by J. R. Ward
“It wasn’t me,” Syn said dryly. “I didn’t kill whoever it was.”
The lie sounded convincing, at least to his own ears. Unfortunately, that was a table, party of one.
“Syn, I don’t judge you.” Balthazar shook his head. “You know I never have.”
“Oh, fuck this, I’m not wasting time—”
“I have always left you to your business. No questions asked. I know that things are . . . different . . . for you.” Balthazar shook his head again. “But let me be very clear. You cannot be doing that shit over here. We’re in the New World now. It’s going to get noticed, and then we’ve got problems because we’re not just on our own anymore. We’re aligned with the King, and Wrath is not going to stand for anybody in his household doing what you do. People miss their dead over here.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it under control.”
As Syn started walking again, Balthazar didn’t budge. “I don’t think you do.”
Syn stopped and refused to turn back around. Addressing the empty alley in front of him, he said, “In the Old World, I did what I did for a good goddamn purpose. I channeled it properly.”
“True enough, but there are rules on this side of the ocean.”
Staring straight ahead, Syn saw trash cans that were knocked over and a stray cat pawing through a torn-open Hefty bag. As he watched the animal search for dinner, he thought about the female from the other night. There had been no justification that he was aware of for him killing her. Even if she had been a criminal, a murderer, a thief—which were his targeted prey—he hadn’t known it when he’d taken her down into that lower level. Where she had been found not just dead, but defiled as well.
So maybe she was an innocent. And he had done a very, very bad thing.
He didn’t want to hear what Balthazar was saying.
He didn’t want the holes in his memory.
He didn’t want . . . to be dealing with this bullshit any longer.
“Do me a favor,” he said softly.
“No,” Balthazar shot back. “I’m not going there. Don’t you fucking ask me to.”
Syn twisted around. As his eyes changed color, the alley was flooded with a red glow, his cousin spotlit by the color of blood. Behind him, the cat screeched and tore off, sending a glass bottle rolling.
His voice was warped as he spoke. “Then you need to stop talking to me about dead females.”
Balthazar cursed under his breath. “There has to be another way.”
“I told you a century ago. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to put a bullet through my head. Or find someone who will.”
It would be a public service, at this point. And a relief to him.
God knew he would have done it himself years ago, if suicide didn’t mean you were locked out of the Fade. Although given what he had gotten up to over the years?
He was going to end up in Dhunhd anyway.
“You know there’s only one way to stop me,” he said with a growl. “And if you don’t do it, the blood of the females I hurt is on your hands, too.”
FIFTEEN
Boone made it back to his father’s house with about two hours to go before the Fade ceremony he’d convened. As he entered through the front door, he was rank pissed. Leaving Helania had been the last thing he wanted to do, and the fact that he’d had to go because of something connected to Altamere?
He wasn’t happy about sacrificing even a second of his life to memorialize the male, much less anything as important as spending time with his female.
Not that she was technically his. She just felt that way.
Closing out the cold, he put his hands on his hips and glared at the marble floor. Which, granted, hadn’t done anything wrong. It was just there to be walked on, like it had been for his whole life.
“I have got to relax,” he muttered.
Of course, that would be easier if he didn’t have the biggest set of blue balls this side of a hot air balloon convention. Fuuuuuuuuuck. And he thought his bad ankle was making him walk with a limp? Every step he took, he felt like someone had tied kettlebells to his groin.
Looking around the staircase, he eyed the door to the males’ guest bathroom. He could go in there, unbutton his fly and palm things up. At the rate he was going, it would take him two strokes and he would come all over the place.
But he still couldn’t shake the idea that he was being somehow disrespectful to Helania. She was so much more than YouPorn. Than some random female body to jerk off to. Than a two-dimensional fantasy tailor-made to his tastes just so he could rub one out.
She was a living, breathing, incredibly beautiful and smart young female who—
He had not kissed goodbye.
God, he had wanted to. On the dance floor. Back at their table. When they were walking out through the Remington’s courtyard and then after they’d snuck around to the shadows next to the hotel’s tall side so they could ghost out.
The feel of her body moving against his own as they’d danced close and slow had flipped all of his levers to the Hell-Yeah position. The Right-Fucking-NOW. The OMG-I-Will-Beg. He wanted her to distraction, his blood running hot and thick with a lust that he’d never come close to feeling before. And she had been right there with him. He had scented her arousal and stared down into her glowing eyes and known that she wanted him, too.
What had stopped him? Two things. He wasn’t going to stop things with just a single kiss . . . and neither was she. Unless he was grossly misreading her—and he did not think he was—lip-to-lip would be but a beginning for them, a precursor to bare skin and a whole lot more, and he wanted the space and time to take the “yes” on both sides to its natural conclusion.
And what do you know, Oh, hey, sorry, I’ve got to go Fade my father was a total buzzkill.
