“Dearest Virgin Scribe.”

Syn jumped and raised his eyes. The figure standing over him was one that his mind told him he should recognize. Yes, he should know who this is.

The pretrans male knelt down before him. “Please . . . give me the dagger.”

“What?”

“The dagger, Syn.”

“I dinnae have a dagger—”

“In your palm.”

It was as Syn lifted his hand to prove to this familiar stranger that he had naught within his grip that his sight informed him he was the one in the wrong. There was a dagger against his palm. How had he not noticed? And abruptly the identity of the pretrans came unto him. It was his cousin, Balthazar. He recognized the male’s face the now.

“The dagger, cousin. Give it to me.”

Syn looked to the left and saw the first body part by the broken handle of the rake. The second was impaled on the rake’s tongs. The next was . . . over by the fence.

There were many more, and the largest, the torso, had been field dressed.

His father had been torn apart by someone. Who else had been . . . here?

“Syn, give me the blade. Now.”

His hand was unresisting as the weapon was removed from it. And then Syn looked into his cousin’s eyes as reality began to dawn, an ugly, unbelievable sunrise. “I think I did this, cousin.”

“Yes,” Balthazar said grimly. “You did.”

Syn stared at a severed hand that lay upon ground as a fallen soldier. “He was going to hurt her.”

“Hurt who?”

“It matters not.”

With focused effort, Syn managed to rise his tired bones from the pool of blood. As he weaved on his feet, he lurched toward the river, seeking out the cool, rushing waters. Wading into the current, he squatted down and cupped his hands, splashing his face over and over again. Then he drank of the stream, dousing the fire that ran down his throat and into his gut.

When he tried to stand up once more, he faltered and fell, catching himself upon slick rocks. Lifting his head, he found that his skull weighed as much as his entire body, and fast upon the heels of that reckoning came a wave of dizziness. Followed by a burst of heat that bore no relation to exertion.

“Balth . . . azar?”

His cousin hitched a hold under Syn’s arm and pulled him up and out of the water. “Oh, no, Syn . . .”

“What?”

Balthazar looked around frantically. “The change. You’re going through the change—”

“No, I’m not—”

“There is steam coming off your skin, you are boiling up.”

Syn looked in confusion at his arm, at his feet, at his ankles. Steam was in fact rising from his body, and he did feel a strange, certain heat. But . . .

All at once a vast incapacitation tackled him, sweeping his legs out from under him, taking him from the hold of his blooded kin. As he landed in a heap, the fire in his body trebled, and trebled again, and then his limbs began to hum.

“Dearest Virgin Scribe,” Balthazar groaned. “We need to get you shelter, and a blood source.”

“Nae,” Syn said through gritted teeth. “Leave me. It is well enough for me to go unto the Fade—”

As the bones in his legs strained, and his forearms felt like ropes being twisted, he lost the power of speech and laid his head down. Breathing shallowly, he recalled what he knew of the transition: Without the blood of a female, he was going to die, and he wondered how long it would take—

“I shall help him.”

At the sound of the words, Syn forced his eyes open. When he saw who it was, he shook his head. “No, no . . .”

It was the female, from the meadow. The one who had always been so good to him.

“Balthazar,” he said urgently. “Take her away, she mustnae see—”

The female walked forward. “I know what he did to protect me and my kin.” She kept her eyes down, as if she were deliberately not witnessing the damage he had wrought. “I know . . . and I would help him the now.”

Syn shook his head weakly. “No. No, I am unworthy . . .”

Unworthy?” Jo asked as she pulled into a parking space in front of her apartment building. “Unworthy of what?”

As she spoke, Syn did not seem to hear her. He was sitting stock-still in that passenger seat, hands on his knees, eyes staring straight out the front windshield like he was watching a TV. He seemed totally calm. Or . . . maybe he was dead? He wasn’t blinking.

“Syn?”

Well, one thing was certain. She was not about to touch him as she shut the car off—

Slowly, his head turned to her, and his expression was vacant, as if he were in a trance. But then he cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Even though she didn’t know what exactly he was apologizing for or what precisely she was forgiving him of.

He nodded. Then contradicted himself. “No, it isn’t. None of it was.”

