"He does so look like his grandfather." Joyce O'Neal Rafferty leaned over the crib and tucked the blanket around her three-month-old son. This debate had been on going since his birth, and she was tired of it. Her son clearly took after her father.

"No, he looks like you."

As Joyce felt her husband's arms wrap around her middle, she fought the need to pull away. He didn't seem to mind the baby weight, but it made her anxious as hell.

Hoping to get him focused elsewhere, she said, "So on Sunday you have a choice. You can either handle Sean by yourself or you can pick up Mother. What do you want to do?"

He dropped his hold on her. "Why can't your father get her from the nursing home?"

"You know Dad. He doesn't deal with her all that well, especially in the car. She'll get agitated, he'll get frustrated with her, and we'll have a mess at the baptism when they get there."

Mike's chest rose and fell. "I think you better deal with your mother. Sean and I will be fine. Maybe one of your sisters can come with us?"

"Yeah. Colleen, maybe."

They were silent a while, just watching Sean breathe.

Then Mike said, "Are you going to invite him?"

She wanted to curse. In the O'Neal family, there was only one "him." Brian. Butch. The "him." Of the six children Eddie and Odell O'Neal had had, two of them had been lost. Janie had been murdered, and Butch had basically disappeared after high school. The latter had been a blessing, the first a curse.

"He won't come,!"

"You should invite him anyway."

"If he shows up, Mother will become unglued."

Odell's rapidly escalating dementia meant she sometimes thought Butch was dead and that was why he wasn't around. Her other option for dealing with the loss was making up crazy stories about him. Like how he was running for mayor down in New York. Or how he was going to medical school. Or how he was his father's son and that was why Eddie couldn't stand him. All of which were nuts. The first two for obvious reasons and the third because while it was true Eddie had never liked Butch, Eddie had never particularly liked any of his children.

"You should invite him anyway, Joyce. This is his family."

"Not really."

Last time she'd talked to her brother had been¡­ God, at her wedding five years ago? And no one else had seen or heard much from him since then, either. Word in the family had it that her father had gotten a message from Butch back in¡­ August? Yeah, end of summer. He'd given a number he could be reached at, but that was about it.

Sean let out a little whiffle through his nose.

"Joyce?"

"Oh, come on, he won't show if I ask him."

"So you get the credit for putting the offer out and won't have to deal with him. Or maybe he'll surprise you."

"Mike, I'm not calling him. Who needs more drama in this family?" Like her mother being crazy and having Alzheimer's wasn't enough of a problem?

She made a show of checking her watch. "Hey, is CSI on?"

With determination, she pulled her husband out of the nursery, distracting him from things that were none of his business.

Marissa wasn't sure what time it was when she woke up, but she knew she'd been asleep for a long while. As her eyes opened, she smiled. Butch was out cold and crowding her at her back, his thick thigh between her legs, his hand cupping her breast, his head in her neck.

As she rolled over slowly and faced him, her eyes drifted down his body. The sheet he'd pulled up earlier had slid off him, and underneath the thin hospital gown, something thick rested at his hips. Good Lord¡­ an erection. He was aroused.

"What you looking at, baby?" Butch's low voice was mostly gravel.

She jumped and glanced up. "I didn't know you were awake."

"I never went to sleep. Been watching you for hours." He pulled the sheet back into place and smiled. "How you doing?"

"Good."

"You want we call for some break¡ª"

"Butch." Exactly how was she going to put this? "Males do what you made me do, right? I mean, last night when you were touching me."

He flushed and tugged at the sheet. "Yeah, we do. But you don't need to worry about that."

"Why?"

"Just don't have to."

"Would you let me look at you?" She nodded at his hips. "Down there?"

He coughed a little. "You want that?"

"Yes. God, yes¡­ I want to touch you there."

With a soft curse, he muttered, "What happens might shock you."

"I was shocked when your hand was between my legs. Is it shocking like that? In that good kind of way?"

"Yeah." His hips shifted, as if they'd rotated on the base of his spine. "Jesus¡­ Marissa."

"I want you naked." She sat up on her knees and reached for his johnny. "And I want to strip you."

