The way Elise saw it, having already been caught sneaking behind her father’s back, it wasn’t as if she could get in any worse trouble by going out one last time before the sehclusion hammer fell and she was locked in. Besides, Peyton was going to be with his fellow trainees. What could be safer than joining him?

The bottom line was that he was the only person she could think of to go to. Maybe there was a way out, a way to … she didn’t know.

“Let me introduce you,” her cousin was saying as he indicated the people sitting in a circle of heavy chairs.

Elise would have preferred to catch him alone, but she wasn’t going to miss her chance. Besides, they could always step off into a corner together.

“This is Craeg—and you know Paradise.”

Elise lifted her hand to the female. “Hi, wow, hello.”

Paradise was the daughter of the King’s First Advisor, a high-bred descendant of a Founding Family—and yet she had somehow managed to talk her way out of traditional roles and into the Brotherhood’s training program. As a soldier. A fighter.

Maybe she could give some advice?

“That’s Boone, Novo … and Axe.”

Elise nodded at each of the trainees—until she got to the last one. Then she wasn’t sure what she did.

Maybe she had a seizure? Or a spontaneous concussion? Because sure enough, she forgot about everything and everybody the instant she met his eyes, with the cigar bar, the humans around them, and even her reason for coming out disappearing as if someone had hit the world with a dry eraser.

He was extraordinary.

Or maybe … extraordinarily dangerous was more like it.

However she defined the effect of him, she had a sixth sense he was going to change her life.

The male was sitting outside the dim pool of light that fell from the ceiling, shadows blanketing him as if protecting one of their own. He had dark hair, black hair, that was thick and spiky, and a huge body that was arranged like he could spring forward on an attack in the blink of an eye. The tattoos that ran up half of his neck and piercings that marked his left ear and brow made him seem even more sinister. And then there were his clothes, black and draped over him, suggesting there could be weapons underneath.

With his chin dropped to his chest, he was staring at her from under his brows, his pale yellow eyes glowing as they locked on her and her alone.

Her first cogent thought was that he was a predator.

Her second … was that she wanted to be caught.

“Elise?”

As Peyton said her name and stepped in between them, she shook herself. “Sorry, what?”

Her cousin’s frown suggested he’d noticed the connection, and—no surprise—he didn’t approve. Then again, with the way that male in the corner was looking at her? You didn’t have to be a possessive blood relative to not want any female anywhere near the guy.

“Sit next to Paradise, here,” Peyton said. “And let’s talk.”

Boy, it was hot in here, Elise thought as she started to unbutton her coat.

“Elise? Hello?”

Shaking herself, she forced a smile. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Have a seat,” her cousin muttered as he pointed to a padded bench that he’d pulled over.

“Right. Yes, of course.”

As Elise tried to get her brain back on track, she parked it and glanced at Paradise—whose smile was open and as beautiful as the rest of her was. Which was kind of a surprise. Most females with her sorts of connections were straight-up mean girls.

“So Peyton told me what’s going on as we were walking over here.” Paradise tucked her legs under herself and leaned on the arm of her chair. “And I won’t tell anyone, I promise. But I get it. I so get it.”

Elise shook her head and started to parse through what she was prepared to share and what she wanted to keep to herself. Talking about the pathology around Allishon? Not going to happen.

“My father’s not a bad male, he really isn’t.”

“God, of course not. He’s just a traditional one, who’s worried about his daughter in a troubling world. It’s not an issue of good and bad. What it is about is your right to live a life even though you’re a female in a rigid social role.”

Elise exhaled. “How did you get into the training program at all? I mean, I’ve heard that they’ll allow females, but …”

As she continued to speak, some kind of split-personality thing happened—half of her plugged into the conversation with Paradise, the other part of her right with that male, sensing his body, his presence, his power.

The effect he had on her was nothing like Troy, she thought. With the human in that library, she’d felt as though she was in front of a banked fire, where you kind of thought, Huh, maybe I’ll sit here and put my palms out and feel the warmth. Or maybe I’ll just stay where I am and admire the view of the flames. Or … what the hell, let me pick up a book and read for a while.

A lot of pleasant, non-threatening, but certainly interested, reflection.

That male in shadows over there? It was more like she was frozen to the bone and starving because she had wandered off a trail in a December snowstorm, and seventeen days later she was still tripping through the drifts, on the verge of collapse, her lungs stinging from a lack of oxygen, her head spinning, her whole body aching … and there, there on the horizon, was an acres-wide bonfire set by a lightning strike in the forest, the flames eating up the landscape, the blaze overwhelming and terrifying, deadly …

But nonetheless the only source of heat with which to warm her tortured, half-dead, frostbitten body.

