“I brought you a cupcake from the bakery downstairs.” Hector extended his untattooed hand as he approached the bed. The one that couldn’t dematerialize and punch through anything.

Dallas had been living off of soup and eagerly took the—empty wrapper. He frowned. “Where’s the fucking cupcake?”

Hector shrugged his big shoulders. “I ate it on the way up. Sorry.”

Dallas flipped him off, then tossed the wrapper at him. “So what’s going on?” And something was definitely going on. Despite the smiles and the “gifts,” both radiated a tension they couldn’t hide.

“Well,” Mia began, putting his bandage back in place.

“Hello, hello. I brought my handsome boy some flowers,” Devyn said from the doorway, seizing center stage.

A reunion. Great. “Don’t they have a limit on the number of people I can have in my room?”

“They sure do,” Devyn said with a nod. “Give me a minute to get rid of everyone for you.”

He’d do it, too. Force everyone to leave by controlling their bodies. Devyn never cared who he pissed off, and Dallas had always loved that about him. “They can stay. You can stay. Will someone just tell me what the hell is going on?”

“In a minute,” his best friend said. “When your attitude has improved.”

Please. Like he could improve. “So where are the flowers?” he asked, noticing Devyn’s hands were empty.

“Oh. I gave them to a nurse.”

Dallas rolled his eyes.

“What?” Devyn said, all innocence. “She looked sad.”

“Mia?” Dallas focused on her. “You were saying?”

She turned and kicked the door shut, then jammed the crash cart in front of it, ensuring no one else would enter. When she straightened, she rubbed her hands in a job well done.

“Okay, so,” she began again.

“Wait. I need to get comfortable.” Devyn grabbed the only chair in the room, moved it to Dallas’s other side, and plopped down. He waved his hand, a king before his court. “Continue.”

Mia popped her jaw. To Dallas’s surprise, she didn’t give the Targon shit, just started up again. “We gave Johnny some of McKell’s blood. We hoped it would kill the Schön disease, and maybe it did. After a terrible first reaction, Johnny seems to be better. Looks one hundred percent better. Except …”

Again, she shifted from one foot to the other, and looked over at Hector.

He nodded and picked up where she’d left off. “Except he’s now obsessed with Ava.”

“Obsessed, how?” Dallas asked.

“He screams for her. Constantly. He wants to drink from her. He bangs at the window in his room to get to her, and has managed to crack the supposedly uncrackable shield armor.”

“What about starving him?” Devyn asked. “That’ll weaken him, right?”

He knew a thing or two about vampires, Dallas supposed.

Mia tugged at the short length of her ponytail. “When we noticed he was healing, and by that I mean looking human again, we threw bags of blood in his room, and at first he digested them just fine, but then he started vomiting the blood.”

What did that—

“Which means he’s encountered his mate,” Devyn said with a nod. “Ava. Which is why he calls for her. He won’t be able to keep anyone’s blood down but hers. He’ll weaken whether you feed him or not.”

Hello, complication. “That’s gonna piss McKell off.” Dallas had only been around the pair the once, but that had been enough. The connection between them was fierce and almost frightening. The vampire would allow no one to get between him and his woman.

“We knew Johnny had a crush on Ava,” Mia said, and there was guilt in her tone because she’d encouraged that crush for results, “but that wouldn’t explain his intense desire for her. We think it’s because McKell’s blood changed him. We think McKell’s desire for her transferred to him.”

“Well, someone has to warn McKell,” Dallas said.

“Not it,” Mia said, and Hector and Devyn quickly followed with refusals of their own.

What were they, five-year-olds? “Fine. The cripple will do it.” Dallas offered each of them his darkest frown.

That earned him an “Awesome,” from Devyn, and a huge smile of thanks from Mia and Hector.

“But in the meantime,” he went on, thinking they all needed a good slap on the head, “we have to find out if Johnny’s still infected or not.”

“I agree, but we’re afraid to test him,” Mia admitted. “He’s wild, strong.”

McKell could stop time. Stop Johnny. Kill him, just in case, so they wouldn’t have to worry about testing him, but that wouldn’t give them any answers.

Dallas fell back on his bed, moving away from thoughts of Johnny’s death and concentrating on Trinity’s. McKell could probably stop time for Trinity. And if McKell could stop her, just for a few seconds, Dallas could—what? He would have to kill her without cutting her. Maybe he could snap her neck. Would she heal?

Hector could atomize his right arm and reach inside her body. Maybe good ole Hec could reach inside Trinity’s chest and stop her heart. Would that put him in contact with her blood, though? Willingly? Probably. So maybe Dallas could—the scent of roses filled his nose.

Cursing, he forced his mind to blank. He’d suspected Trinity could read minds; she’d even told him she could. And he knew damn good and well she could enter a room without anyone the wiser. She might have just popped in, might be reading him even then. Invisible, planning. He’d have to be careful.

“Guys,” he said. “I need you all to leave now. Don’t talk about any of this with anyone. Don’t even think about it. The queen, Trinity, can pop in, listen, and even read minds.” Understand what I’m saying.

Grim silence followed his announcement.

“Anything we do from here on out needs to be spontaneous. Feel me?”

“Shit,” Mia said, fingering her ponytail again. A cute, nervous habit.

“My mind only ever goes to Bride, anyway,” Devyn said with a shrug, “so that won’t be a problem for me.”

Spontaneous was going to be a problem for everyone else, though. How could they work together, how could they help each other, if they didn’t know what the other agents were doing?

“Well, shit,” Mia repeated. “This is gonna be a whole lot of fun.” She patted him on the shoulder before dragging Hector out of the room. “Come on. We got stuff to do. Or not.”

