“Has he asked you to do anything else?” asked Joseph.

“You mean besides blowing your compound to hell? No. Not that I remember.” She looked from one man to the other. Joseph was across the room, lounging with one massive shoulder propped on the wall. Zach was sitting on the bed with her, his body between them. Lexi was pretty sure that wasn’t an accident.

Zach clearly still didn’t trust Joseph around her.

An odd sense of peace unfurled inside her. Zach was protecting her. No one had cared enough about her to protect her since her mother had died. It was nice to feel that again. Comforting.

Lexi wasn’t going to make him sorry for giving her that gift. She was going to step up and do whatever needed to be done to fix this. “I need to go take care of the C-4, get it out of here so nothing bad can happen by accident.”

Joseph’s jaw hardened. “You’re not getting anywhere near those explosives, girl. I’ve got a man taking care of it.”

“One who knows how to handle explosives?”

He lifted a dark, mocking brow. “We’ve lived centuries. I think we’ve got it covered.”

“It’s relatively safe stuff so long as the detonators aren’t connected. Which they aren’t.”

“How were you going to trigger the device?” asked Zach.

“Timer. I had ten minutes to get clear,” said Lexi, feeling more and more guilty as she laid out their plans.

“And if it wasn’t enough?” asked Joseph.

Lexi shrugged, but her joints felt rusty and stiff. Whatever Logan had done to her wasn’t wearing off fast. “I guess I would have gone down with the rest of you.”

Zach cursed, spitting out a violent word. Joseph merely stared at her. “You would have died? Willingly?”

“It wasn’t my first choice, no, but I was tired of running. Tired of being afraid all the time.”

Zach took her hand and wrapped his around it, warming her chilled fingers. “You don’t have to run anymore.”

Lexi eyed Joseph. “I’m not so sure about that, Zach. Looks like your fearless leader here would prefer if I hit the road.”

“Like hell,” said Zach.

“You’re not going anywhere,” ordered Joseph. “I want you right here where I can keep an eye on you.”

“So, now I’m a prisoner?” she asked.

Zach’s dark face hardened to a stony scowl as he turned to Joseph. “She’s not, is she?”

“I don’t want her leaving the compound. I don’t want her making any calls. Is that clear?”

“I’ve got to call the Defenders and let them know you guys are the good guys.”

Joseph pushed away from the wall with a deceptively lazy shove. “Not going to happen. Let them think we found you out and killed you.”

“They’ll only try again. Someone needs to convince them you guys aren’t the monsters they think you are.”

Joseph shook his head. “There’s no reasoning with men like them. Let them try again. We’ll be ready.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Zach.

Joseph’s shoulders seemed to bow slightly as if a weight had settled atop them. “The only thing I can. Erase the threat.”

Zach leapt from the bed so fast it looked like he’d been launched from a catapult. “You don’t mean to kill them, do you?” he asked in disbelief.

“When they were merely a nuisance, getting in our way? No. But now?” He shook his head in sorrow, but his eyes were rock hard. “They meant to kill us all. They meant to kill the children. And they’ll try it again. I can’t let that crime go unanswered.”

“You can’t retaliate, Joseph. They’re human.”

“I can’t let that matter. Not anymore. This was an act of war. I’m going to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Joseph’s eyes went to Lexi and she felt a chill glide over her spine. There was no mercy inside that man. No compassion. “I want a list of names. Every person you ever met who was connected to the Defenders.”

“I won’t give it to you,” she told him. “I won’t help you kill them. They’re wrong, but that doesn’t mean we can’t straighten this out. Bring them here, let them see what I have, and they’ll understand.”

“It’s too late for that. You will give me that list.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Then I’ll order Logan to take it from you,” said Joseph as he turned to leave the room. “It won’t be as comfortable for you, but it will be just as effective.”

Lexi heard the door to her suite slam shut, making her jump.

“I’ve never seen him like that,” said Zach.

“Does he mean it?”

“Every single word.”

“Where does that leave us?” she asked.

Zach shook his head. “Something’s wrong. This isn’t like him. Give me a few minutes to check something and I’ll be back, okay?”

Lexi nodded. “Sure. Whatever you need to do.”

He cupped the side of her face in his big hand and Lexi leaned into the touch. “You’ll be here when I get back, right?”

“I promise.” She felt the weight of that promise slam down on her, pinning her to the bed.

“Get some rest. I’ll be quick. Call my cell if you need me.”

With that, he left. Lexi wasn’t sure what he was going to go do, but she was fairly sure she didn’t want any part of it.

When Zach found Drake, he was outside, helping Helen repair the broken section of wall. Helen knelt on the ground, both her slender hands on a stone the size of her head. Drake’s fingers wrapped around her nape, clearly visible beneath the twin braids restraining her dark hair—hair the same soft brown color as Lexi’s now that it was no longer dyed.

