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“You’re hungry, but you don’t like to eat, right? Restless and exhausted. Short-tempered.”

Jesus, how did the Brother know all that?

“Been through it myself, remember.”

How much longer? John asked.

“Until it hits? As a male, you tend to take after your father. Darius went through his a little on the early side. But you never really know. Some people can be where you are for years.”

Years? Shit. What was it like afterward for you? When you woke up?

In the quiet that followed, the eeriest change came over the Brother. It was like a fog crept in and he disappeared—despite the fact that John could still see every detail of his scarred face and big body clear as ever.

“You talk to Blay and Qhuinn about that.”

Sorry. John flushed. Didn’t mean to pry.

“Whatever. Look, I don’t want you to worry about it. We’ve got Layla lined up for you to feed from, and you’re going to be in a safe environment. I’m not going to let anything bad go down.”

John stared up at that ruined warrior face and thought about the classmate they’d lost. Hhurt died, though.

“Yeah, that happens, but Layla’s blood is very pure. She’s a Chosen. That’s going to help you.”

John thought of the beautiful blonde. And of her dropping her robe right in front of him to show him her body for his approval. Man, he still couldn’t believe she’d done that.

How will I know what to do?

Z craned his neck back and looked at the sky. “Don’t need to worry about that. Your body will take charge. It will know what it wants and what it needs.” Z’s skull-trimmed head came back to level and he glanced over, his yellow eyes piercing the darkness sure as sunlight through a break in the clouds. “Your body is going to own you for a little while.”

Though it shamed him he signed, I think I’m scared.

“Means you’re smart. This is heavy-duty shit. But like I said…I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”

Z turned away like he was feeling awkward, and John studied the male’s profile against the backdrop of the trees.

As gratitude welled, Z cut off the thank-you John was gearing up to sign. “We’d better head home.”

Crossing back over the river and heading for the compound, John found himself thinking about the biological father he’d never known. He’d avoided asking about Darius, because he’d been Tohr’s best friend, and anything connected to Tohrment was hard for the Brothers to talk about.

He wished he had someone he could talk to about his dad.

Chapter Eleven

When Jane came awake, her neuropathways were like cheap strands of Christmas lights, flickering randomly, then shorting out: Sounds registered and disintegrated and reappeared. Her body was languid, then tense, now twitchy. Her mouth was dry and she felt too warm, but she shivered.

Taking deep breaths, she realized she was partially sitting up. And had a screamer of a headache.

But something smelled good. God, there was an incredible scent all around her…it was part tobacco, like the kind her father had smoked, and part dark spices, as if she were in an Indian oils shop.

She cracked an eyelid. Her vision was off, probably because she wasn’t wearing her glasses, but she could see enough to know that she was in a dark, barren room that had…Jesus, books stacked everywhere. She also discovered that the chair she was in was right next to a radiator, which maybe explained the hot flashes. Plus her head was kinked at a bad angle, which accounted for the headache.

Her first impulse was to sit up, but she was not alone, so she stayed put: Across the room, a man with multicolored hair was standing over a king-size bed that had a body lying on it. The guy was hard at work doing something…putting a glove on the hand of—

Her patient. Her patient was on that bed, the sheets down to his waist, his bare chest covered by her surgical dressing. Christ, what had happened? She remembered operating on him…and finding an incredible heart anomaly. Then there had been an exchange with Manello in the SICU, and then…Shit, she’d been abducted by the man over the bed, a sex god, and someone who wore a Red Sox cap.

Panic