Turtleneck.

Hours later, as Axe sat silently in the back of the “school bus,” he tried to think of where in the hell he could get a turtleneck.

Reaching up to his throat, he massaged the side that he’d had tattooed and wondered if he could find one in his father’s shit. And didn’t that make him want a stiff drink … or maybe even a syringe full of lights-out.

He hadn’t been anywhere near his dad’s room since the death.

“Fuck,” he said to the blackened window.

To get out of his head, he looked away from his reflection—and hey, what do you know. Pey-pey had gotten bored of the don’t-touch-my-cousin routine, and was back in his primary mode of staring at Paradise as she sat beside her male.

No one had had a good time tonight, not that training was ever a party. But yeah, it stung when you were forced to meet your failures head on. What was fun? Seeing Peyton all castrated across the aisle from that female, wishing he could get in her head and help her out, be the savior he felt she needed. You could practically read the thought bubbles floating around.

Sorry, champ. She had all she required.

Novo stood up and walked down to Axe, shoving him over so she could take a load off. “I’m going at two a.m. When is your interview?”

“In a half hour.” He rubbed his tattoos, thinking they were probably going to work against him. “I gotta hustle.”

“Good luck.”

As the female put her palm out, Axe shook it. “You, too.”

“Guess it’s just you and me going for the job.” Her voice took on an edge. “Peyton already has enough money, and far be it from him to let gainful employment get in the way of his smoking up. Boone doesn’t need the cash, either—and Paradise and Craeg are already providing extra security at the Audience House on their nights off.”

Shit, Axe wasn’t crazy about competing with Novo—he would have much rather gone up against another male, and yeah, guess that made him sexist. Then again, the joke was probably on him. She was just as good at the fighting and the shooting as he was, her strength nearly that of his own, her brains a little ahead of his. She also didn’t look like a serial killer.

But hey, he would take his piercings out. Bam. Nearly normal.

He also had zero personal skills. So she could very well beat him in the interview.

“You want to have a friendly wager?” Novo drawled.

“On what?”

“Who gets it? Loser has to pay for dinner.”

He wasn’t in a position to buy her a Kit Kat. “How about winner buys dinner?”

“Deal.”

Twenty minutes later, the bus came to a stop and everyone filed off. The night was bitterly cold, and no one lingered to talk. As Axe dematerialized to his father’s cottage, he thought it was weird that he’d never called the little place his “parents’ ”—but then again, there had been no “parents” involved with the damn thing. It had been built for his mother, and hadn’t done its job to keep her in the family.

So the roof and four walls were nothing but a monument to his father’s weakness for a female.

Going inside, he was glad there was no electricity, no lights to turn on. He couldn’t stand the kitchen, hated looking at it, and he steamed right through the shallow space. The stairs to the second floor were short and steep and he took them two at a time, proceeding to the only open door.

He kept his father’s room closed off.

His room was a mattress on the floor, clothes in piles, and not much else. Hell, he didn’t even sleep up here, because the fireplace was downstairs and he had to stay warm. In the spring and summer, though, he’d move back to the second floor—or maybe he wouldn’t. Who cared.

Axe went through his own “wardrobe” of muscle shirts, black jeans, and the occasional leather jacket or cloak, although not because he expected a turtleneck to have miraculously appeared courtesy of the Look-More-Normal Fairy Godmother dropping by. It was more because he had to brace himself to go through his father’s stuff.

Ten minutes and no turtle-for-his-neck later, he was down the hall and opening the door. With no lights on anywhere in the house, the shallow space was nothing but shadows and shades of gray … kind of like his self-hatred had sucked the color out of everything.

He couldn’t even look at the bed, which was still messy from the last time his father had slept it in two years ago, and he certainly didn’t spare all the pictures of his fucking mother a glance, and no, he didn’t dwell on the layer of dust that covered everything or the fact that one of the windows had sprung from its sash and let in fallen leaves and even some of the snow.

It seemed colder in the room, his breath condensing in puffs of white.

Maybe his father was haunting the place.

As a shiver went down his spine, Axe marched his ass over to the bureau and went through the things in it with rough, agitated hands. He found what he was looking for in the bottom drawer.

