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too?”
    “Dude.” Wraith cringed. “Fuck, no. Females only.”
    “Really.” Slake looked over at Raze again, whose face had gone an interesting shade of red. “No exceptions?”
    The Harrowgate flashed open, and Wraith waved at the female wearing a lab coat with the name Gem stitched onto the chest pocket in big loopy, multicolored swirls, her blue-streaked black hair pulled up in twin pigtails. “Other males can participate, but—”
    “Slake, can I talk to you?” Raze ground out from between clenched teeth. “Outside?”
    “’S’okay,” Wraith said. “I gotta catch Eidolon before he gets busy helping people and crap. Later.”
    The moment Wraith sauntered off, Raze grabbed Slake, and the next thing he knew, he was being dragged into the parking lot. The manhandling was something he’d normally beat the shit out of someone for, but as Raze threw him up against a concrete pillar and got in his face, all he wanted to do was kiss the guy. Continue what they’d started in the alley behind Thirst.
    “No more questions,” Raze growled, the low, breathy sound rumbling through all of Slake’s erogenous zones.
    Then realization dawned. “Your friends don’t know, do they? They have no idea you’re into males.”
    Gold flecks, like sunlight glinting off a lake of emerald, glinted in Raze’s eyes. “What the fuck did I just say?”
    In a quick motion, Slake gripped Raze’s shoulders and spun him around so it was Raze’s spine biting into the post. Before the incubus could recover, Slake covered his mouth with his own. Raze froze, his body taut, his teeth clenched behind lips as cold and unyielding as the pillar. Slake kept up the pressure for a few seconds, making it clear that he didn’t give up easily.
    Point made, he put his mouth to Raze’s ear and whispered, “Was that why you broke it off last night? Right when things were getting good?” Never mind that Slake had been about to do the same. “Because you don’t want anyone to know you’re into guys?”
    “It’s a little more complicated than that.” Raze tried to shove Slake away, but he held his ground, pulling back only enough to look the guy in the eye. “Actually, a lot more complicated.”
    Slake understood that, since he wasn’t exactly a typical, shining example of his own species. “Tell me.”
    Raze snorted. “You gonna share your trauma first? I didn’t think so. So step off, asshole.”
    Gods, this guy was hot when he was pissed. Slake had never been one for angry sex, but something about Raze made him want to tear off both of their clothes and make use of the hood on that new BMW behind them.
    He was about to say as much when the hospital’s sliding doors opened and two paramedics rushed out, heading for one of two black ambulances parked nearby. One, a blond guy with eerie silver eyes, shouted at Raze.
    “It’s Thirst,” he yelled. “Some kind of explosion.”
    Slake’s heart skidded to a panicked stop in his chest. If Fayle had been injured or killed, he was in a shit-ton of trouble. The muffled trill of a phone ringing jumpstarted his heart again, and then Raze had his cell to his ear.
    “Yeah, shit, I’ll be right there.” He pocketed the phone and tore away from Slake. “I gotta go.”
    “I’m going with you.”
    “Whatever,” Raze said. “But get in my way and I’ll send you back here—in the back of that ambulance.”
    Slake almost laughed. Almost. Because if Fayle was dead, being in the back of an ambulance would be far preferable to whatever punishment Dyre could come up with.
     

     
    Raze had always prided himself on his ability to remain calm during a crisis. To put fear on the back burner when things were crazy. But as he leaped out of the Harrowgate next to Thirst with Slake on his heels, terror pumped through him. Images of his parents, torn apart by demons, flashed in his head, and he knew he’d see the same kind of trauma in the bombing victims. Victims who were his friends. Marsden, Lexi,