All the items in these rooms had meanings and significance, things that identified them as Daegan's and Anwyn's. He'd seen into their minds, when they'd let him, and he'd had a precious few weeks to experience being a part of them. Maybe being one of those items, in a weird way.

For just a minute, he wished he had direct access to Daegan's mind, so he could figure out . . . something. Appalled with himself, he realized he was doing exactly what she'd implied, appealing to one "parent" about what the other had done. Besides, Daegan had d.a.m.n well known this was coming. That was why he hadn't said anything. Oh yeah, he'd say some reasonable bulls.h.i.t, too, only for Daegan it would be about giving Anwyn the free will to handle her choice of servant the way she saw fit. But either way, he no longer had to share her with Gideon, did he?

Shut up. He swore at himself viciously. None of that made any sense, but he knew empty lies to himself to keep him p.i.s.sed off were better than acknowledging the truth, the pain he'd seen in her face, the tears threatening behind her eyes. The quiet sadness he'd caught in Daegan's expression these past few days, as if the vampire would change the outcome if he could. He swore at himself viciously. None of that made any sense, but he knew empty lies to himself to keep him p.i.s.sed off were better than acknowledging the truth, the pain he'd seen in her face, the tears threatening behind her eyes. The quiet sadness he'd caught in Daegan's expression these past few days, as if the vampire would change the outcome if he could.

But Anwyn had made it clear. Only Gideon could change it. d.a.m.n it, this was the way he was. If they couldn't accept that, then f.u.c.k them. He was done. He could be whatever she needed, within certain boundaries, but that wasn't what she wanted. She didn't want him.

More lies.

Though it felt like he was going to his own execution, Gideon left the apartment, let the door close behind him. Walking up the corridor through accounting and maintenance, he avoided the higher-traffic areas, headed for the alley exit that would take him out of Atlantis and the strangely welcome reality he'd found there.

Home and family.

Bulls.h.i.t. Bulls.h.i.t. Bulls.h.i.t. He summoned the rage, but it didn't hold against the other s.h.i.t. h.e.l.l, she was right. He'd never been cut out for this, and though it hurt like h.e.l.l to leave her behind, she'd been the smart one, right? She was going to be fine now. She and Daegan both. They didn't need him. She'd gotten through the Council. Yeah, maybe she'd still have the seizures, but . . . f.u.c.k it, she'd said she could do without him, so fine. Her well-being was no longer his concern, right? He summoned the rage, but it didn't hold against the other s.h.i.t. h.e.l.l, she was right. He'd never been cut out for this, and though it hurt like h.e.l.l to leave her behind, she'd been the smart one, right? She was going to be fine now. She and Daegan both. They didn't need him. She'd gotten through the Council. Yeah, maybe she'd still have the seizures, but . . . f.u.c.k it, she'd said she could do without him, so fine. Her well-being was no longer his concern, right?

He put his fist into the brick wall, was somewhat amazed when it crumbled, though his knuckles vibrated with the pain of impact. There. He'd made his mark. Maybe sometime she'd be out here, feeding her cats, and her hand would drift over it, feel his lingering presence.

d.a.m.n it. Yeah, he was mad right now. But he did care. He wasn't that much of an a.s.s. When push came to shove, it was the right thing. He'd always known it. Maybe one day he'd even be okay thinking about them, and it wouldn't feel like this, like he wanted to howl and rage, tear something apart. Only he couldn't figure out what. Yeah, he was mad right now. But he did care. He wasn't that much of an a.s.s. When push came to shove, it was the right thing. He'd always known it. Maybe one day he'd even be okay thinking about them, and it wouldn't feel like this, like he wanted to howl and rage, tear something apart. Only he couldn't figure out what.

As Gideon shouldered his duffle and headed out the side alley, the alley where he'd found her that terrible night, Anwyn watched him from the second-story level of the club, her office on the main floor. When he put his fist in the wall, she flinched.

