Chapter Twenty-Six

Dev slammed the door behindhim and stood just inside the locker room, his breath hissing between his teeth.

Sedge, in front of an open locker in his birthday suit, put his hands on his hips, and Arc, bare-chested but with a towel wrapped around his waist, raised a single brow.

Dev clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. Pain as acute as when his father had died ripped through him, making it feel like a B?taie Blade had just exploded in his chest, leaving only a gaping, bloody hole where his heart should be. I lost her. With a savage yell, he whirled and punched the wall. Plaster crumbled beneath his knuckles, and he hit it again. Knuckles throbbing, Dev cocked back his arm for a third punch.

"I take it the women freaked," Arc said, his words tight and low.

Dev swung around, nostrils flared. "I suppose that depends on your definition of freaked, Costache."

To their credit, the women had handled the beginning of the revelation meeting semi-okay, admirably forgoing throwing a bunch of hissy fits when they'd learned about the sack of lies they'd been handed over the last three months. Confession one: ??ran? wasn't home to a research institute—those scientist working behind glass? All fake—but a refuge for people trying to live their lives in safety and happiness. Confession two: the main reason the women had been brought down here was to get to know the men with the hope that they'd fall in love with one and stay.

Confession three had taken the women on their first detour into weirds-ville: the explanation of why these women were the only ones the men of ??ran? could have children with: their unique Dragon heritage.

Lots of what the hell? skepticism had made the rounds over that.

Confession four, the biggie, had trekked the women directly out of weirds-ville and into freak-out-city. Ahem, yes, tap-tap, the men and women of this community are actually a different breed of human called Varcolac, who in some ways resemble mythical vampires.

That double-decker whopper was followed by one of those black hole silences reserved for funerals, or for the you-have-six-months-to-live kind of bad news.

Someone finally cleared her throat. "Excuse me?"

Another woman snorted sardonically. "Delusional much?"

A laugh rang out, uncomfortable and incredulous.

In the back row, aerobics instructor Abby Fiske pushed to her feet. "I'm outta here."

Toni remained calm, which was admirable, considering the number of eyes that were looking at her like her phone was off the hook. "Varcolac aren't coffin-sleeping ghouls who transform people with their bites," she said. "That's just invented Dracula stuff. There's no reason to be afraid of—"

"Oh, I don't think fear's the issue here." Abby crossed her arms firmly in front of her. "The issue is that there's no such thing as vampires or Varcolac or whatever mind-fuck you people are trying to put over on us."

No such thing as vampiresmeant it was time for the men to perform an array of dancing monkey parlor tricks to prove that, surprise-surprise, they were very real.

Thomal was called upon to demonstrate his Dragon speed, running across the room so fast he disappeared. Gábor presented the Pure-bred specialty of making his eyes glow preternaturally bright. Then Jacken, who was the only one besides his brothers who could control his fangs without the usual stimulations of aggression, blood, or sex, stepped up to do the shit job of flashing a set of elongated canines. This, of course, raised the newbies' barely contained fear of him to new and dizzying heights of terror, and resulted in that trip into freak-out-land by convincing them.

The women started screaming like they were surrounded by a bunch of salivating beasts, which was always insulting, no matter how much their reaction was supposed to be understandable.

"Pipe the hell down!" Jacken roared, his sharp glare and the tone of his voice effectively quieting the mass tantrum down to sniffles. "We're not monsters," he ground out. "After three months of living with us, you know that, for chrissake."

From there, more explanations had followed, the whole nine yards laid out for the newbies, the goods and the bads. Emphasis was placed on the benefits of hooking up with a Varcolac: increased health, a doubled lifespan, and significantly decreased aging, which all resulted from long-term exposure to Fiin??, not to mention the indescribable pleasure experienced from being juiced up with the elixir. Then the blood-bond was described, how after feeding and sex took place, a biological transformation occurred that rendered the mated Varcolac dependent on the blood of his or her mate for the span of that person's life. Yoo-hoo, that's why nobody'd been doing the nasty for three months; Varcolac weren't physically capable of having sex until they were blood-bonded.

Dev gave Sedge and Arc a stormy look. "Well, let's see, Susan nearly puked at the sight of a pair of fangs, by the expression on Hadley's face when she saw Thomal's scaly dragon tattoo, I strongly suspect that she now thinks of him as Lizard Man, and Abby's going to bail on us because, and I quote: ‘I don't want to have children with birth defects.' That's us, man." He leaned back and flung his arms wide. "Walking talking birth defects."

