n downtown Caldwell, in the northeast corner of the St. Francis Hospital complex, Manuel Manello, M.D., hung up the phone on his desk without having dialed anything on it or having answered a call that had come through to him. He stared at the NEC console. The thing was jacked up with buttons, right out of a Circuit City junkie's wet dreams with all its bells and whistles.

He wanted to throw it across the room.

He wanted to, but he didn't. He'd given up throwing tennis rackets, TV remotes, scalpels, and books when he decided to become the youngest chief of surgery in St. Francis Hospital history. Since then, his palm punting involved only empty bottles and vending machine wrappers snapped into trash cans. And that was just to keep his aim up.

Shifting back in his leather chair, he pivoted himself around and stared out the window of his office. It was a nice office. Big, fancy as shit, all mahogany-paneled and oriental-rugged up, the Throne Room, as it was known, had served as the head surgeon's landing pad for fifty years. He'd been sitting pretty in the digs for about three years now, and if he ever got a break in the action he was going to give the place a makeover. All the Establishment gloss made him scratch.

He thought of the damn phone and knew he was going to make a call he shouldn't. It was just so fucking weak, and it was going to come across that way, even if he was all his usual macho arrogance.

Still, he was going to end up letting his fingers do the walking.

To put off the inevitable, he blew some time staring out the window. From his vantage point he could see the front of St. Francis's landscaped entrance, as well as the city beyond. Hands down this was the best view on hospital grounds. In the spring cherry trees and tulips bloomed in the median of the entrance's drive. And in the summer, on either side of the two lanes maples leafed up green as emeralds until they faded to peach and yellow in the fall.

Usually he didn't spend a lot of time enjoying the scenery, but he did appreciate knowing it was there. Sometimes a man needed to corral his thoughts.

He was having one of those moments now.

Last night he'd called Jane's cell phone, figuring she'd be home from that damn interview. No answer. He'd called her this morning. No answer.

Fine. If she didn't want to spill about that fucking interview at Columbia, he was going to go directly to the source. He'd call the chief of surgery down there himself. Egos being what they were, his former mentor wouldn't hesitate to share some details, but, man, this was going to be an ass burner of a fishing expedition.

Manny twisted around, punched out ten digits, and waited, tapping a Montblanc pen on his blotter.

When the ringing was answered, he didn't wait for a hello. "Falcheck, you raiding dickhead."

Ken Falcheck laughed. "Manello, you have such a way with words. And me being your elder, I'm especially shocked."

"So how's life in the slow lane, old man?"

"Good, good. Now tell me, baby boy, they letting you eat solid foods yet or are you still on the Gerber?"

"I'm up to oatmeal. Which means I'll be well fortified to do your hip replacement anytime you get bored with that walker."

This was all utter bullshit, of course. At sixty-two Ken Falcheck was in great shape, and a ballbuster right up Manny's lane. The two had gotten along ever since Manny had gone through the guy's training program fifteen years ago.

"So, with all deference to the elderly," Manny drawled, "why are you macking on my trauma surgeon? And what did you think of her?"

There was a slight pause. "What are you talking about? I got a message Thursday from some guy saying she had to reschedule. I thought that was why you're calling. To gloat that she blew me off and you were keeping her."

A nasty sensation wrapped around the back of Manello's neck, like someone had slapped a palmful of cold mud on him.

He kept his voice level. "Come on, would I do that?"

"Yeah, you would. I trained you, remember? You get all your bad habits from me."

"Just the professional ones. Hey, the guy who called¡ªyou get his name?"

"Nope. Figured it was her assistant or something. Obviously wasn't you. I know your voice, plus the guy was polite."

Manny swallowed hard. Okay, he needed to dump this call right away. Jesus Christ, where the hell was Jane?

"So, Manello, can I assume you're keeping her?"

"Let's face facts, I've got a lot of things I can offer her." Himself being one of them.

"Just not the chairmanship of a department."

God, at the moment, all this bullshit medical politicking didn't matter. Jane was MIA, as far as Manny was concerned, and he needed to find her.

With perfect timing, his assistant poked her head through his door. "Oh, sorry¡ª"

"No, wait. Hey, Falcheck, I've got to go." He hung up as Ken was still saying good-bye and immediately started dialing Jane's house. "Listen, I need to make a phone¡ª"

"Dr. Whitcomb just called in sick."

Manny looked up from the phone. "Did you speak to her? Was she the one who called?"

His assistant looked at him a little funny. "Of course. She's been down all weekend with the flu. Goldberg's going to cover her cases today and man the chute. Hey, are you okay?"

Manny put the receiver down and nodded even though he felt light-headed as hell. Shit, the idea that something had happened to Jane thinned his blood to water.

"You sure, Dr. Manello?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Thanks for the info on Whitcomb." As he stood up, the floor only weaved a little. "I'm due in the OR in an hour, so I'm going to food up. You got anything else for me?"