The other set of brakes on the situation had been the fact that he didn’t want her to think it was just sex on his end. It had been a relief to find they had so much in common other than grief, and he wanted the chance to be around her again as much as he wanted all the horizontal stuff. But he knew his aristocratic station spoke for itself: Males of his class had a tendency to use civilian females for casual sex, taking them to bed and tossing them aside. The last thing he ever wanted was for Helania to think he was disrespecting her like that. And though they had never outright discussed his lineage, he hadn’t exactly tried to hide his accent or his background.
So he had gentlemale’d it in that alley: Hugging her. Kissing her chastely on the cheek. Making sure she dematerialized out safely first.
And now he was here. In this damn house. Waiting for people he didn’t really care about to arrive for a ceremony that felt like a lie so he could close the door on a death that had rocked him and yet didn’t matter much at all.
On that note, he should probably go check on preparations.
At least duking it out with Marquist would allow him to channel some of this going-nowhere frustration.
As Boone strode down to the dining room, and then pushed his way through the flap door that the staff used, the idea he was behaving as his father would have rankled. God, Altamere and Marquist had been consumed by proper preparations and accommodations for guests of the house, whether they were people coming for a cocktail party, a dinner party, an event, or an overday.
Those two would spend hours in Marquist’s office, poring over seating charts, menus, wine and liquor orders.
Crazy.
On the far side of that flap door, there was the staging area for meal service, the silver polishing room, and then the enormous pantry. Also the closed door to Marquist’s office and private accommodations—which, as it turned out, did not have an I-quit letter taped to its jamb. Or U-Haul moving boxes stacked beside it. Or a gun target with Boone’s photograph in the center and bullet holes in a smiley face on his forehead anywhere in its vicinity.
Guess the male hadn’t resigned yet. And it was hard to know whether that was a good or a bad thing.
<
br /> The answer to the question “Where’s Marquist?” was sorted in the kitchen proper: The butler was at the counter in front of the stove, his pressed jacket removed and his sleeves rolled up. His attention was focused on trimming the fat off a roast beef the size of a golf cart, that Henckels knife flying around the piece of meat, expert hands doing an expert job.
The butler did not look up. “Yes.”
“Are we ready?”
“Yes.” The knife flashed as Marquist changed the angle of the slice. “Everything is in hand.”
“Where are the other doggen?”
“I am completing the preparations myself. It is the last thing I shall do in service unto my master, and no one is welcome into this sacred space.”
“The others will want to participate. My sire was their master as well.”
“Not as he was mine.”
Boone frowned. “So how long were you two sleeping together anyway. Did it start right after he brought you here, or did he hire you because it was already happening.”
Marquist hissed and looked up. And what do you know, a knife unattended was a lot like a pot on the stove—it did its job even better without being watched.
Of course, the caveat was that the blade sliced into the butler rather than the fat layer on all that beef.
The butler dropped the Henckels and raced for the sink. And as Boone watched the hot water rinsing and the wrap-up with the dish towel, he couldn’t decide whether his dislike for the male was what precluded him from apologizing . . . or the fact that after all these years of monitoring his own social manners, he had totally ceased to give a shit.
He did not care that the butler was hurt. And he was not going to pretend he did.
Marquist squared his shoulders before turning back around, and as he pivoted, Boone met the male’s eyes straight on.
“Don’t bother denying it,” Boone said. “And FYI, it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. Just like it apparently wasn’t an issue for my stepmahmen. Maybe she felt like you were doing her a favor.”
As the butler’s eyes narrowed like he was mulling over his responses, Boone considered what it would be like to get left out of the will in favor of the other male. Well . . . what do you know. The idea of letting this unhappy house, and all its boatload of crap, go seemed like a liberating event as opposed to an alienating one.
Marquist’s expression turned haughty, like he was above any accusations. Especially those of a poke-and-tickle variety—even though they both knew what had gone on with Altamere behind closed doors.
“I would do anything in service to your father. Anything.”
“I’m thinking that was very true,” Boone muttered.
“Is true. I have served him in ways you cannot fathom, protecting him and his household, ensuring all is well. And death has not changed my devotion to him.”
You want an obelisk? Boone thought. A commemorative stamp. No, wait, a billboard in Times Square to all the blow jobs.
Okay, that was crass. But come on.
“I will not dignify this with a response to anything further.” Marquist’s eyes narrowed again. “Except to say that your sire and I were excellent partners. In the running of this house.”
Boone crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against one of the counters. “Kind of convenient my blood mahmen died so soon after you came under this roof.”
“What exactly are you suggesting.”
It was not a question. And not for the first time, Boone wondered exactly what Marquist’s background was. His motives, on the other hand, seemed clear. Ordinarily, no male civilian would choose to be a kept servant in the household of their lover. Talk about demeaning. But there were perks to being with a member of the glymera—and God knew the only way Marquist could ever have nightly contact with someone of Altamere’s stature was if he moved in under the guise of employment.
In the aristocracy? There was no tolerance for overt male homosexuality. Social propriety dictated that no matter how miserable it made you, you were to mate a member of the opposite sex and procreate at least once—preferably twice if your lawful shellan survived the first birthing bed. If you were, as they called it, of a “secondary persuasion,” you could take male lovers discreetly. But the relationships were never to interfere with your mate, your family, or your bloodline—and the Scribe Virgin save you if anyone ever found out about your extracurricular activities.
