Surely not. Living among the mortals was forbidden because it could leak the secret of their existence, bringing humans and otherworlders to their door. Perhaps war. If little Bride was discovered, she would most likely be killed for placing her brethren in danger. Oh, well. It wasn't his problem.

Devyn turned a corner, his friend's apartment building coming into view. One of the newer structures, it boasted sturdy stone and metal that could withstand fire and air strikes long enough for the people inside to evacuate safely. Not much to look at, but the people of Earth cared more about safety than aesthetics now. After they'd fought the war of the species, he couldn't blame them, though he did prefer the open beauty of his own planet, Targonia.

A planet he could return to, and often did, but one he no longer ruled. Thank God. Oh, he still had his title, still had his army, but as interplanetary travel had become more prevalent, his people had been introduced to life without a monarchy. Some had wanted to leave, travel the galaxies through interworld wormholes, while some had wanted to stay, but all had wanted to govern their own lives. So he'd let them, because he'd been tired, so tired, of ruling. Of being an example of all that was "pure."

Not that they'd seen much of his purity those last few years.

Now, he spent most of his time here on Earth. Helping AIR. At one time, an alien aiding the very people who policed them would have been laughable. But over the past year, the powers that be had realized the only way to control certain dominant races was with, well, certain dominant races.

AIR liked having Devyn on their side, and they paid him very well. Though the money wasn't the reason he stuck around. He didn't need it. Being king came with certain privileges, and one of those was the cash to set himself up on whatever planet he desired in the style he was accustomed. He stuck around because of the agents he worked with. Eden, of course, was included in their numbers.

For the first time in his vast existence, he was treated as an equal. No one lived their life based on what he said or did. No one was scandalized or humiliated by the actions of him and his "beast." No one bowed to him-except the females, when he asked. Excluding Eden Black. And probably Bride. Damn it. He had to stop thinking about her. She was gone, out of reach.

Here, he wasn't a leader, an example, or a marital prize. He was simply a man who enjoyed sex, fighting, and freedom. In that order.

Sex. The single word elicited an image of black-as-night hair, eyes of brilliant green fire, lips stained red with blood. Every muscle in his body hardened. Did no good, trying to keep her from his mind. Why'd the little firecracker have to be a vampire? Variety was the only thing that kept him sane, the only thing that kept the pain of his palace days, of being denied everything, beaten to the back of his mind.

He stomped up the steps and entered Dallas's building, the cool night air giving way to warmth and laden with the scent of lemon cleaner. There was a lounge area complete with two chocolate colored couches and a matching chair, a coffee table and a cream-colored rug.

Not the wisest of choices, as the pale fabric was already stained with dirt. Dirt. He shuddered. He was a clean freak and wasn't ashamed of it, even though he knew the preference stemmed from the frightened, cowed, utterly repressed boy he'd once been.

Behind the half-moon desk of monitors, the security guard nodded, clearly expecting him, allowing him to pass without a word. As he pounded up the stairs to the fifth floor-no cramped elevator for him, thank you-he enjoyed the burn in his thighs. Physical exertion of any kind was always a pleasure.

A pretty girl, probably in her early twenties, stopped and gaped when she spotted him. She was human, with pale hair and brown eyes. A little plump, but he liked and welcomed all shapes and sizes, all colors and consenting ages. If he. hadn't sampled the race before, that is. Sadly, it was becoming harder and harder-not in the literal sense, unfortunately-to find new bed partners.

"Hi," she said, a little breathless.

He nodded in greeting, but didn't smile, didn't flirt. No reason to lead her on. Like vampires, even lovely, colorful, tease-just-right vampires, he'd already had his fill of human females. They were boring. "Whacking off," as Dallas would say, was more fun.

Her gaze bored into his back all the way down the hall. Maybe that was because he'd frozen her in place. He never gave his back to a person without doing so. It was habit now, from his palace days when rebels would have done anything to cleave his head from his body. Or maybe it was because she was imagining him naked and would have raced over to flirt with him if allowed. Either way, he freed her only when he was in front of Dallas's door and she had his profile.

