eroSum was doing excellent business lately, Rehvenge thought as he looked at the tallies. Cash flow was strong. There was growth in the sports booking receipts. Attendance was up. God, he'd owned the club for how long now? Five? Six years? And it was finally cranking enough income that he could take a deep breath.

It was a despicable way of making money, of course, what with the sex and the drugs and the booze and the betting. But he needed to support his mahmen and, up until recently, his sister, Bella. Then there was the blackmail overhead he had to cover.

Secrets could be so expensive to keep.

Rehv looked up as the door to his office opened. As his chief security officer came in, he could smell the lingering scent of O'Neal on her and he smiled a little. He liked being right. "Thanks for taking care of Butch."

Xhex's gray eyes were direct as always. "I wouldn't have if I hadn't wanted him."

"And I wouldn't have asked if I hadn't known that. Now, where are we?"

She sat down opposite his desk, her powerful body as hard as the marble he was resting his elbows on. "Nonconsensual sex in the mezzanine men's room. I took care of it. The woman is pressing charges."

"Was the guy walking after you were through with him?"

"Yeah, but he was wearing a new pair of earrings, if you know what I mean. I also found two minors on the premises and kicked them out. And one of the bouncers was taking kickbacks from the line, so I fired him."

"Anything else?"

"We had another OD."

"Shit. Not our product, though, right?"

"Nope. Outside junk." She pulled a small cellophane bag out of the back pocket of her leathers and tossed it on his desk. "I managed to snag this before the EMTs arrived. I'm hiring some extra staff to deal with the situation."

"Good. You find that freelancer, you bring his ass to me. I want to take care of him personally."

"Will do."

"You got anything more for me?"

In the silence that followed, Xhex leaned forward and linked her hands together. Her body was all tight muscle, nothing but hard angles except for her high, small breasts. She was deliciously hermaphroditic, although fully a female so far as he'd heard.

The cop should feel lucky, he thought. Xhex didn't have sex that often, and then only when she found the male worthy.

She also didn't waste time. Usually. "Xhex, talk."

"I want to know something."

Rehv eased back in his chair. "Is this going to piss me off?"

"Yup. Are you looking for a mate?"

As his eyes started to glow purple, he tilted his chin down and stared at her from under his brows. "Who said I was? And I want the name."

"Deduction, not gossip. According to GPS records, your Bentley's been by Havers's a lot lately. I happen to know Marissa is unattached. She's beautiful. Complicated. But you've never cared about the glymera. You thinking about mating her?"

"Not at all," he lied.

"Good." As Xhex's eyes nailed into him, it was obvious she knew the truth. "Because it would be crazy for you to give it a shot. She'd find out about you¡ªand I'm not talking about what goes down here. She's a member of the Princeps Council, for chrissakes. If she knew you were a symphath, that would compromise both of us."

Rehv rose to his feet and palmed his cane. "The Brotherhood already knows about me."

"How?" Xhex breathed.

He thought about the little lip/fang thing he and the Brother, Phury, had shared and decided to keep that on the down-low. "They just do. And now that my sister's mated to a Brother, I'm a member of the frickin' family. So even if the Princeps Council found out, those warriors would keep them at bay."

Too bad his blackmailer was unaffected by the ways of the Normals. Symphaths, he was learning, made very bad enemies. No wonder his kind were hated.

"You sure about that?" Xhex said.

"It would kill Bella if I were sent to one of those colonies. You think that hellren of hers would stand for her being upset like that, especially as she's pregnant? Z's one mean-ass motherfucker and he is very protective of her. So, yeah, I'm sure."

"She ever guessed about you?"

"No." And though Zsadist knew, he wasn't going to tell his mate. No way he'd put Bella in that position. Laws read that if you knew of a symphath you had to report him or her or face prosecution.

Rehv came around the desk, relying on his cane now that Xhex was the only one around. The dopamine he shot himself up with regularly kept the worst of the symphath urges at bay, enabling him to pass for a Normal. He wasn't sure how Xhex managed it. Wasn't sure he wanted to know. But the thing was, with his sense of touch gone, he had to use a cane or he was liable to fall. After all, depth perception got you only so far when you couldn't feel your feet or legs.

