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“Don’t fight the feeling.”

Like the strike of dual matches, his pupils flashed white. It was the oddest thing. One moment they were black. The next, pale light was shining out of them.

“Why does that happen?” she asked.

His shoulders thickened as he bore down on his legs and braced himself. Abruptly he stood up and paced around. She could sense an energy coming off of him, out of him.

“Rhage?”

“You don’t need to worry about it.”

“That hard tone in your voice tells me maybe I should.”

He smiled at her and shook his head. “No. You don’t. About the favor. Our race has a physician, Havers. Will you let me give him access to your medical files? Maybe our science can help you.”

Mary frowned. A vampire doctor. Talk about exploring your alternative therapies.

Yeah, but what exactly did she have to lose?

“Okay. Except I don’t know how to get copies—”

“My brother, V, is a computer god. He can hack into anything, and most of your stuff should be online. All I need are names and places. Dates, too, if you have them.”

When he grabbed paper and a pen, she told him where she had been treated as well as the names of her doctors. After he’d written it all down, he stared at the piece of paper.

“What?” she asked.

“There are so many.” His eyes lifted to hers. “How bad was it, Mary?”

Her first impulse was to tell him the truth: that she’d had two rounds of chemo and a bone-marrow transplant and had just squeaked by. But then she thought about the night before, when her emotions had gotten so out of control. She was a box of dynamite right now and her disease was the best fuse around. The last thing she needed was to get tripped again, because Christ knew nothing good had come of the last two times she’d lost it. The first she’d cried all over him. The second she’d…Well, biting his lip had been the least of it.

Shrugging, lying, hating herself, she murmured, “It was okay. I was just glad when it was over.”

His eyes narrowed.

Just as someone pounded on the door.

Rhage’s stare didn’t waver, in spite of the urgent sound. “Someday you’re going to learn to trust me.”

“I do trust you.”

“Bullshit. And here’s a quick tip. I hate being lied to.”

The heavy knocking started up again.

Rhage went over and opened the door, ready to tell whoever it was to screw off. He had a feeling he and Mary were about to get into an argument, and he wanted to get the thing over with.

Tohr was on the other side. Looking like he’d been hit with a stun gun.

“What the hell happened to you?” Rhage asked while stepping into the hall. He shut the door partway.

Tohr sniffed the air drifting out of the bedroom. “Jesus. You’ve marked her, haven’t you?”

“You got a problem with that?”

“No, it makes this all easier in a way. The Scribe Virgin has spoken.”

“Tell me.”

“You should be with the rest of the brothers to hear—”

“Fuck that. I want to know now, Tohr.”

When the brother finished speaking in the Old Language, Rhage took a deep breath. “Give me ten minutes.”

Tohr nodded. “We’re in Wrath’s study.”

Rhage went back into his room and shut the door. “Listen, Mary, I’ve got some business with my brothers. I might not be back tonight.”

She stiffened and her eyes dropped away from his face.

“Mary, it’s not females, I swear to you. Just promise me you’ll be here when I get back.” As she hesitated, he went over and stroked her cheek. “You said you don’t have a doctor’s appointment until Wednesday. What’s another night? You could spend more time in the tub. You told me how much you like that.”

She smiled a little. “You are a manipulator.”

“I like to think of myself more as an outcome engineer.”

“If I stay one more day, you’re just going to try to talk me into another and another….”

He bent down and kissed her hard, wishing he had more time, wanting to be with her, inside of her, before he left. But hell, even if he’d had hours to spare, he wouldn’t be able to do that. The tingling and the hum in him was about to vibrate his body into midair.

“I love you,” he said. Then he pulled back, took off his watch, and put the Rolex