he following evening, Marissa smiled as she looked up from her desk. Butch filled her office's doorway, his body so very big.

God, even though his neck was still healing from his induction, good Lord, he looked good. Strong. Powerful. Her mate.

"Hi," he said, flashing that chipped front tooth of his. As well as his fangs.

She smiled. "You're early."

"Couldn't stay away a moment longer." He came in and shut the door... and as he subtly turned the lock into place, her body heated up.

He walked around her desk and swiveled her chair to face him, then knelt down onto the floor. As he spread her thighs, he nestled in close, his bonding scent filling the air as he nuzzled her collarbone. With a sigh, she wrapped her arms around his heavy shoulders and kissed the soft skin behind his ear.

"How fare you, hellren?"

"Better now, wife."

While she held on to him, she shifted her eyes to her desk. There, amidst the papers and folders and pens, was a little white figurine. The exquisitely carved piece was a marble sculpture of a female sitting cross-legged with a double-bladed dagger in the palm of one hand, an owl on her opposite wrist.

Beth had had them made. One for Mary. One for Bella. One for Marissa. And the queen had kept one for herself. The dagger's significance was obvious. The white owl was a link to the Scribe Virgin, a symbol of prayers spoken for the safekeeping of their warrior mates.

The Brotherhood was strong, a unit, a powerful force in their world for good. And so too were the females. Strong. A unit. A powerful force for good in their world.

Banded together, as tightly together as their warriors.

Butch lifted his head and looked up at her in total adoration. With the mating ceremony completed, and her name in his back, she had dominion over his body by both law and instinct, a control he willingly surrendered to her, lovingly surrendered to her. He was hers to command and it was, as the glymera had always said, beautiful to be truly mated.

Only thing those fools ever got right.

"Marissa, I want to take you to meet someone, okay?"

"Of course. Now?"

"No, tomorrow at nightfall."

"All right. Who¡ª"

He kissed her. "You'll see."

Looking deeply into his hazel eyes, she stroked back his thick, dark hair. Then traced his eyebrows with her thumbs. Ran a fingertip down his bumpy, broken-too-many-times nose. Tapped lightly on his chipped tooth.

"Kind of battle-worn, aren't I?" he said. "But you know, with some plastic surgery and a couple caps, I could be a highflier just like Rhage."

Marissa glanced back at the figurine and thought about her life. And Butch's.

She shook her head slowly and leaned in to kiss him. "I wouldn't change a thing about you. Not one single thing."