Oh, and actually, add a buffet of her favorite foods right in front of the giant hot mess.

With, like, four hundred pounds of Lindt chocolate on it.

And pasta. And champagne.

Yeah, that male was not any kind of pleasant reflection. Not even a choice, really. He was a compulsion to get to the beacon he was sending out.

And to hell with the consequences.

“… talk to your father.”

Elise kicked her own butt and replugged into Paradise. “I’m sorry?”

“Your father,” the female said. “My father would absolutely speak with him.”

“Speak to whom? My sire?”

“What better way to try and change his mind? My father worries about me, and he’s from that old-school way of doing things, but he’s evolved his thinking. If anyone can talk your father off the cliff? It’s him.”

“Oh, my God … that would be amazing.” Tears made her eyes water. “But why would you—”

Paradise took Elise’s hand. “Because I know how hard it is.”

The unexpected empathy was a breathtaker, and Elise got jammed up on the kindness. It was so hard to battle alone the glymera and its restrictions on females, so impossible to argue with standards that she hadn’t volunteered for and didn’t believe in, but that were, nonetheless, running her life. And it wasn’t until this moment that Elise realized she had given up before she had even started fighting because there had been no hope, short of running away, of altering her father’s legal and social authority over her.

“But he’s going to get me declared as sehcluded,” Elise said. “If he does that, I’m finished. It’s over before it starts.”

“When is he making the petition?”

“Right now, I think. He’s gone to the Audience House right now—that’s the only reason I could leave to come here.”

Paradise got her phone out and stood up. “Gimme a minute.”

As the female went in search of a quieter place to make a call, Elise wiped her eyes. And when she took a deep inhale and shifted in her chair, she looked across—

The male was still staring at her, that massive body of his eased back in his seat, his knees spread wide, his drink in one long hand, the other up to his chin, his fingers on his mouth.

Like maybe he was kissing her in his mind.

Elise’s body flashed with heat, the blast emanating through her veins in reply to those eyes of his, that erotic way he was lounging, that all-consuming intent he was spotlighting her with. But it was funny. As direct as his stare was and as unmistakable as the erotic tension was? He didn’t make a move to come over and talk to her.

Even though she was very sure he was imagining them making love—

“This is all going to work out,” Peyton said as he hopped into Paradise’s vacant seat. “It’s all gonna be fine.”

Switching gears—badly—Elise met her cousin’s eyes. “Ah … I hope so. And thank you for helping. I didn’t know where else to go.”

“I told you. Anytime, anywhere, I’m here.”

Peyton puffed on his cigar, releasing clouds of gray smoke that drifted over his head. As he motioned with his hand to a waiter, and then circled the empty glasses on the low table, she had the distinct impression he came here often. Then again, maybe he was just sublimely comfortable and confident in the world.

Something to aspire to.

As he joked with the male Paradise had been holding hands with, and then laughed at something the guy said, Elise couldn’t help measuring her cousin’s face. Peyton was handsome as could be, the kind of guy everyone looked at and wanted to know … but he’d never been happy—at least not that she’d been able to see. And he certainly wasn’t now. Underneath the snark and the sexy affect, she sensed he wasn’t tracking, an essential detachment separating him from the world.

He was suffering in silence. Mourning alone. Rattled but pretending everything was normal.

What had his ties to Allishon been? Of all the people who could have announced her death to the family, why had it been him?

Had he found her or something?

“How are you?” she asked quietly. “You know, after Allishon’s—”

“I’m awesome, are you kidding me?” He shifted forward and tapped the ash off the fat, glowing end of his cigar. “I’m spectacular.”

His eyes were empty as he smiled at her, and abruptly, she felt like crying all over again. But if he could be strong, so could she.

And then Paradise was back and sitting down in the lap of the trainee she’d been holding hands with. “My father’s going to talk to him right now.”

Elise closed her eyes in relief. “Oh, thank you, thank you so much … I really hope he can help.”

“My father has a way about him that really calms people down.” Paradise looked at her male with love in her eyes and smiled. “And as traditional as he can be, he knows that that isn’t everything.”

No, Axe told his libido. No, absolutely not. You are not going to have that female.

Forget it. Drop it. Walk away.

