“John.”

As the King’s voice rang out, big warrior bodies parted to reveal Wrath sitting in one of the armchairs by the fireplace.

“Welcome back, son.”

That was when the hugging started. Rhage and Butch. Phury. Blay and Qhuinn, his very good friends. Z gave him a high five, which was a miracle considering that the male didn’t really touch other people all that much. Even Vishous came over and pulled him into a hard, brief embrace.

With each connection, each contact, John felt his face flush more and more. And then the King himself came over, George leading him across the Oriental carpet.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” Wrath smiled, revealing enormous fangs. “Things wouldn’t be the same around here without you.”

Funny how it all worked out. John would never have volunteered to get injured as he had. Certainly wouldn’t have chosen to walk the lonely path of mortal disease, finding out what it was like to realize your friends and family were going to keep living without you on the planet. Clearly hadn’t wanted to go through a version of the transition as an adult.

But he’d needed this moment of communion with the Brotherhood. He’d needed this… validation from them.

This you’re-one-of-us-even-if-you’re-not.

And in retrospect, he could understand that with the Murhder stuff, it truly was Brotherhood business. Given all the history that male had with the rest of them? Well, sometimes even the most intimate of friends still needed moments of privacy.

But Murhder was gone now, and sad as that was, things had been recalibrated, taken back to normal.

John didn’t need to be a member of the Brotherhood officially.

This was more than good enough for him.

Night had fallen by the time Sarah returned to her home. Then again, January in Upstate New York meant five p.m. was dark as the inside of your hat, to borrow a phrase from her father.

She turned to Special Agent Manfred. “Thanks for the ride.”

He put the unmarked sedan in park, but kept the engine running. “Do you think if this whole federal agent thing doesn’t work out, I could be an Uber driver?”

“Absolutely. I’d totally use you again.”

In the close quarters of the front seat, with the glow of the dash illuminating his face, she decided he was handsome enough. For a human.

“What?” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re smiling.”

“Just thought of something funny. Gallows humor. You know how it goes.”

“Too right. Listen … you have my card. You see anyone around your property, get any strange calls, feel like you’re even in the slightest danger, you call, okay? I’ll be checking in with you in a couple of days anyway.”

“I’m not going to take any chances. Thank you—oh, listen, I might have a job interview out at Stanford University. In California. Is it okay for me to travel? I mean, I’ll let you know where I am and when I’m expected back and everything.”

“Sure.” No dry tone anymore. “I just need to know where to find you in case I need you.”

“Okay.” She picked her backpack up from between her feet. “Thanks again for the ride. I’ll send a tow truck for my car tomorrow or the next day. Guess that cold really drained the battery.”

“Winter’ll do that.”

Sarah got out and closed the passenger door. She was not surprised that he waited until she’d unlocked things and was in safely in her home before he drove away.

He was a good guy, she thought as she locked herself in. A good guy in a tough job.

Refocusing, she went back to her kitchen and intended to eat something, but there was nothing very inspiring available. Stouffer’s Lean Cuisine in the freezer. Ramen noodles in the cupboards. She settled for a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats and didn’t eat much of it.

Probably for the best. The skim milk was twenty-four hours away from a “Best By” violation.

As she sat at her little table in her silent house, the magnitude of her isolation was terrifying. No family. No friends, really.

No Murhder.

The only person she might call if she needed something? An FBI agent.

To keep herself from hyperventilating, she thought about everything she had covered with Manfred. He’d been utterly shocked when she’d told him she had ridden home with Kraiten. He’d even questioned her as to why in the hell, if she believed the man might have killed her fiancé, she would ever get into a car with him.

Sarah had lied and told Manfred that she’d wanted to see if Kraiten brought up the deaths. If the man had anything to say about Gerry or his boss.

Pretty reckless, the agent had said. Downright dangerous is more like it.

Sarah had looked him right in the eye. When the love of your life is gone, nothing is all that scary anymore.

And that was that.

When everything was said and done, it turned out the FBI had nothing to contradict her story about Sunday night. No evidence. No tapes. No security guards with different versions of the truth. Manfred hadn’t exactly told her as much, but the more comfortable he became with her and her story, the more his frustration with the case had started to come through. And it wasn’t hard to guess that there was nothing that got members of law enforcement more twitchy than lack of evidence.

Especially when their guts told them that a crime or crimes had been committed.

If she hadn’t known what Murhder could do to the human brain—if she hadn’t experienced his tricks herself—she would never have understood how it was possible for three individuals to break into a secured location, rescue someone, and leave without a trace.

Although Kraiten had certainly assisted them in all that by killing himself. Which was lucky …

Or was it? For all she knew, Murhder could have programmed Kraiten to get rid of all of the evidence. Erase not just the footage, the servers, the logs, but the company itself.

The CEO, himself.

Neat and tidy.

Like none of it had ever happened.

Sarah put her hand on her heart and massaged the pain there. She was going to have to get used to a perpetual heavy weight behind her sternum again, wasn’t she.

As she thought about that secret lab and what had been done to innocents there … she prayed that there were no other vampires held in captivity by other research companies.

Dear God, what if there were? How would anyone know, though. Kraiten had been careful to keep what he’d been doing a secret, and so had the people who had worked in the lab. Other corporations would do the same.

With a curse, she looked up at the ceiling and thought of Gerry at his desk in his study above. She had spoken the truth about him to Agent Manfred: Gerry had never told her what he was working on. Never once.

And not even in the evidence he left behind after his death: None of it, after all, had been directed toward her or left for her.

Getting to her feet, she went across to the door into the basement and descended into the cool dark cellar. When she got to the bottom, she flipped the switch.

The fluorescent lights on the low-slung rafters flickered to life and she glanced at the remnants of her college days in those containers. Then she went in the opposite direction away from all that, over to the washer and dryer. Bending down, she pulled the lower panel under the dryer loose and put it aside. With a stretch, she reached in, all the way to the back, pushing through dust bunnies.