ou're going to be the what?" Butch blurted.

As he looked at his roommate, Vishous could barely choke out the fucking word. "The Primale. Of the Chosen."

"What the fuck is that?"

"Basically, a sperm donor."

"Wait, wait... so you're going to do, like, IVF?"

V dragged a hand through his hair and thought how good it would feel to put his fist through the wall. "It's a little more hands-on than that."

Speaking of hands-on, it had been a long time since he'd had straight sex with a female. Could he even get off during the formal, ritualistic sex of the Chosen?

"Why you?"

"Has to be a member of the Brotherhood." V paced around the dark room, figuring he'd keep his mother's identity under wraps a little longer. "It's a small pool to choose from. One that's getting smaller."

"Will you live over there?" Phury asked.

"Live over where?" Butch cut in. "You mean you won't be able to fight with us? Or, like... hang?"

"No, I made that a condition of the deal."

As Butch exhaled in relief, V tried not to get sapped out that his roommate cared about seeing him as much as he cared about being seen.

"When does it happen?"

"Few days."

Phury spoke up. "Does Wrath know?"

"Yup."

As V thought about what he'd signed on for, his heart started kicking in his chest, a bird flapping its wings to get out of his rib cage. The fact that he had two of his brothers and Rehvenge giving him the hairy eyeball made the panic worse. "Listen, you mind excusing me for a while? I need to... shit, I need to get out."

"I'll go with you," Butch said.

"No." V was in a desperate frame of mind. If there was ever a night he might be tempted to do something grossly inappropriate, it was now. Bad enough what he felt for his roommate was an unspoken undercurrent; making it a reality by acting on it would be a catastrophe neither he, Butch, nor Marissa could handle. "I need to be by myself."

V shoved the godforsaken pendant back in his ass pocket and left the crushing silence of the office. As he fast-tracked it out the side door into an alley, he wanted to find a lesser. Needed to find one. Prayed to the Scribe Vir¡ª

V stopped dead. Well, shit. He sure as hell wasn't praying to that mother of his anymore. Or using that phrase.

God... damn.

V settled back against the cold brick of ZeroSum's building, and, much as it pained him, he couldn't help but think back to his life in the warrior camp.

The camp had been situated in middle Europe, deep in a cave. Some thirty soldiers had used it as a home base, but there had been other residents. A dozen pretrans had been sent there for training, and another dozen or so whores fed and serviced the males.

The Bloodletter had run it for years and had churned out some of the best fighters the species had. Four members of the Brotherhood had gotten their start there under V's father. Many others, of all levels, hadn't survived, however.

V's first memories were of being hungry and cold, of watching others eat while his stomach moaned. Through his early years, hunger had driven him, and like the other pretrans, his sole motivation had been to feed himself, no matter how he had to do it.

Vishous waited in the shadows of the cave, staying out of the flickering light thrown by the camp's fire pit. Seven fresh deer were being consumed in a bawdy frenzy, the soldiers slicing meat off bones and chewing like animals, blood marking their faces and hands. On the fringes of the meal, all the pretrans trembled with greed.

Like the others, V was sharpened to an edge from starvation. But he didn't stand with his fellow young. He waited in the far away darkness, eyes locked on his prey.

The soldier he tracked was fat as a hog, with folds of flesh falling over his leathers and facial features indistinct for the puffy padding, the glutton went without a tunic most of the time, his bulbous chest and distended belly jiggling while he paraded around kicking the stray dogs that lived in camp or going after the whores. For all his sloth, however, he was a vicious killer, what he lacked in speed being made up for in brute strength. With hands as big as a grown male's head, he was rumored to snap the limbs off lessers and eat them.

At every meal he was among the first to get to the meat, and he ate with speed, though he was hampered by a lack of accuracy. He didn't pay a lot of attention to what actually made it into his mouth: Pieces of deer flesh and streams of blood and segments of bone would coat his stomach and chest, a gory tunic knit of his sloppy ministrations.

This night the male finished early and eased back onto his haunches, a deer flank in his fist. Though he was through, he lingered next to the carcass he'd been working on, pushing other soldiers away for amusement.

When it was time for the sparring punishments to be dealt out, the soldiers moved from the fire pit to the Bloodletter's platform. In the light of torches, soldiers who had lost during practice were bent over at the foot of the Bloodletter and violated by those who'd bested them, to the sneers and slaps of the others. Meanwhile, the pretrans fell on what was left of the deer while the females of the camp watched with hard eyes, waiting their turn.

V's prey wasn't much interested in the humiliations. The fat soldier watched for a little while, then lumbered off, the deer leg hanging from his hand. His filthy pallet was all the way at the far edges of where the soldiers slept, because even to their noses, his stench offended.