Dallas Gutierrez was already standing in the opened entry, eyes narrowed, arms stretched out to block Devyn's forward progress. He was a handsome man with dark hair, dark skin, and eyes so pale a blue they were almost translucent. He wasn't quite as tall as Devyn, but was just as bulked with muscle.

"You're late," Dallas said, clearly irritated. "The girls have already left."

"I know. I ran into Macy, Mishka, and Mia a few blocks down. And my God, that's a lot of M's." Apologizing would have meant he regretted where he'd been and how long he'd taken, and he didn't. "Security call and let you know I was on my way up?"

"No." There was a wealth of resentment in that one word.

Which meant Dallas's psychic abilities were growing stronger-abilities the agent had only recently acquired and despised with every ounce of his being. The more powerful his abilities, the less breakable his bond to the alien responsible for them.

A while back, Dallas had been shot with pyre-fire. There'd been a hole in his chest, his skin and organs charred and unable to regenerate. Kyrin en Arr, an Arcadian king, had sliced his own wrist and fed Dallas his blood. That blood had saved Dallas's life, causing his body to supernaturally heal. And now, Devyn knew, as he saw a future he'd never been able to see before, Dallas feared the blood inside him was turning him into an alien.

"Aw, you sensed me," Devyn said to lighten the mood. "I'm touched. I wonder if that means we're meant to be together forever."

"Fuck you."

"Proof we aren't really meant to be together, I suppose. My mate would never talk to me like that." Dallas bared his perfect white teeth in a scowl. "Can you take nothing seriously?"

"There'll be time enough for serious when I'm dead." Truth. His father had ruled for two hundred years, concerned only with his reputation, bound by the opinion of others. And his father had died, not a laugh line on his face, mourning all that he'd missed, all that he could have had.

On the flip side, his mother had lived for her own happiness, no one else's, and she had died with a smile on her face, her merriment imprinted on every wall in the palace.

At that time, Devyn had been more like his father. Joy had had no place in his life. Only duty. Only honor. He'd wed the female that had been chosen for him. He'd attended meetings and ceremonies, on time and dressed as benefiting his station. He'd led the army but had never fought with them, his precious, stainless life too important to risk injury. He'd sat on his throne and issued judgment for crimes, deciding who would live and who would die when he'd never truly lived himself.

He hadn't played games, and after all the punishments he'd endured, he hadn't so much as looked at another woman after his marriage. Not even when said wife viewed sex as the same filthy pastime his father had. She'd vomited the first and only time he'd placed his ugly "thing" inside her. So he'd kept his desires in his pants, thinking, what kind of example would I set, pledging my life to one yet lusting after another?

When he'd seen the regret in his father's eyes as the once rigid, sanctimonious man gasped his final breath, saying, "Everything I could have done ... ," Devyn's entire outlook had changed. He'd severed ties with his frigid queen. Divorce, it was called here. He'd begun training with his men and truly leading them. Sometimes, when his dick had hardened, he'd stroked it. Sometimes he'd even lain with the servants-however filthy that made him.

Occasionally shame had come gunning for him, for the things he'd done to himself, for the things he'd done to his lovers, but he'd come to see that shame as his enemy and had fought against it with all his might.

The more things he'd done and the more women he'd taken, the more he had realized the bliss of diversity. A desire to sample anything and everything had overtaken him.

Now the shame no longer plagued him. Not even a little. He did what he wanted, when he wanted it. Bed two sisters at the same time? Why not? String a female up and whip her as she begged for orgasm? Sure. Go at it in public? Any time, any where. He would not die with a single regret.

"You reek of determination," Dallas said, cutting into his musings. "What the hell are you thinking about?"

"The past."

"That's never good."

No, it wasn't. "Gonna make me stand here all night?" He loved human slang and used it every chance he got. Made him feel more like a man, his royal parentage a distant memory.

"Maybe. You'd deserve it."

Being late because you were enjoying a three-way wasn't a crime. It was a reason to celebrate. Perhaps Dallas the Somber needed a three-way of his own.

"I predicted you'd be here," Dallas said, "and here you are. There was nothing in my vision about you lingering. I can shut the door in your face and not change the future in some terrible way."

