This was all too familiar territory, and before I’d been happy to accommodate every other female’s suggestive advances, although the messing around never got much farther than kissing. I was gutsy enough to play with fire in the strict world of Immortals I was a member of, but I wasn’t gutsy enough to let inhibitions run away with me. My three brothers were the smart ones, but even as the F student of the family, I was smart enough to know the only thing waiting for me at the end of following my hormones down to their preferred end—without the blessing of a Council—was an express ticket to a nameless tomb.

Immortals placed purity next to duty, like we were a bunch of eternal stiffs. Fraternizing with members of the opposite sex was frowned upon, and physical contact without a Unity was expressly forbidden. For a man who idolized, and I don’t mean that figuratively, women, Immortality was a special kind of purgatory for me.

“What are you playing at?” I said, taking as large a step backwards as my inseam was capable. “You know that kind of behavior is against the rules.”

Her lower lip plumped out into the ugliest pout I’d ever seen on a woman. “You’re no fun,” she baby talked. I might have just vomited in my mouth. “And from the rumors I’ve heard from all too many lovely young ladies, you’ve never been one for rule abiding.”

She had me there, but something had changed, and something about the intensity of it had me believing it was a permanent change. I’d ticked off two centuries swapping saliva with countless women. So many women I’d be lucky to identify half of them as former tonsil hockey partners and able to identify less than a quarter of them by name—first name.

It had never bothered me before, not even close; I was living the dream as far as I was concerned, but darn if that didn’t all change when a certain Bryn Dawson wedged her way into my life, burrowing into the very depths of my core. That hadn’t been her intent, I know that of course—she’d had it bad for my brother the second she looked into that sculpted by the hand of God face—but it was as inescapable as gravity. I’d felt it the first week I knew her, gone to every extreme I had at my command to deny it, and I ended up confessing my love for her about ten minutes before she was promised the Unity to William they’d both coveted. I was never one for timing.

So now that I’d felt it, the chemistry, the spark, the I’m-hopeless-without-you, call it what you will, phenomenon, I was positively ruined for any future bouts of meaningless making out. Was just my luck too—exactly when I needed a head spinning, spine tingling, hot and heavy make-out session, it was like my newfound relationship morals forbid it.

Darn you straight to hell cursed morals.

Whatever physical responses in my expression that were being manifested by my thoughts, Sierra picked up on them. Thankfully.

“Whoa there, boy,” she said, regarding me like I was a bomb set to blow. “I’m a little forward,”—I choked on her little choice of word—“but I get you want to set the pace. You’re a take charge kind of man. That’s what I like about you.” Her eyes devoured me again. “One of the things I like about you,” she clarified, all but licking her lips. “It’s been awhile since we’ve seen each other, so I’m cool with ‘chatting’ to reacquaint ourselves so you feel less guilty about kissing me until I’m senseless.”

“I don’t want to kiss you, Sierra,” I said, my voice letting out some of my impatience.

Her smile pulled higher. “Just what have you got in mind then?” she murmured, her baby voice now all woman. All panting, in heat woman.

“Not . . . that,” I replied, backing away from her recommenced march my way.

“Yes, that,” she replied, a step away from me where I stood trapped between the bathroom wall and her bosoms about to burst out of her two sizes too small sweater. “Now let’s see what you’re hiding behind that towel . . .”

Her fingers had just hooked over the towel as I teleported out of that nightmare, the damp towel the only piece of me she’d have. Leaving me nak*d and searching for my next layover. It was dangerous to teleport from your point of origin before you’d pinpointed your destination point, I knew that, but what I’d left behind in the bathroom was far more dangerous than the possibility of ending up in limbo.

And then, I was en route. It was the first place that popped to mind and the last place I wanted to go. The only place I needed to avoid from now until the end of time.

The cursed place I found myself in half a second later. My brother and newest sister-in-law’s bedroom. They weren’t here. In fact, they hadn’t spent a single night in it since they’d been United—William’s station as a doctor had kept the both of them more busy than a couple newlyweds should be, but the symbol of that room, the significance of their bed looming in front of me, was enough to cause my insides to twist into knots.

Their faces were everywhere, smiling back at me from the plates of glass holding them in their frames. God, they were the happiest couple I’d seen, and I’d swear on my life I was happy for them. Genuinely happy, not the fakey, phony kind; it was just me I wasn’t happy for. Their happy ending meant my unhappy one.

The dress Bryn had worn on their Unity day was spread over the bed. It gave me shivers just seeing it again, remembering her in it. The way she’d looked as she’d sprinted down the beach, her face exuberant. She couldn’t get to us fast enough—she couldn’t get to William fast enough.

