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Oh…shit. Bella put her hand over her mouth. Weak. She’d called him weak. In front of the whole Brotherhood.

There was no greater insult. To merely insinuate that a male couldn’t handle himself with strength was unforgivable in the warrior class, no matter the basis. But to come flat out and say so, in front of witnesses, was a complete social castration, an irrevocable condemnation of his worth as a male.

Bella rushed over. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

Zsadist lifted his arms out of her reach. “Get away from me.”

She put her hand back to her mouth as he stepped around her like she was a grenade. He headed out the door and his footsteps receded down the hall. When she was able, she met the disapproving eyes of his brothers.

“I will apologize to him immediately. And hear this now, I do not doubt his courage or his strength. I worry over him because…”

Say it to them, she thought. Surely they would understand.

“I love him.”

Abruptly the tension in the room eased. Well, most of it. Phury turned away and went to the fire, leaning up against the mantel. His head dipped down as if he wanted to be in the flames.

“I’m glad you feel that way,” Wrath said. “He needs it. Now go find him and apologize.”

On her way out of the study, Tohrment stepped in front of her and gave her a level look. “Try to feed him while you’re at it, okay?”

“I’m praying he’ll let me.”

Chapter Thirty-seven

Rehvenge prowled around his house, going from room to room with a restless, punching stride. His visual field was red, his senses alive, his cane left behind hours ago. No longer cold as he always was, he’d ditched the turtleneck, hanging his weapons on his bare skin. He felt all of his body, reveled in all the power of his muscles and bones. And there were other things, too. Things he hadn’t experienced in…

God, it had been a decade since he’d let himself get this far gone, and because this was engineered, a deliberate recession into the madness, he felt in control—which was probably a dangerous fallacy, but he didn’t give a shit. He was…liberated. And he wanted to fight his enemy with a desperation that was downright sexual.

So he was also frustrated as hell.

He looked out one of the library’s windows. He’d left the front gate wide-open, trying to encourage visitors. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

The grandfather clock chimed twelve times.

He’d been so sure the lesser would show, but no one had come through the gate, up the drive, to the house. And according to the periphery’s security cameras, the cars that had passed by on the street were only those indigenous to the neighborhood: multiple Mercedes, a Maybach, several Lexus SUVs, four BMWs.

Goddamn it. He wanted that slayer, badly enough to scream, and the urge to fight, to ahvenge his family, to protect his turf, made sense. His bloodline reached back into the warrior elite on his mother’s side, and aggression ran thick in him; it always had. Add to his core nature the anger about his sister and the fact that he’d had to rush his mahmen out of her home in broad fucking daylight, and he was a powder keg.

He thought of the Brotherhood. He would have been a good candidate for them, if they’d been recruiting before his transition…. Except who the hell knew what they did anymore? They’d gone underground as the vampire civilization had crumbled, becoming this hidden enclave, protecting themselves more than the race they were sworn to defend.

Hell, he couldn’t help thinking that if they’d been more focused on their job and less on themselves, they could have prevented Bella’s abduction. Or found her right away.

Fresh anger stirring, he continued to walk through the house in a random pattern, looking out of windows and doors, checking monitors. Eventually he decided the aimless waiting was bullshit. He was just going to lose his mind wandering around here all night, and he had business to take care of downtown. If he set the alarms and they were triggered, he could dematerialize in the blink of an eye.

When he got up to his room, he went to his closet and paused in front of the