The black leather sofa was vacant. More to the point, the Red Sox throw blanket she’d gotten him for his human Christmas holiday the year before was still folded across the back.

So he hadn’t even tried to sleep at home.

The blanket was the clue. She loved her hellren with all her heart, but the male was constitutionally incapable of pulling that thing over his legs and putting it back when he was done. It was a running joke between them, along the lines of his not returning bottle openers to their proper place in the kitchen and never, ever starting the dishwasher.

Exhaling, she closed her eyes and leaned against the jamb.

“He didn’t come back here last night.”

At the sound of V’s low voice, she glanced over at his bank of computers. The Brother had tilted his head around the various screens, his super-intelligent, diamond eyes staring at her without blinking—or judgment. And there was no reason to hide her heartbreak from the guy. For one, he was Butch’s brother for all intents and purposes; and two, Vishous knew her so well, he’d see through any I’m-fine lie she tried to float.

“We got into a big fight last night.”

V took a drag off his hand-rolled. “About what?”

Padding over to the couch, she sat down and arranged her nightie over her knees, smoothing, smoothing. “A sex club.”

The coughing fit would have been absolutely hysterical to watch if she’d been in a better mood—there was something incredibly satisfying that for once she was able to shock the unshockable Brother. Unfortunately, it was because she was such a lame straight arrow.

“I beg your pardon?” His eyebrows were up so high, they distorted the tattoos at his temple. “Sex club?”

The explanation was quick and to the point, and when she was done, V’s sardonic normal had returned to his expression.

“Yeah. He’d told me he was going. Asked me to come with him.”

She couldn’t hide her wince. She trusted Butch never to cheat on her—for godsakes, as a fully bonded male, he never noticed females on any level; they might as well be toasters on legs for all the sexual response he had to them. But there was something intimidating about getting V involved, maybe because it made her feel … excluded, even though that was crazy.

And then also inadequate because her mate needed Vishous there, but didn’t want her.

Plus it was true, V’s lifestyle had always shocked her a little—not because she thought he was a degenerate, but because it was so sexually extreme … and diverse.

“You know he loves you,” V muttered. “Come on.”

“I know.”

“And I won’t get weird with him or anything.”

“I don’t mean to offend you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.” When the Brother fell silent, she knew she was right. “I just … sometimes I don’t want to be protected, if that makes sense. I mean, this issue with that female, who died in front of me—it’s mine. Does that make sense? It’s my … responsibility. And I’m grateful for his help, I want his help—but getting pushed aside because I’m a ‘good girl’ and I can’t handle certain things makes me feel like he thinks I’m weak or frivolous.”

“Look, I can’t get in the middle of this.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

As she went to stand up, he cut in: “But he cherishes you. You’re like … you’re like that Virgin Mary, that female he prays to. To him, you’re the most perfect female who has ever or will ever walk the earth. Taking you to a place like that would be like him watching porn in church. He thinks of you as pure and virtuous and good, and he wants—brace yourself, I’m about to use the P-word—to protect that in a world that is cruel and filthy and disgusting.”

She shook her head and thought about Butch and the whole blow-job thing. “I just don’t want it to be so black-and-white. I don’t want to be in a box even if he’s put me there because he loves certain parts of me.”

V’s chair let out a creak as he sat back and exhaled a steady stream of smoke. Funny, she had hated the smell of it when she’d first moved in here. Now? It was like incense, and it meant safety and home—and she didn’t even notice it most of the time.

Heck, V’s presence, as chilly and intellectual as he could be sometimes, meant comfort to her now, too.

“I don’t have an easy answer for that one.” His brows tightened. “I mean, ya boy’s kind of a right-and-wrong, black-and-white kind of guy. It’s a hardwiring thing. But there’re good sides of it, too. He’d never disrespect you. Never treat you badly. Never not focus on you.”

“Oh, I know all that. But with where he’s at now, he’s getting in the way of something that is not only very important to me, but something that is within my right to do. And when you love someone that isn’t cool, even if your motivations are good hearted and loving.”

There was a long stretch of silence.

“Lemme talk to him.”

“I’d appreciate that.” She cursed quietly. “We’ve been having some problems this last little bit. It’s breaking my heart.”

“Relationships are like that. Even the best ones.”

“I guess so.”

“Look, he doesn’t want to be with anyone but you.” The Brother put his palm out. “Yeah, I know you know that, but I gotta say it again. And for better or worse, your grace and elegance and, yes, good-girlness is part of what attracts him to you. I mean, for instance, he had a shot with Xhex, but that was just sex—and all it was ever going to be. You’re his type, not her.”

Marissa jerked upright sure as if a bucket of ice water had just been poured over her head. “He had sex with her?”

Down in the training center’s office, Butch sat behind Tohr’s desk and stared at the shooting patterns of colorful lines that gyrated their way around the computer screen.

What he kept chewing on, what he had been chewing on all through the day, was what the hell was wrong with him. After Marissa had left him in the dust in the billiards room, he’d proceeded to get drunk, like, saturated drunk—but it hadn’t done the job. Yeah, sure, his body had gotten sloppy as fuck, to the point that making it back to the Pit to crash had become an absolute impossibility.

Hell, dragging himself over to one of the sofas by the pool tables so he could pass out on the vertical had been enough of a challenge.

His brain had remained tragically clear, however.

And the worst part? For some reason, the last image he’d had of his sister—of her looking at him through the back window of that car as she’d gone off to her rape and murder—kept popping up, like his mind was a slot machine that spit out mismatched losers over and over again.

Ah, screw the “for some reason.” It was Marissa’s dead girl, of course. And he guessed, if he were to go sit down with Mary and get all shrinked out, that the Brotherhood’s favorite therapist would tell him that the past was being kicked off by the present and he was rocking some PTSD—

The door into the supply closet was thrown wide. And he had enough alcohol in him to not jerk around and squeak like a pussy.

“V?” he said as his bestie stumbled in.

Okay, talk about your PTSD: Vishous was as disheveled as Butch had ever seen the brother, breathing hard, icy eyes wide as saucers, black hair all this way and that—and he was panting like he’d run the tunnel, not walked it.

“What?” Butch demanded. “Is Doc Jane okay? Is the Pit? Christ, what happened?”

V just marched around a little and then threw himself into Tohr’s green, ugly-ass, beloved chair on the far side of the desk. Propping his head on his gloved fist, he muttered, “One of my old dreams just came true.”

As Butch’s panic deflated, he rolled his eyes. “And what was that.”

“I just fucked you in the ass.”

Blink. Blink. And then Butch started laughing. “Yeah, yeah, good joke. Okay, what did Lass do now?”

“No, I’m serious. I just screwed you. Badly. I’m really fucking sorry.”