He took her hands in a hard grip. "I, ah¡­ Marissa, do you have any idea what happens when a man comes? Because sure as shit, that's going to happen if you start handling me. And it's not going to take long."

"I want to find out. With you."

He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. "Dear Lord in heaven."

Lifting his upper body off the bed, he leaned forward so she could slip the two halves of the gown down his arms. Then he let himself fall back on the mattress and his body was revealed: the thick neck plugged into those broad shoulders¡­ the heavy pads of his pectorals that were dusted with hair¡­ the ribbed expanse of his belly¡­ and¡­

She pulled back the sheet. Good God, his sex was¡­ "It's gotten so¡­ huge."

Butch barked out a laugh. "You say the nicest things."

"I saw it when it was¡­ I didn't know it got¡­"

She just couldn't take her eyes off his erection as it lay against his belly. His hard sex was the color of his lips and shockingly beautiful, the head blunt with a graceful ridge, the shaft perfectly round and very thick at the base. And the twin weights below were heavy, shameless, virile.

Maybe humans were larger than her kind?

"How do you like to be touched?"

"If it's you, any way."

"No, show me."

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and his chest expanded. When he lifted his lids, his mouth parted and he slowly eased his hand down his pecs and his belly. Moving one of his legs out to the side, he captured himself in his palm, fisting that dark pink flesh of his, his man hand broad enough to hold the thing. With a slow, smooth movement, he stroked his arousal, base to tip, riding the shaft.

"Or something like this," he said hoarsely, keeping it up. "Good God, look at you¡­ I could come right now."

"No." She pushed his arm out of the way and the erection bounced stiffly on his stomach. "I want to make you do that."

As she took hold of him, he groaned, his whole body undulating.

He was hot. He was hard. He was soft. He was so thick she couldn't close her palm all the way around him.

Hesitant at first, she followed his example, running her grip up and down, marveling at how his satin skin slid over the stone core of him.

When he gritted his teeth, she stopped. "Is this all right?"

"Yeah¡­ damn¡­" His chin tilted back, the veins in his neck popping. "More."

She put her other hand on him, stacking her palms, moving them together. His mouth fell wide open, his eyes rolling back in his head, a sheen of sweat breaking out over his body.

"How does this feel, Butch?"

"I'm so close already." He clamped his jaws together and breathed through teeth that were locked light. But then he grabbed her hands, stilling them. "Wait! Not yet¡­"

His erection pulsed, kicking in their grips. A crystal drop appeared at the tip.

He took in a ragged breath. "Hold me out. Make me work for it, Marissa. The longer you burn me, the better the end will be."

Using his gasps and the spasms of his muscles as a guide, she learned the peaks and valleys of his erotic response, figured out when he was getting close and just how to suspend him at the tip of the sexual blade.

God, there was power in sex, and right now she had it all. He was defenseless, exposed¡­ just as she'd been the night before. She loved this.

"Please¡­ baby¡­" She loved that hoarse breathlessness. Loved the straining cords in his neck. Loved the command she had as she held him in her hand.

Which made her think. She let go and attended to his sack, sliding her hand under the weight of it, cupping him. With a curse, he knotted the sheets up in fists until his knuckles went white.

She kept going at him until he was twitchy and covered with sweat and shaking. Then she bent down and pressed her mouth to his. He gobbled her up, grabbing her neck and holding her against his lips, mumbling, kissing, thrusting with his tongue.

"Now?" she said in the midst of the kiss. "Now."

Taking him in hand, she moved her palm faster and faster, until his face contorted into a beautiful mask of agony and his body grew tight as a cable.

"Marissa ¡­" With no coordination, he grabbed the hospital gown and pulled it over his hips, shielding him from her eyes. Then she felt him jerk and shudder and something warm and thick came out of him in pulses, covering her hand. She knew instinctively not to lose her rhythm until it was over.

When his eyes finally opened, they were fuzzy. Satiated. Full of a worshiping warmth.

"I don't want to let go of you," she said.

"Then don't. Ever."

He was softening in her palm, a retreat from the hard staff he'd been. Kissing him, she took her hand out from under the hospital johnny and looked down, curious as to what had come out of him.

