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Marissa woke up later, surprised she&039;d slept at all But that was feeding for you No matter what, she always had to take rest afterward

In the dilow of an alars to do that she needed the night for

She looked over her shoulder Butch was on his back, his hand on his bare chest, his eyes flickering to and fro under his lids as he slept deeply His beard had grown in, his hair was all over the place, and he looked a lot younger Handsome, too, in his slumber

Why couldn&039;t it have worked out better for theer, given it o

She slipped out from under the co quietly, she gathered up her slip, her corset panties, where were her panties¡ª

Stopping short, she looked doith surprise On the inside of one of her thighs, there was a trickling warmth¡ªblood From when he&039;d taken her

"Come here," Butch said

She nearly dropped her clothes "I¡ªah, I didn&039;t know you were awake"

He held his hand out and she went to hiot close to the bed, he snaked his arht was resting on one knee

Then he leaned into her and she gasped as she felt his tongue on her inner thigh In a warm stroke, he went up to her core and kissed away the reinity

She wondered where he&039;d learned the tradition froine human males practiced it on the females they took for the first time

Whereas for her kind, it was a sacred ain

Butch released her and lay back doatching her with eyes that gave nothing away For some reason, she felt so very naked before him, even with her slip clutched to her breasts

"Take my robe," he said "Put it on"

"Where is it?"

"Closet Hanging on the door"

She turned around His robe was deep red and marked with the scent of hi down to the floor and covered her feet, the tie so long she could have wrapped her waist four times with it

She eyed the ruined dress on the floor

"Leave it," he said "I&039;ll throw it out"

She nodded Went over to the door Grabbed the handle

What could she say to make this better? She felt as if she&039;d ical reality driving a wedge between them, then her sexual deficiency exposed

"It&039;s okay, Marissa You can just go You don&039;t need to say anything"

She dropped her head "I&039;ll see you at First Meal?"

"Yeah sure"

In a nuatehouse to the en opened the vestibule&039;s innermost door, she picked up the bottom of Butch&039;s robe so she didn&039;t trip and was ree into

Time to talk to Fritz

After she found the butler in the kitchen, she asked hi for your clothes,soo and pick out a few things ht, she walked in that direction "I proen nodded, totally unappeased

When she stepped into the garage, she stopped dead and wondered what the hell she&039;d walked into There were no cars inside the six-bay space No room for them Good God crates and crates and crates No not crates Coffins? What was this?

"Mistress, your things are over here" From behind her, Fritz&039;s voice was respectful but very firm, as if all those pine boxes were none of her business "Please to follow me?"

He led her over to her four wardrobe trunks and her luggage and her boxes "Are you sure Idresses up for you?"

"Yes" She touched the brass lock on one of her Vuittons "Would you leave me?"

"Of course, mistress"

She waited until she heard the door shut and then she freed the latch on the wardrobe trunk in front of her As she pulled the two halves apart, skirts burst free, owns to balls and Princeps Council s and her brother&039;s dinners and

Her skin crawled

She went to the next trunk And the next And the last Then she started again with the first and went through each one again And then again

This was ridiculous What did it

She reached and grabbed No, she&039;d had this on feeding froe that first time What about this one? No that was the dress she&039;d worn at her brother&039;s birthday party Then what about

Marissa felt the anger come upon her like a fire Fury blew into her, overheated her, blazed through her blood She grabbed gowns rando for one that didn&039;t trigger a ile in fine cloth She , her hands wrenching, an to flow and she wiped the and had to stop She scrubbed her face with her hands, then dropped her ar in the midst of a rainbow mess

It was then that she spied a door in the far corner

And beyond it, through its glass panes, she saw the back lawn

Marissa stared out at the patchy snow Then she looked to the left, at the ridingon the floor next to it Her eyes kept going,over hackers and bins of what looked like fertilizer until they landed on a gas grill, which had a little box resting on its lid

She glanced at the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars&039; worth of haute couture

It took her a good twenty owns out into the backyard And she was careful to include the corsets and the shawls in the pile as well When she was finished, her clothes were ghostly in the o back to, a life of privilege restriction and gilded degradations

