Pearl McClean sat on the edge of her seat in the visitors' room wishing she had a mirror. She knew she looked like shit and it made her crazy. Alistair was here, the one who watched over her for Ethan--the one who'd seduced her mother so he could remain close to Pearl.

Dammit. She wished Ethan could come and see her. It was so boring here. No fun, no blood. She lowered her lashes over her large brown eyes and used her little-girl voice. "I want to go home."

"I know," Alistair said, staring out the window at the cloudy winter morning. "But it isn't safe. You need to stay here until everything is complete."

Pearl watched him at the window, tall, lanky, his long, brown hair framing a rock-star-like face. In fact, when she'd met him and Ethan at a Slayer concert six months ago, she'd thought they were part of the band. She smiled, remembering that night. Before the band had even gotten to their second set, Pearl had offered Ethan her virginity, and a few weeks later, when she'd found out what he was really a part of, she'd offered him her life too . . . and her womb.

"They're giving me pills," she told him, unease in her tone. "They watch me to make sure I swallow them."

He shrugged. "It won't affect your balas."

" Ethan's balas," she corrected him gently. "Ethan's child."

"Yes." He turned then, giving the city his back, and grinned at her, his black eyes sharp. "Once you release it from your body, it will belong to the commander."

A wave of distress moved through Pearl. She didn't like when he called the baby

"it."

Alistair must have sensed her concern because he went over to her immediately and sat down, spoke to her with a soothing tone. "Once the balas is no longer within you, you and the commander can be together again. You'd like that, wouldn't you? If this balas survives, you will become a very important human to him."

Pearl swallowed thickly. She wanted more than to be important to Ethan; she wanted him to change her into what he was. She wanted to feed from him, then let him take her vein as he took her body. It had taken seventeen years to realize that she wasn't meant for this life, this human existence. And this life had no need for her either.

"Can you ask him to come?" she begged him softly. "Just once."

For one moment, a look of annoyance crossed Alistair's face; then something stole his attention. The black in his eyes blurred with gray and he froze, cocked his head to one side. He looked as though he was listening to something, but Pearl didn't hear a thing.

Suddenly, he stood up. "I have to go."

Pearl's heart dropped. "What?"

"She's here," Alistair hissed harshly.

Pearl stopped protesting. "Who?"

"Your nosy little doctor. She's just walking into the hospital now."

Sara took the fire stairs two at a time, energy racing through her blood. For the first time in her career, she was both late for work and not sorry about it. She grinned, shook her head. Screw the "impossible." She was going to live in it for a while, for as long as it felt like this. Last night and early this morning, something had been turned on inside her, a fresh wave of passion she hadn't known she'd been missing.

She threw back the door and headed onto the fourth floor and to the keypad on the wall leading to the adult ward. She'd closed herself off all these years, turned herself off completely, maybe because she'd felt she didn't deserve passion or release or anything that gave pure pleasure until her brother could have those things as well.

Whatever the answer, tonight, instead of going home to an empty apartment and an empty bed, she would go home to Alexander. And anyone who had an objection to that could just suck it.

She was down the hall and nearing her office when Claire stopped her, motioned for her to come over to the nurse's station.

Sara walked over, grabbed her messages from her box. "What's up, Claire?"

"You said you wanted to know when Pearl McClean had a visitor."

A strange sensation coiled through Sara. "Yes."

"About thirty minutes ago."

"They're still here?"

"He," Claire corrected, popping a Certs in her mouth. "He's still here."

"The boyfriend?" Sara asked, her body on alert now.

"Yep."

Shit. Dropping her notes on the desk, Sara turned and headed back toward the juvenile ward. What was the mother's boyfriend doing visiting the girl alone? Did the mother even know about it? As Sara hauled ass through one ward into the other, she knew this wasn't about pseudostepfather types in general--this was about this particular man. Everything in her gut told her something sketchy was going on with that relationship and she should've blocked the man from visiting without the mother, even if it got her in some legal hot water.

When Sara arrived at the visitors' room and saw that it was empty, she cursed and headed over to the nurse's station, asked the male nurse behind the desk, "Pearl McClean's visitor? Is he gone?"

The man nodded. "Left about five minutes ago. She's back in her room now."

Sara released a breath of frustration. Great. "Can I have her chart?"

"Sure thing." The nurse thumbed through the stack on his desk, pulled one and handed it off. "Here you go."

"Thanks." Sara took a quick look-see. "There are no labs in here."

The nurse shrugged. "Maybe they're backed up downstairs."