She guessed she'd advanced to the head of the cla.s.s on hiding her feelings from him, because inside she was beating on the bars of her own mind as violently as she'd fought her restraints during her transition. That part of her was begging the cold, efficiently closed-down part of her to lift the gate, let her say a better good-bye. It was like watching her heart walk away.

It was no surprise to feel Daegan's hands close on her shoulders. She didn't let herself break, though, just quivered under his touch and watched the tall, dangerous-looking man walk away and disappear around the corner.

"He wouldn't listen. He's telling himself that we've rejected him. That I don't want him." She laid her hand on the gla.s.s, over the receding figure just before he vanished.

Daegan's hand covered hers, his fingers pressing to the pane between the s.p.a.ces. "You knew he needed to leave us to make up his mind, cher cher. You saw it in his mind. He needs time. You both do."

He was so f.u.c.ked-up, their vampire hunter with so much rage and a heart of gold. She was his last sanctuary. Hadn't Daegan said something like that? But she'd just sent him out into the cold, knowing all he'd face was his own desolation, and he might not have the ability to work his way through it.

She locked her jaw against the fear, the threatening tears. She couldn't keep him, couldn't protect him from himself. Not until he wanted that, was ready to accept it. To deal with that pain, she would ruthlessly shut that curtain between their minds, dedicate herself to reinforcing it until she at last perfected a complete block. The best way to deal with a drug was a full withdrawal. If she couldn't hear his thoughts anymore, the pain would fade. She could handle it. She would. She wouldn't worry every waking moment about what he was doing, if he was okay. If she'd sent him to his death, the kind of death that came with blank despair.

The shadow creatures laughed.

And kept laughing, getting louder and louder, until she did her best to tear them out of her head, using her hands or whatever solid surface presented itself. She knew she made it worse because she struggled to keep her mind closed even as she fought those monsters, but she didn't want Gideon to know. If he came back to help her, she'd only give in, do the wrong, easy thing, and be forced to reenact the same scene again, a few months down the road. Then it would be even worse, though she couldn't imagine anything that felt worse than this now.

As she screamed and thrashed, Daegan took over the wall, made her understand he'd coc.o.o.ned her mind so she didn't have to worry about Gideon knowing. Then she let go, let the blackness take her.

A few b.l.o.o.d.y and violent hours later, she found herself with Daegan, back in her apartment belowground. He held her between his knees on the floor. With his arms tight around her, she buried into him and sobbed, trying to ignore the frightening fact she'd let an essential part of her soul go.

She wasn't sure how much soul she had left to spare.

20.

SOON after leaving, Gideon felt a disturbance from her. Before he could respond to her distress, an instinct he didn't question, he'd felt something else. Her destructive and excessive effort to keep him shut out of her head, a clear message that she didn't need his help. Then a block, a sense of Daegan that told him he'd helped her.

Once the dust settled, the connection with her remained, even though it was like an abandoned room, whispering with past voices, nothing left of the present. To get away from it, the first thing he did was drive halfway across the country. He knew that most vampire mind-link ranges were within a thousand miles, much less for a fledgling, so as he kept a loose hand on the wheel of the old Nova, he let the rhythmic thump of the asphalt beneath the turning tires drown out the whispers in that abandoned room. As they died away, it made it easier not to strain to hear them, to see if maybe one of those whispers was talking to him, asking him to come back.

There was a vampire in Seattle who'd taken twenty kills the previous year, and that was his first target. Once he got into town, found the usual dive where he could sleep and plan, he set up his prey as he always did. A couple of weeks later, he made the kill, then threw up afterward. It made him savagely angry, such that he destroyed the shack where he'd cornered the vamp, tearing down boards and risking electrocution from the faulty wiring before he set it on fire, a wooden pyre on top of the body.