"You don't worry," he said. "No one knows what either one of us are. And it's going to stay that way."

Gray eyes stared up at him. "Are you feeding her, Rehv." Not a question. A demand. "Are you feeding Marissa?"

"That's my business, not yours."

She shot to her feet. "Goddamn you¡ªwe agreed. Twenty-five years ago when I had my little problem, we agreed. No mates. No feeding with Normals. What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm in control and this conversation is over." He checked his watch. "And what do you know, it's closing time and you need a break. The Moors can lock up."

She glared at him for a moment. "I don't leave until the job is done¡ª"

"I'm telling you to go home, not being nice. I'll see you tomorrow night."

"No offense, but fuck you, Rehvenge."

She stalked over to the door, moving like the killer she was. As he watched her go, he was reminded that this security stuff for him was nothing compared to what she was capable of.

"Xhex," he said, "maybe we were wrong about the mating."

She sent an are-you-stupid? frown over her shoulder. "You shoot yourself up twice a day. You think Marissa wouldn't notice that eventually? How about the fact that you have to go to her brother the good doctor for the neuromodulator you rely on? Besides, what would an aristocrat like her say about all¡­ this?" She swept her arm around his office. "We weren't wrong. You're just forgetting the whys of it all."

The door eased shut behind her and Rehv looked down at his numb body. He pictured Marissa, so pure and beautiful, so different from the other females he was around, so different from Xhex¡­ who he fed from.

He wanted Marissa, was half in love with her at this point. And the male in him wanted to claim what was his even though his drugs made him impotent. Except surely he wouldn't hurt what he loved, even if his dark parts were out? Right?

He thought of her, wearing her lovely haute couture gowns, so properly dressed, so genteel, so¡­ clean. The glymera was wrong about her. She wasn't defective; she was perfect.

He smiled, his body flushing up with a burn that only hardcore orgasms could douse. It was getting to be that time of the month, so she would be calling him soon. Yeah, she would need him again¡­ soon. As his blood was diluted, she had to feed with gratifying frequency, and the last time had been almost three weeks ago.

She would be calling him within days. And he couldn't wait to be of service to her.

V got back to the Brotherhood's compound with minutes to spare, materializing just outside the gatehouse's front door. He'd hoped his kind of sex would have taken the edge off of him, but no, he was still bladed as shit.

He went through the Pit's vestibule and disarmed along the way, all tensed up and so ready for a shower to get the smell of the female off him. He should have been hungry; instead, all he wanted was some Grey Goose.

"Butch, my man!" he called out.

Silence.

V walked down the hall to the cop's bedroom. "You crashed?"

He pushed open the door. The king-sized bed was empty. So maybe the cop was up at the main house?

V jogged through the Pit and put his head out through the vestibule's door. A quick glance around at the cars parked in the courtyard and his heart went snare drum on him. No Escalade. So Butch wasn't at the compound.

With the sky beginning to lighten off to the east, the glow of day stung V's eyes, so he ducked back into the house and sat down behind his bank of computers. Firing up the coordinates on the Escalade, he saw that the SUV was parked behind Screamer's.

Which was good. At least Butch wasn't wrapped around a tree¡ª

V froze. Slowly, he pushed his hand into the back pocket of his leathers, a horrible feeling coming over him, hot and prickly like a rash. Flipping open the Razr, he accessed his voice mail. First message was a hang-up from Butch's number.

As the second message clicked on, the Pit's steel shutters started to come down for the day.

V frowned. There was only a hissing sound coming from the voice mail. But then a clatter had him yanking the phone away from his ear.

Now Butch's voice, hard, loud: "Dematerialize. Demateri-alize now."

A scared male: "But¡ªbut¡ª"

"Now! For fuck's sake, get your ass out of here¡­" Sounds of muffled flapping.

"Why are you doing this? You're just a human¡ª"

"I am so sick of hearing that. Leave!"

There was a metallic shifting, a gun being reloaded.

Butch's voice: "Oh, shit¡­"

Then all hell broke loose. Gunshots, grunts, thuds.

V leaped up from his desk so fast he knocked his chair over. Only to realize he was trapped inside by daylight.