hen Jane's alarm went off at five A.M., she had to hit the snooze button. Twice. Usually she was out of bed and in the shower before knew she was upright, like the beep-beep-beep didn't so much wake her up as spring her out of bed like a toaster. Not today. Today she just lay against her pillows and stared at the ceiling.

God, the dreams she'd had during the night... dreams of that ghostly lover coming and taking her, riding her hard. She could still feel him on her, in her.

Enough, though. The more she thought of all that, the more her chest hurt, so, with a Herculean pull, she diverted her attention to work. Which, of course, then just got her tangled up about Manello. She couldn't believe he'd kissed her, but he had... he'd laid one right on her mouth. And as she'd always wondered in the back of her mind what he'd be like, she hadn't pulled away. So he'd kissed her again.

He was good, which wasn't a surprise. What was a news flash was the fact that it had felt wrong. Like she was being unfaithful to someone.

The damn alarm went off again, and she cursed as she shut it up with her hand. Goddamn, she was tired, even though she thought she'd gone to bed early. At least, she assumed it had been early, though she wasn't exactly sure when Manny had left. She recalled him helping her up here and settling her into bed, but her head was so scrambled she couldn't remember what time it had been or how long it had taken her to fall asleep.

Whatever.

Throwing off the covers, she headed for the bathroom and started the shower. As steam boiled up and clouded the air, she shut the bathroom door, pulled her T-shirt off, and¡ª

Jane frowned as a feeling of wetness welled between her legs. Doing a quick count of the days, she figured her period must be wonky¡ª

It wasn't her period. She'd had sex.

Cold shock replaced the heat from the steam. Oh, God... what had she done. What had she done?

Jane wheeled around, even though she had nowhere to go¡ªonly to clamp her hand over her mouth.

Written on the mirror, revealed by the steam, were the words; I love you, Jane.

She stumbled backward until she hit the door.

Shit. She'd slept with Manny Manello. And hadn't remembered a thing.

Phury took a seat in Wrath's study, this time on the delicate pale blue wing chair by the fireplace. His hair was still wet from the shower, and he had a cup of coffee in his hand.

He needed a blunt.

As the rest of the Brotherhood filed in, he looked at Wrath. "Mind if I light up?"

The king shook his head. "I'd consider it a public service. We could all use the contact high today."

God, wasn't that the truth. Everyone was off. Zsadist was twitchy over by the bookcases. Butch was distracted by the computer on his lap. Wrath looked exhausted behind a mountain of paperwork. Rhage was pacing around, unable to settle¡ªa sure sign that he hadn't found a fight during the night hours.

And Vishous... V was the worst of them. He stood by the door, staring into space. Icy before, he was glacial now, a sinkhole in the room. Shit, he was even more grim than he'd been the night before.

As Phury lit up, he thought about Jane and V and idly wondered what the sex they'd had had been like. He imagined that, while they had had plenty of pummel sessions, there had been lovely moments of communion, too.

Yeah, nothing like the stuff he'd had in that bathroom. With that prostitute.

He pushed his free hand through his hair. Were you still a virgin if you'd been in a female, but hadn't finished? He wasn't sure. Either way, he wasn't going to ask anyone. It was all just too skeevy.

Man, he'd hoped being with someone would help him move on, but it hadn't. He felt even more trapped, especially as the first thing he'd done when he'd walked through the mansion's door was think of Bella: He'd prayed she didn't catch him coming back smelling of that human woman.

Distance was going to require something else, evidently.

Unless... damn, maybe it just required itself. He probably should move out of the house.

"Let's do this," Wrath said, convening the meeting. In quick succession he reviewed some issues concerning the glymera; then Rhage, Butch, and Z reported on events in the field. Which wasn't much. The slayers had been relatively quiet of late, likely because the Forelesser had been killed about two weeks ago by the cop. This was typical. Any shift in Lessening leadership usually resulted in some downtime in the war, although it never lasted for long.

As Phury lit up his second blunt, Wrath cleared his throat. "Now... about the Primale ceremony."

Phury drew in hard as V's diamond eyes lifted. Damn... the male looked like he'd aged a hundred and fifty years in the last week, his skin sallow, his brows down, his lips tight. He'd never been a party to begin with, but now he looked death-knell drawn.

"What about it," V said.

"I will be there." Wrath glanced over. "Phury, you too. We'll go at midnight tonight, okay?"

Phury nodded, then braced himself, because it looked as if Vishous was going to say something. The brother's body tensed up, his eyes darting around, his jaw working... but then nothing came out of his mouth.