Oh, and as for females in the aristocracy? They weren’t allowed lesbian lovers. Ever. Under any circumstances.
Just one more example of the patriarchy of the glymera. The intolerance. The injustice. All of it was so unfair.
“My parents were never happy together,” Boone stated. “But neither of them had been brought up to expect anything more or anything less. That being said, I always wondered if my mahmen committed suicide, or whether it was something else, something sinister that killed her. Exactly how did she die? No one ever told me because no one ever talked about it.”
“That is because the veil of privacy continues to be appropriate after death. Your mahmen was a fine female of worth who did her duty as was appropriate.”
“Wow. You used ‘appropriate’ twice there. Good work. No wonder my father trusted you to plan his parties.” Boone nodded at the butler’s feet. “Watch it. You’re dripping. Better go to Havers’s and get that stitched up.”
The butler glanced at the roast beef as if he were contemplating going back to his work.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Boone shook his head. “You’re not bleeding all over the food, even if that hunk of meat is about to go into the oven. I’ll go get the other doggen, and they will handle everything—as they should have from the very beginning for the ceremony. It was very inappropriate of you to exclude them.”
Marquist’s smile was slow as his eyes grew calculating. “Be of care, young master Boone. I would hate for your bloodline to be sullied by anything untoward. The glymera is slow to forgive even minor slips. A poorly cooked hors d’oeuvre or badly prepared foie gras can be devastating to a household’s reputation. Much less something of far graver import.”
“You’re assuming I give two shits about what any of them think.” Boone dropped his chin and glared from beneath his brows. “And let me point out the obvious—you’ll never get another job on an estate of this caliber if you pull any stunts of indiscretion like talking about your affair with my father. The aristocrats won’t let you so much as wash their cars or clean their gutters if you spread rumors about my sire.”
“This from a male who claims he does not care what people think.”
“I’m just trying to help you out in case you haven’t considered your next job.”
“You’re assuming I haven’t been well taken care of. Which happens to be something I know for a fact I do not have to worry about.”
Marquist did not bow as he went to leave. But considering the breach of protocol he had just confirmed—as well as the one he had threatened—who was counting?
Right before the butler walked out into the staging area, Boone said over his shoulder, “Do not use the front door. You’re just staff here, not family.”
Marquist paused and tightened the bloody dish towel on his sliced hand. “I’m better than family. And as soon as that Fade Ceremony is over, you’re going to learn exactly how much better.”
“I’m not leaving this house,” Boone gritted out.
“Neither am I.”
• • •
As Butch re-formed on the side lawn of Boone’s family’s mansion, he was so not surprised by the old school money routine. The place was big as an embassy and lit up like a ball park. Through the old wavy glass of the windows, he could see antiques and oil paintings, sculptures and vases of flowers. It was exactly the kind of anonymous, venerable luxury that he’d seen in every glymera household he had ever been in, proof positive that intrinsic worth didn’t make shit homey, and when there was only a single standard of acceptability for decor
ations, all you got was a reductive one-note.
He would take his Pit with his shellan and his two roommates over this showboat every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
“Poor kid,” Rhage said as the brother arrived.
“Not hardly,” V muttered as he appeared. “Boone’s better off this way, true? That sire of his was a motherfucker.”
Butch shot a look at his roomie. “Will you please try to not bring that up at the goddamn ceremony? It’s tacky.”
“I hate protocol.”
“No, really?” Rhage cut in. “Wait, let me get my shocked face on.”
The brother turned away—and then whipped back around with his handsome puss all wall-eyed and O-mouthed.
As he gasped and fluttered both hands by his head, V glared. “Come over here.”
“Why?”
“So I can knee you in the nuts. I’d close the distance myself, but your church bells aren’t worth my two steps to the left—”
“Will you guys quit it,” Butch hissed. “This is a solemn occasion. I need you both to pull your shit together and pretend you can be appropriate for ten minutes.”
V rolled his eyes. “This coming from a male who has a potato gun.”
Rhage put his arm around Butch’s shoulders and leaned in. “Please tell me you’re not trying to reason with the Hunchback of I-don’t-give-a-damn over there?”
As Butch considered doing a gonad workout of his own on Frick and Frack, the Smack-It Brothers, Tohr rematerialized and changed the vibe with his presence. With the levity draining out of the group, the bunch of them walked around to the front of the house. Up at the entrance, they stomped snow off their treads on the woven mat and put the brass knocker to good use. A properly dressed doggen in all black—per protocol, natch—answered and then they were inside and checking things out away from the cold.
In a predictably fancy foyer, a good fifty or sixty people were milling about, and as Butch glanced through the crowd, he caught sight of Phury and Z with John Matthew, Qhuinn, and Blay. The group of home-teamers were hanging together just outside the parlor and dagger palms were raised in greeting.