F.F.S., it was like he was talking at a recalcitrant dog.

But what the shits. She wasn’t just “not his type,” she represented everything he despised about the glymera. He couldn’t stand blondes, for one thing. And yeah, sure, she didn’t have a lot of makeup on, and it wasn’t like she was dressed in a bunch of highbrow, ugly shit that was supposedly “on trend”—whatever the fuck that meant. But that accent of hers? Come on, it was so patrician, she made that human Queen of England sound like a beer drinker from the Jersey Shore.

And her bone structure was even worse. That face of hers was so refined and perfect, he was very sure that she could trace her bloodline back to the beginning of time. And those eyes? Like sapphires. Those lips? Like rubies. That skin … like a pearl.

She was a goddamn jewelry store of beauty. But man, it was so frickin’ easy to fill in the particulars of her life: she was going to live in a mansion in the very best part of town; her bedroom would be Barbie-meets-the-National-Gallery; her father would be all up her ass to mate a suitable male from a Very Good Family; and her biggest worry tonight was what set of diamonds to wear to Last Meal.

Good thing she had about four hours of deliberation time.

Phew. What a fucking relief.

She was exactly what his mother had hoped to become. When she left him an orphan and his father a ruined male.

So no. He was not having anything to do with that stuck-up, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth, aristocratic breeding machine. Nope. Not going to—

What would she taste like? an inner voice whispered.

“Stop it,” he muttered. “Just shut the fuck up—”

What would she feel like, naked and under him, with her legs spread wide and her sex his for the taking? Would she moan his name? Or would she gasp it—

“You know,” Novo murmured, “you could make this easier on yourself.”

“What are you talking about? And please don’t answer that if you don’t feel like it.”

“Why don’t you go over there and speak to her?”

Axe considered playing stoopid, but what the hell. “Not a good idea. She’d be naked the next minute, and then I’d have to slaughter anyone with a cock who saw her like that.”

“You’re a fucking animal.” Novo laughed. “But I like that in a male. And I think so does that female.”

“What female.” Damn it, was he out of booze again? “I think you’re seeing things.”

“If you were any more turned on, you’d be doing something that would get you arrested in a place like this.”

“Which is why I like The Keys.”

“I’m serious, you need to take me to that club.”

“Name the night.”

And then he got quiet because Peyton’s cousin was rising to her feet and giving the guy a hug like she was leaving.

Look at me, Axe commanded in his head. Come on, look at me.

The female had clearly been brought up correctly and she took the time to acknowledge everyone she had just been introduced to … including, at last, him.

A quick flick of her eyes in his direction and then she was lifting her hand in a brief wave, and off she went.

She walked like something he wanted to mount from behind.

Axe went to get up before he was aware of moving, but Peyton shot a live-fire glare at him, a big, fat, don’t-you-fucking-dare coupled with some don’t-even-think-about-it mixed with a whole lot of not-even-in-your-fantasies-asshole. But then saving grace walked up.

In the form of a set of DDs in a miniskirt so short it was essentially a pair of panties without the crotch. And the human woman was a blonde, Peyton’s favorite.

All the bad shit and frustration that had happened in training, coupled with the bourbon the guy had been drinking, conspired against good ol’ Pey-pey’s cockblocking, protective instincts—and the next thing you knew, the DDs had taken a load off in Peyton’s lap and her fake-tipped nails were stroking the hair at the base of his neck.

Cue the buh-bye’s.

Axe was up and outta there faster than a marksman could lock and load.

Slipping through the dim interior, he moved like a laser sight through the crowd, slicing his way to the front entrance and out into the cold.

Instinctively, he knew she’d gone left.

And just as instinctively, she stopped at the curb the second he emerged.

As she turned around to him, a gust of wind caught her hair, feathering it out from her face. With the fat snowflakes falling in a swirl and her coat catching the winter’s breath around her body, she was like something out of a fever dream, both real and illusive.

Axe walked over to her, aware that he was more like a love-starved virgin than the jaded sex addict he had become ever since he had kicked heroin.

Her eyes skipped around as if he intimidated her, and she put her hands in her pockets, although, he sensed, not from the cold.

Axe knew this because he caught her scent: This female, as skittish as she was, was far from indifferent to him.

“I knew you would come after me,” she said roughly.

“And I knew you’d be waiting.”

She kicked up her chin. “I wasn’t waiting.”

“If I hadn’t rushed out here, you would have.”

He liked the way her jaw set like he was pissing her off. But then she smiled. “If you knew I’d wait for you, why did you rush?”