Phury exhaled a stream of smoke and stamped the blunt out in a crystal ashtray. It was brutal to watch your brother bleed, to know he suffered while you couldn't do anything about it¡ª

He froze, an eerie calm coming over him, one that had nothing to do with the red smoke.

"Christ on a crutch," Wrath said, rubbing his eyes. "Get out of here, all of you. Go relax. We're all losing it¡ª"

Phury spoke up. "Vishous, if it weren't for the Primale shit, you would be with Jane, right?"

V's diamond eyes shifted over and narrowed into slits. "What the fuck does that have to do with anything?"

"You would be with her." Phury looked over at Wrath. "And you would let him, right? I mean, I know she's a human, but you let Mary come into¡ª"

V cut him off, voice hard as a his eyes, like he couldn't believe Phury was being so thoughtless. "There's no making it work. So just fucking drop it."

"But... there is."

Vishous's eyes flashed violent white. "No offense, but I'm on my last nerve. Backing off would be a really good plan for you right about now."

Rhage surreptitiously moved over next to V, while Zsadist came to stand beside Phury.

Wrath rose to his feet. "How about we drop this."

"No, hear me out." Phury got up from the chair. "The Scribe Virgin wants a male from the Brotherhood, right? For the purposes of breeding, right? Why does it have to be you?"

"Who the fuck else would it be?" V growled as he leaned into a charging stance.

"Why not... me?"

In the silence that followed, a grenade could have gone off under Wrath's desk and no one would have noticed: The Brotherhood just stared at him like he'd sprouted horns.

"Well, why couldn't I? She just needs DNA, right? So anyone who's a Brother should be able to do it. My line is strong. My blood is good. Why couldn't it be me?"

Zsadist breathed, "Jesus... Christ."

"There's no reason I couldn't be the Primale."

V's aggression bled out of him, leaving him with an expression like someone had nailed him in the back of the head with a frying pan. "Why would you do that?"

"You're my brother. If I can fix what's wrong, why wouldn't I? There is no female I want." As his throat got tight, he massaged it. "You're the Scribe Virgin's son, right? So you could suggest the change to her. Anyone else she'd probably kill, but not you. Shit, you could maybe even just tell her." He dropped his hand. "And you could reassure her I'll be better at it, because I'm not in love with someone."

V's diamond eyes did not waver from Phury's face. "It's wrong."

"The whole thing is wrong. But that's not relevant, is it?" Phury glanced over to the delicate French desk, meeting the eyes of his king. "Wrath, what say you?"

"Fuck," came the reply.

"Appropriate word choice, my lord, but not really an answer."

Wrath's voice got low, real low. "You can't be serious¡ª"

"I've got a couple centuries of celibacy to make up for. What better way to take the edge off?" It was meant as a joke, except no one laughed. "Come on, who else could do it? All of you are taken. The only other possible candidate would be John Matthew, because of Darius's line, but John's not a member of the Brotherhood, and who knows if he'll ever be."

"No." Zsadist shook his head. "No... this will kill you."

"Maybe if I'm fucked to death, yeah. But barring that, I'll be fine."

"You will never have a life if you do this."

"Of course I will." Phury knew exactly what Z was getting at so he deliberately shifted his attention back to Wrath. "You'll let V have Jane, won't you? If I do this, you'll let them be together."

This was not smooth, of course. Because you didn't give an order to the king, both by custom and law¡ªand also because he'd kick your ass across the whole state of New York. But at the moment Phury wasn't too concerned with protocol.

Wrath pushed his hand under his sunglasses and pulled another rub routine with his eyes. Then he let out a long exhale. "If anyone could manage the security risks inherent in a relationship with a human, it would be V. So... yeah, fuck me, but I would allow it."

"Then you'll let me substitute for him. And he'll go to the Scribe Virgin."

The grandfather clock in the corner of the study began to go off, the steady chiming like the beat of a heart. When it ceased to ring, everyone looked at Wrath.

After a moment the king said, "So be it."

Zsadist cursed. Butch whistled low. Rhage bit into a Tootsie Pop.

"Okay, then," Phury said.

Holy shit, what have I just done?

Apparently, everyone else kind of thought the same thing, because no one moved or said a word.

Vishous was the one who broke the deadlock... and he came across the study at a dead run. Phury didn't know what hit him. One second he was about to light up another blunt; the next, V pounded across the study, threw a massive pair of arms around him, and squeezed the breath out of him.

"Thank you," Vishous said hoarsely. "Thank you. Even if she won't let you, thank you, my brother."