Jo glanced around him to the front of her apartment building. “Do you want to come in?”

Was it going to be yes, with a head shake? Or another no/nod combo? she wondered.

“Or should I take you home?” Wherever that was. “I can take you home.”

“I don’t want to go back there right now.”

Was he talking about where he was in his head? Or where he stayed?

Whatever the reply to that question might be, Jo didn’t want him to go. She wanted some answers. About what he thought he knew about her. About who he was and where he came from. About why the connection between them seemed so undeniable.

She eyed the thick thighs straining those leathers.

Okay, fine. She had a clue about that last one—

“Yes,” he said as he opened the door.

Wait, had she asked him anything? He must be talking about the invite into her place.

Jo got out as well and met him on the other side of her car. As they walked up the cement path together, she wondered how her digs compared to where he was living. Probably not well, given that he was bunking with his boss—or whatever a bodyguard called his employer. Meanwhile, the modest little apartment she’d moved into was housed in a building that was just four stories high and split in two, with units stacked on either side. The outside was cheap brick veneer, the inside common areas utilitarian, but clean. Her neighbors were grad students, medical residents, and a couple who were pregnant and moving out soon.

“I’m over here,” she said as they went through the second set of entry doors.

Her one-bedroom was right there on the left, and when he walked into it, he stopped dead as if he’d run out of gas on the highway. She turned on some lights.

“I don’t have much furniture.” She thought of her parents’ fancy mansion. “I don’t have much period, but everything in here is mine.”

She closed the door. And took her coat off because she had to do something.

“Can I offer you a drink?” she asked. “I have . . . well, four bottles of Sam Adams, and a bottle of cheap red wine that my coworker made me take home with me after I . . .”

“I don’t drink,” he mumbled.

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Well, she certainly was going to after the last couple of days. “But if you don’t mind, I’ll just help myself to a beer.”

Syn turned to her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m glad you are. No offense, but you don’t look well.”

Glancing down at himself, he lifted his arms as if he expected something unsavory to be dripping off of them. “I really do want to take a shower.”

Jo’s heartbeat quickened as she pointed to an open doorway. “It’s right in there. Fresh towels are hanging on the rods because I did laundry when I couldn’t sleep early this morning.”

“You should have called me if you couldn’t sleep.”

“I didn’t want to bother you.”

“You didn’t write down my number, did you.”

Leaving that one alone, Jo motioned at the bathroom. “Hot water is through there. Then we can talk.”

There was a pause. And then Syn nodded and went where she told him to go. As he passed by, his sheer size was unbelievable. Out in more wide open spaces—like the back alleys of Caldwell’s downtown or the parking lot at the CCJ—his height and weight didn’t seem as big a deal. But in here? In her little seven-hundred-square-foot crash pad? It was like someone had driven an eighteen-wheeler indoors.

As he closed the bathroom door behind himself, she wondered if he showered with his weapons on—and then promptly got a mental picture of a whole naked accessorized by Smith & Wesson.

And jeez, that really shouldn’t be as hot as she imagined it to be.

When the water started to run, she rubbed her aching head and thought about the empty pit of her stomach to avoid any more hypotheticals involving Syn’s birthday suit: She was still hungry. Then again, she’d eaten less than half of her meal at the bar, and she knew she had to do something to make up those ten pounds—fourteen, actually—she’d recently lost.

Pizza was always good, right?

Determined to be a proper hostess—thank you, Mrs. Early—Jo went over and knocked on the bathroom door. “Hey. I know it might be overkill, but I’m going to order some Italian food. Would you like any?”

The last thing she expected was for him to open things up.

And yeah, wow, Syn had apparently turned the water temperature up to Scorched Earth, and given that the hot water heater was right next to the shower stall in the closet, it took no time for things to get toasty. Accordingly, a great swirl of humid air wafted around behind him, setting him off like he was a mystery centuries old—but that wasn’t the half of it. He’d taken off his jacket—and also whatever arsenal he wore under it—and then removed the skintight Under Armor shirt he seemed always to wear.

So his pecs were on full display. His abs, too.

As well as the pair of wing-shaped hip bones that flew above the waistband of his leathers.