hen John woke up, the first thought that went through his mind was that he wanted a hot-fudge sundae with bacon bits on top. Which was just nasty, really.

Except, damn... chocolate and bacon would be heaven right about now.

He opened his eyes and was relieved to be staring at the familiar ceiling of the room he slept in, but he was confused as to what had happened. It was something traumatic. Something momentous. But what?

He lifted his hand up to rub his eyes... and stopped breathing.

The thing that was attached to his arm was huge. A giant's palm.

He raised his head and looked down his body or... someone's body. Had he been a head donor sometime during the day? 'Cause sure as hell his brain hadn't been plugged into the likes of this before.

The transition.

"How you feel, John?"

He glanced toward Wrath's voice. The king and Beth were by the bed, looking utterly exhausted.

He had to concentrate to make his hands form the words, Did I make it through?

"Yeah. Yeah, son, you did." Wrath cleared his throat, and Beth stroked his tattooed forearm as if she knew he was struggling with emotion. "Congratulations."

John blinked quick, his chest constricting. Am I still... me?

"Yes. Always."

"Shall I go?" a female voice said.

John turned his head. Layla was standing in a dim corner, her perfectly beautiful face and her perfectly beautiful body in the shadows.

Instant. Hard-on.

Like someone injected steel into his cock.

He fumbled to make sure he was covered up, and thanked God when there was a blanket already over him. As he settled back on the pillow, Wrath was talking, but John's sole focus was throb between his legs... and the female across the room.

"It would be my pleasure to stay," Layla said with a deep bow.

Staying was good, John thought. Her staying was...

Wait, the hell it was good. He wasn't going to have sex with her, for God's sake.

She stepped forward, into the pool of illumination thrown by the lamp on the bedside table. Her skin was white as moonlight, smooth as a satin sheet. It would be soft, too... under his hands, under his mouth... under his body. Abruptly John's upper jaw tingled on both sides, right in front, then something protruded into his mouth. A quick stroke of his tongue and he felt the sharp points of his fangs.

Sex roared through his body until he had to look away from her.

Wrath chuckled a little, as if he knew what John was all about. "We'll leave you two. John, we're right down the hall if you need anything."

Beth leaned down and barely brushed his hand with hers, as if she knew exactly how sensitive his skin was. "I'm so proud of you."

As their eyes met, what came to him was, And I of you.

Which made absolutely no sense. So he signed in a sloppy way, Thank you, instead.

They were gone a moment later, the door shutting him and Layla in together. Oh, this was not good. He felt he was on a bucking bronco, for all the control he had over his body.

As it wasn't safe to look at the Chosen, he glanced over to the bathroom. Through the jambs, he saw the marble shower and got a serious case of the Joneses.

"Would you care to wash, your grace?" Layla said. "Shall I run the water for you?"

He nodded to get her busy with something while he tried to figure out what to do with himself.

Take her. Fuck her. Have her twelve different ways.

Okay, yeah, that was not what he should be doing.

The shower came on and Layla came back, and before he knew what was doing, the blanket came off his body. His hands shot up to cover himself, but her eyes got to his erection first.

"May I help you into the bath?" Her voice was husky, and she stared at his hips as if she approved.

Which inflated that huge weight under his palms even more.

"Your grace?"

Just how was he supposed to sign in this condition?

Whatever. She wouldn't understand him anyway.

John shook his head, then sat up, keeping one hand on himself and planting the other on the mattress for stability. Shit, he felt like a table whose screws had all been loosened, his constituent parts not fitting together well anymore. And the trip into the bathroom seemed like an obstacle course, even though there was nothing in his way.

At least he wasn't solely focused on Layla anymore.

Keeping himself cupped, he stood and wobbled into the bathroom, trying not to think about how he was mooning Layla. While he went along, images of newborn foals played through his head, particularly the ones where their spindly legs bent like wires as they struggled to keep off the ground. He so got that. It seemed like at any moment his knees were going to take a vacation and he was going to yard-sale like an idiot.

Right. He was in the bathroom. Good job.

Now if he could just keep from hitting the bald marble. Although, God, getting clean would be worth the contusions. Except even the shower he wanted so badly was trouble. Stepping under the warm, gentle spray was like getting lashed with a whip, and he jumped back¡ªonly to catch Layla disrobing out of the corner of his eye.

Holy Christ... She was beautiful.

As she joined him he was speechless, and not because he had no voice box. Her breasts were full, the rosy nipples tight in the midst of their lush weight. Her waist looked small enough for him to circle it with his hands. Her hips were a perfect balance to her narrow shoulders. And her sex... her sex was bare to his eyes, the skin smooth and hairless, the little slit made up of two folds he was desperate to part.

