The male roared, lost hold of the hammer, and clapped his knees together, cupping himself. V didn't waste a moment. He lifted the broom over his shoulder and swung with his full reach, catching his opponent in the temple and knocking him senseless.

The cheering dried up until all there was was the fire's crackling chatter and the sound of V's ragged breathing. He dropped the broom and stepped over his opponent, ready to get out.

His father's boots planted on the lip of the circle, blocking his way.

The Bloodletter's eyes were narrow as blades. "You haven't finished."

"He shall not rise."

"Not the point." The Bloodletter nodded to the soldier on the floor. "Finish him."

As his opponent moaned, Vishous assessed his father. If V said no, the game his father was playing would be fulfilled, the alienation the Bloodletter was after complete, though not in the way the male had probably expected: V would become a target for the simple staple that he would be perceived as weak for not punishing his opponent. If he finished, however, his position in the camp would be as stable as it could be-until the next test.

Exhaustion overtook him. Would his life always be based on such a crude and unforgiving scale of balances?

The Bloodletter smiled. "This bastard who calls himself my son has no spine, it appears. Perhaps the seed that his mother's womb ate was of another?"

Laughter rippled through the crowd, and someone yelled out, "No son of yours would hesitate at such an hour!"

"And during a fight no true son of mine would be so cowardly as to attack a male's vulnerable place as such." The Bloodletter met the eyes of his soldiers. "The weak must be devious, as strength is not available to them."

The sensation of being strangled locked onto Vishous's throat, sure as if his father's hands were wrapped around his neck. As his breath quickened anew, anger swelled in his chest and his heart pounded. He looked down at the fat soldier who had beaten him… then thought of the books his father had made him burn… and the boy who had gone after him… and the thousands of cruel and graceless acts that had been done to him over the course of his life.

V's body quickened from the anger that burned in him, and before he knew what he was doing he was rolling the soldier over onto his fat belly.

He took the male. In front of his father. In front of the camp.

And he was brutal about it.

When it was over, he disengaged and stumbled back.

The soldier was covered with V's blood and sweat and the remnants of his rage.

With a scramble like a goat he got himself out of the ring, and though he knew not what time of day it was, he ran through the camp to the main way out of the cave. As he burst free, the cold night was just gaining its hold on the land, and the faint glow in the east burned his face.

He bent over at the knees and threw up. Again and again.

"So weak you are." The Bloodletter's voice was bored… but only on the surface. There was a depth of satisfaction in his words caused by a mission completed: Although Vishous had done what he had to the soldier, his retreat afterward had been precisely the kind of cowardice his father had sought.

The Bloodletter's eyes narrowed. "You shall never best me, boy. Just as you shall never be free of me. I shall rule your life-"

On a surge of hatred, V sprang up from his crouch and attacked his father head-on, leading with his glowing hand. The Bloodletter went rigid as the electrical blast went through his massive body, and the two of them fell upon the ground, with Vishous on top. Going on instinct, V locked his bright white palm on his father's thick throat and squeezed.

As the Bloodletter's face turned brilliant red, V's eye stung briefly and a vision replaced what was before him.

He saw the death of his father. As clearly as if it happened in front of him.

Words left his mouth, though he was not conscious of speaking them: "You shall see your end in a wall of fire caused by a pain you know. You will burn until you are nothing but smoke, and be cast upon the wind."

His father's expression turned to abject horror.

V was peeled off by other soldier and held by the armpits, feet dangling above the snowy ground.

The Bloodletter leapted up, his face ruddy, a line of sweat beading above his upper lip. He breathed like a horse ridden hard, clouds of white shooting out of his mouth and nostrils.

V fully expected to be beaten to death. "Bring me my blade," his father snarled.

Vishous scrubbed his face. To avoid thinking about what happened next, he thought about how that first time with the soldier had never sat well with him. Three hundred years later it still felt like a violation of the other male, even though that had been the way of it at the camp.

He looked at Jane curled up next to him and decided that, as far as he was concerned, tonight was when he'd finally lost his virginity. Though his body had done the act in many different ways to many different people, sex had always been about an exchange of power-power that flowed in his direction, power that he fed off of to reassure himself that no one was ever going to get him flat on his back and tied down and unable to fight while shit was done to him.

Tonight had not fit his pattern. With Jane there had been an exchange: She had given something to him, and he had turned over a piece of himself in return.

V frowned. A piece, but not everything.

To do that they would need to go to his other place. And… shit, they would go there. Even though he got a case of the cold clammies just thinking about it, he vowed that before she left his life, he'd give her the one thing he had never let anyone have.

And would never give to anyone else.

He wanted to repay the trust she gave to him. She was so strong as a person, as a woman, and yet she put herself in his sexual care-even while knowing that he had hard-core Dom tendencies and she was no match for him physically.

Her trust brought him to his knees. And he needed to return the faith before she left.

Her eyes blinked open and met his, and they both spoke at the same time:

"I don't want you to go."

"I don't want to leave you."

Chapter Twenty-six

When John woke up the following afternoon, he was afraid to move. Hell, he was afraid to open his eyes. What if it had been a dream? Bracing himself, he lifted his arm, cracked his lids, and… oh, yeah, there it was. Palm as big as his head. Arm longer than his thigh bone had been before. Wrist thick as his calf once had been.

He made it.

He reached for his cell phone and sent texts to Qhuinn and Blay, who hit him back at a dead run. They were totally pumped for him, and he grinned a big fat-bastard smile… until he realized that he had to use the bathroom, and glanced at the open door. Looking through the jambs, he saw the shower.

Oh, God. Had he really choked in there last night with Layla?

He tossed the phone onto the comforter, even though the thing was beeping that there were texts waiting for him. Rubbing his strangely broad chest with his new Shaquille O'Neal hand, he felt like hell. He should apologize to Layla, but for what? Being a lame-ass who went soft? Yeah, that was a conversation he was dying to have, as she was no doubt totally unimpressed with him and his performance.

Was it better to let it go? Probably. She was so beautiful and sensual and perfect in every way, there was no chance she'd ever think it was her fault. All he'd do would be embarrass himself into an aneurism as he wrote what he'd say if he'd had a voice box.