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caught the second try at turning him into a homer with both hands.
    Quick punch forward and he slammed the
lesser
in the face with itsown Louisville slugger, giving the undead a split second of show tunes in its head. Then it was domination time.
    “What the hell!” Xhex hollered at him as he forced the slayer onto the ground.
    No good way to communicate, considering his hands were locked on the
lesser
’s throat. Then again, it wasn’t going to help them for her to know what was on his mind.
    With a quick stab, John dispatched the slayer back to the Omega and got up. His left eye, the one that had gotten corked with the bat, was starting to swell, and he could feel his heartbeat in his face. Meanwhile, Xhex was still bleeding.
    “Don’t you
ever
do that to me again,” she hissed.
    He wanted to jab his finger in her face, but if he did, he couldn’t talk.
Then don’t fight when you’re injury-injer-injured!
    Christ, he couldn’t even communicate, his fingers clogging up over words.
    “I was just fine!”
    You’re fucking bleeding—
    “It’s a flesh wound—”
    Then why can’t you lift up your arm!
    The pair of them were closing in on each other, and not in a good way, their jaws jacked forward, their bodies hunched in aggression. And when she didn’t counter him on his last potshot, he knew he’d guessed right—knew, too, that she was hurting.
    “I take care of myself, John Matthew,” she spat. “I don’t need you looking over my shoulder because I’m a female.”
    I would have done the same for one of the Brothers.
Well, mostly he would have.
So don’t push that feminist bullshit on me—
    “Feminist
bullshit
?!”
    You’re the one making it about your sex, not me.
    Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, really. Funnily enough, I’m not persuaded. And if you think my standing up for myself is a goddamn political statement, you mated the wrong
goddamn
female.”
    This is not about your being female!
    “The fuck it isn’t!”
    On that note, she inhaled deep, as if to remind him that his bonding scent was so strong, it knocked out even the stench of all the
lesser
blood splattered around.
    John bared his fangs and signed,
It’s about your stupidity creating a liability on the battlefield.
    Xhex’s mouth cranked open—but then, instead of countering, she just stared up at him.
    Abruptly, she crossed her good arm over her chest and focused out over his left shoulder, slowly shaking her head back and forth.
    Like she was regretting not just what had happened a moment ago, but maybe meeting him in the first place.
    John cursed and went to pace around, only to find that everyone else in the alleyway—and that would be Tohr, Qhuinn, Rhage, Blaylock, Zsadist, and Phury—was watching the show. And what do you know, each of the males wore an expression that suggested he was really, truly, completely, and utterly glad that John’s last statement hadn’t come out of
his
piehole.
    Do you
mind
, John signed with a glare.
    On cue, the bunch of them started milling about, looking up at the dark sky, down at the pavement, across at the brick walls of the alley. Manly muttering floated over on the stinky breeze, as if they were a convention of movie critics discussing what had just been screened.
    He didn’t care what their opinions were.
    And in this moment of anger, he didn’t care what Xhex’s was, either.
    Back at the Brotherhood mansion, No’One had her daughter’s mating dress in her arms—and a
doggen
planted in front of her, thwarting her quest for directions to the second-story laundry room. The former was welcome; the latter was not.
    “No,” she said again. “I shall take care of this.”
    “Mistress, please, it is a simple thing to—”
    “Then letting me tend to the gown will be no problem for you.”
    The
doggen
’s face fell so far, it was a wonder he didn’t have to look up to meet her eyes. “Perhaps… I shall just check with Superior Perlmutter—”
    “And perhaps I shall tell him how