Arc's nostrils went white.

Hell, Dev almost longed for the days when they used to kidnap women. This is who we are, there's no getting out of here, so deal with it.

Sedge powered his legs into a pair of blue jeans. "Jesus, didn't any of them take it well?"

Dev drew a labored breath. "Chelsea did." Gábor, that lucky fuck. "She practically creamed herself when she realized that she could finally get herself a bad boy who wouldn't cheat on her. The rest are guarded about it right now." Which he supposed was fair. "After the dust settles, we'll see what—"

The door to the locker room swung open and Thomal stepped inside, his expression calm—unnatural calm. Powder-keg calm. With hard, remote eyes, he glanced at the damaged wall, then at Arc and Sedge, and finally at Dev.

The two of them shared a moment of violent pain.

Dev forced the word up his larynx. "Hadley?"

With a strange economy of movement, Thomal looked up at the ceiling, then at the row of metal lockers. "Packing." His blue gaze flattened. "Marissa?"

The words choked to death inside Dev's throat as memories of facing down Marissa after the Big Reveal raged through his head…

* * *

Dev closed the door tothe mansion's Asian Parlor with a sharp click and leaned back against it, trying to look like his ears and his pride weren't still taking a pounding from all of the freak-out screaming he'd just endured. Steam formed behind his eyeballs as he watched Marissa move to stand near a gigantic Buddha sculpture, her hands wrung together at her waist. Like she might be afraid of him now.

Please, don't do this.

He moved his jaw back and forth. "So, is this your version of losing it over the Big Reveal?" he asked. "Absolute silence?" She hadn't said a single word all through Toni's speech.

A swallow worked its way down the length of Marissa's throat. "I'm just absorbing everything."

He skimmed his eyes over her. "Are you trying to talk yourself out of it being true? We gave you women a pretty convincing demo, but maybe you'd like to rationalize that away." Others were; he'd seen it on their faces.

"No. I…believe it. I mean, it caught me totally off guard, trust me, but…" A thready breath came out of her. "The night you and your men saved me from Murk and Teer, a lot of surreal stuff happened, and…so this makes sense, in a very unexpected way, but, yes. I also trust that Toni isn't insane."

He narrowed his eyes on her through another inspection. "Something's got you unhooked."

"I…" Color flared in her cheeks. "Thinking of you as a…as sexually inexperienced is, uh, taxing my imagination." She smiled weakly. "You look like you could keep Playboy Forum supplied with articles for months."

"No," he responded in a level tone. "Varcolac mate for life; one partner, that's it." He pushed himself off the door. "I'd think that'd be a huge selling point." The image of Chelsea throwing her arms around Gábor flashed into his mind, followed by an unpleasant grab of jealousy.

Marissa turned around and paced away from him a few steps, sweeping a hand over her hair. "Truthfully? The all-or-nothing of it scares me." He saw her shoulders move up and down with a deep breath.

A three-hundred-pound circus lady sat on his chest.

She turned around. "Getting together with you means forever, Dev. Not just the idea of taking marriage as a serious commitment forever, but really forever. If I understand this biological bond correctly, it means that I could never leave you. If I did, you'd die." She threw her hands out. "Die, Dev! Not just devastate you with a divorce, but fricking kill you!"

"Ah." His jaw throbbed as he felt her steadily slipping through his fingers. "I hadn't realized you planned on leaving me. That does complicate matters."

"Nobody plans on these things," she snapped back. "I'm being practical and realistic here. I would never go into a marriage with divorce in mind, but there are no guarantees in life. What if after we bonded, you…you figured, ‘hey, I've got her trapped now,' and turned into an abusive asshole."

He took a swift step back. "What did you just say?" He clutched both sides of his head. "You seriously think I'm capable of—"

"No." She dropped her eyes and ran a hand over her mouth. "But I've only known you three months." Her voice was low and strained. "And even at the end of my stint in ??ran?, I didn't see us getting married. I'm not ready for that kind of commitment—especially not a bonding level of commitment. I wanted us to continue dating, but…it doesn't sound like the community is going to loosen up and allow movement in and out of the town. So…I don't know where that leaves us."

He fought for air, that fat circus bitch still on top of him. "You know exactly where it leaves us, Marissa." He jerked the door open. "With a nowhere future ahead of us, why the hell should we keep seeing each other?"