The fact that Bitty ended up standing right beside him was all that Mary cared about.

And, oh, boy. If she had loved that male before? This put him straight into heaven territory.

Any avenue in, Mary thought. Anything that could open up the girl, get through to her, reach her in some way . . .

Yes, she wished somehow it had been her to make the connection. Not that she liked admitting such a thing. After all, what could be more selfish, self-serving, and ugly than to feel disappointed that you didn’t get to be the savior. But that was a mere passing thought. More than anything, she was sagging in her own skin from relief that Bitty was having a conversation for what seemed like the first time since she’d come to Safe Place.

Rhage lifted his arms, took hold of the hood, and closed it gently. He was still talking as he led Bitty to the open passenger-side door, and as he came around, he spared Mary a quick shrug of, Are we okay here?

Mary nodded as discreetly as she could.

“—sure you can,” he said as he held the seat back and Bitty scooted into the rear as if she had been doing it all her life. “Anytime you like.”

Mary shook herself back into focus. “I’m sorry, what? What’s this?”

Bitty sat forward and peered out. “He says I can drive her later.”

As Mary’s jaw unhinged and she recoiled, Rhage gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “It’ll be fine. We’ll just go out to an empty parking lot somewhere.”

“You can come with us,” Bitty said. “If it’ll make you feel better.”

Mary looked back and forth between the two of them. “Can you . . . ah, can you even reach the pedals? And it’s so powerful—”

“Bitty’s going to do great. I’ll get blocks for the wheel well if I can’t get the seat up far enough.”

“He says girls can do anything.” Bitty looked at Rhage. “He says, girls are . . . powerful.”

“Yup.” Rhage nodded. “That’s why the fastest and the best cars—”

“—are always girls,” Bitty finished for him.

All Mary could do was a little more of the back-and-forthing with her head, as the pair of them clearly waited for her blessing.

“We’ll see,” she murmured—as she enjoyed a happy little reminder to be careful what she wished for.

“Please?” Bitty prompted.

“Come on, Mary—”

Shooing Rhage out of the way, she put the front passenger seat back into position and got in. “I’m not saying, ‘yes,’ but if you do drive her, I’m absolutely coming with you two.”

“Yes!” Rhage pumped a fist. “That’s a yes, Bitty, we got this.”

“Yay!”

OMG. Was the girl smiling?

With a curse, Mary shut the door—and could have sworn Rhage was frickin’ skipping around the car. But then she had to get serious.

Wrenching into the gap between the seats, she said quickly, “Are you okay with this? With him? And I have to ask. It’s important.”

Bitty didn’t hesitate. “I really like him. He’s like . . . a big, friendly dog.”

As Rhage hopped in and shut his side, Mary started to smile and turned to face the windshield so maybe it wasn’t quite so noticeable.

But she couldn’t resist reaching over and giving her man’s shoulder a squeeze.

And then the three of them were off.

THIRTY-ONE

Over at the Brownswick School for Girls, Vishous was itchy as shit as he slipped into yet another abandoned classroom. With his gun up and ready, and his back flat against the crumbing plaster wall, he scanned the tipped-over chairs with their half-moon tabletops . . . the big desk over by the chalkboard . . . the debris in the corner where part of the ceiling had collapsed.

“Goddamn it.”

Moving on to the next room, he only found more of the same: cold air, old mold, discarded, broken furniture, fluorescent light fixtures hanging like broken teeth from up above . . . and absolutely no fucking lesser jars.

The slayers had stayed in some of the rooms, typically the ones in the dormitories with mattresses and box springs and windows that were not missing panes—but after no jars were located in any of those buildings, he and Tohr had moved on to the remaining facilities.

As all slayers kept their vessels with them after their inductions, the only conclusion was that the Omega had taken all the hearts with him when he’d gone Merry Maid on the campus the night before last.

Fucker.

Tilting his head to the side, he triggered his communication device by speaking into it. “Nothing here. You find anything?”

“No,” Tohr said in V’s earpiece. “The Omega must have gotten them all.”

“Yeah. Fucking hell.”

Beneath his shitkickers, crap that was on the hardwood floor crunched and crackled, but there was no need to be completely silent. And as the image of the Omega in a French maid’s uniform and fishnets made V flash his fangs in the dark, he—

Froze where he was.

Cranked his head to the right.

Looked out through the two-out-of-three-ain’t-bad set of windowpanes to the stretch of asphalt out behind the building.

Headlights flared into the classroom, shedding a glare of illumination on the rotting shell of prep-school learning before passing over his leather-clad body.

As things were extinguished, he dematerialized over to the glass.

A car had pulled up and parked, and in the glow from the interior dash, he could tell there was a dark-haired man and a red-haired woman inside—

Oh, interesting, he thought as he sensed her.

“We’ve got company,” he said into his communicator.

“And this is my special room.”

As Naasha stopped in front of a dungeon door with oak panels thick as tree trunks and hinges big as a male’s upper arm, one could have sworn, based upon her affect, that she was about to unveil a marvelous new acquisition, perhaps an oil painting or a marble statue, a car of some vintage or a sterling silver service.

It was none of the above.

Upon a creaking that he supposed was retained on purpose as opposed to being oiled away, a bloodred chamber was revealed. Lit by torches that sizzled on stone walls, and kitted out in swaths of velvet and satin that were like drapes without windows, there was no furniture save bedding platforms that had no pillows, no blankets, just mattresses that were covered with fitted sheets.

Naasha was the first to go in, and as she twirled around, her arms were held wide as if she were before a grand vista, her eyes seeking his. Behind him, there was an excited twitter from the females—and a flare of arousal from his cousins.

Throe remained silent.

Assail stepped through the jambs. Against the wall by the door, there were a series of make-up stations, no doubt for refreshings for the females after the sessions, and also a series of pegs on which to hang one’s clothes. There were two doors over to the left, both painted the dark gray hue of the stone, one with the word Females on it in cursive, the other with Males written in block lettering.

“And now we have dessert,” Naasha said in a husky voice as she reached behind her back and unzipped her gown. “I volunteer to be consumed first.”

As the dress fell to the floor, her body was revealed in all its nude glory, her high, tight breasts so very creamy, her smooth sex but a cleft between her long, slender legs. She kept her diamonds on and they twinkled like stars in moonlight, and when she released her hair from its chignon, her midnight locks were a striking contrast to her tan skin.

“Shut the goddamn door,” Assail commanded without looking behind himself.

When the creak of those hinges announced that someone had followed instructions, he took three strides over to her. In close proximity now, he watched her ruby lips part and her breasts pump with anticipation.

He smiled at her.

Then he grabbed her by the back of the neck and roughly escorted her over to one of the bedding platforms. Her breasts swayed as he pushed her down on all fours, her sex toward the assembled, her legs not parted enough, so he forced her knees wider by jerking her thighs open. Her core glistened with arousal, her scent like perfume in the air.