"I didn't know it would be black," she murmured with a little smile.

Horror flooded his face. "Oh, Christ!"

Havers walked down the hallway to the quarantine room. On the way, he checked on the little female he'd operated on days before. She was healing well, but he worried about sending her and her mother back out into the world. That hellren was violent and there was a good chance they would be back in the clinic again. But what could he do? He couldn't let them stay here indefinitely. He needed the bed.

He kept going, passing his laboratory, waving at a nurse who was processing various samples. When he got to the housekeeping door, he hesitated.

He hated that Marissa was locked up with that human.

But the important thing was she hadn't been contaminated. According to the physical they'd done on her early yesterday, she was just fine, so her lapse in judgment evidently wasn't going to cost her her life.

And as for the human, he was going home. His last blood sample had been very close to normal and he was getting stronger at an astonishing rate, so it was time to get him the hell away from Marissa. Havers had already called the Brotherhood and told them to come get the man.

Butch O'Neal was dangerous, and not just because of the contamination issue. That human wanted Marissa¡ªit was in his eyes. And that was unacceptable.

Havers shook his head, thinking that he'd tried to keep them apart back in the fall. At first, he'd assumed Marissa was going to drain the human and that would have been fine. But when it became obvious that she was pining for him in her illness, Havers had had to step in.

God, he'd hoped she'd find a true mate at some point, but certainly not an inferior, roughneck human. She needed someone worthy, though it was unlikely that would happen anytime soon, given the glymera's opinion of her.

But maybe¡­ well, he was aware of how Rehvenge watched her. Maybe that would work. Rehv was from very good bloodlines on both sides. He was a little¡­ hard, perhaps, but he was appropriate in the eyes of society.

Perhaps that pairing should be encouraged? After all, she was untouched, as clean as the day she was birthed. And Rehvenge had money, lots of it, though no one knew how or why. Even more important, he was unswayed by the glymera's opinions.

Yes, Havers thought. That would be a good pairing. The best she could hope for.

He pushed open the closet door, feeling a little better. That human was on the way out of the clinic, and no one had to know the two of them had been locked in together for days. His staff was blessedly discreet.

God, he could only imagine what the glymera would do to her if they knew she'd been in close contact with a human male. Marissa's tattered reputation just couldn't withstand any more controversy, and frankly, Havers couldn't take it either. He was utterly exhausted by her social failures.

He loved her, but he was at the end of his rope.

Marissa had no idea why Butch was dragging her into the bathroom at a dead run.

"Butch! What are you doing?"

He cranked on the sink, forced her hands under the water, and grabbed for a bar of soap. As he washed her off, the panic in his face stretched his eyes and flattened his mouth.

"What the hell is going on here!"

Marissa and Butch both wheeled around to the doorway. Havers was standing in it without benefit of a hazmat suit¡ªmore furious than she'd ever seen him.

"Havers¡ª"

Her brother cut her off by lunging forward and yanking her out of the bathroom.

"Stop it¡ªouch! Havers, that hurts!"

What happened next was too fast for her to track.

Havers was suddenly just¡­ gone. One minute he was pulling at her and she was fighting against him, and the next Butch had him flattened facefirst against the wall.

Butch's voice was a nasty drawl. "I don't care if you're her brother. You don't handle her like that. Ever." He pushed his forearm into the back of Havers's neck to emphasize the point.

"Butch, let him¡ª"

"We clear?" Butch growled over her words. When her brother gasped and nodded, Butch released him, walked over to the bed, and calmly wrapped a sheet around his hips. As if he hadn't just manhandled a vampire.

Meanwhile, Havers stumbled and caught himself on the edge of the bed, his eyes crazed as he rearranged his glasses and glared at her. "I want you to leave this room. Now."

"No."

Havers's jaw went slack. "I beg your pardon?"

"I'm staying with Butch."

"You most certainly are not!"

In the Old Language, she said, "If he would have me, I would stand at his side as his shellan."

Havers looked as if she'd slapped him: shocked and disgusted. "And I would forbid you. Have you no nobility?"

