Zsadist sat to her right at meals. So that his fighting hand was free.

Phury never drew her with her eyes looking out at him. Which made sense. In real life, he never drew her stare, either. She was in love with his twin, and he wouldn’t have changed that, not for all his longing for her.

The scope of his drawing ran from the top of her chignon to the top of her shoulders. He never drew her pregnant belly. Pregnant females were never depicted from the breastbone down. Again, bad luck. As well as a reminder of what he feared most.

Deaths on the birthing bed were common.

Phury ran his fingertips down her face, avoiding that nose, where the ink was still drying. She was lovely, even with the eye that wasn’t right, and the hair that was different, and the lips that were less full.

This was done. Time to start another.

Moving down to the base of the drawing, he started the curl of the ivy at the curve of her shoulder. First one leaf, then a growing stem…now more leaves, curling and thickening, covering up her neck, crowding against her jaw, lip-ping up to her mouth, unfurling over her cheeks.

Back and forth to the ink jar. Ivy overtaking her. Ivy covering the tracks of his quill, hiding his heart and the sin that lived in it.

It was hardest for him to cover her nose. That was always the last thing he did, and when he could avoid it no longer, he felt his lungs burn as if it were him who would no longer be free to breathe.

When the ivy had won out over the image, Phury wadded up the paper and tossed it into the brass wastepaper basket across his bedroom.

What month was it now… August? Yeah, August. Which would be… She had a good year left of the pregnancy, assuming she could hold it. Like a lot of females, she was already on bed rest because preterm labor was a big concern.

Stabbing out the tail end of his blunt, he reached for one of the two he’d just made and realized he’d smoked them.

Stretching out his one whole leg, he put his lap easel to the side and brought his survival kit back over: a plastic Baggie of red smoke, a thin packet of rolling papers, and his chunky gold lighter. It was the work of a moment to roll up a freshie, and as he drew in the first hit, he measured his stash.

Shit, it was thin. Very thin.

The steel shutters rising from the windows calmed him out. Night, in all its sunless glory, had fallen, the arrival bringing freedom from the Brotherhood’s mansion… and the ability to get to his dealer, Rehvenge.

Shifting the leg that had no foot or calf off the bed, he reached for his prosthesis, plugged it on below his right knee, and stood up. He was toasted enough so the air around him felt like something he had to wade through and the window he headed toward seemed miles away. But it was all good. He was comforted by the familiar haze, eased by the sensation of floating as he walked naked across his room.

The garden down below was resplendent, lit by the glow from the library’s bank of French doors.

This was what a back vista should look like, he thought. All the flowers blooming with health, the fruit trees fat with pears and apples, the pathways clear, the boxwood clipped.

It was not like the one he had grown up with. Not at all.

Right beneath his window, the tea roses were in full bloom, their fat, rainbow-hued heads held up proudly on their thorned spines. The roses brought his train of thought to another female.

As Phury inhaled again, he pictured his female, the one who he rightfully should be drawing… the one who, according to law and custom, he should be doing a hell of a lot more to than sketching.

The Chosen Cormia. His First Mate.

Among forty.

Man, how the hell had he ended up Primale to the Chosen?

I told you, the wizard answered. You’re going to have children beyond measure, all of whom shall have the enduring joy of looking up to a father whose only accomplishment has been letting everyone around him down.

Okay, nasty as the bastard could be, that was a hard point to argue. He hadn’t mated with Cormia as ritual required. He hadn’t been back to the Other Side to see the Directrix. He hadn’t met the other thirty-nine females he was supposed to lay with and impregnate.

Phury smoked harder, the weight of those big-ass nothings landing on his head, flaming boulders launched by the wizard.

The wizard had excellent trajectory. Then again, he’d had a lot of practice.

Well, now, mate, you’re an easy target. That’s all there is about that.

At least Cormia wasn’t complaining about the dereliction of duties. She hadn’t wanted to be First Mate, had been forced into the role: On the day of the ritual, she’d had to be tied down on the ceremonial bed, splayed out for his use like an animal, utterly terrified.

The moment he’d seen her he’d gone into his default setting, which was full savior mode. He’d brought her here to the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s mansion and put her in the bedroom next to his. Tradition or not, there was no way in hell he was forcing himself on a female, and he figured that if they had some space and time to get to know each other it would be easier.

Yeah… no. Cormia had kept to herself, while he went about his daily business of trying to keep from imploding. Over the last five months, they were no closer to each other or a bed. Cormia rarely spoke and showed her face only at meals. If she went outside of her room, it was just to the library for books.

In her long white robe, she was more like a jasmine-scented shadow than anything made of flesh and bone.

The shameful truth of it was, though, he was okay with the way things were. He’d thought he’d been fully aware of the sexual commitment he was making when he took Vishous’s place as the Primale, but the reality was far more daunting than the concept had been. Forty females. Forty.

Four-oh.

He must have lost his damn mind when he stepped in for V. God knew, his one shot at trying to lose his virginity hadn’t been a party-and that had even been with a professional. Although maybe trying things out with a whore had been part of the problem.

But who the hell else did he have to go to? He was a two-hundred -year-old clueless celibate. How was he supposed to climb on top of lovely, fragile Cormia, pound into her until he came, and then hightail it to the Chosen’s Sanctuary and make like Bill Paxton in Big Love?

What the hell had he been thinking?

Phury put his blunt between his lips and jacked up the window. As the summer night’s thick perfume rolled into his room, he refocused on the roses. He’d caught Cormia with one the other day, one she’d evidently taken from the bouquet Fritz kept in the second-floor sitting room. She’d been poised next to the vase, the pale lavender rose between two of her long fingers, her head bent down to the bud, her nose hovering over the fat bloom. Her blond hair, which was as always up in a twist on her head, had let loose delicate wisps that fell forward and curved in a natural curl. Just like the rose’s petals.

She’d jumped when she caught him staring at her, put the rose back, and quickly gone to her room, the door shutting without a sound.

He knew he couldn’t keep her here forever, away from all she was familar with and all that she was. And they had to complete the sexual ceremony. That was the deal he’d made, and that was the role that she’d told him, no matter how scared she’d been at first, she was prepared to fulfill.

He looked over to his bureau, to a heavy gold medallion that was the size of a large fountain pen. Marked with an ancient version of the Old Language, it was the symbol of the Primale: not just the key to all the buildings on the Other Side, but the calling card of the male who was in charge of the Chosen.

The strength of the race, as the Primale was known.