Zach ached to go back to Lexi’s side and comfort her, make sure she knew that her mistake was not an unforgivable one, but he couldn’t do that yet. Not until he knew for certain that their leader was in his right mind.

A subtle hum of power vibrated in the air around Drake and Helen as she poured a stream of protective magic inside the stone, strengthening it against attack. Sweat beaded on her skin, and the back of her red shirt was dark and clinging to her spine.

Zach stopped in his tracks a few feet away and stared. He had his lady, his Lexi, but he didn’t have what Drake did—their unity, their connection.

Lexi said she trusted him, but she had yet to trust him enough to allow them to become close enough to fulfill their purpose. She hadn’t even trusted him enough to let him see her thoughts or know her feelings. Even after Logan had broken through, when Zach reached out for Lexi, all he felt was a cold, hard wall. There was no living warmth, no welcome.

Maybe her upbringing had scarred her, and they’d never have what Drake and Helen did.

As a spike of grief rose up in him, Zach shoved it away. He refused to let it stand like that. They would have a full life. They both deserved it, especially Lexi, after all she’d suffered. She deserved a home, a family and Zach wanted to be that for her. Always.

He loved her too much not to fight for what he knew they could have together. She was everything he’d ever wanted, and he was going to do whatever it took to make her happy.

All he had to do was give her the time to come to trust him, to show her each day that he was worthy of that gift. Eventually, he’d break through that stubborn skull of hers and see what he saw. They belonged together.

But before he could go back to her and get to work on those plans, he had a job to do. He kicked his ass in gear and went to Drake. “Got a sec?”

Drake must have seen something in Zach’s expression because the look of pride and adoration he wore when watching Helen dropped, and all that was left was his serious game face. “I’ll be right back,” he told Helen. “Just stay here and rest a minute.”

She nodded and curled up on her side in the grass, heedless of dirt and bugs. Apparently, rebuilding this wall was taking its toll. Even Gilda was nowhere to be seen, and she was the strongest Theronai in the compound.

Angus worked alone on the far side of the construction zone, hauling rock with brute strength. The only thing that would have kept Gilda from his side was sheer exhaustion.

Good. That meant Angus could lend a hand, too. They were going to need all the help they could get.

Zach led Drake in that direction. When Angus saw them approach, he set the rock down, brushed off his hands and came to meet the pair.

“Is something amiss?” Angus asked in a rough voice.

Zach did a quick scan to make sure no one else was nearby and said, “Yeah. I think we have a problem.”

He did a quick recap of what went down with Lexi and Joseph, making sure they both knew about her treachery. The story would get out soon enough, and it was better if it came from him than the rumor mill.

“He actually said he was going to kill the Defenders?” asked Drake in stark disbelief.

“Yeah,” said Zach. “I’m afraid Joseph may have run out of time.”

“His lifemark,” guessed Angus, rubbing a hand over his craggy face. “You think it’s bare.”

“It would explain the way he was acting with Lexi.”

Drake sighed, his eyes dark with grief. “We have to find out. And I need to tell Helen what’s going on with Lexi. Give me two minutes to explain things to her and I’ll be back.”

Drake walked away calmly, like he had all the time in the world. Anyone watching would never guess what was going on.

“We could ask Nicholas to check with his electronic eyes,” Zach told Angus, “or we could do the job ourselves. Right now.”

Angus suddenly looked older, more worn down. The passage of centuries had been good to him, leaving behind a few lines and even more gray hair, but from one second to the next, Angus began to look like an old man. “We’ll do it now. Keep it quiet. If we have to send him to the Slayers, then I want it done tonight, before anyone knows.”

Send him to the Slayers. The old laws demanded that they put down any Theronai who had lost his soul. They could be evil, dangerous. Since the Slayers were the oldest Sentinel race, they were the ones who carried out the law they’d created. With brutal expediency.

It didn’t matter that their races were enmeshed in a stagnant war. It didn’t matter that the Slayers had bred with humans to the point that they were no longer the fearsome creatures they had once been. All that mattered was that they’d carry out the law.

If Joseph’s tree was leafless, the Slayers would execute him.

Helen’s legs shook as she raced down the halls toward Lexi’s new suite, and not just because she was physically exhausted.

Lexi had been planning to kill them. Her family. Her husband.

Helen still had trouble believing it. How could she have been so wrong about the woman she’d thought of as her friend?

She knocked on Lexi’s door and when it opened, Lexi stood there with her nose red and her eyes bright. She’d been crying, and not sweet little girly tears, either. From the size of the wad of soggy tissue in her hand, they’d been big fat sloppy tears of remorse.