The Chosen

“Your grid’s off the charts, Trez. Come on.”

“What?”

Next thing he knew, she had hitched ahold of his arm and was marching him into the back, where the working girls changed and the deliveries were accepted.

“Honest, I’m fine.”

Even as he protested, she all but shoved him out the rear door of the club, and then her phone was in her hand and she was texting.

Trez threw up his arms as he did the math. “Don’t bother iAm—Xhex, seriously, you don’t need to—”

His brother literally dematerialized only a second after Xhex lowered her phone, dressed in his chef’s whites and his toque, a dish towel in his hand.

“Okay, this is ridiculous.” Trez cleared his throat so his voice sounded more convincing. “I’m perfectly capable of getting myself where I need to go.”

“And where is that?” iAm demanded. “A rooming house across town? Maybe to the third floor? What was that apartment number—and don’t tell me you didn’t look at that fucking résumé.”

“You wanna clue me in on what the hell you’re talking about, boys?” Xhex glanced back and forth between them. “And maybe explain to me why a male who’s been half dead from mourning these last months is suddenly carrying his own bonding scent?”

“Nope,” Trez interjected. “We don’t feel the need to explain that at all.”

A quick glare in his brother’s direction—and Trez wondered whether or not he was going to have to throw down out here. But iAm just shook his head.

“Long story,” the good chef muttered. “Come on, Trez, let’s get you home.”

“I can dematerialize.”

“But will you, that’s the question.”

“You don’t have time for this,” Trez said as the guy made like he was going over to Trez’s BMW.

Which, yes, was the same model and year as his brother’s. They’d gotten a deal on the dual bitches, so sue them.

And oh, snap, iAm had somehow managed to remember to bring the damn key. Like he’d planned this, maybe even with Xhex.

Mental note: Get that fob back from the guy. And if he couldn’t, buy a new fucking car.

“Come on,” iAm said. “Let’s go.”

As the pair of them stared at him like he’d grown a horn in the middle of his forehead, Trez considered dematerializing off on his own, leaving iAm with no one to chauffeur and Xhex by herself with her mental-health theories about his “grid,” whatever that was. But something in the back of his mind happened to agree with them. Much as he hated to admit it.

So yeah, like the good little idiot he was, he got in shotgun, and even did up his seat belt—and iAm didn’t waste any gears as he got them on the Northway and headed out of town at a dead run.

“You went over to her apartment, didn’t you.”

Even though Trez’s head had started to pound, he turned on SiriusXM. Kid Ink was talkin’ “Nasty,” and Trez closed his eyes—and thought of that kiss. Had he lost his fucking mind? His shellan hadn’t been dead for three months and he was making out with some stranger?

And see, this was what had been bothering him, the reason he’d had to leave the club. Being around all those humans sucking face in front of him and fucking in the private bathrooms that he’d built for expressly that purpose had made what he’d done with Therese loud as a Vegas billboard—and the guilt that had curled into his gut was like having food poisoning.

He was totally nauseous and bloated, light-headed and weak.

iAm canned the radio. “Did you?”

Turning his head away, Trez measured the cars in the slow lane—that he and his brother were passing like the damn things were parked on the shoulder. “Yeah. I did. She lives in a dump. It’s not safe. You are going to hire her, right?”

“No, I’m not fucking hiring her.”

Trez shifted his focus from the other midnight traffic to the apartment buildings that were nestled in tight to the highway as the city made its transition from urban to suburban. In countless windows, he saw people walking from room to room, or sitting on sofas or reading in bed.

Right now, he would have traded places with any one of them, even though they were humans.

“Don’t ding her an opportunity on account of me.” Trez rubbed his eyes and blinked to clear the spots in his vision. Damn night driving always fucked him up. “That’s not fair.”

God, he couldn’t believe he’d kissed another female. When he’d been with Therese, when she had been up against his body and staring into his eyes, it had been easy to convince himself she was Selena reincarnated. But with distance and time came logic: She was just a stranger who looked like the female he’d lost.

Shit. He’d put his mouth on another female’s.

Trez looked over at his brother in an attempt to quit thinking about what he’d done. “I mean it, iAm. If she’s qualified, then give her the job. She needs to get out of that horrible place she’s staying in—and I won’t bother her. I’m not going back there.”

“Well, I don’t want you not coming to the restaurant because of her, either.”

Trez refocused on the road ahead, but the headlights from the opposite side of the highway made his head swim. Rubbing his eyes again, he felt his stomach roll.

“Hey, do me a favor?”

iAm glanced over. “Yeah, anything. What do you need?”

“Pull over.”

“What—”

“Like right fucking now.”

iAm wrenched the wheel and hit the shoulder, and before the car even came to a stop, Trez was popping his door—which triggered the anti-roll mechanism and ensured the wheels completely locked up.

Just like that female had said.

Leaning out as far as he could, Trez vomited what little there was in his stomach, which was actually nothing but bile. And as he retched and gagged, and then felt another wave coming on, he cursed as he realized the spots in his vision were getting organized into an aura.

Migraine. Stupid, fucking migraine.

“Headache?” iAm said as a semi rumbled past them.

This wasn’t safe, Trez thought as the cold licked into the BMW’s interior. They should have gotten off at an exit—

He answered his brother’s question by throwing up some more, and then he collapsed back in the seat. For no apparent reason, he looked down at his white slacks and noted there were scuff marks from where he’d passed out and hit the ground.

This was why you didn’t go blanco.

“What can I do?” iAm asked.

“Nothing.” He shut the door. “Let’s keep going. I’ll try and hold it—but can we turn down the heater?”

He didn’t remember much about the trip back to the mansion, his time spent monitoring the aura’s evolution from a tight collection of sparkles at the center of his vision to its spreading its wings and flying off the periphery of his sight. But the next thing he knew, his brother was helping him out of his seat and escorting him like an invalid up to the mansion’s grand entrance. Once they were inside, the foyer, with all its colored columns, gold leafing, and goddamn crystal sconces, was enough to make him nauseous again.

“I think I’m going to be—”

Fritz, the doggen butler, presented him with a barf bag at exactly the right moment. A barf bag. A hospital-grade, bright-green barf bag.

As Trez bent double and held the circular opening to his mouth, he thought a couple of things: 1) who the fuck went around with barf bags on the ready; 2) what the hell else was the male carrying in that penguin suit of his; and 3) why did it have to be bilious green?

If you were going to make something for people to throw up in, why did you have to make the damn thing the color of pea soup?

A cheery yellow, perhaps. A nice, tidy white.

Although considering the shape his pants were in …

When Trez finally straightened, that telltale anvil-sitting-on-one-half-of-his-head had started to kick in, and his thought patterns had begun to take on the convoluted weirdness that came along with his migraines.

“Help me upstairs?” he mumbled to no one in particular.