by J. R. Ward
"Asshole."
With any luck, the bastard would drive off into a ditch with no seat belt on.
About ten minutes later, Trez peeled off from the sixty-mile-an-hour-ers and entered a maze of one-ways. Confronted by all the traffic lights and the stop signs, his brain cramped up and he forgot the way to the condo--
When a horn sounded behind him, he locked his molars and hit the gas. In the end, he was forced to pilot around by tracking the Commodore's twenty-story-plus height, gradually zeroing in on the high rise and finding the ramp that led down into the parking garage. As he descended, he got his pass out from the visor, swiped it through the reader, and proceeded to one of their two reserved spots.
The elevator ride up took fifty years and then he was stepping off onto the carpet runner. Their condo was down a little and he used its main door, not the service one, letting himself in with his copper key.
As he came into the kitchen, he saw two mugs on the counter, an already open bag of Cape Cod potato chips, and the coffeepot half-full.
He paused over an open GQ. He'd already gone through it. "Nice jacket," he murmured as he shut the mag.
No reason to will on any lamps. The day was bright and sunny and all the glass let in plenty of light--
The towering black shape that arrived on the terrace was a harbinger of doom if he'd ever seen one.
Striding over, Trez opened the door by hand and stepped outside, closing things up behind him.
s'Ex's voice from under the executioner's hood was mildly amused. "Your brother invited me in."
"I'm not my brother."
"Yes. We've noticed." As the queen's hatchet man crossed his arms over his chest, his massive forearms bunched up even under the folds of fabric. "To what do you owe the honor of my presence?"
The fact that it was freezing cold out seemed appropriate. "I don't want you to fuck with my parents."
"Then you need to come back. That's it." The executioner leaned in. "Don't tell me you called me all this way in hopes of negotiating. Did you. Surely you are not that stupid."
Trez bared his fangs, but then dialed shit back. "There's something you want. Everyone has a price."
The executioner reached up and slowly took off that hood. The face behind the folds of black cloth was handsome as sin ... and had eyes with all the warmth of winter granite.
"Why would I risk my own life for your parents? If I disobey an order, there are consequences--and none of you are worth them."
"You can talk to the queen. She listens to you."
"Assuming that is true, and I'm not saying it is, why would I do that for you?"
"Because there's something you want."
"Since you seem to know everything, what exactly do you think that is," the executioner said in a bored tone.
"You're stuck there as much as any of them are. I remember what that's like--and I can assure you, life on this side of those walls is so much better."
"Which is why you look like shit, then?"
"Think about it. I can get you anything on the outside. Anything."
The executioner's eyes narrowed. "Sparing them is not going to save you."
"Killing them isn't going to bring me back. And that's why you'd do it, right? So go to the queen, tell her you've spoken to me directly--and I don't care whether you kill them. Then suggest that she strip them of everything they've been given--the quarters they live in, the clothes and jewels they've bought with the bounty they received, the food in their cupboards. Everything. That will make the queen whole again. She'll have lost nothing, be out nothing--"
"Bullshit. She doesn't have a half for her daughter. All that 'restitution' doesn't solve the fact that the princess has no mate."
"It's not going to be me. I'm telling you right now. You guys can fuck my father and mother up, you can threaten me with bodily harm, you can trash my house--"
"What if I just take you now?"
Trez outed the gun he'd shoved in his waistband at the small of his back. He didn't point it at s'Ex. He put it right under his own chin.
"If you try to, I'll pull this trigger. Then you have a dead body, and unless that daughter of hers is a sick bitch, she ain't gonna want me then."
s'Ex went inanimately still. "You're out of your fucking mind."
"Anything you want on the outside, s'Ex. You take care of this for me, and I'll take care of you."
As the queen's executioner considered the deal, Trez breathed smoothly, and thought of the only two people who really mattered. Selena ... Jesus Christ, he wanted her, but he was no good for the likes of that Chosen. Hell, even if this flier of a negotiation worked, he was still going to be a pimp, and there was no changing his past.
And then there was iAm.
The idea of losing his brother was ... he couldn't even put it into thought. But the male was going to be better off without him if he couldn't fix this problem.
"I'm surprised that you want to save your parents this badly," s'Ex said offhandedly.
"Are you kidding me? If they lose their station, it's worse than death for them. What they did to me has ruined my life and my brother's. That shit's my revenge. Besides, like I said, no matter what you do with them, I'm not going back there."
The executioner broke off and strolled the length of the terrace, his robing swirling around him like the promise of violence, the puffs of his breath like a dragon breathing fire.
After a long moment, he clasped his hands behind his back, and returned.
It was a while before he finally spoke, and when he did, he wasn't looking at Trez. He was staring at the glass of the apartment.
"I like this place."
Trez kept the gun to his chin, but felt a stab of ... hope? Well, not that cheery an emotion, certainly. But maybe there was a solution after all.
s'Ex lifted a brow. "Three bedrooms, two and a half baths, nice kitchen. Plenty of light. But the beds are the best--big beds in there."
