"Can you, Mom? That makes me feel so much better. I spent twenty years of my life fighting to stay alive in that cesspool. What did I get? A scrambled head and fucked-up body. And now you want me to breed for you?" He smiled coldly. "What if I can't impregnate them? If you know what happened to me, you ever think of that?"

"You are able."

"How do you know?"

"Think you there is any part of my son I cannot see?"

"You… bitch," he whispered.

A blast of heat came out of her body, hot enough to singe his eyebrows, and her voice cracked through the penthouse. "Do not forget who I am, warrior. I chose your father unwisely, and we both suffered for the mistake. Do you think I remained unharmed as I saw what course your life laid? Think you I watched from afar unaffected? I died every day for you."

"Well, aren't you Mother fucking Teresa," he shouted, aware that his own body had started to heat up. "You're supposed to be all-powerful. If you'd given a shit, you could have stepped-"

"Destinies are not chosen, they are conferred-"

"By who? You? Then are you the one I should hate for all the shit that was done to me?" Now he was glowing all over; he didn't even have to look down at his forearms to know that what was within his hand had spread throughout him. Just. Like. Her. "God… damn you."

"My son-"

He bared his fangs. "You do not call me that. Ever. Mother and son… we aren't that. My mother would have done something. When I couldn't help myself, my mother would have been there-"

"I wanted to be-"

"When I was bleeding and torn up and terrified, my mother would have been there. So don't fly me that sonny-boy bullshit."

There was a long silence. Then her voice came clear and strong. "You will present yourself to me following my sequester, which starts this night. You will be presented of your mate as a formality. You will return when she is suitably prepared for your use, and you will do what you were birthed to do. And you will do it of your own free choosing."

"The hell I will. And fuck you."

"Vishous, son of the Bloodletter, you will do this because if you do not, the race will not survive. If there is any hope of withstanding the onslaughts of the Lessening Society, more Brothers are needed. You of the Brotherhood are but a handful now. In past epochs there were twenty and thirty among you. Where may yet more come but from selective breeding?"

"You let Butch into the Brotherhood, and he wasn't-"

"Special dispensation for a prophecy realized. Not the same at all, and well you know it. His body will never be as strong as yours. If not for his innate power, he could never function as a Brother."

V looked away from her.

Survival of the species. Survival of the Brotherhood.

Shit.

He walked around and ended up by his rack and his wall of toys. "I'm the wrong guy for this kind of thing. I'm not the hero type. I'm not interested in saving the world."

"The logic is in the biology and cannot be countered."

Vishous lifted his glowing hand, thinking about the number of times he'd used it to incinerate things. Houses. Cars. "What about this? You want a whole generation cursed like me? What if I pass this down to my offspring?"

"It is an excellent weapon."

"So's a dagger, but it doesn't light up your friends."

"You are blessed, not cursed."

"Oh, yeah? Try living with the thing."

"Power requires sacrifice."

He laughed in a hard rush. "Well, then, I'd give this shit up in a heartbeat to be normal."

"Regardless, you have a duty to your species."

"Uh-huh, right. Just like you had one to a son you birthed. You'd better pray I'm more conscientious with my responsibility."

He stared out over the city, thinking of the civilians he'd seen battered, beaten, dead at the hands of the Omega's lessers. There had been centuries of innocents slain by those bastards, and life was hard enough without being hunted. He should know.

Man, he hated that she had a point about the logic. There were only five in the Brotherhood now, even with Butch's membership: Wrath couldn't fight by law, because he was the king. Tohrment had disappeared. Darius had died last summer. So there were five against an ever-replenishing enemy. Making it worse, the lessers had an endless supply of humans to pull into their undead ranks, whereas Brothers had to be born and raised and had to survive their transitions. Sure, the trainee class being worked on back at the compound would go out as soldiers eventually. But those boys would never possess the kind of strength, endurance, or healing capabilities that males from the Brotherhood bloodlines would.

And as for making more Brothers… Small pool of sires to choose from. By law Wrath as king could lay with any female in the species, but he was fully bonded to Beth. So too were Rhage and Z to their females. Tohr, assuming he was still alive and ever came back, wasn't going to be in any frame of mind to get members of the Chosen pregnant. Phury was the only other possibility, but he was a celibate with a broken frickin' heart. Not really man-whore material.

"Shit." While he chewed on the situation, the Scribe Virgin stayed quiet. As if she knew one word from her, and he would drop the whole thing and to hell with the race.

He turned around to face her. "I'll do it on one condition."

"Which is."

"I live here, with my brothers. I fight with my brothers. I'll go to the Other Side and"-Holy shit. Oh, God-"lay with whoever. But my home is here."

"The Primale lives-"

"This one won't, so take me or leave me." He glared at her. "And know this. I am enough of a selfish bastard that if you don't agree, I will walk, and then where will you be? After all, you can't make me fuck females for the rest of my life, not unless you want to work my cock yourself." He smiled coldly. "And how's that for some biology, true?"

Now it was her turn to move around the room. As he watched her and waited, he hated that they seemed to think in the same manner-with motion.

She stopped by the rack and reached out a glowing hand, hovering it above the hardwood slab. The remnants of the sex he'd had vanished into thin air, the mess cleaned up, as if she didn't approve. "I thought perhaps you would like a life of ease. A life where you were protected and didn't have to fight."

"And lose all that careful training I had at my father's fist? Now, that would be such a waste. As for protection, I could have used it three hundred years ago. Not now."

"I thought perhaps… you would like a mate of your own. The one I chose for you, she is the best of all the bloodlines. A pure-blood with grace and beauty."

"And you picked my father, right? So you'll excuse me if I don't get all excited."

Her gaze drifted over to his equipment. "You favor such… hard couplings."

"I'm my father's son. You said it yourself."

"You could not participate in this… sexual endeavor with your mate. It would be shameful and frightening for her. And you could not be with anyone other than the Chosen. It would be a disgrace."

V tried to imagine giving up his proclivities. "My monster needs to get out. Especially now."

"Now?"

"Come on, Mom. You know everything about me, right? So you know my visions have dried up and I'm half-psychotic from lack of sleep. Hell, you gotta know I took a jump off this building last week. Longer this goes on, the worse I'm going to get, especially if I can't get a… workout in."

She waved her hand, dismissing him. "You see nothing because you are at a crossroads in your own path. Free will cannot be exercised if you are aware of the ultimate outcome, therefore the prescient part of you naturally suppresses itself. It will return."