The future was coming, and it was going to be hard enough without the pressure of falling in love.

And that was where things were headed with him …

As her brain twisted in her skull, she took a sip of coffee, burned her lip, and in her frustration, decided there simply wasn’t enough sugar in with her caffeine. And she’d put too much of the grinds in the filter. And the water hadn’t been cold enough, so there was a tinny aftertaste.

In reality, the mix was pretty perfect. It was her internal sense of self that she was struggling to get into balance.

But she could do something about the java, as the Brothers called it.

Reaching forward for the little sugar pot, she extended her arm from her shoulder, tilted her torso over her hips, and—

Her body didn’t so much stiffen as freeze in that position—as if all the joints that were engaged had become solid at once.

Terror quadrupled her heart rate, sweat flushing across her face and her chest. And when she went to open her mouth to breathe more deeply, she found that even her jaw was stuck in place—although that may have been the fear.

Abruptly, the silence in the house pressed in on her.

There was nobody else in the cedar-shingled camp. The other Chosen had gone up to the Sanctuary to visit with Amalya, the directrix following Wrath’s dethroning. Rehvenge was down in Caldwell. The doggen who now rotated between this location and the Brotherhood mansion had stayed in town in light of the sad news.

In a frantic calculation, she tried to remember how long it had taken her sisters to be permanently affected.

Not days. Maybe months in terms of Earth time?

Dearest Virgin Scribe … what if this was it?

Focusing all her energy, she tried to unhinge the locked doors of her joints, and got nowhere. Indeed, the only thing that moved were the tears that pooled in her eyes and slipped off her lashes. And it was so utterly bizarre: For all her immobility, she could feel everything. The hot paths down her cheeks. The warmth from overhead that drifted by her temples and the tips of her ears. The cool draft across her soft-soled shoes. The lingering burn on her tongue and the back of her throat.

She even felt the hunger she had been drawn to the kitchen to try to satisfy.

What was she going to do if she didn’t—

The trembling began in her thighs, starting with a twitching and then emanating with greater bandwidth. Her arms were next. Then her shoulders.

As if her body were fighting to get out of its prison, shaking the metaphorical bars that had slammed shut around it.

“Hello?”

The male voice was distant, echoing forth from the lake side of the house, and she attempted to answer. What came out was a weak moan, nothing more—everything was vibrating: from her teeth to her toes, she was rattling to the point of violence—

Just as Trez entered, her body burst free of its invisible confines, her limbs exploding out, banging into things, flapping free. And then she collapsed, her head slamming down onto the lip of the coffee mug, the scone bouncing off its plate, the clattering of the sugar bowl and the thunderous impact of her chest on the table like a bomb going off.

“Selena!”

Trez caught her before she slid onto the floor, his great arms scooping her up and holding her tight as, inside of her body, everything that had been rigid became liquid: She didn’t so much recline in his hold as melt into it. And not because she was aroused.

“What’s going on?” he demanded as he carried her out of the kitchen and laid her on the daybed opposite the foyer fire.

Although she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out. Instead, the details of the dark wood paneling and the river-stone hearth and the stuffed owl on the mantelpiece became hyper-clear, her eyes practically burning from the acuity of her vision.

Closing her lids, she moaned.

“Selena? Selena.”

There was curious lethargy now, one so intense she could feel her energy being sucked down into a vortex she feared it would never be free of. Dimly, she was aware that she’d had the disease wrong. She’d always assumed it was in the joints, but in fact, it felt as though her muscles were the problem.

Out of superstition, none of her sisters had spoken of the particulars. All that she had ever been told of was the final stage.

Now she wished she had questioned those who had suffered. Especially when the slightest of stiffness had started up in her how long ago?

Quite a while.

She was definitely embarking on the final stage now—

Something brushed against her mouth. Something wet, warm … blood.

“Drink,” Trez commanded. “Drink, goddamn it, drink…”

Her tongue came out and tested the flavor, and the taste of him made her groan with thirst. She didn’t think she could swallow, however—

Yes, yes, actually, she could.

Pursing her lips, she formed a seal around the cut he had made in his wrist, and oh, the glorious nourishment. With each draw, she felt a strength come to her, filling her up where the lethargy had left her hollow.

And the more she had, the more she wanted, greed growing instead of satiation.

But Trez didn’t seem to mind. At all.

With gentle hands, he repositioned her so that she was lying in his lap, her legs stretched out, her arms over her head. And as she drank of him, he was all she saw, his beautiful almond-shaped eyes, his perfectly molded lips, his dark skin and cropped-tight hair.

Just as she had before in his presence, she could feel her priorities shifting back to that place of desperation, to the sexual drive that had wiped out her proper thinking to such a degree that it didn’t exist at all.

Indeed, in the deep recesses of her consciousness, she knew that any action taken in this state of hers was more than likely to be regretted, but she didn’t care. If anything, her first true episode of the sickness made her want to follow through with him more as opposed to less.

And maybe she could not fall in love.

Maybe … she could steel herself against that.

Rigidity, after all, was her future.

Standing in the doorway of his bedroom, John Matthew could feel a seizure threatening to break through.

As his sister continued to speak, and he felt his head nod, he retreated into that place where the epilepsy was birthed, some kind of tangle of electrical impulses threatening to take over everything—except he was done with that shit. Just as the hum started to rise, he cut it off by force of will.

Not. Gonna. Do. It—

Unbelievable to be channeling Dana Carvey from SNL. But there you go.

Plus it worked. Not right away, but gradually, that sizzle and burn started to fade, its lights-out crescendo receding.

“So … will you?” Beth asked, her eyes wide. “It’s, like, in an hour. Lassiter needs that much time to get ready.”

Refocusing, he strung together some semblance of what she’d been talking about, his brain linking the nouns and verbs until …

Oh, my God, he thought.

Man, for once, he was glad he was mute. Because if he’d had to speak, she’d know he was in some strange place emotionally. As it was, his hands were steadier than his voice would have been.

Something about her request was getting to him big-time.

It would be an honor, he signed.

Before he could drop his arms, his sister pitched herself at him, hugging him so tightly she nearly snapped his head off. And as he closed his eyes and held her in return, time stopped—

A vision struck from out of nowhere. One minute, he was standing outside his and Xhex’s bedroom. The next?

All he could see was tears … except, no, it was rain. Rain on the windshield of a car—a car he’d loved. And then he was reaching forward for the ignition and—