she would palm up one of her hard-earned dollars, walk a half mile to Mac’s Grocery, and take twenty minutes to get the same Hershey’s Dixie cup of chocolate that she always did. Funny, she could still remember how the place had smelled like those cake cones Mac had handmade. And that cash register, the old-fashioned one that had had a hand crank.

When she’d check out, Mac would always give her a red plastic spoon, a napkin and a smile—along with her twenty-six cents in change.

He’d been extra nice to the orphans who’d lived down at Our Lady. Then again, there were a lot of people who had been kind to her and the other kids who had been either unwanted or unlucky.

“Mint chocolate chip,” she said, reaching in and long-arming a stretch to the back.

As the cold air wafted up, she stopped to soak in the deep freeze. “Oh, yeah…”

Even though it was frickin’ December, she found herself craving the chill, her skin goose-bumping, the pores on her face tightening, the inside of her nose humming from all the dryness.

Guess all that sex was still revving her up.

Closing her eyes, she went back to Wrath taking her down onto the floor and ripping her clothes off. So good. So what they needed.

Although she hated the way she felt now.

He was so damned far away, even though his body was just upstairs in that study.

Maybe that was another reason she wanted a child.

Refocus, refocus. “Vanilla, vanilla … where are you?”

When it turned out the vanilla was MIA, she had to settle for a trio’d half gallon that was polluted with strawberry and chocolate. No biggie. With proper surgical extraction, she’d be able to get the job done without getting any offending contamination in Layla’s bowl.

Leaving the pantry and entering the kitchen proper, the sweet, earthy smell of sautéing onions and mushrooms mixed with basil and oregano was heaven in her nose. But the ambrosia wasn’t for Last Meal and it wasn’t a doggen at the sauce pot.

Nope. It was iAm—again. Which considering he appeared to cook when stressed suggested someone else’s life was in the crapper.

The Shadow and his brother were the most recent additions to the Brotherhood house, and as the owner and head chef of the ultra-old-school Salvatore’s Restaurant, iAm had more than proved his chops with linguine—although that was not to say Fritz approved of the guy getting out all those multi-gallon pots: As usual, the butler was hovering in the periphery, apoplectic that one of the household guests was doing any cooking.

“That smells delicious,” she said as she put the containers on the deck-size granite island.

She didn’t have a chance to get the bowls or spoons. Fritz sprang into action, pulling open cupboards and drawers—and she didn’t have the heart to tell him not to wait on her.

“So what is it this time?” she asked the Shadow.

“Bolognese.” iAm cracked open another spice bottle, and seemed to know the exact amount to put in without benefit of a measuring spoon.