The nurse came at him with a little tray of vials and a rubber tourniquet, and he rolled up his sleeve. She worked fast and didn’t say a word as she drew the blood then hit the door as quickly as she could.

“How much longer is it going to be?” he asked before she could get away.

“An emergency’s come in. It’s going to be a while.”

The door clapped shut.

Shit. He didn’t want to leave his club alone all night. With both Trez and Xhex off-site… yeah, that was no good. iAm was a hard-ass, for sure, but even ruff-tuffs needed solid backup when they were facing a crowd of four hundred fucked-up humans.

Rehv popped open his phone, dialed Xhex, and fought with her for about ten minutes. Which wasn’t fun but helped kill some time. She wouldn’t budge on him pulling out, but at least he got her to agree to go back to the club with Trez.

Of course, that was only after he direct-ordered the both of them.

“Fine,” she snapped.

“Fine,” he bit out, ending the call.

He shoved his phone in his pocket. Cursed a couple of times. Took the fucking thing back out and texted: I’m sorry I’m such a shit. Forgive me?

Just as he hit send, a text came through from her: U can be such a shit abt this. I only ride u cuz I care.

He had to laugh, especially when she texted again: UR 4given but ur still a shit. TTYL

Rehv put his phone back in his pocket and looked around, cataloging the tongue depressors in their glass jar by the sink and the blood-pressure cuff hanging off the wall and the desk and computer setup in the corner. He’d been in this room before. He’d been in all the examination rooms before.

He and Havers had been doing the doctor/patient thing for quite a while, and it was tricky shit. If anyone had evidence that there was a symphath around, even a half-breed, by law they had to report the individual so they could be removed from the general population and dumped off at the colony up north. Which would ruin everything. So each time Rehv came for one of these visits, he burrowed into the good doctor’s brain and opened what he liked to think of as his own personal trunk in Havers’s attic.

The trick wasn’t dissimilar to what vampires could do to erase the short-term memories of humans, just more in-depth. After putting the doc in a trance, Rehv sprang the information about himself and his “condition,” and Havers was able to treat him accurately-and without all the unpleasant social ramifications. When the appointment was over, Rehv packed up his “belongings” in the guy’s brain and secured them again, locking them down tight in the doctor’s cerebral cortex until the next time.

Was it sneaky? Yes. Was there another option? No. He needed treatment-he wasn’t like Xhex, who managed to quell her urges on her own. Although God only knew how she did-

Rehv straightened, his spine tingling in a rush, his instincts pulling a ring-a-ding-ding.

His palm found his cane and he slid off the table, landing on two feet he couldn’t feel. The trip to the door was three steps, and then his hand grabbed onto the handle and twisted. Outside, the corridor was empty in both directions. Down far to the left, the nursing station and the waiting room seemed all business as usual. To the right, there were more patient rooms and beyond them, the double doors that led to the morgue.

No drama.

Yeah… nothing appeared out of place. Medical staff walked with purpose. Someone coughed in the examination room next door. The hum of the HVAC system was a constant slow boil of white noise.

He squinted and was tempted to reach out with his symphath side, but it was too risky. He’d just gotten himself restabilized. Pandora and her box needed to stay closed.

Ducking back into the exam room, he got out his phone and started to dial Xhex to call her back to the clinic, but the door opened before the call went through.

His brother-in-law, Zsadist, put his head through the door. “Heard you were in.”

“Hey.” Rehv put the phone away and chalked up the surge of anxiety to the paranoia that seemed to come with double-dosing. Ah, the joy of side effects.

Shit. “Tell me you’re not here because of Bella.”

“Nah. She’s good.” Z shut the door and leaned back against it, effectively locking them in together.

The Brother’s eyes were black. Which meant he was pissed off.

Rehvenge brought his cane up and let it dangle between his legs just in case he needed it. He and Z had been cool following some dick tossing when the Brother and Bella had started off, but things could change. And given the way that stare was dark as the inside of a crypt, evidently they had.

“You got something on your mind there, big man?” Rehv asked.

“I want you to do me a personal favor.”

The term favor was likely a misnomer. “Talk.”

“I don’t want you dealing to my twin anymore. You’re going to cut off his supply.” Z leaned forward on his hips. “And if you don’t, I will make it impossible for you to sell so much as a fucking cocktail straw in that pit of yours.”

Rehv tapped the tip of his cane against the exam table and wondered if the Brother would change his tune if he knew the profit from the club kept his shellan’s brother out of a symphath colony. Z knew about the half-breed thing; he didn’t know about the Princess and her games.

“How is my sister?” Rehv drawled. “Doing well? Keeping calm? That would be important for her, wouldn’t it. Not getting unnecessarily upset.”

Zsadist’s eyes narrowed to slits, his scarred face the kind of thing folks saw in nightmares. “I really don’t think you want to go there, do you?”

“You fuck with my business and the repercussions will hurt her as well. Trust me.” Rehv positioned his cane so it stood upright in his palm. “Your twin is an adult male. If you have problems with his usage maybe you need to talk with him, huh.”

“Oh, I’m going to deal with Phury. But I want your word. You don’t sell to him anymore.”

Rehv stared at his cane as it stood up in the air, perfectly balanced. He’d long ago made peace with his business, no doubt with help from his symphath side, which made seizing opportunity from the weaknesses of others a kind of moral imperative.

The way he justified his dealing was that his customers ’ choices had nothing to do with him. If they fucked up their lives because of what he sold them, that was their prerogative-and no different from the more socially acceptable ways people destroyed themselves, like eating their way into cardiac disease because of what McDonald’s peddled, or drinking themselves into liver failure thanks to the good folks at Anheuser-Busch, or gambling on reservations until they lost their houses.

Drugs were a commodity and he was a businessman, and users would just find their devastation somewhere else if his doors closed. The best he could do was make sure that if they bought from him, their shit was uncontaminated with dangerous fillers, and the purity was consistent so that they could tailor their doses reliably.

“Your word, vampire,” Zsadist growled.

Rehv looked down at the sleeve covering his left forearm and thought of Xhex’s expression when she’d seen what he’d done to himself. Odd, the parallels. Just because his drug of choice was prescribed didn’t mean he was immune from abusing the shit.

Rehv lifted his eyes, then closed his lids and stopped breathing. He reached out through the air between him and the Brother and entered the male’s mind. Yeah… underneath his anger was rank terror.

And memories… of Phury. A scene a while ago… seventy years or so earlier… a deathbed. Phury’s.

Z was wrapping his twin in blankets and moving him closer to a coal-burning fire. He was worried… For the first time since he’d lost his soul to slavery, he was looking on someone with concern and compassion. In the scene, he blotted Phury’s fever-soaked brow and then strapped on weapons and left.