"You want this, it's yours."
As s'Ex's eyes slid back to him, Trez heard the phrase deal with the devil over and over in his head.
"It's missing something."
"What."
"Women. I want women brought to me here. I'll tell you when. And I want three or four at a time."
"You got it. Name the number and the hour and I'll bring them to you."
"So sure of yourself."
"What the fuck do you think I do for a living."
s'Ex's eyes flared. "I thought you were a club owner."
"I don't just sell booze," he muttered.
"Hmm, what a job." The executioner frowned. "Just so we're clear, she may order me to go after your brother."
"Then I'm going to have to kill you."
s'Ex threw his head back and laughed. "Very cocky."
"Let me make myself perfectly clear. You touch iAm and I will find you. Your last breath will be mine and your heart will still be warm when I take it out of your chest and eat it raw."
"You know, it's a wonder we don't get along better."
Trez put out his free hand. "Have we come to terms?"
"There is the queen to consider. I may not be able to sway her. And just so you're aware, if she doesn't go for it, your deadline will have passed."
"So kill them." He held s'Ex's black stare without wavering. "I mean it."
The executioner tilted his head, as if considering all angles. "Yes, evidently you do. Meet me here at noon tomorrow with a sample--and I'll see what I can do in the Territory."
Before s'Ex disappeared, the male clasped the palm that was offered briefly. And then he was gone, like a nightmare banished upon waking.
Unfortunately ... Trez knew the male would be back.
The question was, with what kind of news. And what kind of appetite.
THIRTY-EIGHT
It was an hour past sundown when Abalone left his home, dematerializing off his side lawn. The night was bitterly cold, and as he re-formed on the estate of one of the glymera's wealthies
t families, he took a moment to breathe until his sinuses went numb.
Others were gathering, the males and females appearing out of the darkness, straightening their furs and fine clothes and jewels before striding toward the light.
With a heavy heart, he followed.
The grand carved doors of the mansion were held open by doggen, the staff unmoving in their livery, naught but blinking stops.
The lady of the house, such that she was, was standing under a chandelier in the foyer, her dress a bright red couture number that fell to the ground in drapes of silk. Her jewels were rubies, the flashes at her throat and her ears and her wrists an ostentatious display.
For no particular reason, he thought that the true queen of the race's red gems were much better, bigger, clearer. He had seen an oil painting of the majestic female back in the Old Country, and even distilled through paint and age, the Saturnine Ruby and its counterparts had had a resplendence that would destroy the pretense before him.
The hostess's mate was nowhere to be seen. But then again, that male had difficulty standing for long periods of time.
Not long for the world, he was.
The receiving line that had formed proceeded apace, and soon enough Abalone was kissing the powdered cheek of the female.
"So glad you could come," she said grandly, flicking a hand in the direction behind her. "The dining room, if you will."
As her rubies flashed, he pictured his daughter as such, a grand lady in a grand house with glassy eyes.
Mayhap the punishment for not going along with this affront to the throne was worth it. He had found love with his shellan for the years she had been on the Earth, but that had been luck, he'd come to realize. Most of his contemporaries, now slaughtered in the raids, had been in loveless, sexless relationships that had revolved around the party circuit instead of the familial dinner table.
He did not want that for his daughter.
Yet, if love had happened for him, surely there was a chance for her even in the glymera?
Right?
Walking into the dining room, he found that it was just as it had been when the King had addressed them all so recently: the long thin table was moved out and the twenty or so chairs were set up in rows. This time, however, the survivors of the aristocracy were settling in along with their mates.
Usually shellans were not included in Council meetings, but there was nothing usual about this gathering. Or the last.
And indeed, the gathered should have been more somber, he thought as he picked a silk-covered seat in the back: As opposed to showing any respect for the historical significance, the danger, the unprecedented nature of all this, they were chatting among themselves, the gentlemales blustering, the ladies casting their hands this way and that so that their jewels flashed.
Indeed, Abalone was alone in the back row, and instead of greeting those whom he knew, he freed the button on his suit jacket and crossed his leg at the knee. When somebody lit up a cigar, he took a cheroot out and did the same, just to give himself something to do. And as a doggen immediately showed up at his elbow with an ashtray on a brass stand, he nodded thanks and focused on tapping the ash.
He was small potatoes to all of them, because he had long ago decided that under the radar was best. His blood had seen firsthand the cruelties of court and society, and he had learned that lesson through reading the diaries that had been passed down to him. The truth was, he had financial resources that all of them in this room collectively could barely meet.
Thank you, Apple computer.
Best investment anyone in the eighties could have made. And then there had been big pharma in the nineties. And before that? The steel corporations and railroad companies around the turn of the century.
He'd always had a knack for where humans were going to want to go with both their enthusiasms and their necessities.
If the glymera knew this, his daughter would be a commodity of great value.
Which was another reason he didn't talk about his net worth.
Incredible how far his bloodline had come over the centuries. And to think they owed it all to this King's father.