It seemed so fucking weird to think the thing had been worn and used by the male. And as he shoved the drawer shut, and beat feet out of the room like he was being stalked, he vowed never to go in there again.

Back in his own space, he stripped off his muscle shirt and pulled on his father’s turtleneck. Heading over to the mirror above his cheap dresser, he leaned in and made sure everything on his throat was covered up.

Just before he turned away, he reached up and removed, one by one, the black piercings that ran from his lobe up to his cartilage on the same side as his tattoos. Also took out the one on his brow.

Next move was to arm himself. Slipping on a shoulder holster, he tucked the pair of forties he’d been given the week before into both sides. The way the Brothers saw it, they were investing time and money into the trainees and the last thing they needed was for anyone in the program to wake up dead because they had shit equipment: Once the class had all been vetted properly at the gun range, the Glocks had been handed out—and although you were not permitted to bring the weapons into the training center, you sure as shit were expected to have ’em with you outside of it.

And use them properly if necessary. Unlike what they’d done the night before.

Out of the house, didn’t bother to lock the door—after all, there was no electricity to power the alarm, and besides, he didn’t really care about anything under the roof.

Hell, it’d be a relief if somebody broke in and lit the place on fire. Not that that was likely. He lived in the sticks; his nearest neighbor was a quarter of a mile away and probably took a donkey in to work.

Axe knew before he even dematerialized to the interview location that the house—or mansion or castle or whatever—was going to be huge. Even poor kids raised outside of the human world knew where the big estates were, and the zip code the place was in?

Yeah … okay, he thought as he re-formed.

Wow.

Axe shook his head at the stone structure in front of him. The thing had to be at least three stories high, and the front face of the slate roof alone seemed big as a football field. With about seven hundred black shutters and a front door that was more like the entrance to a parliament or a maybe a municipal library, he couldn’t actually believe a family lived there.

Then again, it wasn’t just a momma bear, a papa bear, and a baby bear. There were probably dozens of doggen.

It was exactly the kind of place his father would have been called on to work in.

Precisely like the sort of fancy home where the male had been killed during the raids.

Before he blew the job interview before it even started, Axe swallowed his bitterness and hiked it up the snow-covered lawn until he stepped over a low hedge that skirted a circular ring-around and proceeded to a series of steps to the front door.

There was a huge brass door knocker that was big as his arm, and also a discreet intercom off to one side.

He was reaching for the button when the heavy weight was opened by—oh, snap—a uniformed butler who looked alarmingly like Sir John Gielgud.

In his Arthur years.

“Are you Axwelle, son of Theirsh?” the male said with perfect diction.

For some completely unhelpful reason, Axe’s brain coughed out Dudley Moore doing his best drunk impression: You’re a hooker? Jesus … I forgot! I just thought I was doing great with you!

“Sire?” the butler prompted. “Are you Axwelle?”

Shaking himself, he almost answered with a Yeah. “Yes, I am.”

“Please, do come in.” The butler backed up and indicated with his hand. “I shall let my master know that you have arrived in a timely fashion.”

“Thanks. Thank you.”

Something about the guy made him want to be less of a schmo. Fuck that, everything about this whole damn thing made him—

Axe stopped where he was. Flaring his nostrils, he breathed in as the butler in the penguin suit said a few things and then turned away to walk over to a closed door.

Wait a minute, Axe thought.

Pivoting slowly in a circle, he continued to test the scents in the air. The big open reception hall, foyer, whatever the hell it was called, could easily fit three of the houses he lived in and still have room for a bowling alley, a swimming pool, and maybe an ice-skating rink. And the stuff that was placed around the open, cathedral-like space looked really old and really expensive: The floor was white and gray marble and there was, like, crystal shit hanging everywhere and oil paintings mounted on the walls. Oh, and there was a fireplace, but not like the one that kept him warm during the day. Theirs had, like, black marble and gold carvings around it, and the hearth was so big they didn’t have logs so much as tree trunks in there.

But he couldn’t have cared less about all that.

