“Yeah. I’m good. You okay?”

“Thanks to you.”

As their eyes met, Butch dreaded the question that went unspoken. Closing his lids, he braced himself and reached out a sense he did not want to have. The answer about whether there were more lessers out there was immediate—

“So it wasn’t the last,” V said.

Butch tried to keep the disappointment to himself. “No.”

“Okay. Then we find another and another—however long it takes.”

“I don’t think there are many left. And I’m not just saying that.”

Bullshit. Of course he was just saying it. He didn’t want to do this anymore. He didn’t want to be out here, sucking evil into himself, making his best friend get it out of him, all the while praying for the end to come and being denied that prize. His exhaustion with the whole damn thing took the present and made it go on forever.

“Yup,” he said with forced bravado. “We keep going. Until the last one—”

As V stiffened, Butch turned and looked down the alley. “Yeah, I sense that slayer, too. You got enough juice to fight now?”

“Shh.” Vishous narrowed his eyes.

Butch frowned and shoved his torso off the pavement so he could get at his guns if he needed them. “It’s just one lesser. I can feel him—”

All at once, the alley went foggy. Except it wasn’t fog. Mhis was an optical illusion and sensory scrambler that V used to secure the Brotherhood compound, a force field that anyone could penetrate, but nobody could find their way through.

“I’m not that bad off,” Butch bitched. “I can still fight.”

Vishous got to his feet, but he stayed in a crouch, his attention focused on the enemy that was standing not that far off from them.

“Cop,” he whispered. “I need to move you. Right now.”

Okay, his best friend was acting weird here. “What exactly are you seeing?”

“Evil. And I can’t see it. That’s what bothers me.”

Butch cranked his head so he was staring in the same direction. “Well, I now can’t see shit because of the mhis. V, I love you. But you’re nuts, man—”

“We gotta get you away from here. You’re too valuable to lose.”

“I can handle myself.”

“Not against the likes of this, cop.”

“It’s just a slayer—”

Butch felt his arm get taken in a rough grip, and his body weight get dragged up off of the pavement. Then there was no further conversation. V hustled them away, and the mhis followed him, followed them. The pace that was set was fast, and Butch shuffled along as best he could, his testicular-magedon slowing him down.

“This is waste of fucking time,” he muttered into the wind. “We could just be fighting the damn thing.”

 

* * *

 

“Don’t be afraid of me.”

As Syn spoke the words, he saw through the syllables to the lie underneath. This female with the red hair and the green eyes should have been terrified to be alone with him, in a place where no one would hear her scream. But she didn’t know about him and what he had done in the past.

This was a good thing.

“You can put the gun away,” he said.

Her eyes were leery as she regarded him with a self-possession he respected. “I don’t need to be saved.”

“Yes, you do.”

“So exactly how do you intend to rescue me.”

“Listen to what your body is telling you.”

“Well, right now, it says I’m hungry. You going to order me a pizza?”

“It’s not interested in food.”

“Oh, really?” Keeping her weapon in her grip, she yanked her purse into her lap, and with her free hand, she rummaged around in it. “I beg to differ. And how about you don’t try to tell a women what her body is doing. Let’s start with that.”

Extracting some kind of a long, thin packaging, she ripped open the wrapper with her teeth, and took a bite of smoked beef. She chewed with determination, glaring up at him, challenging him to argue with her about what they both knew damn well was going on with her.

“So what now?” she demanded. “You going to put the mental whammy on me like you did the cops? Or does that only work with members of law enforcement?”

Syn shook his head. “I don’t want to do that to you.”

“So you admit you…” She motioned the stick back and forth between them. “… somehow hypnotized them.”

“I solved a problem for us.”

“But how? I don’t know a lot about the way it works, but you didn’t use a pocket watch, and you didn’t ask any of them to count back from a hundred.”

Even though Syn tried not to, he found himself watching her mouth as she enunciated her words. Her lips captivated him in ways that had nothing to do with her upcoming transition, and most certainly called into question his Good Samaritan impulses. Indeed, as his body stood before her and his eyes roamed around her face, things that he shouldn’t wonder about began to shift his consciousness away from her change.

For example, it was right about now that he noticed her thighs were spread for balance as she sat on that countertop.

He wanted to see what was under her windbreaker.

Under her fleece.

Under… her jeans.

As he blinked, a series of images flickered with impossible speed on the backs of his lids. He saw himself moving in closer, his hips splitting her knees even further apart, his chest pushing her back so she was lying against the wall behind her, his hands locking on the hard ridges of her pelvis, one on each side—

Syn took a step back, as if the added distance would help the sex surging in his blood. It did not. He promptly returned to staring at her lips. And meanwhile, she was on a roll with the wordsmithing, talking at him, telling him God only knew what.

It was fine. As long as she was speaking, she wasn’t running from him.

This was good. This was better.

Because if she ran, he was liable to go after her, and that was a race he would win. And when he caught her, he would mount her—

Under his skin, a wave of instinct crested, the power thickening his muscles and his blood. As both of his hands curled into greedy fists, he was aware of his breath getting tight.

“I have to go,” he said roughly.

That shut her up, her mouth stopping its sensuous contortions. “Running from little ol’ me? That’s a surprise. Or is it my gun you’re afraid of?”

Neither of them moved. Until she took another bite of her whatever-it-was.

“What kind of cologne is that?” she asked softly. As soon as the words were spoken, she shook her head, as if she hadn’t known they were going to come out of her. As if she would have taken them back if she could.

“It’s not cologne,” he replied.

“What is it.”

“Me. When I’m around you.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think.”

The demand wasn’t a passive-aggressive move or a fishing expedition for sexual innuendo because he had no game—although the no-game was definitely true. In fact, he hoped that maybe she could sort his intentions out for him. Maybe there was something in his face, his eyes, his stance, that she could see or sense, a warning that he was going to hurt her… or an indication that she was safe with him.