tanding in the library's archway, Butch did his best not to flat-out stare at Marissa, but it was tough. Especially because she was sitting next to Rehvenge.

He tried to distract himself by looking around. The meeting she was in was full of highfliers. Christ, looked like a political summit, except for the fact that they were all dressed to the nines, especially the females. Man, Elizabeth Taylor's jewelry box had nothing on these chicks.

And then the drama bomb went off.

The guy at the head of the table looked over, saw Lash, and went corpse-white. Rising slowly, he seemed to have lost his voice. As had everyone else in the room.

"We need to talk, sire," Rhage said while giving Lash a shake. "About your boy's extracurricular activities."

Rehvenge stood up. "We sure as hell do."

This broke up the meeting like an axe to an ice block. Lash's dad whipped out of the library and hurry Rhage, Rehvenge, and the kid into a sitting room. Like he was utterly mortified. Meanwhile, the fancy types got up from the table and started to mill around. None of them looked happy, and most of them shot hard looks in Marissa's direction.

Which made Butch want to teach them how to show some respect. Until they were bleeding from the lesson.

As his fists cranked tight, his nostrils flared and he sifted through the air, finding Marissa's scent and absorbing it into every pore he had. Naturally, his body went apeshit being so near her, the damn thing heating up, getting urgent. Shit, it was all he could do to get his arms and legs to stay put. Especially as he felt her look at him.

When a cool breeze tunneled into the house, Butch realized the huge front door was still open from their arrival with the kid. As he looked out into the night, he knew it was better for him to go. Cleaner. Neater. Less dangerous, too, given how badly he wanted to pound¡ªgrind these snobs for treating Marissa with coldness.

He walked out of the house and took a meander across the front lawn, strolling over the muddy spring ground for a while before doubling back toward the house. He stopped as he came up to the Escalade because he knew he was no longer alone.

Marissa stepped from behind the SUV. "Hello, Butch."

Jesus, she was so beautiful. Especially up close like this.

"Hey, Marissa." He put his hands in the pockets of his leather coat. And thought about how he missed her. Wanted her. Craved her. And not just for sex.

"Butch... I¡ª"

Abruptly, he tensed, his eyes picking up on something that was coming across the lawn. A man... a white-haired man... a lesser.

"Shit," Butch hissed. In a rush, he grabbed Marissa and started hauling her back toward the house.

"What are you doing¡ª" As soon as she saw the lesser, she stopped fighting him.

"Run," he commanded. "Run and tell Rhage and V to get their asses out here. And lock that fucking door." He gave her a shove and wheeled around, not taking a breath until he heard a heavy slam and then bolts being pushed home.

Well, what do you know. It was the Fore-lesser coming up the lawn.

Man, he wished he didn't have an audience. Because before he killed the guy, he really wanted to tear him apart as payback. Eye for an eye, so to speak.

As the bastard got closer, the slayer lifted his hands in surrender, but Butch didn't buy the act. Or the one-man gig. He let his instincts roam around, expecting to find a whole legion of slayers on the grounds. Surprisingly, there were none.

Still, he felt safer as V and Rhage materialized behind him, their bodies displacing the cold air.

"I think it's just him," Butch murmured, his body primed for a fight. "And I don't need to tell you this... but he's mine."

As the slayer came closer, Butch got ready to spring, but then shit got weird. Holy hell¡ªhe had to be seeing things. The lesser couldn't have tears flowing down his face, could he?

In an anguished voice, it said, "You, the cop. Take me... finish me. Please..."

"Don't trust this," Rhage said from the left.

The lesser's eyes shifted to the brother and then returned to Butch. "I just want this over. I'm trapped... Please, kill me. It has to be you, though. Not them."

"My fucking pleasure," Butch muttered.

He lunged at the guy, expecting all manner of fight to come back at him, but the bastard put up no resistance at all, just landed on his back like a bag of sand.

"Thank you... thank you..." The freaky-ass gratitude ran out of the lesser's mouth, a stream without end, marked with aching relief.

As Butch felt the urge to inhale come over him, he held on to the Fore-lesser's throat and opened his mouth, acutely aware of the eyes of the glymera staring out from the Tudor mansion. Right as he started to draw, all he could think of was Marissa. He didn't want her to see what was going to happen next.

Except... nothing did. There was no exchange. Some kind of block was preventing the evil from being transferred.

The Fore-lesser's eyes cracked wide in panic. "It worked... with the others. It worked! I saw you..."