He clamped both of his hands to himself, as if his cock were liable to leap right off his pelvic girdle.

"May I wash you, your grace?" she said as steam swirled between them like fine cloth in a soft breeze.

The arousal behind his hands jerked.

"Your grace?"

His head nodded. His body throbbed. He thought of Qhuinn talking about what he'd done with the female he'd had. Oh, Jesus . . . And now it was happening to John.

She picked up the soap and massaged it between her palms, rolling the bar around and around, suds foaming up white and dripping onto the tile. He imagined his cock in between her hands and had to breathe through his mouth.

Look at her breasts sway, he thought as he licked his lips. He wondered if she'd let him kiss her there. What would she taste like? Would she let him go between her¡ª

His cock jumped, and he let out a plaintive moan.

Layla put the soap back in the little dish on the marble wall. "I'll be gentle, as you are sensitive now."

He swallowed hard and prayed he didn't lose control as her frothy hands came toward him and settled on his shoulders. Unfortunately the anticipation was far more enjoyable than the reality. Her light touch like sandpaper on a sunburn... and yet he craved the contact.

Craved her. With the smell of French-milled soap wafting up in the moist, hot air, her palms traveled down his arms, then back up and over his now tremendous chest. Suds ran past his belly and onto his hand, threading between his fingers before dripping off his sex in soft clumps.

He stared into her face as she lingered on his chest, finding it beyond erotic that her pale green eyes roamed over his new, big body.

She was hungry, he thought. Hungry for what he was holding in his hands. Hungry for what he wanted to give her.

She took the soap out of the dish again and knelt before him, knees on the marble. Her hair was still up in its chignon, and he wanted to take it down, wanted to see what it looked like wet and plastered to her breasts.

As she put her hands on his lower leg and started north, her eyes lifted up. In a flash he saw her giving him head, his erection stretching her mouth wide, her cheeks sucking in and out as she worked him.

John moaned and swayed, bumping his shoulder.

"Drop your arms, your grace."

Even though he was terrified of what was going to happen next, he wanted to obey her. Except what if he made a fool out of himself? What if he came all over her face because he couldn't hold back? What if¡ª

"Your grace, drop your arms."

He slowly let his hands fall away from himself, and his arousal jutted straight out of his hips, not so much defying gravity as being totally outside of its reach.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus... Her hand was lifting up toward¡ª

The instant she touched his cock, the erection deflated: From out of nowhere he saw himself in a grungy stairwell. Held at knifepoint. Violated while he cried silently.

John jerked away from her hold and stumbled out of the shower, his wet feet and his loose knees making him slip on the floor. To keep from falling over, he ass-planted it on the toilet.

Not dignified. Not manly. How fucking typical. He was finally in a big body, but he was no more a male than when he'd been in a little one.

The water shut off and he heard Layla covering herself with a towel. Her voice quavered. "Would you like me to go?"

He nodded, too ashamed to even look at her.

When he glanced up much later, he was alone in the bathroom. Alone and cold, the heat of the shower lost, all that glorious steam gone as if it had never been.

His first time with a female... and he'd lost his erection. God, he wanted to throw up.

V broke Jane's skin with his fangs, penetrating her throat, tapping into her vein, latching on with his lips. As she was human, the rush of power at the drinking came not from the composition of her blood, but the fact that it was her. Her taste was what he was after. Her taste... and his consumption of a piece of her.

When she cried out, he knew it wasn't from pain. Her body was lush with her arousal, and that scent got even stronger as he took what he wanted from her, took her sex with his cock, took her blood with his mouth.

"Come with me," he said hoarsely, releasing her throat and letting her prop herself up against the sink again. "Come... with... me."

"Oh, God ..."

V locked into her hips as he started to orgasm, and she went over the edge with him, her body sucking on his erection just as he had worked at her neck. The exchange felt fair and satisfying; she was now in him and he was in her. It was right. It was good.

Mine.

After it was over, they were both breathing hard.

"Are you all right?" he asked on a gasp, very aware that the question had never before come out of his mouth following sex.

When she didn't reply, he eased back from her a little. On her pale skin he could see the marks he'd left on her, red blushes from his rough handling. Nearly everyone he'd ever fucked had ended up with them because he liked it rough, needed it rough. And he'd never been bothered by what he'd left behind on other people's bodies.

The marks bothered him now. Bothered him even more as he wiped his hand across his mouth and came away with a smudge of her blood.

Oh, Jesus ... He'd used her too hard. It had been way too hard. "Jane, I'm so¡ª"

"Amazing." She shook her head, her cap of blond hair swinging at her cheeks. "That was... amazing."

"Are you sure I didn't¡ª"

"Just amazing. Although I'm afraid to let go of this sink because I'll fall over."