Stretched out, he looked like an undulating field, his body a series of hills and valleys. The deer leg lying across his belly was the prize at the top of the mountain.

V stayed back until the soldier's beady eyes were covered by fleshy lids and his hefty chest went up and down with a slowing rhythm. Soon fish lips fell open, and one snore escaped, followed by another. It was then that V closed in on his bare feet, making no sound over the dirt floor.

The foul smell of the male didn't deter V, and he cared not about the grime on the deer's fresh muscle. He reached forward, small hand splayed, inching toward the bone joint.

Just as he ripped it free, a black dagger streaked down-next to the soldier's ear and its penetration into the packed cave floor snapped open the male's eyes.

V's father loomed like a chain-mail fist about to fall, legs planted, dark eyes leveled. He was the biggest of all in the camp, rumored to be largest male born into the species, and his presence inspired fear for two reasons: his size and his unpredictability. His mood was ever-changing, his whims violent and capricious, but V knew the truth behind the variable temper: There was nothing that was not calibrated for effect. His father's malicious cunning ran as deep as his muscle was thick.

"Awake," the Bloodletter snapped. "You laze whilst you are feloned by a weakling."

V cringed away from his father, but started to eat, sinking his teeth into the meat and chewing as fast as he could. He would be beaten for this, likely by the both of them, so he had to consume as much as possible before the blows landed upon him.

The fat one made excuses until the Bloodletter kicked him in the sole of the foot with a spiked boot. The male went gray in the face but knew better than to cry out.

"The whys of this happenstance bore me." The Bloodletter stared at the soldier. "What shall you do about it, is my inquiry."

Without taking a breath the soldier curled up a fist, leaned over, and slammed it into V's side. V lost the mouthful he had as the impact drove the breath from his lungs and the meat from his mouth. As he gasped, he picked the piece up from the dirt and pushed it back between his lips. It tasted salty from the cave's floor.

As the beating commenced, V ate through the blows until he felt his calf bone bend until it nearly snapped. He let out a scream and lost the deer leg. Someone else picked it up and ran away with it.

All along, the Bloodletter laughed without smiling, the barking sound coming from lips that were straight and thin as knives. And then he ended it. With no effort at all he grabbed the fat soldier by the back of the neck and threw him against the rock wall.

The Bloodletter's spiked boots planted in front of V's face. "Get me my dagger."

V blinked dry eyes and tried to move.

There was a creak of leather, and then the Bloodletter's face was before V. "Get me my dagger, boy. Or I will have you take the whores' place tonight in the pit."

The soldiers who had gathered behind his father cackled, and someone threw a stone that hit V where his leg had been injured.

"My dagger, boy."

Vishous speared his little fingers into the dirt and dragged himself over to the weapon. Though a mere two feet from him, the blade seemed miles away. When he finally closed his palm upon it, he needed both hands to free it from the dirt, he was so weak. His stomach was rolling from pain, and as he pulled at the blade, he threw up the meat he had stolen.

After the retching passed, he held up the dagger to his father, who had risen back to his full height.

"Stand," the Bloodletter said. "Or think you I should bow to the worthless?"

V struggled into a sitting position and couldn't fathom how he was going to get his full body up, as he could barely lift his shoulders. He switched the dagger to his left hand, planted his right one on the dirt, and pushed. The pain was so great his eyesight went black... and then a miraculous thing occurred. Some kind of radiant light overtook him from the inside out, as if sunshine had swept into his veins and cleaned the pain until he was free of it. His eyesight returned... and he saw that his hand was glowing.

Now was not the time to wonder. He peeled himself from the ground, rising up while trying to put no weight on his leg. With a hand that shook, he presented the dagger to his father.

The Bloodletter stared back for a heartbeat, as if he'd never expected V to get to his feet. Then he took the weapon and turned away.

"Someone knock him back down. His boldness offends me."

V landed in a heap when the order was followed, and at once, the radiance left him and agony returned. He waited for other blows to land, but when he heard a crowd's roar, he knew that the losers' punishments would be the amusement for the day, not him.

As he lay in the swamp of his misery, as he tried to breathe through the pounding of his battered body, he pictured a female in a white robe coming unto him and wrapping him up in her arms. With soft words she cradled him and stroked his hair, easing him.

He welcomed the vision. She was his imaginary mother. The one who loved him and wanted him to be safe and warm and fed. Verily, the image of her was what kept him alive, giving him the only peace he knew.

The fat soldier leaned down, his fetid, humid breath invading Vishous's nose. "You steal from me again and you shall not heal from what I bring unto you."

The soldier spat in V's face then picked him up and slung him like worthless debris away from the dirty pallet.

Before V passed out, his last sight was of the other pretrans, who was finishing the deer leg with relish.