Butch kept inhaling until it was clear that for whatever reason, this was one he couldn't consume. Maybe because it was the Fore-lesser? Who the fuck cared.

"With the others..." the lesser was babbling. "With the others, it worked..."

"Not with you apparently." Butch reached to his hip and unsheathed his knife. "Good thing there's another way." He hauled back, lifting the blade over his head.

The lesser screamed and started to flail. "No! He'll torture me! Nooooooooo¡ª"

The hollering died right off as the slayer popped and fizzled.

Butch sighed in relief, glad he'd done the deed.

Only to have a wave of malice shoot through him, burning like the extremes of cold and heat combined. As he gasped, nasty laughter bubbled up from out of nowhere and weaved through the night, the kind of disembodied sound that made a man think about his own coffin.

The Omega.

Butch grabbed for his cross through his shirt and sprang to his feet just as a static-filled apparition of the Evil appeared before him. Butch's body rebelled, but he didn't step back. Dimly, he felt Rhage and V close in tight with him, flanking him, protecting him.

"What is, cop?" V murmured. "What are you looking at?"

Shit, they couldn't see the Omega.

Before Butch could explain, the distinctive, echoing voice of the Evil weaved in and out of the wind, in and out of his head. "So you are the one, are you not? My... son, as it were."

"Never."

"Butch? Who are you talking to?" V said.

"Did I not sire you, then?" The Omega laughed some more. "Did I not give you part of me, then? Yes, I did. And you know what they say about me, don't you?"

"I don't want to know."

"You should." The Omega reached out a ghostly hand, and though it closed no distance between them, Butch felt it on his face. "I always claim what is mine. Son."

"Sorry, my Father position is already filled."

Butch dragged his cross out and let it dangle from its chain. Dimly, he thought he heard V curse, as if the brother had figured out what was going on, but his attention was only on what was in front of him.

The Omega looked at the heavy piece of gold. Then flicked his glance over Rhage and V and the house behind. "Trinkets don't impress me. Neither do the Brothers. Nor the sturdiest locks and doors."

"But I do."

The Omega's head whipped around.

The Scribe Virgin materialized behind him, totally unrobed and glowing like a supernova.

The Omega instantly changed shape, becoming a wormhole in the fabric of reality, no longer an apparition but a smoky black pit.

"Oh, shit," V barked, as if he and Rhage were now able to see everything.

The Omega's voice emerged from the dark depths. "Sister, how fare thee this night?"

"I command thee back to Dhunhd. Go thou, now." The glow of her intensified until it began to encase the Omega's sinkhole.

A nasty growl drifted free. "Think you that banishment cures my presence? How simple you are."

"Go thou, now." A stream of words flowed from her into the night, neither the Old Language nor any other tongue Butch had ever heard.

Just before the Omega disappeared, Butch felt the eyes of the Evil bore into him as that horrible voice echoed out, "Lo, how you inspire me, my son. And may I say you would be wise to search for your blood. Families should congregate."

Then the Omega disappeared in a flare of white. As did the Scribe Virgin.

Gone. Both of them. Nothing remaining except a bitterly cold wind that cleared the clouds from the sky like curtains ripped away by a savage hand.

Rhage cleared his throat. "Okay... I'm not sleeping for the next week and a half. How about you two?"

"You all right?" V asked Butch.

"Yeah." No.

Jesus Christ... he was not the Omega's son. Was he?

"No," V said. "You're not. He just wants to believe you are. And he wants you to think you are. But that doesn't make it true."

There was a long silence. Then Rhage's hand landed on Butch's shoulder. "Besides, you don't look a thing like him. I mean... hello? You're this beefy Irish white boy. He's like... bus exhaust or some shit."

Butch glanced over at Hollywood. "You're sick, you know that?"

"Yeah, but you love me, right? Come on. I know you feel me."

Butch was the first to start chuckling. Then the other two joined in, the weight of the heavy-duty, high-powered weird-out that had just happened draining away a little.

But as their laughter faded, Butch's hand went to his stomach.

Twisting around, he looked to the mansion, searching the pale, frightened faces on the other side of the leaded windows. Marissa was right in front, her brilliant blond hair reflected in the moonlight.

He closed his eyes and turned away. "I want to take the Escalade back. By myself." If he didn't get some time alone, he was going to scream. "But first, do we need to do anything about the glymera and everything they saw?"

"Wrath will definitely hear about this from them," V muttered. "But as far as I'm concerned they're on their own. Besides, they can pay their therapists to work through this shit. Not our biz to calm them out."