Butch cut off her reply. "You really should go, Marissa."

She and Havers looked over at him. "Butch?" she said.

That harsh face she adored softened for a moment, but then grew grim. "If he'll let you out, you should go."

And not come back, his expression said.

She glanced at her brother, heart starting to pound. "Leave us." When Havers shook his head, she shouted, "Get out of here!"

There were times when female hysteria got everyone's attention, and this was one of them. Butch went quiet and Havers seemed nonplussed.

Then her brother's eyes shifted to Butch and narrowed into slits. "The Brotherhood are coming to pick you up, human. I called them and told them you are free to go." Havers tossed Butch's medical chart on the bed as if he were giving up on the whole situation. "Don't come back here again. Ever."

As her brother left, Marissa stared at Butch, but before she could get any words past her tight throat, he spoke.

"Baby, please understand. I'm not well. There's something still in me."

"I'm not afraid of you."

"I am."

She linked her arms around her stomach. "What's going to happen if I leave here now? Between you and me?"

Bad question to ask, she thought in the silence between them.

"Butch¡ª"

"I need to find out what was done to me." He looked down and fingered the puckered black wound next to his belly button. "I need to know what's inside me. I want to be with you, but not like this. Not the way I am now."

"I've been with you for four days and I'm fine. Why stop¡ª"

"Go, Marissa." His voice was haunted and grim. So were his eyes. "As soon as I can, I'll come find you."

The hell you will, she thought.

Dear Virgin in the Fade, this was Wrath all over again, wasn't it. Her waiting, always waiting, while some male with better things to do was out into the world.

She'd already put in four hundred years of baseless anticipation.

"I'm not going to do that," she murmured. With more force, she said, "I'm not waiting anymore. Not even for you. Almost half my life is over now and I've wasted it sitting at home hoping that a male would come for me. I can't do that anymore¡­ no matter how much I¡­ care about you."

"I care about you, too. That's why I'm telling you to leave. I'm protecting you."

"You're¡­ 'protecting' me." She eyed him up and down, knowing damn well he'd been able to peel Havers off her only because Butch had had the element of surprise working for him and the male in question had been a civilian. If her brother were a fighter, Butch would have been leveled. "You're protecting me? Christ, I could lift you over my head with one arm, Butch. There's nothing you can do physically that I can't do better. So don't do me any favors."

It was, of course, the perfectly wrong thing to say.

Butch's eyes shifted away and he crossed his arms over his chest, his lips narrowing flat.

Oh, God. "Butch, I don't mean that you're weak¡ª"

"I'm very glad you reminded me of something."

Oh, God. "Of what."

His tight smile was ghastly. "I'm on the lower end of things on two counts. Socially and evolutionarily." He nodded to the door. "So¡­ yeah, you go on, now. And you're absolutely right. Don't wait for me."

She started to reach out to him, but his cold, empty eyes held her back. Damn it, she'd blown it.

No, she told herself. There hadn't been anything to blow. Not if he was going to shut her out of the ugly parts of his life. Not if he was going to take off and leave her and maybe come back at some indefinable, probably-never point in time.

Marissa went to the door and had to look back at him once more. The image of him with that sheet wrapped around his hips, his chest bare, bruises still healing all over him¡­ was one she was going to wish she could forget.

She walked out, the air lock sealing him in with a hiss.

* * *

Holy shit, Butch thought as he sagged down onto the floor. So this was what getting skinned alive felt like.

Scrubbing his jaw, he sat there staring into space, lost though he knew exactly what room he was in, alone with the remnants of the evil in him.

"Butch, my man."

He jerked his head up. Vishous was standing just inside the room and the brother was dressed for fighting, a big-ass, leather-wearing, stabbing machine. The Valentino garment bag dangling from his gloved hand seemed totally out of place, just as whacked as a butler toting an AK-47.

"Fuuuuck, Havers has got to be nuts to release you. You look like crap."

"Bad day, 's'all." And there were going to be a lot more of those, so he should get used to it.

"Where's Marissa?"

"She left."

"Left?"

"Don't make me say it again."