It wasn't long after that he had the insidious, tempting thought. He should kill another vamp like Trey. Daegan would come looking for him. Gideon could see him, maybe smell Anwyn's lingering scent on the vampire, feel the warm touch of her mind one last time before Daegan ended him. Losing a servant had been described as leaving an aching hole in a vampire's soul, but Gideon was sure she'd fill it with someone far more appropriate in no time.

He refused to think about the things she said, but he wasn't stupid. In hindsight, Gideon knew she'd done what she thought was best, even if he couldn't bring himself to face or believe the reasons she'd given. He knew it had hurt her. As a result, him being taken out would likely be for the best. Then she wouldn't have to suffer guilt or anything else. He didn't want her to worry about anything, not ever again. He was too f.u.c.ked-up for anyone, anyhow. He'd just forgotten that for a little while, and it had made him mad to be reminded of it. Really wasn't her fault.

His brother called several times, but Gideon never answered. One night he tossed the phone out the car window and watched it shatter on the gravel shoulder. He didn't know who or what to be anymore, so he'd just be nothing and n.o.body. A shadow even more ghostlike than Daegan himself. A being that wanted no name, no soul, nothing that would make him feel or care or suffer loneliness. He'd reached the end of the road. The only thing left was what kind of cliff he'd drive over.

Daegan paused in the sitting room doorway and considered the woman on the couch. He pushed down his frustration, knowing it wouldn't be useful. She was making steps backward, showing little interest in going above, and it was not all because of her grief over Gideon. Whether that was the catalyst, or the lack of Gideon's steadying physical balance as her servant, the convulsions were back to at least once a day, sometimes twice, the emotional stress overriding Brian's best efforts. She was losing the newborn confidence she'd just started to have.

He knew several ways to address her issues, but he expected none of them would meet her approval. Of course, her will be d.a.m.ned, he was fast moving into territory where he would railroad over her if he needed to do so. She'd been reading the same d.a.m.n book for the past hour, and hadn't turned a page. He could look into her mind, except it was usually in the same place. A vacant drifting, as if she'd become an oblivious kitchen wench, tending a simmering cauldron of her anguish. The shadow gremlins, as she called them, were eager children, dancing about and waiting to tip it over once again.

Last night, she'd immersed herself in what seemed like better thoughts. The touch of Gideon's mouth, the sweep of Daegan's hands over her back, the feel of them inside her, grounding her to earth, holding her connected to them so she wouldn't get lost . . . But she'd drifted away to dreams rather than turn to him.

Her shoulders stiffened as she realized he was there, and that irritated him most of all. It was time to take this bull by the horns, on various fronts, but he would start with the most immediate one.

"You need to consider a new servant," he said, taking a seat at the end of the couch so she had to look at him directly if she raised her gaze. She didn't. "He's been gone a month, Anwyn. Give yourself that gift. James is a prime candidate. He's a widower, and he knows what you are. And he's trained. At least a second mark, to start."

"I didn't do the right thing, Daegan."

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't." She surged off the sofa in a sudden movement, throwing the book aside. "I was so p.i.s.sed off at him for rejecting me, rejecting us, keeping us at arm's length. He was right. I forced him to choose before he was ready. G.o.d, he had no time to adjust to any of it, and I threw him out because of my own selfish hurt. I was just as bad as he was. He needed us. I felt it in everything he did. That's what he was fighting, and instead of giving him that time-"

"Anwyn, G.o.dd.a.m.n it." He rose as quickly as she did, forcing her to look at him despite the fact she bared her fangs in an aggressive, instinctive reaction. He held her by the shoulders, waiting until she got it under control. It tore at her, as it always did, the inescapable truth that part of her mind didn't belong to her anymore, that it could make her do violent things she didn't expect. Before she sent Gideon away, she'd been learning to accept that, not exacerbating it as she was now by keeping herself on too tensile a leash. With Gideon, she'd trusted herself more.