"They're always backed up downstairs," Sara said with a grin, pushing away from the desk. She wanted to get a look at the girl's blood--see if anything was low, see if any drugs were in her system. When she got to Pearl's door, she knocked once before heading in. Pearl's roommate wasn't around, and Sara was grateful for the moment of private time.

Pearl was lying on her bed facing the wall, her body coiled up like a shrimp, and Sara went over to her and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Pearl?"

Nothing. She didn't even move.

"Pearl?" Sara repeated, a bit more forcefully now. "I need to speak with you, and the longer you ignore me and don't say anything, the longer you're going to remain under my care."

Again, the girl lay silent and still. For a moment, Sara wondered if she was actually sleeping. Then in a low, angry tone Pearl muttered, "Why did you have to come in today?"

"It's my job," Sara said evenly.

"Well, you ruined everything."

"Why? What happened? Was it your mother's friend? His visit?"

"Yes."

I swear, if that piece of shit touched her . . . "Can you tell me what it was that upset you?"

"You," Pearl uttered with a true bite to her tone. "You upset me."

Sara shook her head, trying to connect the pieces. "I don't understand."

"Can't you just leave me alone?"

"No, I can't. I think you're in trouble and hurting, and it's my job to help you."

Sara placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Please let me help you find a way out."

Pearl jerked her shoulder away, and still facing the wall, fell silent. For a full twenty minutes, Sara sat at the girl's side hoping she'd reveal something more, but she didn't. Finally, Sara left the room and headed for the stairs. She had a date with some brain cells in the research lab next door to the hospital, another patient who'd had serious past trauma. But as she headed into the stairwell, her mind wasn't far from Pearl and the anger the girl had for what she believed was Sara's interference in the relationship she had with her mother's boyfriend. Sara made a mental note to call Melanie, Pearl's social worker, and to try the mother again, get her in for a session ASAP. And if that didn't fly, she mused, walking down the stairs, she was going to go to the residence. Home visits weren't policy, of course--but rules rarely stopped Sara when she was looking for an answer.

Aboveground, the sun was attempting to push its way through the clouds and melt the snow on the sidewalks. Belowground, huddled inside his cage, naked and cold, Alexander fed on warm cow's blood until he felt his insides clog. The blood tasted like battery acid and did little to curb his hunger, but he refused to give in to what he truly required--what he truly desired. Even during bouts of intense hunger, before his body went through morpho, the cow's blood had sustained him well enough, given him the amount of energy he needed to live and work unfettered among the humans.

But now . . . his body required so much more, not to mention someone else entirely.

He let his head drop back against the stone. He needed rich, ancient, life-sustaining blood--he needed to drink from his true mate and he wasn't sure how long he could hold out without finding her. It was how he was constructed, and if he continued to go against his nature he would either starve to death or lose his shit completely and hunt down any female unlucky enough to cross his path. Including Sara. He knew he should speak with Bronwyn, search her skin and see if her claims were true, or just ask her for a pity feed. But he just couldn't do that to her . . . to Sara.

His insides coiled in pain, in desperation, crying out that he had no loyalty to Sara, no promise to keep himself away from another's vein. After all, he could feed from one and please the body of the other, couldn't he?

But Sara would never accept that. He knew her now. He'd seen her desire for him, felt it as her hand had fisted his cock in the ultimate display of ownership. She wanted all of him.

Fucking hell. Didn't she get it? She was human and could never feed him or feed from him, not if she wanted to keep her soul and her heart pure. His body stirred, his cock too, at just the thought of her with her own set of fangs, puncturing his skin, drinking straight from his heart, taking long pulls of his blood into her mouth as he nuzzled and suckled at her sweet cunt.

His jaw clenched to the point of pain and he got up, pulled on his clothes. He was done here--until the next feed, whenever and whatever that may be. Maybe Nicholas and Lucian had a point, he thought as he left the cage. Maybe Sara needed to go, just as much for her own protection as his sanity. But even as he said the words in his head, he knew he'd never allow it.

He ran down the tunnels, causing the Impures who were on guard to thrust their heads down. Once inside the house, he went up to her room and sat in the darkness the heavy, custom-built shades provided.

As the luscious scent of the orgasm he'd given her just hours before drifted up from the bedsheets to his nostrils, he dropped back into his chair and closed his eyes. He would only stay a minute or two, he mused, his hand sliding down between his legs, wrapping around his prick.

Tonight was the night that Dare would die, that his brothers would be freed of the Order, that Tom Trainer would see hell, and if he, Alexander, allowed it, the night his beautiful woman left his life for eternity.