Stopping a murder that happened forty years earlier may be the only way to heal a tortured mind ...<br><br>Six months after Jesse Madding is brutally tortured by Marcus Brooker, he is still experiencing flashbacks, panic attacks, and jumping at his own shadow. His lovers, Gideon Keel and Emma Coolidge, would do anything to help him, but Jesse refuses to be hospitalized for treatment, or even visit a therapist. Desperate for a change, Gideon and Emma suggest a radical solution.<br><br> Jesse wants to fix his life. More than anything, he wants to be normal again. He doesn't want to live in fear. He doesn't want to be ashamed of his scarred and mutilated body. He doesn't want to shy away from Gideon's touch. Certain that the holding pattern will kill him, he agrees to Gideon and Emma's proposed solution: travel to an alternative dimension and save Marcus Brooker from witnessing Mary's grisly murder ... in order to save Brooker's soul.

Chaos and Communion

He looked completely unperturbed at the notion of returning to Sangre for the first time since the Brooker incident. In fact, his heart hadn’t even fluttered when Gideon had announced what he was going to do. If Gideon didn’t know better, he’d think that Jesse hadn’t had any trauma whatsoever related to the kinds of things that could happen at the vampire club. But that didn’t change the fact that he wasn’t about to let Jesse within a mile of the place.


“What’s the point?” Gideon said. “Nobody there’s going to talk to you anyway.”


“Who is going to talk to you if you go alone? You’ll look suspicious, and you know it. I’m sure word got around that Gideon Keel was jumped and beat just a few nights ago. And now Gideon Keel is going to a BDSM club without a pet. Do you think it’ll take anybody long to draw the right conclusions about that?”


Chapter 45