"Really, it doesn't get any better than predicting my presence. Your luck must be changing." Usually the agent's visions were bleak. Like the time he'd seen a woman-a half-human, half-machine cyborg-killing their friend Jaxon. When he tried to change the outcome, it had been Dallas who'd almost killed him.

Since then, Dallas's mood had been harsh, black, the man hard as shit to please. The only silver lining was that Devyn had found something new to bed: a cyborg. Mental note: be on the lookout for a black-haired, green-eyed, half-machine woman. Even a brown-haired, hazel-eyed one would do, killing two female birds with one long, hard stone.

"You're doing it again," Dallas said on a sigh. "Winking in and out of the conversation. Only this time you're smiling like an idiot."

"You would be, too, if you were imagining what I am."

Dallas rolled his eyes. "I don't want to know what's in your head. If I hadn't seen the dirty, downright nasty way you fight, I'd think the only things you were capable of doing were having sex and thinking about sex. Now, I want to know why you were late."

"I was tied up." Again, truth. He'd allowed his partners to anchor his wrists and ankles to the bedpost. They'd liked the thought of having him at their mercy, and he'd liked the girls doing all the work. Not that he'd been helpless. That, he would never allow. But he'd let them think he was vulnerable, and they had pleased him for it.

The agent studied him and shook his head in exasperation. "You might as well return to your women. Like I said, the girls have already left."

They'd agreed to meet today and discuss the latest threat to New Chicago. Damn if there wasn't always a threat. "You know I never return to a woman once I've had her. So let me in and tell me what was decided during the meeting. Meanwhile, I'll entertain you, there's no denying that, and you'll stop acting pissy. It's win-win."

Another sigh. "You don't deserve it, but fine. Come in." Dallas moved to the side. "You're as vengeful as a woman, you know that?" Devyn said as he passed him. There was a growl, and Devyn's lips twitched. So easy to provoke, his friend was.

The apartment was as messy as always. Well, except for the time Devyn had paid two hookers to clean it. Naked. But the spotlessness hadn't lasted long. Wrappers and beer bottles were scattered throughout, along with dirty clothes and weapons. The leather couch Devyn had bought Dallas could barely be seen under the chaos.

Grimacing, Devyn kicked his way to the kitchen and grabbed a beer. He didn't pop it open until after he'd plopped into the recliner. Something hard dug into his back, but he didn't bother to move it. He'd only encounter something else, he was sure.

Dallas fell into the seat across from him and propped his ankles on the small stone table, dislodging a computer notebook and sending it to the floor with a thwack. He didn't bend down and pick it up.

Messy as he was, Dallas usually took more care with his equipment. Something more than simple anger at Devyn's tardiness was at work here. Had to be. Devyn's gaze sharpened on him. There were lines of strain around Dallas's eyes and mouth, and his T-shirt and jeans were wrinkled, stained, and cut. He'd lost a little weight. His hair hadn't been brushed in a week. Maybe a month.

Guilt joined the beer, swimming laps inside Devyn's veins as he gulped back a few swigs. While he'd spent the last two hours fucking himself stupid, his closest friend had been stressing about something. "Tell me what's going on, and I'll fix it," he said. It was a vow.

Though he only lived for his own pleasure nowadays, he couldn't walk away from a friend in need.

He would regret it, and Devyn never did anything he would regret. Dallas scrubbed a hand down his face. "I'm not sure you can fix this."

"Tell me, anyway."

"Remember Nolan?"

"Of course." Nolan was a new breed of alien called the Schon. They were beautiful and deadly, and they had come to Earth, destruction hot on their heels. Everyone they'd bedded, everyone their blood had come into contact with, had soon become cannibals. Once-loving humans had morphed into flesh-eating murderers. They'd also died slowly and painfully, the virus eating through them.

AIR had managed to capture Nolan and kill several of his brethren-as well as everyone infected- and that should have been the end of it. But "should have" meant nothing. Now the queen of the Schon, the woman responsible for the virus and the greatest source of its power, was on her way to this planet.