What he had caught on the air, after filtering out the woodsy pitch of the crackling fire and the soap of the doggen and a distant aftermath of some kind of meat having been served somewhere on the first floor … was the scent of that female from last night.

Peyton’s cousin either had visited here very recently … or she lived under this roof.

“My master will see you now,” the butler said from behind him.

Yes, Axe thought as he wheeled around. You’re damn right he will.

Sometimes nightmares happened in front of you and hurt people you loved, and even though you prayed to wake up … you knew that there was no alarm clock about to ring, no eyelids to lift, no rollover and reposition about to save you.

Mary was in one of those loops of suffering now.

Bitty was lying on an exam table, a white sheet and blanket folded off to the side, her thin, pale limbs reflecting the light from the massive fixture above her. She was so pale, her face was the color of a Kleenex, and she was trembling, a twitchy, wrung-out shell of the vibrant, happy little girl she usually was.

As Mary stood next to her, the details of the clinical environment, the beeping equipment and the white tile, the stainless-steel everything, the people in blue scrubs and masks, were at once crystal clear and utterly diffused—and as in a dreamscape, the two extremes on the awareness scale alternated, the scene going in and out of focus randomly.

She’d known it was going to be hard to get through the night. But she’d assumed that would be because of Bitty’s memories of abuse getting triggered. Or the fact that the girl was having to go back to the very clinic at which she had watched her mother die. Or even due to the claustrophobia of the MRI, the discomfort of the examination, the tedium of waiting for the test results to come in.

Not. Even. Fucking. Close.

Each one of Bitty’s major bones was being broken and reset. Even on the leg that had a shin made from a titanium rod. Without anesthesia because she was allergic to it.

It was indescribable, the horror, the pain, the terror. And it was hard not to rail against God in this moment, cursing whoever was up there for this perfect storm of bad news: growth plates compromised by badly healed breaks; possible amputations after the transition; her being a non-viable candidate for general anesthesia due to her previous reaction to it.

What little pain relief that could be given didn’t go nearly far enough.

“One more,” she heard herself say. “You can do this.”

Bitty didn’t seem to comprehend the words. She was lost to the haze of agony, and Mary just wanted to break down in tears herself.

But she couldn’t afford the trip to insanity.

Mary leaned down even closer. “Last one, okay? This is our last one.”

Bitty’s eyes opened wide, tears making them luminous, the great purple smudges that had appeared underneath making her seem like she was on the verge of death. “I can’t do it. Please … make them stop.…”

“One more. I promise you, just one more.” She brushed back the bangs and kissed Bitty’s forehead. “Hold my hand. Come on. Squeeze as hard as you have to.”

“I can’t do it … please, Mommy … help me.…”

Sobs racked the little girl’s body, making the hospital gown seem as if it were caught in a breeze, and Mary began to cry, too, the tears rolling down her cheeks and dropping onto the thin mattress of the table.

Sniffling, praying for strength, utterly lost, Mary made a mental note that the next time someone looked at her and told her that she had all the answers, she was going to kick them in the ass.

“Havers, can you give us …”

As she looked up, she found the physician and his two female nurses standing back. And the look he gave her was so full of compassion, it was nearly impossible to reconcile it with what she knew he had done to his sister Marissa.

But no one had ever faulted him in his profession.

“Let’s just breathe,” Mary said to Bitty. “Come on … breathe with me.…”

The MRIs had shown that the girl was at risk of catastrophic deformity when she went through her transition. For vampires, their growth pattern to maturity was compressed into the singular explosion that occurred during their change. It was as if, in the human parallel, a fourteen-year-old became twenty-five physically in a matter of six hours.

In Bitty’s case, there were a series of subtle, and not so subtle, curves in her long bones because of the previous fractures. And Mary had noticed them, but hadn’t really dwelled on the reasons for them or their implications. The issue was that when that explosive growth happened, those deformities were liable to separate completely, snapping because the force of the expansion would be off-angle.

The end result? Amputation. Of all or most of her limbs. Because for about six months after transition, the bones in vampires were not capable of fusing breaks.

The decision had been made to fix them now.