So while Daegan suffered for her, he couldn't help being vampire, which meant tolerance wasn't limitless for him. He gave her a quick shake, snapping her attention to him. "You're doubting yourself because you're hurting, but you thought about it for days before you gave him the choice, cher cher. h.e.l.l, from the very beginning you resisted making him your servant for those very reasons. Even if your emotions coated your decision, it wasn't why you made the decision you did. You're a Mistress before you're anything else, even a vampire. You know that."

She closed her eyes, but he refused her that, tipping her chin up roughly enough to bring her focus back to his face, the truth there.

"That skill told you he was ready to face the choice. Learning how to deal with the acceptance, and the acceptance itself, are two different things, and it was past time for him to face the latter. You knew it. You know better than most women what drives a man, what makes him break and run, what brings him to his knees.

"What makes you an incomparable Mistress in Atlantis is you're like the d.a.m.n Three Fates. You always know the right timing. You know when when a man needs that catalyst, to force him to let it all go and be the essence, the very best and worst, of who he is. To face it, accept it and walk out of the doors of Atlantis a more whole man than he walked in. a man needs that catalyst, to force him to let it all go and be the essence, the very best and worst, of who he is. To face it, accept it and walk out of the doors of Atlantis a more whole man than he walked in.

"You let him go, because in addition to being a Mistress, you're a vampire. You could see deep into his mind, and knew if you kept him here, he would kill his soul and yours, trying to fight that edge in himself and 'settle' for you as a vampire."

She shook her head. She'd put her hands on his chest to push against him, but now her fingers dug into his shirt, held him as an anchor. He relished the far-too-infrequent instance of a spontaneous touch even as he ached at the pain he felt behind it.

"As a Mistress, I relied more on intuition, what I 'felt' from a man. As a vampire, with Gideon as my servant, I had the option of delving into his mind. Maybe I didn't give him a choice. Maybe I took it. Because I saw the way he thought now, and believed that's what he'd always think. I didn't listen to what Brian told me. All of us, we're always evolving in our opinions and beliefs, based on wants and needs that change and grow. It's something fluid . . . intuitive. I could know everything in Gideon's, and still miss it. There's a part of him he has to give to me willingly, or I'll never understand it."

A soft smile touched Daegan's mouth then as he gazed into her suffering eyes. "Something I realized about you a long time ago, cher cher. It took me seven hundred years to learn what you have learned in less than a handful of weeks." But as despair gripped her expression, he gave her another little shake.

"He hunted vampires for ten years. His first true love was killed by one. He will not lose that edge of anger, or come to terms with that overnight. You didn't expect that, weren't asking for that. However, if he truly wants to be with you, with us, he must start with acceptance. He didn't have that. You respected his freedom to choose by cutting him loose, and exerted your will over him as Mistress by forcing him to face that. You were both Mistress and and vampire. You did what was right, Anwyn. Do you want to know why it's really tearing you apart so much, why you're losing your objectivity?" vampire. You did what was right, Anwyn. Do you want to know why it's really tearing you apart so much, why you're losing your objectivity?"

"Because I failed."

"No. Idiot." That got a reaction, a flash of temper he didn't mind needling. "You put a lot of energy into every man you took on personally inside Atlantis, but you didn't give your heart to any of them. Gideon was different. You offered what he was too afraid to take, because of what he might do to it, with what and who he is. You gave him your faith, and it's tearing you apart because you know he truly loves you."

His voice lowered, his gaze holding hers. "I know that feeling very well. You didn't throw me out, but you refused to surrender to me, knowing that I didn't deserve the gift yet. You did the same to Gideon, in a different way."

"I sound like a real b.i.t.c.h, then."

It startled a harsh chuckle out of him, but he couldn't stand to see her tortured expression. Loosening his grip, he stroked his fingers through her hair, pulling it down from its pins so it was tethered in his fingers. She shuddered, because she'd denied herself any type of physical comfort, stiffening beneath his touch so often that he'd almost stopped offering. He was good at reading a woman, at least this woman, and had known she needed some time. Just as he knew she was reaching the breaking point, where she needed his demand, his override of her refusal. Which was fortunate, because he was approaching a breaking point himself. To his knowledge, abstinent vampires didn't exist in Nature.