After Rhage and V dematerialized back to the compound, Butch started for the Escalade. As he deactivated the SUV's security alarm, he heard someone running across the ground.

"Butch! Wait!"

He glanced over his shoulder. Marissa was jogging down toward him, and when she stopped, she was so close he could hear the blood in the chambers of her heart.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, running her eyes all over him.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Was that the Omega?"

"Yes."

She took a deep breath, like she wanted to probe but knew he wasn't going to talk about what had happened with the Evil. Not with the way things were between them. "Ah, before it came, I saw you kill that slayer. Is that... that burst of light, is that what you¡ª"

"No."

"Oh." She dropped her eyes to his hands. No... she was looking at the dagger on his hip. "You were out fighting, before you came here."

"Yeah."

"And you saved that boy... Lash, didn't you?"

He glanced at the SUV. Knew he was a thin inch away from throwing himself at her, hugging her hard, and begging her to come home with him. Like a total fucking idiot. "Look, I'm going to leave, Marissa. Take... care."

He walked around to the driver's side and got in. When she followed, he shut the door on her, but he didn't start the engine.

Shit, through the glass and steel of the Escalade, he could feel her as vividly as if she were against his chest.

"Butch..." The sound of his name was muffled. "I want to apologize for something I said to you."

He gripped the steering wheel and stared out the front windshield. Then like the sap he was, his hand popped the door and he pushed it open. "Why?"

"I'm sorry I brought the whole rescuing-your-sister thing into it. You know, back at the Pit. That was cruel."

"I... Shit, you had a good point. I have been trying to save people all my life because of Janie. So don't feel bad."

There was a long pause, and he sensed something strong coming out of her, something¡ªah, yes, her need to feed. She was starving for a vein.

And naturally, his body wanted to give her every single one he had. Natch.

To keep himself in the damn Escalade, he put his seat belt on, then took one last look at her face. It was taut with strain and... hunger. She was really fighting her need, trying to hide it so they could talk.

"I gotta go," he said. Like now.

"Yes... me, too." She flushed and stepped back, her eyes meeting his briefly and skirting away. "Anyway, I'll see you. Around."

She turned away and started walking quickly back up to the house. And guess who appeared in the doorway to meet her: Rehvenge.

Rehv... so strong... so powerful... so completely able to feed her.

Marissa didn't make it another yard.

Butch shot out of the SUV, grabbed her around the waist, and dragged her back to the car. Although it wasn't as if she fought him. In the slightest.

He popped the rear door of the Escalade and all but threw her inside. As he started to get in, he looked at Rehvenge. The guy's violet stare was glowing, like he had half a mind to get involved, but Butch nailed the male right in the eye and pointed at the guy's chest, the universal signal for you-stay-right-there-buddy-and-you-get-to-keep-your-teeth. Rehv's lips moved in a curse, but then he bowed his head and dematerialized.

Butch leaped into the back of the SUV, slammed the hatch, and was on top of Marissa before the ceiling light dimmed. It was crowded in the rear, his legs twisted at odd angles, his shoulder shoved against something, probably the back of a seat, whatever. He couldn't have cared less and neither did she. Marissa was all over him, wrapping her legs around his hips and opening her mouth to him as he brutally kissed her.

Butch flipped them over so she was on top, fisted a bunch of her hair, and yanked her right down to his throat. "Bite!" he snarled.

Holy fuck, did she ever.

He felt a searing pain as her fangs sliced into him, and as he was penetrated, his body jerked wildly, causing his flesh to tear even more. Oh, but it was good. So good. She was taking deep draws from his vein and the satisfaction of feeding her was a buzzing rush.

He pushed a palm between their bodies and cupped the heat at the center of her, rubbing at her core. As she let out a crazy moan, he shoved up her shirt with his other hand. God bless her, she broke the contact with his neck long enough to whip off her blouse and ditch her bra.

"The pants," he said hoarsely. "Lose your pants."

As she stripped awkwardly in the confined space, he undid his zipper and sprang his erection free. He didn't dare touch the thing, he was so close to orgasm.

She mounted him fully naked, her pale blue eyes glowing, positively afire in the darkness. The red stain of his blood was on her lips and he rose up to kiss her mouth, then angled himself so as she sat down she hit his body just right. He kicked his head back as they joined and she pierced his neck on the other side. As his hips started going hard, she eased up on her knees so she was stable as she drank.

The orgasm shattered him.

But the moment it was over, he was ready to go again.

And he did.