Peyton woke up with the worst headache he’d ever had.

But he didn’t give a shit about the pain.

There was a wrist at his lips, and the most amazing blood he’d ever had was filling his mouth, blazing down his throat, pooling in his gut. And the more he took, the more some instinct for survival ordered him to drink and drink and then keep on going.

It wasn’t until he opened his eyes that he found out whose it was.

Novo was standing over him, her face drawn and pale, her shoulders and arms bare, whatever jacket she had been wearing gone.

Were they moving? he thought as something bumped and he felt it throughout his body—

All at once, the argument in the cigar bar came back to him, he and Axe going at it hardcore, Elise running out after them, Novo showing up … the lessers—

Releasing the seal of his lips, he mumbled, “Dead? God … Rhage dead?”

“Only lessers,” she said, before forcing her wrist back at him.

He exhaled and returned to the drinking. And after what could have been years or at least hours, but was probably only ten minutes or so, he went lax, the floating, blissful feeling of satiation working to calm him better than any amount of morphine.

It was the most perfect high.

But he couldn’t get lost in the delicious sensation. Not with that female standing over him as she was.

“I’m gonna be fine.” Or at least, that was what he meant to say. It didn’t seem to come out right. Either that or his hearing was going.

“What?” she asked, leaning in as if proximity might work as well as a Google translator set to stupid.

He cleared his throat and forced his brain to come back online. “Elise okay? Axe?”

“Both fine.”

“You?”

She held her arms out and moved around in a circle … and not for the first time, he noticed she was a damn fine female, if a little intimidating. She was just so tough, that body filed down to all its hard, muscular edges.

As Peyton started to become aroused, he took that as a good sign.

“I’m glad nothing hurt you,” he said roughly.

“Are you getting emotional on me?”

“No, you’re turning me on.”

She seemed nonplussed for a second. Then she started to glare at him—which for them was probably progress. As in, things getting back to normal.

“Are you kidding me?”

He shrugged. “You’re an attractive female. Surely I’m not the first male to tell you that. And what can I say, I’ve always had a healthy regard for the fairer sex.”

She threw her head back and laughed. But it was not a happy sound. “Let me get this straight. You and I are in the Brotherhood’s mobile surgical van, on our way to the training center because you were shot and now have a tube in your head to reduce brain swelling … and you’re coming on to me?”

“My gray matter isn’t the only thing getting bigger.”

“You’re like the indestructible slut, aren’t you.”

“You know, to most people, slut is an insult.” He tried to lift his hand to make the point. And failed. “I personally take it as a compliment. Shows commitment to my work.”

“Your work?”

Considering everything that had happened tonight, they might as well spend the trip to the training center arguing: He was rattling around inside his skin, and that energy needed an outlet—and shit knew she could give as good as she got.

“Sure,” he said. “I work at being with the females. Practice makes perfect and all.”

When she just re-crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the wall again, he frowned. “If we’re moving, shouldn’t you be sitting down?”

“Yes, but I don’t want to.”

“Far be it from me to suggest reasonable behavior.”

“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said.”

“Since I’ve regained consciousness?”

“Since I’ve known you.”

He started laughing, but it made his head hurt, so he stopped. “Tell me something … where were you last night?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Do I need to speak more slowly? I’m the one with the cracked skull.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

For a moment, Peyton entertained the possibility that he’d had a stroke and he had slipped into aphasia. But no, he was speaking correctly.

“I called you last night.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Mmm-hmm.” He went to nod his head, but the stinging pain stopped him. “I sure did.”

“Not from your phone, you didn’t.”

Oh, right. “Shit, it was on Elise’s. She had to leave it with me so she could go fuck Axe.”

Yes, he sounded bitter. Which was a little rich, considering the guy had probably helped save his life tonight.

Take out the probably.

Novo frowned. “Axe was with me.”

Now Peyton was the one pulling a blank. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Axe took me to The Keys.”

Peyton actually tried to sit up. And as he gasped, Novo put a hand on his chest and forced him back down.

“Will you stop moving?” she ordered.

“What the hell is he doing taking you to The Keys? No female should be going there.”

A bump in the road made everything hurt on him, as if the asphalt itself was taking her side.

Oh, and you want to talk about a death stare? If he hadn’t already been flat on his back, her glare would have blown him out of his loafers.

“I asked Axe to take me there, for one thing. And I had sex with a woman, so yes, there are females at that club.”

Peyton blinked a couple of times. Then pulled his laconic mask into place. “I didn’t know that was your thing.”

“I like women, females, men, and males.”

“And Axe.”

“Yeah, and Axe.”