When she would arrive, no one but Nolan knew, and he wasn't talking. AIR only knew that she would come, and she would kill. Already she had destroyed several worlds, for the more people she infected through sex and bloodletting, the longer she lived, keeping the disease at a minimum inside her own body. Same with her army. Same with Nolan. If they didn't pass the disease on to someone else, and then someone else, and then someone else, they too became cannibals.

It was a vicious cycle.

"You ready for this?" Dallas asked. "Lay it on me."

"Nolan escaped AIR."

Okay. No, he hadn't been ready for that. "Shit. How long ago?" Dallas glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. "About fifteen hours."

"And no one realized until this afternoon when Mia called the meeting?"

"That's right."

"How is that possible?" The guy had been locked in a state-of-the-art facility, complete with fingerprint IDs, retinal scanners, and weight- and heat-sensitive tiles, all of which should have caused the alarms to screech to life the moment he stepped outside his cell. Again, "should have" sucked ass.

"God only knows. He's out there, probably screwing his way to good health while infecting innocent women, who then infect their lovers. If that's the case, this thing is going to spread fast. So fast we might not be able to stop it."

Devyn placed the now-empty beer bottle atop the stack of unfolded laundry beside him. "Think the Schon will want revenge against Jaxon and Mishka?"

Mishka, the cyborg Devyn wanted a go at but wouldn't make a play for because he did not poach his friend's females, ever, had befriended and betrayed Nolan, all to protect Jaxon. Saving the world from that sadistic disease by locking Nolan away had been a side benefit.

"Revenge?" Dallas shrugged. "He didn't seem the type, you know? He was more concerned about falling in love before he died than truly hurting others. I mean, I got the sense that he didn't enjoy infecting his lovers and only did it to survive."

Love. Devyn barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. Love could be found in the arms of anyone, anywhere, if only people would abandon the silly idea of monogamy. What was the point of giving yourself to only one? Boredom, that's what.

"I'm guessing a patrol has been sent out to look for him," he said.

"Correct. So far, no sighting. Who knows? Maybe I'm wrong, and he's not out there screwing everyone he meets. Maybe he's keeping to himself, hoping to die with a little dignity. You know, without an AIR audience. Or maybe he caught a solar flare home." Solar flares were what opened the wormholes that allowed the travel between the planets. That was how Devyn so easily moved between this one and his own. "There's been no new case of infection."

"None that have been reported, at least." One thing Devyn knew about those in power: they kept secrets. Many women could have been infected by Nolan and eliminated by the government already.

And one thing Devyn knew about men: they liked to have sex. Nolan needed sex more than most, not just for pleasure but for survival. He was sleeping around, keeping himself strong, no doubt about it. There would be no dying with dignity.

"Nolan didn't return to his planet," Devyn said. "It was wiped, remember? All of its people were either infected or killed. And then, of course, the infected traveled to Eden's planet, Raka, wiped it, then ventured here. We have to catch him, and we have to kill him this time."

Dallas shook his head. "We can't kill him. He's the only one who knows about the Schon queen we'll soon be fighting. Speaking of, I wish there was a way to send the bitch a message. Come here, and we'll hang you with your own intestines."

Devyn, too. "We've questioned Nolan repeatedly. Hell, I even tortured him. He never broke and managed to keep every one of his secrets. And the fault was not mine. I'm a damn good torturer." It wasn't something he usually enjoyed, but he'd been the only one for the job. Touching Nolan hadn't been an option. Spilling his blood hadn't been an option, either. The disease inside his body was alive, with a will and agenda of its own, and it only left a host when another was nearby.

Devyn had not wanted to become one of those hosts. As he could force objects to move in the same way he could force people, manipulating their energy, he'd been able to shatter every bone inside Nolan's body without ever setting foot in the room.

"It's time to end him," he added, "before he begins a pandemic." Dallas scoured a hand down his tired face. "That's what we decided, as well." Wait-what? "Then why the hell'd you hassle me about keeping him alive for his secrets?"