"It's the greatest irony, that it's a slave's submission that frees a Master or Mistress to offer their own hearts. It's a delicate chicken-and-egg game, when love is involved. I chose to love a woman who was almost as Dominant as myself, and had no one but myself to blame for that. If you want a queen's heart, you have to earn it by offering your own first. We played that game with one another so long, but when it came down to it, it was as simple as the second I saw you in that alley."

He didn't want to take her to that pain, but he thought he could give her something that would lay a soft curtain over it, change one part of its meaning. He reeled her back into him by those silken strands, patient but inexorable when she tested him by balking, her eyes glittering with the unspoken s.e.xual tension instantly created with her resistance, his demand. But there was more in her eyes, too, things that gave the coil around his c.o.c.k a deeper bite, higher up, closer to his heart.

"When I found you in the alley, none of it mattered. All I thought, all I felt, was that something sacred, vital and permanent to me had been harmed, something that mattered to me more than anything had ever mattered. It enraged me, not only that it had been done, but that it took a hideous, shameful act of violence against you for me to drop all pretenses and shields to offer you my heart. Whether or not you cut it up and threw it back to me, it couldn't hurt more than thinking I'd never loved you fully before this terrible thing had happened, something that might hold your trust and love from me forever. You've forced Gideon into his own alley, and he has to seek that answer for himself now. What he values most."

When he saw her reluctant acceptance of the harsh truth, he swallowed and offered his heart to her again now, making himself vulnerable to her. "Have I lost your love and trust, Anwyn? Did Gideon hold that for us as well? The longer he's gone, the more you close yourself off. You give your body to me as you've always done, but it's an even more shallow pond than what we had before him. At least before, you gave me hints of your heart, but when he was here, I tasted it fully. I can demand nothing less from you now. You're killing me with your omission."

He'd rarely felt fear in his life, and yet in such a short time, he'd experienced it several times. In the alley, when he hadn't known if he was too late to save her. In Xavier's dungeon, when the arrows punched through Gideon's far-too-fragile body. And now, in this moment, waiting for her answer.

He was breaking her open, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and he knew it. Or hoped for it. Anwyn closed her eyes, pressing her forehead into his shoulder. G.o.d, loving had so much pain and loss attached with it, the promise of great joy and utter desolation coming hand in hand. But he was right. It was so ludicrous to pretend it was anything else.

"I miss him," she whispered. "I feel like a part of me has died, and so I've kept that closed off from you. I was afraid you'd think I didn't love you as much. I couldn't bear to lose you both, but by losing one, I am am going to lose both, aren't I?" going to lose both, aren't I?"

"Oh, Anwyn. Only if you don't allow yourself to feel." Daegan closed his arms around her, held her as if he'd never let her go. "I don't care if you rage and storm, strike out at me and wish me into h.e.l.l a hundred times to deal with your missing him. Give me everything going on in your heart, cher cher. I will never leave your side. Not ever."

Tears burned beneath her lids as Daegan whispered the next words against her ear. "As I told you before, I was never jealous of Gideon Green. It was so clear, his meaning to us both. You have seen the many ways that love and desire manifest, Mistress, yet you're such a traditionalist. You can't see how the three of us became whole together? Even though it was right in front of your face, every time he took off his shirt?"

She stilled, her mind riveted by the memory of that mark. When she'd asked him about it, long ago, Daegan had said a vampire's mark was a mysterious thing. No vampire really understands it, but there is almost always a meaning to it. No vampire really understands it, but there is almost always a meaning to it.

The scarlet trinity. Three tears of blood. It was so obvious. How had she missed it?

"I do not value your love any less if it is shared between Gideon and me. Not if it makes it richer and deeper, stronger and more enduring." He paused, and she sensed his struggle to say something that might be hard for him. Because she knew him better than he realized, she said the words for him.

