No tears fell from her eyes. No sobs from her lips. She was too far gone for that. She just sat in silence, arms going around herself once more, eyes staring at the glowing screen.

The thought that occurred to her was bizarre, but inescapable: There was only one thing that would have been worse than what she had faced walking into that club and learning the truth about Rehv. And that would have been reading this article before she’d made that trip downtown.

Not that she wanted Rehv dead, God…no. Even after everything he had snowed her on, she didn’t want him to die violently. But she had been in love with him before she’d known about the lying.

She had been…in love with him.

Her heart had truly been his.

Now her eyes welled and spilled, the screen growing wavy and indistinct, the pictures of the blown-out club washing away. She had fallen in love with Rehvenge. It had been fast and furious and hadn’t lasted, but the feelings had bloomed just the same.

With a spearing pain, she remembered his warm, surging body on top of hers, his bonding scent in her nose, his huge shoulders bunched and hard as they’d made love. He’d been beautiful in those moments, so generous as a lover. He honestly had enjoyed pleasuring her-

Except that had been what he wanted her to believe, and as a symphath, he was good at manipulation. Although, God, she had to wonder what exactly he’d gotten out of being with her. She had no money, no position, nothing that benefited him, and he had never asked anything of her, never used her in any way…

Ehlena stopped herself from sliding into any kind of rosy view of what had gone down. Bottom line was, he hadn’t deserved her love, and not because he was a symphath. Strange as it seemed, she could have lived with that-although maybe that just proved how little she knew about sin-eaters. No, it was the lying and the fact that he was a drug dealer that killed it for her.

A drug dealer. In a flash, she saw the ODs that had come through the doors of Havers’s clinic, those young lives in danger for no good reason. Some of those patients had been revived, but not all and even one death caused by what Rehvenge had sold was too much.

Ehlena wiped her cheeks and rubbed her hands on her slacks. No more crying. She couldn’t afford the luxury of being weak. She had her father to take care of.

She spent the next half hour applying for jobs.

Sometimes the fact that you were forced to be strong was enough to actually turn you into what you had to be.

When her eyes finally threw in the towel and started crossing from exhaustion, she turned off the computer and stretched out on her bed next to her father’s manuscript. As she let her lids fall, she had a feeling she wasn’t going to sleep. Her body might be calling it quits, but her brain didn’t seem interested in playing follow-the-leader.

Lying there in the dark, she tried to quiet herself by imagining the old house she and her parents had lived in before everything had changed. She pictured herself walking through the grand rooms, going by the lovely antiques, pausing to sniff at a bouquet of flowers that had been cut fresh from the garden.

The trick worked. Slowly, her mind vested itself in the calm, elegant place, her racing thoughts downshifting, then braking, then parking in her skull.

Just as rest crept upon her, she had the oddest conviction strike the center of her chest, the surety of it flowing throughout her whole body.

Rehvenge was alive.

Rehvenge was alive.

Fighting against the knockout tide, Ehlena struggled for rational thought, wanting to pin down the why and what-the-hell of the belief, but sleep seeped into her, carrying her away from everything.

Wrath sat behind his desk, hands traveling gently across the surface. Phone, check. Dagger-shaped envelope opener, check. Papers, check. More papers, check. Where was his-

There was a knock and a scatter. Right, pen holder and pens.

All over everywhere. Check.

As he gathered up what he’d spilled, he heard Beth come forward to help, her footfalls soft on the rug.

“It’s okay, leelan,” he told her. “I got it.”

He could sense her hovering over the desk and was glad she didn’t intervene. As childish as it seemed, he needed to clean up his own mess by himself.

Patting around, he found every last pen. At least, he thought he had.

“Any on the floor?” he asked.

“One. By your left foot.”

“Thanks.” He ducked under, felt around the floor, and locked his fist around the smooth, cigarlike body of what had to be a Mont Blanc. “That would have been harder to find.”

As he straightened, he was careful to locate the lip of the desktop and make sure his head was free of it before sitting up. Which was an improvement to what he’d done earlier in the day. Right, so, he was fucked on the pen holder, but doing better on the whole getting-upright thing. Not a perfect report card, but he wasn’t cursing and he wasn’t bleeding.

So, considering where he’d been hours ago on the way to Last Meal, things were looking up.

Wrath finished his hand parade across the desk, finding the lamp, which was over on the left, and the royal seal and the wax he used to mark documents.

“Don’t cry,” he said softly.

Beth sniffled a little. “How did you know?”

He tapped his nose. “I smelled it.” He pushed his chair back and patted his lap. “Come over here and sit. Let your male hold you.”

He heard his shellan ease around the desk, and the scent of her crying grew stronger because the closer she got to him, the more her tears fell. As he always did, he found her waist, hooked his arm about her, and pulled her onto him, the dainty chair squeaking as it accommodated the added weight. With a smile, Wrath let his hands find the waving length of her hair and he stroked the softness.

“You feel so good to me.”

Beth shuddered and leaned into him, and he was glad she did. Unlike when he had to use his hands as his eyes or was picking up something he’d knocked over, with her warm body in his hold, he felt strong. Big. Powerful.

He needed all that right now, and going by the way she sagged into his chest, she needed it, too.

“You know what I’m going to do after we’re done pushing papers?” he murmured.

“What?”

“I’m going to take you to bed and keep you there for a day straight.” As her scent flared, he laughed with satisfaction. “You wouldn’t mind that, huh. Even though I’m going to get you naked and make you stay that way.”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Good.”

They stayed together for a long while, until Beth’s head lifted from his shoulder. “You want to do some work now?”

He moved his head so that, had he had sight, he would have been looking at the desk. “Yeah, I kind of…shit, I need to. I don’t know why. I just need to. Let’s start easy… Where’s Fritz’s mailbag?”

“Right here next to Tohr’s old chair.”

As Beth bent down, her ass drove into his cock in the most satisfying way, and with a groan, he grabbed her hips and surged upward. “Mmm, anything else on the floor that needs picking up? Maybe I should spill some more pens. Knock over the phone.”

Beth’s throaty laugh was sexier than lingerie. “If you want me to bend over, all you need to do is ask.”

“God, I love you.” As she righted herself, he turned her head and kissed her lips, lingering on the softness of her mouth, stealing a quick lick…getting hard as a log. “Let’s go through the paperwork fast so I can get you where I want you.”

“And where would that be?”

“On top of me.”

Beth laughed again and opened up the leather satchel that Fritz used to pick up snail-mail requests. There was a shifting of envelopes against envelopes and a deep breath from his shellan.

“Okay,” she said. “What have we got here.”