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 asshole package. The guy was big and filled out, built like a fighter. And he'd gone through a G.I. Joe makeover. Before he'd worn flashy couture clothes and a vault's worth of Jacob amp; Co. jewelry; now he was dressed in black cargo pants and a skintight black nylon shirt. His blond hair, which had been long enough to pull back into a ponytail, was now military short.

It was as if all that pretension had been wiped clean because he knew he had the goods on the inside.

One thing hadn't changed: His eyes were still sharkskin gray and focused on John-who knew without a doubt that if he got caught alone with the guy he was in for a world of hurt. He might have taken Lash down the last time, but it wouldn't happen again, and more than that, Lash was going to get him. The promise of payback was in both the set of those big shoulders and the half smile that had fuck you written all over it.

John took a seat next to Blay, feeling a dark-alley kind of dread.

"Hey, buddy," his friend said softly. "Don't worry about that bastard, okay?"

John didn't want to look as weak as he was feeling, so he just shrugged and unzipped his backpack. God, this headache was a killer. But then, the flight-or-fight response on an empty, rolling stomach was hardly a dose of Excedrin.

Qhuinn leaned over and dropped a note in front of John. We gotchu, was all it said.

John blinked quickly from gratitude as he got out his firearms book and thought about what they were going to cover today in class. How appropriate it was guns. He felt like one was leveled at the back of his skull.

He looked to the rear of the room. As if Lash had been waiting for the eye contact, the guy leaned forward and put his forearms on the table. His hands slowly cranked into two fists that seemed big as John's head, and when he smiled, his new fangs were sharp as knives and white as the afterlife.

Shit. John was a dead man if his transition didn't come soon.

Chapter Fifteen

Vishous woke up, and the first thing he saw was his surgeon in the chair across the room. Apparently even in his sleep, he'd been keeping track of her.

She was watching him, too.

"How are you?" Her voice was low and even. Professionally warm, he thought.

"I'm better." Although it was hard to imagine feeling worse than he had when he'd been throwing up.

"Are you in pain?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't bother me. More an ache, really."

Her eyes went over him, but again it was with professional purpose. "Your coloring is good."

He didn't know what to say to that. Because the longer he looked like shit, the longer she could stay. Health was so not his friend.

"Do you remember anything?" she asked. "About the shooting?"

"Not really."

Which was only a partial lie. All he had were flashes of the events, partial clippings of the articles instead of the full columns: He remembered the alley. A fight with a lesser. A gun going off. And after that ending up on her table and getting evac'd from the hospital by his brothers.

"Why did someone want to shoot you?" she asked.

"I'm hungry. Is there food around?"

"Are you a drug dealer? Or a pimp?"

He rubbed his face. "Why do you think I'm either?"

"You got shot in an alley off Trade. The paramedics said you had weapons on you."

"It didn't occur to you I could be undercover police?"

"Cops in Caldwell don't carry martial-arts daggers. And your kind wouldn't go that route."

V narrowed his eyes. "My kind?"

"Too much exposure, right? Besides, you wouldn't worry much about policing another race."

Man, he didn't have the energy to tackle the species discussion with her. Plus, there was a part of him that didn't want her to think of him as different.

"Food," he said, glancing over at a tray that was set on the bureau. "Can I have some?"

She stood up and planted her hands on her hips. He had a feeling she was going to say something along the lines of Get it yourself, you freak bastard.

Instead she walked across the room. "If you're hungry, you can eat. I didn't touch what Red Sox brought me, and there's no sense throwing it out."

He frowned. "I will not take food meant for you."

"I'm not going to eat it. Being kidnapped has killed my appetite."

V cursed under his breath, hating the position he'd put her in. "I'm sorry."

"Instead of doing the 'sorry' thing, how about you just let me go?"

"Not yet." Not ever, some crazy-ass voice muttered.

Oh, Christ, not more with the-

Mine.

On the heels of the word, an all-powerful need to mark her lit him up. He wanted to get her naked and underneath him and covered with his scent as he pumped into her body. He saw it happening, saw them skin-to-skin on the bed, him on top of her with her legs split wide to accommodate his hips and his cock.

As she brought the tray of food over his temperature spiked, and what was doing between his legs throbbed like a bitch. Surreptitously he bunched the blankets up so that nothing showed.

She put the food down and lifted the silver lid off the plate.

"So how much better do you have to be for me to leave?" Her eyes went over his chest, all medical assessment, as if she were measuring what was under the bandages.

Ah, hell. He wanted her to look at him as a male. He wanted those eyes of hers going over his skin not to check a surgical wound, but because she was thinking about putting her hands on him and wondering where to start.

V closed his eyes and rolled away, grunting at the pain in his chest. He told himself the ache was from the surgery. Suspected it was more because of the surgeon.

"I'll pass on the food. Next time they come in I'll ask for some."

"You need this more than I do. And I'm worried about your fluid intake."

Actually, he was fine, because he'd fed. With enough blood vampires could survive a number of days without sustenance.