"Not if it's a reflection of how you yourself feel."

His lips curved in a feral smile, pure desire and emotion combined in a way that curled in her chest like liquid fire. "You think so, cher cher?"

"Yes." She whispered it, her chest still tight with a wealth of backed-up emotions. "Your feelings for him are no less strong than mine. You're right. Somehow it's him that ties us together. The missing part of our heart. Daegan, what are we going to do?"

"We go on with our lives, knowing that truth. He will come back, cher cher. It may take far longer than we wish, but it's inevitable. I know it."

She would have risen on her toes, put her mouth on his, but his hand settled on her throat. His fingers clasped her there, with enough firmness to stir her blood, make it pump a little faster through her heart.

"You have not directly answered my question, cher cher. I am selfish, and want to hear it. Have I lost your love and trust? Are we back to the beginning?"

Anwyn parted her lips, her breath caressing his mouth where he wouldn't allow her to touch. For the first time in quite a while, she let a seductive smile curve her lips, even as her eyes softened, filling with love and letting him see her heart.

"Daegan Rei, I was yours the first time you walked into this club. I belong to you. Gideon and I both do. Until he decides to come back and prove it to you as well, I'll offer for us both."

"Hmm. For that, I'll take it out on his a.s.s in my own way. For now, you answer only for your own self."

The part threat, part promise did a great deal to rea.s.sure her, in a way that she knew most the world wouldn't understand. As a Mistress, maybe she herself didn't understand her surrender to Daegan any more than Gideon did. Unlike Gideon, though, she knew the freeing power of surrender.

Daegan brought her to his mouth, taking over the kiss, taking the reins away from her, telling her with the strength of his arms, the demand of his lips, that there was no need for her to be anything but sensation in his embrace. She could trust him with everything else.

She prayed that was true, and chose to believe it.

21.

PERFECT. There he was. Allan Walker, a vampire in a nice suit, strolling into the coffeehouse. He wasn't there for a cappuccino, though. He was stalking his annual kill.

There was no way around learning who a man was when you were setting up his surprise execution, though Gideon had spent less time on Allan than he had on previous targets. There hadn't seemed to be much point. He knew that Allan had no servant. He was a financial a.n.a.lyst, a job easy enough to coordinate at odd hours and via technology, rather than out in the light of day. He was a quiet member of his territory, not interested in vampire intrigues. He continued to embrace his human life as much as possible. That might be because he'd had no sire to integrate him into the vampire one. He'd been made nine years ago by a vampire Gideon had killed last year, Clarence Wilson, a seventy-five-year-old vamp. Clarence had turned Allan but then, for whatever reason, had abandoned him shortly after the transition to let Allan find his own way. Usually, such an early abandonment made a fledgling easy prey for other vamps.

Not Allan. He'd figured it out, though Gideon hadn't been around to witness how. All the better. He had no room for admiration for the man's character. He doubted Allan's prey, a young man named John Whitcomb, currently checking his e-mail in the cafe, would have any, either. Whitcomb was working on his bachelor's degree in environmental studies while contemplating a career with Greenpeace, or the Peace Corps, or some other idealistic s.h.i.t, but Gideon had found even the peace-and-love types didn't find room for "love thy brother" when that brother was sucking the life out of your body.

He had noticed Allan was far more alert to his surroundings than most made vampires like him, suggesting a military background. This one wouldn't be oblivious enough to chase a young junkie into an alley. Fortunately, John liked to seek out quiet places to take pictures, because he was an amateur photographer. So Gideon planned to lure John Whitcomb into this abandoned warehouse, several blocks down the street from the cafe. Allan would think he'd gotten an easy killing ground, John simply scoping out his next shooting location, but Gideon would be waiting. There wasn't much cover in here, but he didn't need it. He'd set snares to trip the vampire up, cause him confusion. It was more risky, but doable.