"Mishka spent an hour trying to talk us out of killing him. She cried, Dev. Real damn tears." The agent leaned his head against the back of the couch, staring up at the ceiling. No one was tougher than Mishka, who had once had a chip in her brain. A chip that had forced her to do things she hadn't wanted to do. Murder people she loved, have sex with people she didn't. Only recently had it been removed. "I wanted to cut out my heart and give it to her. Now you waltz in here, late, and state as pretty as you please the very thing we had to fight her for."

"One, I'm late for everything but what really matters. And two, had I been here, we both know her tears wouldn't have affected me." Tears never affected him. It was almost like he was missing the sensitivity gene or something. For sex, he could pretend like he cared that he'd upset a female. But actually care? No. Emotions, he'd learned from ruling his people and being responsible for their fates, were foolish. Wasted, even. "Now, why don't you tell me what this is really about."

Silence. Thick, heavy. Then Dallas laid his arm over his eyes and said, "It's Kyrin. Ever since he saved my life, there's been a desire to please him inside me-and it's not from gratitude! Anything he says, I feel compelled to do on a cellular level. Like the blood inside me knows it used to belong to him and wants to cater to his every whim."

"You're talking as though the blood is alive, as with the Schon."

"Maybe it is. I mean, if Kyrin told me to blow him, I'd blow him, even though I don't swing that way. And yeah, I know he'd never command me to do something like that, but still. I can't stand even the possibility of it."

"Shall I kill him for you?" Devyn's loyalty belonged to this man, not to the Arcadian. Dallas had broken several AIR rules for him, placing his own career and future in jeopardy. He'd even saved Devyn's life, jumping in the way and taking a blade meant for Devyn. Of course, the agent's new Arcadian blood had caused him to heal quickly, but that hadn't lessened the impact of the gesture.

More than that, Devyn liked him. Dallas had no inhibitions, and he was as open as Devyn was about his sexuality. Those blue eyes never judged him, and the man himself had been as desperate for a friend as Devyn had been. Mia, his last BFF, was now dating the very man responsible for Dallas's gifts-and torment.

"You'd do that for me?" Dallas asked.

"Of course." Yes, Devyn respected the enigmatic Kyrin and would hate to see him eliminated. And yes, anyone who could put up with the violent Mia Snow for more than a single bedding deserved his respect. But if Dallas wanted Kyrin gone, Devyn would take care of it, no questions asked. He owed him that much. At least.

Wasn't like he got all emotional about his kills. To be honest, he could eliminate almost anyone with no hesitation and no sense of remorse. He'd been that way since defeating his sexual shame. With its fall, his other emotions had seemed to crumble as well. He didn't cry. Ever, for any reason. He didn't become attached to people, places, or objects, in the sense that he craved them, needed them, and had to be with them. And he certainly didn't mourn when those around him kicked it.

Perhaps, though, he wouldn't tear the otherworlder's limbs from his body and choke him to death with his own hands, as was Devyn's custom. Perhaps, too, he wouldn't sneak up from behind and slice his throat. He was fond of doing that, as well. Maybe he would challenge the alien to a fight, win, of course, and then bury the body and pretend like nothing had happened. It was the only honorable thing to do, really.

"No," Dallas said on a sigh. "Don't kill him."

"Bummer. I had just come up with a gold star plan, if I do say so myself." Devyn knew why Dallas had declined his offer. Dallas still loved Mia like a sister, and Mia loved Kyrin. The agent would never do anything to hurt her, which meant he'd never do anything to hurt his new blood master, no matter how much it might beleaguer him. "You change your mind, you let me know and it's done."

Dallas straightened, some of the tension leaving him. He even gifted Devyn with one of his wry-so rare these days-smiles. "Just for that, I forgive you for being late."

"Does that mean you're not breaking up with me?"

Snorting, Dallas launched a pillow at him. "You could be so lucky."

The small square of material slammed into his chest. Devyn collected it and propped it behind his head, getting comfortable. But damn it, what the hell was still poking him in the back? Finally he reached back, fingers wrapping around ... a vibrator. He blinked at it. Large, pink, and beaded.

"Want to explain this?" he said, holding it up to the light and smiling.