“Get back in there with him,” Zsadist barked. “Before I put you in that room.”

There was no argument, and abruptly, the foreign scents dissipated as if they had indeed disappeared from the hall.

“They did naught unto me,” she said. “Actually, I think if I’d gone, ‘Boo!’ they might well have run off.”

Z glanced over his shoulder. “I think you should return to your room.”

“But I’m allowed to stretch my legs twice a night?”

The Brother gently, but firmly, took her elbow and escorted her back through her door and over to her bed. “Not right now. I’ll come tell you when it’s okay. We have some unanticipated visitors, and I’m taking no chances with the likes of you.”

“Who are they?”

“No one you need to worry about—and they’re not staying long.” Z settled her back into position. “May I bring you some food?”

Layla exhaled. “No, thank you.”

“Something to drink, then?”

“I’m fine. Thank you, though.”

After bowing deeply, the Brother departed, and she half expected to hear the distant sounds of him pistol-whipping those two soldiers just for looking at her. But that was the way of things. As a pregnant female, she was the most valuable thing on the planet not just to her young’s sire, but to every single member of the Brotherhood.

It was like living with a dozen older, bossy, over-protective brothers.

Or Brothers, as was the case.

And ordinarily, she might have challenged even Zsadist. But she hadn’t recognized those big males, and God knew she’d already gotten into plenty of trouble fraternizing with fighters she didn’t know—and they had to be soldiers. They were built heavy and strong, and they had been wearing holsters.

Albeit empty ones.

So they were not enemies, she decided or they wouldn’t have been allowed in the training center at all. But they weren’t exactly trusted, either.

Unbidden, an image of Xcor’s harsh face came to mind—and the sting of pain that went through her was so strong, the young shifted in her belly as if they felt it, too.

“Stop it,” she whispered to herself.

Reaching for the T.V. remote, she turned on the big screen across the way. Fine. She would stay here until those strangers left. Then she would go and sit with Qhuinn’s brother, Luchas, who was in recovery two doors away and seemed to look forward to her regular visits. Then perhaps a blather with Doc Jane at her desk, or maybe Blay and Qhuinn would be back from their shifts by then and they would walk her all the way down to the classrooms.

Whoever those soldiers were, she doubted the Brothers would let them stay longer than absolutely necessary. At least going by Zsadist’s reaction.

And all the weapons of which they’d so clearly been stripped.

No time. Abso-fucking-lutely no goddamn time.

As a rash of evil permeated the air, Vishous took off his lead-lined glove and lifted his glowing palm. Closing his eyes and focusing—because his life, and the lives of his two brothers, did in fact depend on it—he sent out a series of buffering impulses of his own—except the mhis he extended was just a pocket in the overall campus landscape, a small section measuring no more than the distance between two inches in front of his face and two inches behind Phury and Tohr’s bodies.

Thank God the Hummer was off the property.

“No one move,” V commanded as a wavy, iridescent border formed around them all, rather like a child’s bubble blown from dishwashing soap.

He had no idea whether this was going to work, but shit knew it had to—the atmosphere was turning a deep shade of malevolence. Hell, even with the mhis in place, his skin prickled with a warning for him to ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!

And that was when the Omega itself appeared about a hundred and fifty yards up ahead.

Talk about your anti-climaxes. On the surface, the inky transparent figure in its Clorox-white robes looked about as intimidating as an animated chess pawn. But that was just going on a visual assessment. Internally, every cell that made up his body, each neuron that fired in his brain, all the emotions he had ever had or would ever have started to scream sure as if he were under a dire mortal attack.

Behind him, a soft muttering started, and V glanced over his shoulder. Phury had started to pray in the Old Language.

“Shhh,” Vishous whispered.

Phury immediately canned the talk, but his lips kept moving, the prayer continuing on. And yeah, V thought of his mother doing her I-can’t-even upstairs—and was tempted to tell the guy he was wasting his time. But whatever. No reason to rob the brother of his illusion.

Besides, if the mhis didn’t work? The three of them and what they did, or did not pray to, were going to moot point it right off the planet.

The Omega slowly made a turn, surveying his “dead,” and V tensed up so hard, he was in danger of falling forward like a plank. The evil’s gaze did not linger on where he and his brothers were standing, however, suggesting that the mhis was working—probably at least partially because the Scribe Virgin’s brother was so distracted by the devastation to his Society.

Shit, that’s my uncle, V thought grimly.

And then the Omega went on a float, traveling over the trampled, black blood–soaked lawn in the same hovering way V’s mother ambulated.

Rain began to fall from the sky, the cold drops hitting V’s hair and nose, his shoulders, the backs of his hands. Even though the stuff tickled his skin, he made no move to wipe it off or shelter himself—and frankly, yeah, he could have done without the reminder of exactly how flimsy their optical illusion was. That rain made it through?

Hell, you could pop a newspaper over your dome and get a better umbrella result.

Fuck.

From time to time, the Omega paused and bent down to pick up an arm, a leg, a head. It threw whatever it was back on the ground, as if it were searching for something in particular. And then it stopped without warning.

A low wail sounded out over the campus, the sound weaving in and around the empty, rotting buildings without echoing.

And then the Omega extended its palms out straight.

A sucking breeze hit V in the back and pulled his hair into his face and eyes, streaking forward his jacket, too, until the leather began to flap and he had to gather the thing against his body.

All at once, the debris of the slaughter, all those slayer pieces and stains, liquefied into a viscous shadow that pulled into itself, becoming a tidal wave that headed for its master, its home, its core.

The Omega absorbed it all, reclaiming the part of itself that it had given to its inductees during their initiation ceremonies, recalling its essence, reabsorbing everything until the battlefield was as clean as before the attack had been waged, nothing but trampled grass and downed trees to show what the beast and the Brotherhood had done.

When it was all over, the Omega stood in the center of the school’s square, turning around and around as if it were double-checking its work. And then, as quickly as it had arrived, the entity disappeared into itself, a subtle flash the only leftover of its presence—and even that was gone a heartbeat later.

“Wait,” V hissed. “We wait.”

He wasn’t about to take for granted that the Omega was up and out of there for real. The problem was, dawn was coming . . . and yup, if the mhis couldn’t protect the three of them from rain, it wasn’t going to do dick about straight-on sunlight.

But they could afford to stay a little longer. Just in case.

Better to be conservative than discovered. Besides, he needed a moment so his one remaining testicle could drop back down into place again.

Fuck.

“I do not believe this is necessary.”