Trez opened his mouth, frustration sharpening his temper and his tongue—

Except as he met her eyes, he saw an honest emotion in them and nearly recoiled. Talk about mirrors … he felt like he was looking at himself: sad. Hollow. Rootless.

She was half a woman.

He was half a male.

On that basis alone, they were Match.com time, two broken SOBs thrashing around the sex pool, trying to connect in ways that guaranteed their isolation would only continue.

“Please …?” she begged, like she was getting ready for another loss in a string of them.

Staring down at her, he realized he’d common-denominatored her to her externals, but as with all strangers, there was a story behind how she’d ended up in a bathroom throwing around the L-word with a man who wasn’t a man at all.

Hell, he wasn’t even a normal vampire.

Trez brushed her cheek with his knuckles, and when she turned her head into his hand, he whispered, “Close your eyes—”

The knock was a one-and-doner, and considering how loud and to the point it was? Not like there needed to be a second.

“Boss? We got issues,” came through the panels.

Big Rob’s voice. So it was a security problem—and given that the guy hadn’t gone to Xhex with it? She was either out for some reason … or, more likely, had sent for Trez herself.

The blonde’s fake eyelashes lifted, but he didn’t want that. “Gimme a minute, B.R.”

“Roger that, boss.”

“Close your eyes,” he said again. As the blonde complied, he quieted himself, the muffled thunder of the club’s bass beat drifting off, the smell of her too-heavy perfume abating, the pain in the center of his chest … well, that stayed right where it was, but the rest of everything went on the dimmer switch.

Reaching into her mind, he did what his brother had called him out on: As opposed to so many of these women, he took the time to erase the blonde’s memories of them being together, from the inane conversation that she’d started up by the bar, to his taking her back here, to the religious experience she’d just had.

iAm was right. If Trez had been tidying up after himself like this all along? He wouldn’t have gotten into the trouble he had with that other chick. And he and his brother wouldn’t have ended up having to move into the Brotherhood’s mansion. And that female Selena wouldn’t have entranced him even more …

Refocusing on the blonde, he decided not to just stop at the Wite-Out routine. Instead of leaving the twenty or so minutes as a blank zone, he gave her the fantasy she was after—that she’d met a guy who was googly-eyed over her and they’d had the sex of their lives five times in this bathroom before she’d decided she was too good for him.

Which in her new mind-set was going to be something she did frequently.

Finally, he inserted a thought that she should dress herself and check her makeup. And as a last-minute chaser, he tacked on that she was going to have the best year—no, decade—of her life.

Trez stepped out a moment later, fly up, shirt retucked, mask of all-good back in place. Big Rob was hovering in the shadows, discreet as any guy the size of a mountain could be.

Joining the guy, Trez crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the cloth-covered wall. He didn’t usually talk business out in the club proper, but the music was loud enough, the crowd self-absorbed in the way of the drunk and the desperate, and, last but not least, he felt compelled to keep an eye on the blonde. Make sure no one tried to get in there before she came out.

Plus he guessed he wanted some confirmation that he’d left her in a better state than he’d found her in.

At least one half of them could be improved.

“So what’s up?” Trez scanned the dark, moody club, his monitoring both second nature and a matter of training: Shadows tended to be watchers, but after working with Rehv and now being the head of this den of iniquity, the shit was his primary interface.

Big Rob cracked his knuckles. “Alex broke up an argument about an hour ago between two non-regulars. Both men were kicked out, but the aggressor came back and is circling the sidewalk outside.”

The blonde emerged from the bathroom, clothes where they needed to be, makeup retouched, hair pulled back instead of all over everywhere—but more to the point, her chin was level, her eyes calm and focused—and that secret smile on her lips took her essentially average looks into enticing territory.

As she walked into the crowd, Big Rob’s eyes followed her and so did a lot of men’s. But she didn’t seem to care, her confidence all she needed as an escort.

Trez rubbed the center of his chest and wished he could whammy his own self and turn things on a dime like that. Then again, all the self-improvement in the world wasn’t going to change the fact that the s’Hisbe wanted him back as a breeding stud for the rest of his natural life.

“Boss?”

“Sorry, what?”

“You want us to disappear the guy?”

Trez rubbed his face. “I’ll go deal with him. What’s he look like?”

“White boy, black clothes, Keith Richards hair.”

“That narrows it down,” Trez muttered.

“You’ll see him out front. He’s not in line.”

Trez nodded and cut around the thick of the crowd, heading for the door. On his way, he looked over all the people, unconsciously searching for signs of conflict that could escalate from posturing bullshit to bowling-alley knockdown.

Even Goths could be frat boys if you pumped enough alchie into them.

Halfway to the exit, he caught a flash of something metallic off to the right, but as he stopped and reached out with senses other than his eyes, he couldn’t find anything. Resuming his stride, he pushed his way out of his club, nodded to Ivan and the new guy, who were manning the entrance, and took a wander down the wait line, which was full of the usual suspects.

Although not the Kevin Spacey kind, of course. And more’s the pity—he loved the guy in that movie.

No one out on the sidewalk fit B.R.’s description.

Guess whoever it was went for a wander.

As Trez pivoted to head back for the door, he got hit in the face with the beams of a trolling car, and the sting made him pull a vampire and shy away from the light. Blinking to clear his vision, he somehow made it to the front of the line and—

“What the fuck—he doesn’t belong here! Why’re you letting him in!”

As Trez realized he was the subject up for discussion, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. The mouthpiece with the attitude was about five-ten, one hundred and fifteen pounds—and not a girl. Clearly, motherfucker suffered from terrier syndrome, his beady little eyes all fired up as he glared at Trez, his Stampy McStampy drill making him breathe heavy.

Probably played a lot of World of Warcraft or whatever it was—and that made him forget that if you were going to be a bigoted big-mouth, you’d better be able to back shit up.

Trez leaned down to the guy and gave him a moment to soak up the size difference—and what do you know, bitch’s mouth closed and stayed that way.

“I own this place,” Trez said in a low voice. “So the question is, why the fuck should I let you in.” He glanced at Ivan. “He’s not welcome here. Ever.”

There was some conversating at that point, but he was done. As a Shadow, he was used to being stared at—regular vampires didn’t know what to do with his kind, and frankly, he didn’t really care for them, either. In fact, he’d been brought up to believe that the two shouldn’t mix—at least until Rehvenge had stepped up to the plate and helped him and his brother in their exile. At first he’d been distrustful of the guy—until he’d recognized that Rehv was as they were: a foreigner in a closed club of folks he didn’t respect.

Oh, and as for the human world? Everyone assumed he was black and attached their own racial associations, good and bad, to that—but there was the irony. He was neither “African” nor “American,” so none of that shit applied to him in spite of the fact that his skin happened to be dark.