to get involved. He wanted to walk down the hall of statues to the pair's room and sit
Bella down and get the story out of her. He wanted to be a hero. But it was not his place.
«You're her hellren. You need to do the talking.» Phury stabbed out the last half inch of the blunt,
rolled up a new one, and flipped open his lighter. The flint wheel made a rasping noise as the
flame jumped up. «You can do it.»
Zsadist cursed, paced some more, then eventually headed for the door. «Talking about this whole
pregnancy thing reminds me that if I lose her, I'm fucked. I feel so goddamned powerless.»
After his twin took off, Phury let his head fall back. As he smoked, he watched the blunt's lit tip
flare and wondered idly if it was like an orgasm for the hand-rolled.
Jesus. If Bella was lost, both he and Z were going to go into a tailspin the likes of which males
didn't come out of.
As the thought occurred to him, he felt guilty. He really shouldn't care that much about his twin's
female.
As anxiety made him feel like he'd swallowed a swarm of locusts, he smoked his way through
the emotion until he caught sight of the clock. Shit. He had to teach a class on firearms in an
hour. He'd better hit the shower and try to get sober.
John woke up confused, vaguely aware that his face hurt and that there was some kind of
bleating going off in his room.
He lifted his head out of his notebook and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The spiral binding had
left behind a pattern of dents that made him think of Warf from Star Trek TNG. And the noise
was the alarm clock.
Three fifty in the afternoon. Classes started at four P.M.
John got up from the desk, wobbled into the bathroom, and stood over the toilet. When that felt
too much like work, he turned around and sat down.
God, he was exhausted. He'd spent the last couple of months sleeping in Tohr's chair in the
training center's office, but after Wrath had put his foot down and moved John up to the big
house, he'd been back in a real bed. You'd think he'd be feeling great with all that legroom.
Instead, he was whipped.
After he flushed, he turned on the lights and winced in the glare. Damn. Bad idea to lose the
darkness, and not just because his eyes were killing him. Standing beneath the recessed lighting
his little body looked horrible, nothing but pale skin over evident bone. With a grimace, he
covered up his thumb-sized sex with his hand so he didn't have to look at the thing and killed the
lights.
There was no time for a shower. Quick brush of the teeth, little splash action on the puss with
some water, and he didn't bother with his hair.
Out in his bedroom he just wanted to go back between the sheets, but he pulled on jeans that
were junior-sized and frowned as he zipped up the fly. The things were loose on his hips, baggy
though he'd been trying to eat.
Great. Instead of going through the transition, he was shrinking.
As another round of what-if-it-never-comes-for-me? rolled him over, his eyebrows started to
pound. Crap. He felt like there was a little man with a hammer in each of his eye sockets,
bashing the shit out of his optic nerve.
Grabbing his books off his desk, he shoved them into his backpack and left. The instant he
stepped into the hall he put his arm over his face. The sight of the brilliant foyer made his
headache roar, and he stumbled back, bumping into a Greek kuroi. Which made him realize he
hadn't put a shirt on.
Cursing to hell and gone, he went back to his room, threw one on, and somehow made it
downstairs without tripping over his own feet. Man, everything was getting on his nerves. The
sound of his Nikes across the foyer was like a band of squeaky mice following him. The clicking
of the hidden door into the tunnel seemed loud as a gunshot. His trip through the underground
route to the training center went on forever.
This was not going to be a great day. His temper was flaring already, and going by the last month
or so, he knew that the earlier it kicked in, the harder it would be to hold.
And as soon as he walked into the classroom, he knew he was really in for it.
Sitting in the back row at the loner table John had called home before he got tight with his boys
was… Lash.
Who now came in the economy-size