table and listening to it shatter on the floor behind her.
Mad's lips twitched as he fell in beside her outside. Before they'd made it three steps, the door slammed shut with enough temper that the twitching turned into a grin. "Now I'm jealous. You got to break things and I didn't."
"I'd let you go back and break her face, but Dallas would bitch."
"Maybe. Might be worth it, though." He slung an arm around her shoulders. "Until I started a sector war, I guess. Or maybe two of them. That's the best part of being an O'Kane and a descendant of Sector One's Prophet. No one knows who to wage war on first."
Lex relaxed into his embrace, allowing herself a moment to indulge in the comfort of it before straightening her spine. "Better to let it slide, then."
They turned a corner, and Mad jerked to a stop as a brunette stepped out of an alcove in front of them. She was pretty, in a soft sort of way, with a flowing robe that hugged her curves but hung modestly to the floor.
Mad recognized her. He didn't release his grip on Lex, but he nodded. "Jade."
"Maddox." She turned to Lex and bowed as low as most initiates bowed to the head of their house. "You must be Lex."
"Yeah." Lex tipped the girl's face up with two fingers under her chin. "But I'm not in the mood right now. Sorry, honey."
She didn't flinch, but her suddenly slumped shoulders screamed disappointment, along with something worse. Resignation. Jade straightened her back but lowered her gaze. "I only want a few moments. Could I walk with you?"
Damn it. "Five minutes, okay?"
"Thank you." Even her smile, wide as it was, couldn't chase the shadows from her eyes. Mad released Lex and fell back half a dozen paces, and Jade took his place. After a few steps, she glanced at Lex again. "You look so much like her. Avery, I mean. She was my dearest friend while I was in training."
This woman looked years older than Avery. "And you chose to come here instead of taking on a patron?"
"Chose is always an interesting word in this place, isn't it?" Jade stared ahead, but her voice turned wry. "I chose to excel at my training. I chose to devote every waking moment to becoming extraordinary, thinking it would bring me more latitude. I miscalculated."
"Let me guess--instead, it turned you into me." Lex smiled a little. "Overachiever and pariah, all rolled into one."
Jade laughed softly. "Your greatest sin isn't that you're a pariah. It's that you're a legend. Legends are dangerous. They have power over people's imaginations."
"Then the smart thing would be to stay away from me, right?"
"It's too late for me." She lifted one shoulder in a helpless shrug. "I'm a legend, too."
"Kindred spirits, then." Lex stopped and leaned against the wall. "Are we chatting, or are you getting around to asking me something?"
Jade folded her hands together with another nervous glance at Mad. He'd stopped, far enough back to be out of easy listening range, but he made no attempt at hiding the fact that he was watching them both.
Wetting her lips nervously, she turned back to Lex. "I know that he helps women escape sometimes. The ones who are pregnant and want to stay that way, or who've been hurt."
The ones no one bothered to go after because they weren't important or notorious enough to be legends. "If you're talking to me, it must mean you think Mad can't help you."
"When I was seventeen, Cerys needed influence within Eden to keep Sector Two whole. And one of Eden's councilmen needed..." Jade laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. "He needed his ego stroked by a virginal whore. The Rose House specialty, and I have stroked his sad little ego very thoroughly." She looked away. "Every other weekend, for the past seven years."
And she wanted out. "That's a slightly stickier situation than normal. But you know that."
"I do," she agreed, still staring at some invisible spot on the wall beside Lex's head. "Especially since he had me leashed."
Drugs, the kind meant to keep her compliant. Obedient and helpless. That sort of thing would make a piss-poor leash if getting clean was easy--or even likely. "Your chances are slim, then. You want to try anyway?"
Jade met her gaze, and there was steel in those brown eyes. "I can give Dallas O'Kane plenty of incriminating information. In return, I want a safe place to fight and protection if I make it. I