Ten minutes later, the room was full--and that, more than the party-party affect, was the sign that the glymera had at least some appreciation of the magnitude of what they were doing. Fashionably late did not apply this evening; the doors were going to be locked right about ...
He checked his watch.
... now.
Sure enough, there was a reverberation of sound as heavy wood slid home.
All and sundry sat and went silent, and that was when he was able to count the heads and find out who was missing. Rehvenge, the leahdyre, of course--he had allied himself with Wrath and no one was going to shake that tie. Marissa was also missing, although her brother, Havers, was here--but then she was mated to that Brother no one really knew who was supposedly from Wrath's line.
Naturally, she would be absent as well--
The paneled doors on the right side of the fireplace opened and six males walked in. Instantly, the assembled straightened in their seats. He recognized two of them immediately--the aristocratic-looking one in the front ... and the ugly harelipped one in the back who had come to visit him with Ichan and Tyhm. The four in between were shades of the same dark hue: big-bodied, sharp-eyed fighters, who were alert but not twitchy, ready but not jumping the gun.
Their control was the scariest thing about them.
Only the unafraid could be that relaxed in this situation--
The lady of the house led her hellren in, the male bent like the head of the cane he used with his free hand, his hair white, his face lined like pleated drapes.
She sat him down as if he were a child, arranging his suit coat, smoothing his bright red tie.
Then she addressed the assembled, hands clasped like a soprano about to belt out an aria to a packed house. Her glow at the attention turned upon her was wholly inappropriate, in Abalone's mind.
In fact, this whole thing was a nightmare, he thought as he tapped his ashes again.
As her mouth got to working, spewing out thank-yous and acknowledgments, he wondered how things were going to fare for her after her "beloved" went unto the Fade. Undoubtedly, that depended upon the will and whether this was a second mating and if there were young of the blooded line preceding her in the race to the assets.
Ichan was the next to take the stage. "...crossroads ... necessary action ... work of Tyhm to expose the weakness set before the race ... half-breed mate ... quarter-bred heir..."
It was the rhetoric that had been spelled out to him, the recap simply posturing to pretend that this was the first anyone had heard of it. But all had been prepped, the expectations laid out beforehand, the repercussions avowed as necessary.
Abalone glanced over to the far corner of the room. Tyhm, the solicitor, was standing with all the prepossession of a coatrack, his long, thin body held tightly upon its vertical. He was nervous, his eyes both rapt and blinking over much.
"...vote of no confidence must be unanimous for this super-majority of the Council. Further, your signatures will be affixed with seals upon this document prepared by Tyhm." Ichan held up a parchment with its Old Language symbols drawn with care in blue ink--and then motioned to a lineup of multicolored ribbons, a sterling-silver bowl of red candles, and a stack of white linen napkins. "All of your colors are present here."
Abalone glanced down at the massive gold signet ring that sat heavily on his hand. It was the one his father had worn, the crest carved so deeply in the metal that even after the passage of centuries, the outline, the swirls, the icons were obvious.
Verily, the ring's gold had no doubt been shiny back when it had been cast, but now it was matte from a patina of wear and tear well-earned by the males of his family. Honorably earned.
This was wrong, he thought once again. This entire construct against Wrath was false, drummed up only to serve the ambitions of aristocrats who were not worthy of the throne
: They did not care about the purity of the heir's blood. It was just the vocabulary assigned to justify their goal.
"May we have a vote?" Ichan looked out over the crowd. "Now."
This was wrong.
Abalone's hand began to shake such that he dropped the cheroot on the floor--and he could not move to pick it up.
Say no to this, he told himself. Stand up for what is--
"All in favor, say, 'Aye.'"
He did not speak. Although not because he had the courage to be the sole "nay" when dissent was requested.
He did not open his mouth then, either.
Abalone hung his head as the gavel hit wood.
"The motion is carried. The vote of no confidence passed. Let us all now join as one to send this message of change out unto our race."
Abalone bent down and retrieved his cheroot. The fact that it had burned a small hole in the varnished floor seemed apt.
He was leaving a smudge on the legacy of his ancestors this night.
Instead of going forward to the parchment, he stayed where he was as each family representative and all the females went up and postured at Ichan, playing their part as seals and ribbons were affixed. It was like watching actors on a stage, each of them enjoying their moment in the light, the focus on them.
Did they know what they were doing? he thought. Turning over the reins to whom--Ichan? As a front for those fighters? This was disastrous--
"Abalone?"
Shaking himself at the sound of his name, he looked up. The entire room was staring at him.
Ichan smiled from up front. "You are the last, Abalone."
Now was the opportunity to live up to the name of his grandfather. Now was his moment to voice his opinion that this was a crime, this was--
"Abalone." Ichan was still smiling, but there was stark demand in his tone. "Your turn. For your blood."
As he put the cheroot down in the ashtray, his hand was shaking anew, his palm sweaty. Clearing his throat, he got to his feet, thinking of the bravery of his bloodline, the way his ancestor had done what was right in spite of the risk.
The image of his daughter cut through his wellspring of emotion.
