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

Jesse’s hand kept drifting to his neck as he walked, and every time his fingers touched the bite mark there, he shivered, down to the balls of his feet. If he applied a little bit of pressure, his stomach did a slow somersault, and his groin tightened. It had hurt when Gideon bit him—it had been painful. A vampire bite was always a little painful, but Gideon usually waited until Jesse’s body was flooded with endorphins, his blood and heart racing. Jesse normally didn’t even feel the initial bite, and each pull of blood after that would only heighten his light-headed pleasure until he couldn’t speak.


But a bite by itself was different. It was the sort of pain that Jesse usually shied away from these days. The sort of pain that could trigger unpleasant memories and make him weak and scared and tired. The sort of pain that, just a little over six months ago, he would have begged for, on his hands and knees if Gideon demanded it. And maybe even if he didn’t.


Chapter 62