He was doing what he should be doing. He had his focus again. His time with Daegan and Anwyn had been one of those odd forks off to the side, a detour that tried to make him believe something different, when he knew there was nothing different for him. There were other vampires, within fifty miles of this area, who deserved death far worse than Allan Walker. Those who preferred to live in the shadows, preying on the weak, doing things that skirted or overstepped Council law when they a.s.sumed eyes like Daegan Rei's weren't watching. But Daegan would handle those. The John Whitcombs and Morena Wilsons of the world needed Gideon to handle Allan.

Gideon squeezed his eyes shut. Before the night he'd walked into Atlantis, his gut had always been in knots except during the kill, when he'd trained himself to go into a no-feel zone. Sometimes the actual killing had been the closest he'd felt to peace, because he hadn't needed to think. A temporarily release that could easily turn into a psychopath's addiction. Knowing how f.u.c.ked-up that was, he was never surprised when, after it was over, he had an overwhelming urge to stab himself in the arm or some other less vital place, cuts that blended in with the battle scars. It was a form of score keeping, tics on the side of the container that held his diminishing soul.

Jesus, enough. This was the right thing to do. It couldn't be right to stand by and watch someone kill an innocent, just because they needed their blood to live. If he accepted that, then he accepted that Laura's death was nothing more than a cycle of nature, a cheetah calmly walking into a gazelle herd and plucking a fawn out of a depression in the ground, none of the others stopping her, because of course no gazelle could hold its own against a cheetah. How could anyone accept that? What kind of f.u.c.king G.o.d came up with that as the natural order for a gazelle and a cheetah, let alone a nurse and a vampire?

His stomach was cramping, d.a.m.n it. He fumbled for his wallet, opened it up. Saw Laura's picture gazing at him, but it was like he was looking at the picture of a stranger, the attractive model someone had hired to sell a frame. She was gazing at nothing but a camera lens, not seeing him. Not even knowing him, because the Gideon she knew had died with her.

Son of a b.i.t.c.h. He couldn't afford this right now. He ducked back into the warehouse, took up his vantage point. As soon as John left the cafe, headed past here to return to his loft apartment, he'd make his move. He wanted to remain alert, but he had to squat down low, breathing hard, squeeze his eyes shut. He was not having a G.o.dd.a.m.n panic attack, like some kind of rookie.

Instinct. It was always instinct that saved him, his precognition, but now it failed him utterly, because his enemy had walked right up on him. A familiar hand stroked through his hair, the fabric of a duster brushing his back. He had two seconds to think, thank G.o.d thank G.o.d, his earlier denials forgotten, and then he'd sprung to his feet, his knife in hand, a snarl on his lips.

Daegan countered the lunge, drawing the katana in one smooth moment that Gideon couldn't follow. He knocked the shorter blade completely from his hand, followed it up with a reverse thrust that knocked him in the chin with the hilt, hard enough it sat him back down on his a.s.s. He would have jumped back to his feet, ready to go another round, but Daegan was ten feet away, his shoulder braced against a beam scrawled with graffiti.

He wore his hunting gear of solid black, and his dark hair had grown out a little so it was feathering over his brow. It made Gideon remember how Anwyn had said she'd love to see it longer. Women. Women.

Except his eyes were on it as well, following the hard lines of Daegan's warrior face, those dark, fathomless eyes, the firm line of his mouth as it spoke his name. "Gideon."

He would have answered the brief greeting, but he couldn't. It was caught in his throat, too hard to say it aloud. Far too many times, he'd woken with both their names on his lips, for embarra.s.singly the same reasons. The most humiliating dreams weren't those where his d.i.c.k was hard, needing the relief of his hand, though of course his wayward imagination had concocted way too many unlikely scenarios of that. It was that half-dream state where he was in a bed with them. Anwyn curled between the two males, all of them twined together, arms, legs, the intimacy of feet touching and overlapping as they slept. At peace with one another's proximity, with the easy caresses of sleep and half wakefulness, the simple affection of belonging.