hen Marissa had taken all she needed, she eased off Butch and lay next to him. He was on his back, staring up at the Escalade's ceiling, one hand resting on his chest. He breathed raggedly, his clothes all rumpled and misaligned, his shirt up around his pecs. His sex lay glistening and spent on his hard stomach, and his neck wounds were raw even after she'd licked them.

She'd used him with a savagery she hadn't thought she had in her, her needs driving them both into an absolute, primal frenzy. And now, in the aftermath, she could feel her body going to work on what he'd given her, her eyelids drooping a little.

So good. He'd been so good.

"Will you use me again?" Butch's voice, always full of gravel, was nearly gone.

Marissa closed her eyes, her chest hurting so badly she had trouble breathing.

"Because I want it to be me instead of him," he said.

Oh... so this was about an act of aggression directed toward Rehvenge, not about feeding her. She should have known. She'd seen the look Butch had given Rehv just before getting into the car. He obviously still held a grudge from before.

"Never mind," Butch said, putting himself back into his pants and zipping up. "None of my business."

She had no reply for him, but he didn't seem to expect one. He handed her her clothes, didn't look at her as she dressed, and the second her nakedness was covered, he opened the back door.

Cold air rushed in... and that was when she realized something. The inside of the car smelled of passion and feeding¡ªthick, heady fragrances that were enticing. But there was not one hint of the bonding scent. Not one hint.

She couldn't bear to glance back at him as she walked away.

It was close to dawn when Butch finally pulled into the compound's courtyard. After parking the Escalade between Rhage's deep purple GTO and Beth's Audi station wagon, he walked over to the Pit.

After he and Marissa had parted, he'd driven around the city for hours, following the paths of meaningless streets, passing by nonexistent houses, stopping at traffic lights when he remembered to. He'd come home only because daylight was going to flash over the land very soon and it just seemed like the thing to do.

He looked to the east, where the barest hint of radiance showed.

Walking out to the center of the courtyard, he sat on the edge of the fountain's marble pool and watched as the shutters came down over the windows of the main house and the Pit. He blinked a little at the glow in the sky. Then blinked a lot.

As his eyes started to burn, he thought about Marissa and remembered every single thing about her, from the shape of her face to the fall of her hair to the sound of her voice and the scent of her skin. Here in privacy, he let his feelings out, giving in to the aching love and the hateful yearning that refused to leave him be.

And what do you know, the bonding scent made an appearance once again. He'd somehow managed to withhold it when he'd been around her, feeling as though marking her wasn't fair. But here? Alone? No reason to hide.

As the sunrise gathered momentum, his cheeks flared with pain, like he had a sunburn, and his body twitched with alarm. He forced himself to stay because he needed to see the sun, but his thighs trembled from the urge to run, and he wasn't going to be able to hold them for a long.

Shit... he was never going to catch daylight again, was he? And with Marissa out of his life, there would be no kind of sunshine for him. Ever.

The darkness owned him, didn't it.

He released the lock on himself because he had no choice, and the instant he did, his legs raced across the courtyard. Hurling his body through the Pit's vestibule, he slammed the innermost door and breathed roughly.

There was no rap music playing, but V's leather jacket was tossed on the chair behind the computers, so he was around. Probably still at the big house doing a postgame wrap-up with Wrath.

As Butch stood by himself in the living room, the familiar urge to drink hit hard, and he could see no good reason not to give in. Dumping his coat and his weapons, he headed for the Scotch, poured himself a long/tall, and brought the bottle out with him from the kitchen. Going over to his favorite couch, he lifted the glass to his lips and while he swallowed, his eyes fell on the newest issue of Sports Illustrated. There was a picture of a baseball player on the cover and next to the guy's head, in big yellow print, was a single word: HERO.

Marissa was right. He did have a hero complex. But it wasn't about some kind of an ego trip. It was because maybe if he saved enough people he could be... forgiven.

That's what he was truly after: absolution.

Flashbacks from his younger years started to play like pay-per-view, except sure as shit this wasn't a movie he'd choose to order. And in the midst of the show, his eyes slid to the phone. There was only one person who could ease him about this stuff, and he doubted she would. But damn, if he could reach out and have his mother say, just once, that she forgave him for letting Janie get into that car...

Butch sat down on the leather sofa and put his Scotch aside.

He waited there for hours, until the clock said nine. And then he picked up the phone and dialed a number that started with the area code 617. His father answered.

The conversation was just as awful as Butch had thought it might be. The only thing worse? The news from home.

As he ended the call on the cordless, he saw that the total elapsed time, counting the six rings at the beginning, was one minute thirty-four seconds. And it was, he knew, likely the last time he would talk to Eddie O'Neal.

"What's doing, cop?"

He jumped and looked up at Vishous. Saw no reason to lie. "My mother's sick. For the past two years, apparently. Has Alzheimer's. Bad. Of course, no one thought to tell me. And I would never have known if I hadn't just called."

"Shit..." V came over and sat down. "You want to go see her?"

"Nope." Butch shook his head and picked up his Scotch. "Got no reason to. Those people aren't my business anymore."