"Oh. Hell." Vishous took a deep breath and swung the bag onto the bed. "Well, got you some threads and a new cell phone¡ª"

"It's still in me, V. I can feel it. I can¡­ taste it."

V's diamond eyes did a quick up and down. Then he came over and held out his hand. "Rest of you is healing up good. Healing up quick."

Butch took his roommate's palm and got pulled to his feet. "Maybe if I'm free of here we can figure this out together. Unless you've found¡ª"

"Nothing yet. But I haven't lost hope."

"That makes one of us."

Butch unzipped the bag, dropped the sheet, and dragged on some boxers. Then he punched his legs into a pair of black slacks and stuffed his arms into a silk shirt.

Putting on street clothes made him feel like a fraud because the truth was he was a patient, a freak, a nightmare. Jesus Christ¡­ what had come out of him as he'd orgasmed? And Marissa¡­ at least he'd washed her as soon as he could.

"Your levels look good," V said as he read the chart Havers had tossed. "Everything seems back to normal."

"I ejaculated about ten minutes ago and the stuff was black. So everything is not normal."

Silence greeted that happy little announcement. Man, if he had hauled off and sucker-punched V, he would have gotten less of a shocked-out reaction.

"Oh, Christ," Butch muttered, slipping his feet into his Gucci loafers and grabbing the black cashmere dress coat. "Let's just go."

As they went to the door, Butch glanced back at the bed. The sheets were still tangled from him and Marissa getting all over each other.

He cursed and walked out into a monitoring room, then V led the way through a little closet stocked with cleaning supplies. Outside, they went down a hall, past a lab, and came into the clinic proper, going by patient rooms. As he went, he looked inside each one until he stopped short.

Through the doorway he saw Marissa, sitting on the edge of a hospital bed, that peach gown all around her. She was holding the hand of a little girl and talking softly while an older female, probably the young's mother, looked on from the corner.

The mother was the one who glanced up. As she saw Butch and V, she retracted in on herself, bringing her pilled sweater closer to her body and dropping her eyes to the floor.

Butch swallowed hard and kept going.

They were at the bank of elevators, waiting for one, when he said, "V?"

"Yeah?"

"Even though it's nothing concrete, you have an idea of what was done to me, don't you?" He didn't look at his roommate. V didn't look at him.

"Maybe. But we're not alone here."

An electronic ding sounded and the doors opened. They rode up in silence.

When they'd walked out of the mansion and into the night, Butch said, "I bled black for a while, you know."

"They noted in your chart that the color came back."

Butch snagged V's arm and wheeled the male around. "Am I part lesser now?"

There. It was out on the table. His biggest fear, his reason for running from Marissa, the hell he was going to have to learn to live with.

V stared into his eyes. "No."

"How do we know?"

"Because I reject that conclusion."

Butch dropped his hold. "Dangerous to put your head in the sand, vampire. I could be your enemy now."

"Bull. Shit."

"Vishous, I could¡ª"

V grabbed him by the lapels and yanked him up against his body. The brother was trembling from head to foot, his eyes glowing like crystals in the night. "You are not my enemy,"

Instantly pissed off, Butch gripped V's powerful shoulders, bunching up the leather jacket in his fists. "How do we know for sure."

V bared his fangs and hissed, his black eyebrows cranking down hard. Butch gave the aggression right back, hoping, praying, ready for them to start clocking each other. He was jonesing to hit and get hit back; he wanted blood all over the both of them.

For long moments, they stayed locked together, muscles straining, sweat blooming, right on the edge.

Then Vishous's voice came out into the space between their faces, the cracked tone riding a panting, desperate breath and getting bucked off. "You are my only friend. Never my enemy."

No telling who embraced who first, but the urge to beat the living shit out of the other guy bled from their bodies, leaving only the bond between them. They wound up tight together and stood for a time in the cold wind. When they stepped back, it was awkwardly and with embarrassment.

After some throat clearing on both sides, V took out a hand-rolled and lit it. As he exhaled, he said, "You're not a lesser, cop. The heart is removed when that happens. Yours is still beating."

"Maybe it was a partial job? Something that was interrupted?"