“You’re worth it.”

She opened her mouth as if she had expected him to say something else and had prepared a line. Shaking her head, she smiled as she glanced away. “Isn’t that a line from a hair ad.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Not into women’s magazines?”

“Not into women. Or females.”

“Then what do you think I am?”

Axe didn’t see how it was helpful to point out that he could be sexually attracted to people and yet have absolutely no other care for them whatsoever.

“How do I see you,” he asked on a growl. “Name the where and when and I’ll be there.”

“What if I’m not interested,” she drawled, and stepped off the curb into the road.

He stayed right on her tail as she crossed the street. And good thing there were no cars coming in either direction—or he might have had to throw them out of his way.

“If you say you’re not interested, I’d call you on your bullshit. And really, why waste my time with that.”

On the far side, she wheeled around and put her hands on her hips. “Are you always this arrogant?”

He leaned into her, and as he inhaled deep into his lungs, he relished the scent of her arousal.

On a whisper, right next to her ear, he said, “Do you really think something as flimsy as false denial is going to keep me away from you?”

At that moment, the door to the cigar club flew open and Peyton came out, all pouncing protector and then some.

“I’m not denying anything,” she said dryly. “But my cousin most certainly is going to keep us apart.”

“Only if you let him.”

“Elise,” Peyton snapped from across the street. “Go home.”

“And this is the same male who was helping liberate me from my father,” she muttered.

“Elise!”

As a couple of cars coming and going prevented the guy from crossing the road, she turned away. “Have fun with him.”

And poof! she was gone, dematerializing into the December night.

“Goddamn it,” Axe muttered.

Meanwhile, Peyton played dodgeball with a truck, and then broke into a run to close the distance.

“For fuck’s sake,” Axe barked at the guy. “I didn’t touch her—”

Crack!

The right hook left him spitting blood out.

“You don’t fucking think about it!” Peyton gritted. “She is not your kind.”

“What, because I’m not an aristocrat like you, asshole?”

The two of them got right up in it, baring fangs even though they could be seen, grabbing at the front of each other’s jackets.

Craeg was next out of the club, and Paradise was right with him.

“She’s a female of worth!” Peyton started to wind up for another strike. “She’s not like the trash you fuck—”

Axe caught the male’s forearm and bent it out of the way. “Oh, and that human slut on your lap in there was some kind of saint—”

“Her cousin is dead, okay! Allishon was the one Anslam murdered last month—I had to go to Elise’s household and tell them what happened! So no, you can’t fuck her and leave her ruined, which is what you’re going to do. There’s enough pain under that roof already and she deserves better than that! Better than you!”

Craeg jogged across the street and wasted no time in hooking a hold onto Peyton’s shoulders and dragging the guy back.

“Not here,” Craeg gritted. “You two assholes are making a scene.”

Axe cursed and walked off a little, pacing in the falling snow, his boots making tracks that quickly got him down to concrete. He spit out another mouthful of blood and tried to ignore how badly his knuckles were itching for payback.

But damn, they’d all heard about the killing. Anslam, the murderer, had been one of the trainees, one of the few to survive the induction night and get accepted into the Brotherhood’s program.

No one knew, or could have guessed, that the aristocratic bastard had been brutalizing females and taking pictures of his handiwork on the side.

Peyton had gone looking for his female cousin after he’d tried to get ahold of her—and from what Axe had been told, the guy had walked in on a bloodbath. No body, though. Turned out she had died at Havers’s clinic, but without identification.

Paradise had been the one to put it all together, and Anslam had nearly killed her when she’d figured it all out.

The sadistic bastard had ended up dead in her front foyer.

What a fucking mess.

“Not Elise,” Peyton said roughly. “I’m not going to let you ruin her. And don’t pretend that’s not what will happen. Unless you want to ask her father for permission to mate her properly, stay the fuck away from her.”

Yeah, like that was ever going to go down. One, because Axe would never ask any sire for that shit. And two, as if a high-bred father like the one she had would let a scrub like him even walk through the front door, much less entertain a mating proposal.

Hell, Axe wasn’t good enough to vacuum the floor rugs on the guy’s Rolls-Royce.

But what did it matter, Axe thought as he looked away again. It wasn’t like he was ever going to see her again.

What was the saying? Ships in the night.

They were two ships in the night, passing each other, never the twain shall meet again.

“Fine,” he muttered. “I’ll leave her alone.”