His assistant ran through a couple of issues with him, then left.

As the door shut Manny sank back into his chair. Man, he needed to gather the reins in his head. Jane Whitcomb had always been a distraction, but this shaky relief that she was fine surprised him.

Right. He needed to go eat.

Kicking himself in the ass, he got to his feet again and picked up a stack of residency applicant flies to read in the lounge. In the process of taking them in hand, something slipped off the desk. He bent over and picked it up, then frowned. It was the printout of a photograph of a heart... that had six chambers.

Something flickered in the back of Manny's mind, some kind of shadow that moved around, a thought on the verge of actualization, a memory about to crystallize. Except then he got a sharp, shooting pain right at the temples. As he cursed, he wondered where the hell the photograph had come from, and checked the date and time at the bottom. It had been taken here, on his premises, in his OR, and the print job had been done in his office: His machine had a hiccup in it that left an ink dot on the lower left-hand corner, and the mark was there.

He turned to his computer and did a search of his files. No such photograph existed. What the fuck?

He checked his watch. No time to keep digging, because he really did have to eat before he went to operate.

As he left his big-cheese office, he decided he was going to be an old-fashioned doctor this evening.

Tonight he was going to pay a house call, the first of his professional career.

Vishous pulled on a pair of loose black silk pants and a matching top that looked like a smoking jacket from the forties. After he put the godforsaken Primale medallion around his neck, he left his room while lighting up. On his way down the hall he heard Butch swearing out in the living room, the rolling, under-the-breath litany marked by a lot of F-words and an interesting twist on a-hole V was going to have to remember.

V found the guy on the couch, glowering over Marissa's laptop. "What's doing, cop?"

"I think this hard drive has bitten it." Butch glanced up. "Jesus Christ... you look like Hugh Hefner."

"So not funny."

Butch winced. "I'm sorry. Shit... V, I'm's¡ª"

"Shut up and let me look at the PC." V picked the thing up off Butch's lap and did a quick a maintenance scan. "Dead."

"Should have known. Safe Place is in a cluster fuck of IT shit. Their server's down. Now this. Meanwhile Marissa's up at the mansion with Mary trying to figure out how to hire more staff. Man, she doesn't need this."

"I put four new Dells in the supply cabinet outside Wrath's study. Tell her to go get one, true? I'd set it up for her now, but I gotta go."

"Thanks, man. And yeah, I'll get ready to come with you¡ª"

"You don't have to be there."

Butch frowned. "Fuck that. You need me."

"Someone else can stand in."

"I'm not abandoning you¡ª"

"Wouldn't be abandonment." Vishous wandered over to the foosball table and spun one of the rods. As the row of little men did backflips, he exhaled. "It's kind of like... I don't know, if you're there, it's all too fucking real."

"So you want somebody else to back you?"

V spun the rod again, a whirring noise rising up from the table. He'd chosen Butch on a knee-jerk, but the truth was, the male was a complication. V was so damned close to the guy it was going to be harder to front his way through the presentation and the ritual.

V looked across the living room. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I want someone else."

In the short silence that followed, Butch assumed the look of someone holding a plate of food that was too hot: uneasy and insecure. "Well... as long as you know I would be there for you, no matter what was doing."

"I know you're solid." V went to the phone, thinking over his choices.

"Are you su¡ª"

"Yes," he said, dialing. When Phury answered his call, V said, "You mind standing in with me today? Butch is going to hang back. Yeah. Uh-huh. Thanks, man." He hung up. It might be an odd choice, because the two of them had never been particularly close. But then, that was the point. "Phury's going to do it, no problem. I'm going to bounce to his room now."

"V¡ª"

"Shut it, cop. I'll be back in a couple hours."

"I wish like hell you didn't have to¡ª"

"Whatever. This isn't going to change things." After all, Jane would still be gone; he would still be a bonded male without his mate. So yup, yup, nothing different, nothing mattered.

"You're absolutely positive you don't want me to go?"

"Just be here with the Goose when I get back. I'm going to need a drink."

V left the Pit through the underground tunnel, and as he walked over to the mansion, he tried to give himself some perspective.

This Chosen he was mating was just a body. Same as he was. The two of them were going to do what needed to be done, when it was necessary. It was just male parts meeting female parts, then thrust and repeat until the male ejaculated. And as for his complete and utter lack of arousal? Not a problem. The Chosen had salves to ensure an erection and incense that made you come. So even though he had absolutely no interest in sex, his body would do what it was born and bred to do: ensure that the best lines in the species survived.

Shit, he wished it could be clinical, all cup-and-baster. But vampires had tried IVF in the past, to no success. Young had to be conceived the good old-fashioned way.

Man, he did not want to think of how many females he was going to have to be with. He just couldn't go there. If he did, he was going to¡ª

Vishous stopped in the middle of the tunnel.

Opened his mouth.

And screamed until his voice gave out.