"That I can't answer. I went through the race's records, looking for something, anything. Didn't find shit the first trip through, so I'm reading the Chronicles all over again. Hell, I'm even checking in the human world, looking for obscure shit on the Internet." V blew out another cloud of Turkish smoke. "I'll find out. Somehow, some way, I'll find out."

"Have you tried to see what's coming?"

"You mean the future?"

"Yeah."

"Of course I have." V dropped the hand-rolled, crushed it with his shitkicker, then bent down and picked up the butt. As he slipped the deadie into his back pocket, he said, "But I'm still getting nothing. Shit¡­ I need a drink."

"Me, too. ZeroSum?"

"You sure you're up for that?"

"Not in the slightest."

"All right then, ZeroSum it is."

They walked over to the Escalade and got in, Butch riding shotgun. After putting on his seat belt, his hand went to his stomach. His abdomen was hurting like a bitch now because he'd been mobile, but the pain didn't matter. Matter of fact, nothing really seemed to.

They were just pulling out of Hayers's drive when V said, "By the way, you got a telephone call on the general line. Late last night. Guy named Mikey Rafferty."

Butch frowned. Why would one of his brothers-in-law be calling, especially that one? Of all his sisters and brothers, Joyce disliked him the most¡ªwhich was really saying something, considering how the others felt. Had his father finally had the heart attack that had been waiting in the wings all these years?

"What did he say?"

"Baptizing a kid. Wanted you to know so you could show if you were into it. It's this Sunday."

Butch looked out the window. Another baby. Well, Joyce's first, but it was grandchild number¡­ how many? Seven? No¡­ eight.

As they drove along in silence, heading toward the city's urban hub, the lights from oncoming cars flared and faded. Houses were passed. Then stores. Then turn-of-the-century office buildings. Butch thought of all the people living and breathing in Caldwell.

"You ever want kids, V?"

"Nope. Not interested."

"I used to."

"No more?"

"Not gonna happen for me, but it doesn't matter. Plenty of O'Neals in this world now. Plenty."

Fifteen minutes later, they were downtown and parked behind ZeroSum, but he found it hard to get out of the Escalade. The familiarity of it all¡ªthe car, his roommate, his watering hole¡ªunsettled him. Because even though it was just the same, he had changed.

Frustrated, cagey, he reached forward and got a Red Sox hat out of the glove compartment. As he put it on, he opened the door, telling himself he was being melodramatic and this was all business as usual.

The moment he stepped foot out of the SUV, he froze.

"Butch? What is it, my man?"

Well, wasn't that the million-dollar question. His body seemed to have turned into some kind of tuning fork. Energy was vibrating through him¡­ drawing him¡­

He turned and started walking down Tenth Street, moving fast. He just had to find out what it was, this magnet, this homing signal.

"Butch? Where you going, cop?"

When V grabbed his arm, Butch snapped free and broke into a jog, feeling like he was on the end of a rope and something was pulling him.

He was dimly aware of V jogging next to him and talking as if he'd gotten on his cell phone. "Rhage? I got me a situation here. Tenth Street. No, it's Butch."

Butch began to run flat out, the cashmere coat flapping behind him. When Rhage's towering body materialized in his path from out of nowhere, he made a shift to get around the male.

Rhage jumped right in his way. "Butch, where you going?"

When the brother grabbed at him, Butch shoved Rhage back so hard the guy slammed against a brick building. "Don't touch me!"

Two hundred yards of hauling it later, he found what was calling him: Three lessers coming out of an alley.

Butch stopped. The slayers stopped. And there was a hideous moment of communion, one that brought tears to Butch's eyes as he recognized in them what was inside of him.

"Are you a new recruit?" one of them asked.

"'Course he is," another said. "And you missed check-in tonight, idiot."

No¡­ no¡­ oh, God, no¡­

In a synchronized movement, the three slayers looked over his shoulder at what had to be V and Rhage coming around the corner. The lessers prepared to strike, falling into combat stance, bringing up their hands.

Butch took a step toward the trio. Then another.

"Butch¡­" The aching voice behind him was Vishous. "God¡­ no."