own secret he wasn't into the prying thing.
Yeah, sure, he signed. Then he whistled a quick goodbye and took off.
As he closed the door, he heard their deep voices and put his hand on the wood. He wanted to be
where they were so badly, but the sex stuff… No, his transition was about becoming male so he
could avenge his dead. It was not about banging chicks. Matter of fact, maybe he should take a
page from Phury's book.
Celibacy had plenty of things to recommend it. Phury had been abstaining for, like, ever, and
look at him. He was totally tight in the head, a real together kind of guy.
Not bad footsteps to follow in.
Chapter Five
«You're going to be the what?» Butch blurted.
As he looked at his roommate, Vishous could barely choke out the fucking word. «The Primale.
Of the Chosen.»
«What the fuck is that?»
«Basically, a sperm donor.»
«Wait, wait… so you're going to do, like, IVF?»
V dragged a hand through his hair and thought how good it would feel to put his fist through the
wall. «It's a little more hands-on than that.»
Speaking of hands-on, it had been a long time since he'd had straight sex with a female. Could he
even get off during the formal, ritualistic sex of the Chosen?
«Why you?»
«Has to be a member of the Brotherhood.» V paced around the dark room, figuring he'd keep his
mother's identity under wraps a little longer. «It's a small pool to choose from. One that's getting
smaller.»
«Will you live over there?» Phury asked.
«Live over where?» Butch cut in. «You mean you won't be able to fight with us? Or, like…
hang?»
«No, I made that a condition of the deal.»
As Butch exhaled in relief, V tried not to get sapped out that his roommate cared about seeing
him as much as he cared about being seen.
«When does it happen?»
«Few days.»
Phury spoke up. «Does Wrath know?»
«Yup.»
As V thought about what he'd signed on for, his heart started kicking in his chest, a bird flapping
its wings to get out of his rib cage. The fact that he had two of his brothers and Rehvenge giving
him the hairy eyeball made the panic worse. «Listen, you mind excusing me for a while? I need
to… shit, I need to get out.»
«I'll go with you,» Butch said.
«No.» V was in a desperate frame of mind. If there was ever a night he might be tempted to do
something grossly inappropriate, it was now. Bad enough what he felt for his roommate was an
unspoken undercurrent; making it a reality by acting on it would be a catastrophe neither he,
Butch, nor Marissa could handle. «I need to be by myself.»
V shoved the godforsaken pendant back in his ass pocket and left the crushing silence of the
office. As he fast-tracked it out the side door into an alley, he wanted to find a lesser. Needed to
find one. Prayed to the Scribe Vir-
V stopped dead. Well, shit. He sure as hell wasn't praying to that mother of his anymore. Or
using that phrase.
God… damn.
V settled back against the cold brick of ZeroSum's building, and, much as it pained him, he
couldn't help but think back to his life in the warrior camp.
The camp had been situated in middle Europe, deep in a cave. Some thirty soldiers had used it as
a home base, but there had been other residents. A dozen pretrans had been sent there for
training, and another dozen or so whores fed and serviced the males.
The Bloodletter had run it for years and had churned out some of the best fighters the species
had. Four members of the Brotherhood had gotten their start there under V's father. Many others,
of all levels, hadn't survived, however.
V's first memories were of being hungry and cold, of watching others eat while his stomach
moaned. Through his early years, hunger had driven him, and like the other pretrans, his sole
motivation had been to feed himself, no matter how he had to do it.
Vishous waited in the shadows of the cave, staying out of the flickering light thrown by the
camp's fire pit. Seven fresh deer were being consumed in a bawdy frenzy, the soldiers slicing
meat off bones and chewing like animals, blood marking their faces and hands. On the fringes of
the meal, all the pretrans trembled with greed.
Like the others, V was sharpened to an edge from starvation. But he didn't stand with his fellow
young. He waited in the far away darkness, eyes locked on his prey.
The soldier he tracked was fat as a hog, with folds of flesh falling over his leathers and facial
features indistinct for the puffy padding,
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