“Since you wound up with the girl we both fell for, big brother,”—I was now speaking to a picture frame. Loony, kooky, hook me up to a Prozac drip now nutty—“I think the least you can offer me is a pair of pants,” I said as I wandered butt nak*d into their closet, imagining blinders on when I walked by Bryn’s modest collection of jeans and cotton tees. The girl was under the assumption couture was a curse word.

I pulled the first pair of pants I found on William’s side of the closet, cringing when I discovered they weren’t designer and were well worn in. The way the man dressed, you’d think he didn’t have a mutual fund that could take a dump on a small country’s annual GDP.

“I didn’t know Levi’s was still in business,” I mumbled as I snaked my legs into them. “Although judging from the looks of these jeans, they could have gone out of business decades ago.”

“Son?” a baritone voice that carried a tone of concern called out from the bedroom.

Super, the Chancellor of our Council, also known as my father, had just witnessed me carrying on multiple conversations with myself. What’s that sour tang in the air? Ah, that’s it, demotion. If having been forced to take an indefinite vacation from my responsibilities as a strength instructor after the first and last student I’d worked with after William and Bryn’s Unity dropped me on their first day—dropped me five times—wasn’t bad enough, the man who called all the shots in our Alliance had just been privy to my decreasing mental stamina.

“Hey, Father,” I called out, pulling a thermal tee off its hanger and sliding it over my head. It was a tad large, my brother was large enough you’d think he grew up by a nuclear reactor, but it would work. “I’ll be out in a sec.”

“No rush,” he said, his voice purposefully calm. Yep, my father was so concerned by my fragile state he was making sure to keep his tone controlled. Take candy from the babies, shave all the puppies bald, but whatever you do, for the love of god, don’t upset the poor, mentally deranged Patrick Hayward.

I slid into a pair of William’s sandals and made a conscious effort of holding my shoulders high, my head following suit. “Almost there,” I said, fastening the last fly on the hideous pair of 501’s.

He smiled at me as I exited the closet, but his eyes pulsed with concern. I instantly felt worse—Charles Hayward had about a gazillion other things to worry about than a not right in the head son. With the usurping a dominant Inheritor Alliance that adopted everything that Immortals as a whole stood against thing, father had had his hands full with clean-up duty. Plus, being all but the President of the United States of Guardians had a way of filling a man’s schedule the better part of forever.

“Hey,” I offered, folding my hands into the low-slung jeans pocket. “Good to see you all back and safe. Sounds like things got a little hairy with those Inheritor slugs.” I did my best impersonation of old Patrick, hoping crazy Patrick wouldn’t burst through the fake shell.

“Hairy is a good word for it, yes,” he answered, his eyes scanning over me, trying to seem unintentional about it. “Son,”—just the way he said it, all coated in apprehension, made me cringe—“what are you doing here?”

I didn’t know what here he was referring to. The bedroom of my best friend and the woman I loved; Montana, when I wouldn’t have tolerated being left behind while my family went on a mission of butt-kicking proportions; or maybe my present state of mind that was fragile to put it nicely and loony to put it, well, truthfully. I went with the least complicated of heres.

“Sierra cornered me in the bathroom and isn’t one of those girls that has the word no in her comprehension bank, if you catch what I’m throwing your way,” I said.

He shook his head. “Let me clarify. What are you doing?” he asked, laying it all there. Not that I’d come to expect anything less from my father. Delicacies like pleasantries, beating around the bush, sweeping things under the rug, so on and so forth, weren’t in his arsenal. Chancellor Charles Hayward was a meat and potatoes kind of guy; he didn’t care how uncomfortable he made you, and he didn’t miss a thing. I suppose you could say growing up with this kind of father figure in your life, for generations no less, was a bit intense.

When I didn’t offer an immediate answer, he added, “The past few months I haven’t recognized you. The son I remember, the man I know you are, is either in hiding or gone,” he said, unbuttoning his coat jacket and measuring me with his eyes. “Now, I’m fine with you needing a break, some time clear your head or renew your spirit or whatever it is you need,”—I might clarify that I don’t think my father has the slightest idea I fell for Bryn, her Unity being the catalyst for my “break”—“but you’ve holed yourself up in a room for weeks straight, drinking more root beer than any grown man should,”—something of amusement tugged at his mouth—“Joseph all but had to force-shower you, and I know you like to try to disguise your proclivity for the fairer sex, but when did you begin teleporting in the opposite direction of a beautiful young lady?”

I knew perception was considered to be a virtue, but to the son of a perceptive father, it was more like a curse. “I just need some time to sort things out. Get my head on straight again,” I mumbled, only realizing when I was done that I’d mumbled. I wasn’t a mumbler, at least the old me hadn’t been. Sure, I muttered, the smart alec I’m-going-to-pretend-I-don’t-want-you-to-hear-this-but-I-really-do kind of under the breath verbiage, but I’d always had more than enough backbone to stay above mumbling. Apparently, no longer.