“Want me to stay and read you a bedtime story?” Devyn asked. “Or I can share the painkillers I took from that nurse. You know, the one who has your flowers.” He reached in his pocket and withdrew a handful of white pills.

“I thought you gave her the flowers because she looked sad.”

“She did look sad. After she realized someone had stolen all her drugs.”

Despite the harsh reality they faced, Dallas found himself laughing. “Get out of here, you bastard. Dally needs to not think about what to do next.”

Devyn stood, then leaned down as if to kiss him. On the mouth. Dallas blinked, unsure how to handle the situation. Just before contact, Devyn grinned and straightened, saying, “You wish.”

“Jackass.”

“What would you have called me if I’d actually done it? Sweetheart? Well, you’ll just have to get better without having me kiss your boo-boos.” He was laughing as he exited the room.

Alone again. Dallas should have been able to relax. Only, he could suddenly feel the queen’s eyes on him. They bored into him, deep into his soul, and caused every muscle in his body, even the still-injured ones, to tense.

She really was here.

How long had she been there? What had she heard?

His gaze flew through the room, searching, before he said, “You can come out now.”

She appeared in the chair Devyn had just vacated, a vision of loveliness in a cobalt-colored robe that revealed one delicate shoulder. Her hair was red today, and piled high on her head, ringlets falling down to frame her temples.

There was something else different about her this visit. She was as beautiful as ever, and yet he could somehow see past that beauty, to sickeningly gray skin, oozing sores, and concave cheeks.

Was her own disease destroying her? Was infecting others no longer saving her?

“You’re not playing fair,” she said with an angry twinge.

Fair? He wasn’t playing fair? “How?” Mind blank.

“Planning to shield your thoughts, to act against me randomly.”

His hands clenched on the bars at the side of his bed. “We’re just trying to survive. Surely you can understand that.”

“Of course I can. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.” She leaned forward and traced a finger along his bandaged sternum. “Have you thought about my offer?”

Mind blank. No reaction. “Yes.”

Her lashes lifted, and her gaze met his, hard, determined. “And?”

“And I won’t let you infect me. I won’t talk to Mia for you.”

He expected her to erupt, to strike at him, something, but all she did was fall back into her chair, severing contact. She drummed her fingers against the arms.

“I’ve never encountered this much resistance before, and I admit I’m at a loss.”

“We’re in what’s called a Mexican standoff, baby, so one of us has to cave. On something. And it’s not going to be me. So tell me what you want with Mia, and we can go from there.”

That sunken gaze hardened a little more. “I could just kill more agents of yours as I planned.” Cold, so cold. “I believe I promised to visit the vampire next.”

Mind fucking blank. “But you won’t because you realize that will only cause me to resist you more intently.”

Trinity sighed. “Very well. I will tell you … something I want … and that is … Mia’s body.” She watched him, waiting.

He couldn’t mask his surprise. “I don’t understand.”

Trinity licked her lips. “I want to possess it.”

Sexually? “Still don’t understand.”

She tensed. He thought she meant to leave, but she surprised him by saying, “Every time I go to a new planet, I need a new body. One already adjusted to the temperature, the atmosphere, the … everything. My … essence leaves the old one and enters the new.”

Now they were getting somewhere. “What would happen to her?”

“Her essence would enter the body I left behind.”

Not good. Not good at all. “So how does the disease follow you? I mean, there would be no blood exchange in essence-switching, right?” God, he couldn’t believe he was discussing essence-switching, whatever the hell that was, as easily as if they were discussing switching T-shirts.

She flashed her teeth. White, sharp, almost sharklike. “My essence is the disease.”

“So, what? You’d take over her body and no one would know Mia was actually you?”

“Exactly.”

“And they’d follow you,” he said, finally understanding. With understanding came a sick, cramping stomach. “They’d do whatever you said, thinking you were their beloved leader.”

“Yes. That’s the way it always goes. And by the time they realize something’s different, wrong, they’re already infected and serving me.”

“Cold,” he said.

“Necessary,” she countered.

“Selfish.” By telling him now, she’d ruined the element of surprise.

Gray cheeks pinkened with fury. “No different from anyone else. We all do what we must to survive. Didn’t you just say that?”

Before he could reply, a sharp pain exploded through his temple, and he grimaced. Damn it. He knew what that pain meant. A vision of the future wanted to open up in his mind. He fought it, held it back, because he didn’t want Trinity seeing it, whatever it was.

“We’ll find a way to stop you,” he gritted out.

She sighed, a little sad. A trick, surely. “No, you won’t. I’ll have this planet as I’ve had so many others. I will stop AIR before they can hinder me in any way.”

“Is that what you want more than anything?”

“No. I want … I want a cure.” One confession making way for another?

Another trick. She enjoyed what she did, the power she wielded. “And if the only cure is death?”

The sadness melted away, revealing her true emotion. Calculation. “I wanted to rule this planet with you,” she said, refusing to answer. “I like you, but again, you’ve given me no choice. I will find someone other than Mia. Someone who will willingly trade bodies with me.”

So. She’d sensed his long-ago desire for Mia and had thought to use it against him. “There’s no one who would do anything so stupid.”

She laughed, the calculation giving away to another wave of sadness. He simply couldn’t keep up with her mood changes. “Someone is always willing.”

“Not here. Not on Earth.”

“Love is all the motivation people need. I threaten one of their loved ones, and they give me whatever I want.”

The sickness intensified, but like the vision, he beat it back. “Then why didn’t you threaten Kyrin, the man Mia loves?” He knew he wasn’t planting ideas into Trinity’s head. He knew she’d considered all the angles, all the players. “Why did you threaten me?”