And Bitty had made the choice. She didn’t want to come back in a month or a year or two years or five years to get it done. Nothing was going to change and there was no reason to have the prospect hanging over her head.

But this was just too much.

“I can’t, I can’t … I can’t do this.…”

Mary couldn’t agree more. She couldn’t do this anymore, either. Too much. Tapped out. Over the threshold.

Yes, there was a larger goal here, but they’d done enough. Hadn’t they?

“Can R-r-r-r-rhage come in?” Bitty stammered.

“Absolutely. Do you want the others?”

Anything to have this work.

“No, because I’m crying.” Bitty sniffled. “I’m not brave.…”

“Oh, yes, you are.” Mary blinked back more tears. “Sweetheart, you are the bravest person I know.”

There was a tradition in vampire culture whereby the males of the species were not a part of medical interventions for females—and there were times when Bitty’s modesty had been compromised out of necessity. Now, though? All bets were off.

Mary wasn’t even going to ask Havers for permission. They needed something else to help the girl finish this.

“I’ll get him,” Doc Jane volunteered.

Rhage came in and Mary couldn’t help it. The second she met his eyes, she choked up so badly, she couldn’t breathe. And typical of a bonded male, he went to her first, hugging her tight, whispering something in her ear the words of which did not register, the strong, steady tone of which meant everything.

And then he was all about the little girl, his face losing color as he looked down at Bitty, his hands shaking as he reached out and pulled her into a hug.

A lot of medical people rushed forward, and Mary tugged him back. “Her arms and leg need casts still. Be careful.”

Rhage laid the girl back down as if she were made of glass.

“I’m not brave,” Bitty moaned up at him.

“Yes, you are,” he said, brushing her hair back. “You’re so brave and I’m so proud of you and I love you very much.”

They talked for a spell, and then there was a pause.

As if sensing the time was now, Havers said gently, “Just one last one. And then you’re all finished.”

Rhage’s brows sank down low, and Mary knew without asking that her hellren’s fangs had descended and the protective part of him was considering ripping the doctor’s throat out. But that was instinct, not logic.

She stroked Rhage’s arm. “Shh, it’s okay. One more and this is over.”

“One more …” He rubbed his face. “We can do this.”

Rhage nodded at Havers, who was looking apprehensive. And then the medical staff stepped up to the table again.

Bitty’s pelvis was strapped down again and her opposite leg was likewise immobilized. What Havers had to do was grip the thigh and apply pressure until there was a snap. And then he had to pull at the knee until he visualized correct alignment through the skin—something that was relatively clear given how painfully thin and under-muscularized the girl was. An X-ray would be taken to ensure that all was as it needed to be and then the casts would be put on so that the bone regenerated and reconnected itself correctly.

The break and alignment was so primitive, so brutal, that in the midst of all the high-tech machinery and state-of-the-art everything it seemed below the modern standard of care. But there was an undeniable mechanical side to the body, and this was nuts-and-bolts stuff—and again, Mary had to give Marissa’s brother credit. He’d done this a number of times for his patients before, and he’d been quick, decisive, and gotten it right with each of Bitty’s limbs.

To give Havers room, Rhage went around to the other side, his tremendous height and girth like the Great Wall of China had suddenly taken up res right beside Bitty. Taking the girl’s hand, he had looked both stricken and strong.

“We can do this,” he said to both her and Mary. “We’re all going to get through this together and then we go home to movies and ice cream. Right? Before we know it, we’ll be out of here, we’ll be free, and we’re going to set this behind us.”

Mary nodded and so did Bitty.

“Do it,” Rhage ordered.

Havers moved the little hospital gown up, exposing a pair of knobby knees that were too big compared to the circumference of the calves and thighs.

Oh, God, as long as Mary lived, she was going to remember the sight of those blue-gloved hands gripping Bitty’s thigh, squeezing into her meager flesh and—

Bitty started to scream in pain.

And no more than a split second later, a brilliant light flashed through the exam room, as bright as an explosion.

At first, Mary thought the overhead fixtures had gone out, but then her brain made a horrible connection.

Ripping her eyes away from Havers, she looked at Rhage in horror. “No, not now!”

But it was too late.

The beast had been triggered.