Relief went to his head, a drunken buzz. "I didn't want to hurt you."

"You overwhelmed me... but in the way that if I had a good girlfriend I would call her up and be like, 'Oh, my God I just had the sex of my life.' "

"Good. That's... good." He so didn't want to leave her core, especially if she was talking like that. But he moved his hips back and slipped his erection free so she had a break.

From the back she was exquisite. Temple-pounding beautiful. Totally takeable. His arousal beat like a heart as he pulled his pajama bottoms up and stuffed himself into the flannel.

V straightened Jane slowly and looked at her face as it came up in the mirror. Her eyes were glassy, her mouth open, her cheeks flushed. On her neck his bite mark was just where he wanted it: right where everyone could see.

He turned her around to face him and ran his gloved forefinger up her throat, catching the thin trail of blood from the punctures. He licked the black leather clean, savoring the taste of her, wanting more.

"I'm going to seal this closed, okay?"

She nodded, and he dipped his head. As he delicately ran his tongue over the holes, he closed his eyes and got lost nuzzling her. Next time he wanted to go between her legs and tap into the vein that ran down the juncture of her hips, tap into it so he could alternate between sucking at her blood and licking at her sex.

He leaned to the side and turned the shower on, then stripped off the button-down shirt she wore. Her breasts were covered in white lace, the pink tips visible through the lovely pattern. Bending down, he suckled one of her nipples through the fine weave and was rewarded with her hand easing into his hair and a moan bubbling up her throat.

He growled and slipped his palm between her legs.

What he'd left behind was on the inside of her thighs, and though it made him a crass bastard, he wanted it to stay there. He wanted to leave that stuff where it was and put more inside of her.

Ah, yes, the instincts of the bonded male. He wanted her to wear him like she did her own skin: all over.

He took her bra off her and eased her into the shower, holding her by the shoulders, getting her under the spray. He stepped in, his pajama bottoms getting wet, his feet feeling the smooth marble floor. Sweeping his hands over her hair and taking the short blond waves back from her face, he looked into her eyes.

Mine.

"I haven't kissed you yet," he said.

She arched against him and used his chest for balance, just as he wanted her to. "Not on the mouth, no."

"May I?"

"Please."

Shit, he was nervous as he looked at her lips. Which was so strange. He'd had so much sex over the course of his life, all different kinds and combinations, but the prospect of kissing her properly wiped all of that away: He was the virgin he'd never been, clueless and weak-kneed.

"So are you going to?" she asked as he stalled out.

Oh . . . shit.

With a smile like the Mona Lisa's, she put her hands to his face. "Come here."

She pulled him down to her, tilted his head, and brushed her lips against his. Vishous's body shuddered. He had felt power before¡ªhis own in his muscles, his godforsaken mother's in his destiny, his king's in his life, his brothers' in his job¡ªbut he'd never let any of it overcome him.

Jane overcame him now. Held total sway as she cradled his face in her palms.

He gathered her close and pressed his lips tighter on hers, the communion a sweetness he never would have believed he'd want, much less revere. When they broke apart, he soaped up her sleek curves and rinsed her off. Shampooed her hair. Cleaned between her legs.

Handling her with care was like breathing... an automatic function of his body and brain that he didn't have to think about.

He shut off the water, toweled her dry, then picked her up and carried her back to the bed. She sprawled out on his black duvet, arms over her head, legs slightly parted, nothing but flushed female skin and muscle.

She stared at him from underneath lowered lids. "Your pajamas are wet."

"Yeah."

"You're hard."

"I am."

She arched on the bed, the undulation riding up her torso from her hips to her breasts. "You going to do anything about it?"

He bared his fangs and hissed. "If you'll let me."

She moved one of her legs to the side, and his corneas nearly started bleeding. She was glistening at her core, and not from the shower.

"Does this look like a no to you?" she said.

He ripped off his bottoms and was on her in a heartbeat, kissing her deep and long, lifting his hips, positioning himself, sinking in. She was so much better like this, in reality, not a dream state. As she came for him once, twice... more... his heart broke.

For the first time he was having sex with someone he loved.

He felt a momentary blind panic at his exposure. How the fuck had this happened?

But, then, this was his last¡ªwell, only¡ªshot at the love thing, wasn't it. And she wasn't going to remember a thing, so it was safe: Her heart wasn't going to be broken at the end.

Plus... well, her lack of memory made it safe for him, too, didn't it. Kind of like that night he and Wrath had gotten shit-faced and V had talked about his mother.

The less people knew about him, the better.

Except damn, why the hell did the thought of cleaning out Jane's mind make his chest hurt?

God, she was going so soon.