The tips of Peyton’s fangs started to tingle. “Well, I bet you two had a great time. Before he went home to my cousin.” He lifted his hand to rub his face, but the IV in his arm prevented him from moving as freely as he’d like. “I told him not to go near her—and before you start lecturing me, no, it’s not because he’s just a civilian and she’s an aristocrat. Elise isn’t like us. She’s … clean. She’s better than we are. She deserves respect—like Paradise does.”

“Oh, riiiiiiight. Your progressive paradigm of females. And I keep forgetting which of the two buckets you’ve put me in.”

“Spare me, Novo, okay? You know what I mean. Paradise and Elise wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like that, much less banging randoms and fellow trainees for shits and giggles.”

“I’d like to remind you, Paradise is, currently, banging a fellow trainee.”

“Yeah, but that’s a relationship. Paradise was a virgin. Elise was, too. Goddamn it—how’s she ever going to get mated now?”

Novo stared at him for a long time. “You know what I find fascinating?”

“What? And if it’s the color of my eyes, I feel the same about yours—”

“How you can be such a sexist, judgmental pig. You have fucked twenty or thirty females since I’ve known you—and don’t deny it, I’ve been out in the clubs and watched you go off with them. And yet you’re saying a female shouldn’t, or even can’t, do it, too. Tell me, does that double standard you’re sporting not bother you at all? Like, not even a little?”

“Females are different.” He shrugged. “That’s just the way it is.”

Novo stared off somewhere over his head—and he had the distinct impression that in her mind, she was finishing off the job that slayer had started on him.

“No,” she muttered, “actually, assholes are just assholes, no matter what’s going on between their legs.”

Across town, in a totally different zip code of Caldwell, Elise invited Axe into her bedroom and closed the door quietly behind them both.

“We made it,” she said as she went directly to her bathroom. “Without anyone …”

The moment she saw her reflection in the mirror, she stopped and put her hands up to her cheeks. God … the blood.

Axe stepped in beside her and shook his head. “I didn’t want you ever to see anything like that. Much less get stuck in the middle of it.”

“Is that what your life is like? Going out there … every night … getting almost killed until some lesser finishes the job?”

“Don’t think like that. You can’t.”

“How can I not?” She turned to him and found herself wanting to touch him all over, as if there were bullet holes and other injuries that had somehow been missed on him. “How can I forget?”

As if Axe knew what she needed from him, he put his mouth to hers and kissed her deeply. And all at once, she was consumed by the need to have him, her hands rough as she stripped his clothes and her own, the stained pile on the floor left where it landed as they went to her shower.

Whereas his was a simple stall with a tub bottom, hers was an entire enclosure you walked into, six shower heads raining down water that could be programmed to specific temperature preferences. And there was also almost no waiting at all for the warmth.

But she didn’t need the luxury. Not to be with him, now or ever.

After they soaped each other up and down, and rinsed away the gruesome souvenirs of the night, they left the bathroom and she turned off all the lights except one in the far corner. Lying down in her big bed, under her soft sheets, they made love quietly with him on top of her, their eyes meeting as their bodies were joined together. She found her release first, scoring his back with her nails—and he soon followed, his hips jerking and bucking against her, his powerful orgasm filling her up and teeing off another for her.

There was no lingering closeness afterward, though.

“I need to go,” he whispered. “I can’t stay here.”

“Sure you can. My father never comes in my room.”

“I don’t want to take even a small risk of getting you in trouble. I already nearly got you killed tonight.”

As he got out of the warm nest their bodies’ exertions had created, she stood up and pulled on her pink bathrobe—and thought it was a shame to have the stained things he’d worn during the fight put on over his now-clean skin. But he didn’t seem to care.

All too soon, he was standing in front of her, rubbing her shoulders. “I can’t believe how brave you were tonight.”

“Brave? Are you kidding me? To use a vernacular expression, I was crapping in my pants.”

“You walked right up to a lesser, shooting the whole time. If I hadn’t been fucking terrified for you, I would have been totally aroused.”

She smiled a little, but it was hard to hold on to. “When can I see you again?”

“Tomorrow night. And before you ask, yeah, definitely. I’ll let you know the second I hear anything about Peyton.”

“Please.” She frowned, thinking back to the cigar bar. “I’m sorry he was so disrespectful to you. He can be … old-fashioned and difficult sometimes, but he’s not a bad person.”

“I don’t want him to die. And I don’t want trouble from him. He just needs to stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of his.”

Elise nodded and then went into a kind of stasis. She didn’t want him to go, but knew he didn’t feel comfortable staying—and she couldn’t blame him.

“Shit,” Axe breathed. “Come here.”

Safe in his arms, she relaxed and held him close, feeling his warmth and strength.

“I wish there was something I could do to help you,” he whispered as he rubbed her back. “I feel like I’m bad for you.”

“No, you’re not.”

After a while, she said, “Actually …” Pulling away from him, she took a deep breath. “There is something you could do for me.”

“Name it,” he replied. “And it’s yours.”