She pulled out a sash frole, a pale pink strip of satin, and went back into the garage Picking up the gas can, she grabbed the box of matches and didn&039;t hesitate She walked out to the priceless swirl of satins and silks, doused them with that clear, sweet accelerant and positioned herself upwind as she took out a match

She lit the sash Then threw it

The explosion washer face, flaring into a great fireball

As orange flames and black smoke rose, she screa on his back, staring up at the ceiling, when the alar himself out of bed, he pulled on some boxers and slammed into Vishous as the brother bolted out of his bedrooether they scrambled to the computers

"Jesus Christ!" V barked "There&039;s a fire on the back lawn!"

So barefoot across the courtyard, not even feeling the cold air or the pebbles under his feet, he cut around the front of the h the s on the far side, he could see a great orange fury in the backyard

And then he heard the screah the rear door, Butch was overco cloth And he wasn&039;t half as close as the figure right in front of the inferno

"Marissa!"

Her body was angled forward toward the fire, her ht as surely as the fla around the periphery now running

No! The robe! She was going to trip¡ª

With horror, he saw it happen His long, bloodred robe twisted around one of her legs and tangled up her feet Lurching forward, she started to fall facefirst into the fire

As panic hit Marissa&039;s expression and her ar went slo-mo: Butch ran hard, yet seemed not to move at all

"No!" he screamed

Just before she was lost to the flames, Wrath materialized behind her and scooped her up into his ar her

Butch skidded to a halt, a paralytic weakness s, he fell to the ground just collapsed

So he was on his knees, staring up as Wrath held Marissa in his ared all over hiot there in time," V muttered from somewhere close by

Butch pushed hiround

"You okay?" V asked, reaching out

"Yeah Fine" Butch stuh rando into walls Where was he? Oh, inside the kitchen Blindly, he looked around and saw the butler&039;s pantry Pushing his way into the little rooainst the shelves and shut hiar

His whole body started to shake until his teeth rattled, and his ars God, all he could think about was Marissa burning On fire Helpless In agony

If it had been just hi for her, if Wrath hadn&039;t soht to her, she would be dead now

Butch wouldn&039;t have been able to save her

The thought naturally shot hiht back to the past With horrible precision, flashes of his sister getting in that car two and a half decades ago pinged around his skull Shit, he hadn&039;t been able to save Janie, either Hadn&039;t been able to pull her out of that Chevy Chevette in time

Hell,could have rescued his sister, too

Butch rubbed at his eyes, telling himself that the blurriness was just the aftereffects of all the smoke

A half hour later, Marissa sat on the bed in the blue toile roo of mortification Damn it, she&039;d taken her rule number one way too far

"I&039; in the doorway, shook his head "You shouldn&039;t be"

"Well, I am" She tried to smile at him and missed the mark by a ht fro been so close to all that heat And her hair¡ªher hair sas and smoke So did the robe

She shifted her eyes over to Butch He was out in the hall, leaning back against the wall He hadn&039;t said a thing since appearing there a fewinto the rooht she was crazy

"I don&039;t knohy I did that"

"You&039;re under a lot of stress," Wrath said, even though he wasn&039;t the one she was looking at

"That&039;s no excuse"

"Marissa, don&039;t take this the wrong way, but no one cares We want you safe and well We could give a shit about the lawn"

When she just stared past Wrath at Butch, the king glanced over his shoulder "Yeah, I think I&039;ll leave you two alone Try and get some z&039;s, okay?"

As Wrath turned around, Butch said so clapped a hand to the back of the man&039;s neck More quiet words were shared

After Wrath left, Butch ca to be all right?"

"Ah, yes After I have a shower" And a loboto back to the Pit"

"Butch I&039;m sorry I did what I did It was just I couldn&039;t find one gown that wasn&039;t contaminated with memories"

"I can understand that" Except clearly he didn&039;t He looked coed hi Especially her "So take care of yourself, Marissa"

She leaped to her feet as he backed away "Butch?"