by J. R. Ward
Whatever. He didn’t care what was expected of him—he was not going back and being condemned to a life of service.
He didn’t care if it was to the queen’s daughter.
TWELVE
It was late in the afternoon when Wrath hit the wall. He was at his desk, ass on his father’s throne, fingers running over a report written in Braille, when all of a sudden he couldn’t take one more damn word of text.
Shoving the papers aside, he cursed and ripped his wraparounds off his face. Just as he was about to throw them at a wall, a muzzle kicked his elbow.
Putting an arm around his golden retriever, he tightened his hand on the soft fur that grew along the dog’s flanks. “You always know, don’t you.”
George burrowed in deep, pressing his chest into Wrath’s leg—which was the cue that someone wanted to be up and over.
Wrath leaned down and gathered all ninety pounds up in his arms. As he settled the four paws, lion’s mane, and flowing tail so that everything fit, he supposed it was a good thing he was so fucking tall. Big thighs offered a bigger lap.
And the act of stroking all that fur calmed him, even though it didn’t ease his mind.
His father had been a great king, capable of withstanding countless hours of ceremony, endless nights filled with the drafting of proclamations and summonses, whole months and years of protocol and tradition. And that was before you layered on the perennial stream of bitching that came at you from every corner: letters, phone calls, e-mails—although of course the latters hadn’t been an issue in his pop’s era.
Wrath had been a fighter once. A damn good one.
Putting his hand up, he felt along the side of his neck, to the place where that bullet had entered him—
The knock on the door was sharp and to the point, a demand more than a respectful request for entrance.
“Come in, V,” he called out.
The astringent witch-hazel scent that preceded the Brother was a clear tip-off that somebody was feeling pissy. And sure enough, that deep voice had a nasty edge.
“I finally finished the ballistic testing. Damn fragments always take forever.”
“And?” Wrath prompted.
“It’s a one hundred percent match.” As Vishous sat down in the chair across the desk, the thing creaked under the weight. “We got ’em.”
Wrath exhaled, some of the impotent buzz draining from his brain.
“Good.” He ran his palm from the top of George’s boxy head down to his ribs. “This is our ammunition, then.”
“Yup. What was going to happen anyway is now nice and legal.”
The Brotherhood had known all along who had been on the trigger of the shot that had nearly killed him back in the fall—and the duty of picking off the Band of Bastards one by one was something they were looking at as so much more than a sacred duty to the race.
“Listen, I gotta be honest, true?”
“When are you not?” Wrath drawled.
“Why the hell are you tying our hands?”
“Didn’t know I was.”
“With Tohr.”
Wrath repositioned George so that the blood supply to his left leg wasn’t completely cut off by the dog’s weight. “He asked for the proclamation.”
“We all have a right to take out Xcor. That asshole is the prize we all want. It shouldn’t be restricted to just him.”
“He asked.”
“It makes it more difficult to kill the bastard. What if one of us finds him out there and Tohr isn’t with us?”
“Then you bring him in.” There was a long, tense silence. “Do you hear me, V. You bring that piece of shit in, and let Tohr do his duty.”
“The goal is to eliminate the Band of Bastards.”
“And how’s that keeping you from the job?” When there was no reply, Wrath shook his head. “Tohr was in that van with me, my brother. He saved my life. Without him…”
As the sentence drifted, V cursed softly—like he was running the math on that memory, and coming to the conclusion that the Brother who had had to cut a plastic tube free of his CamelBak and performed a tracheotomy on his king in a moving vehicle miles away from any medical help might have sliiiiiiiightly more right to kill the perp.
Wrath smiled a little. “Tell you what—just because I’m nice guy, I’ll promise you all a crack at him before Tohr kills the motherfucker with his bare hands. Deal?”
V laughed. “That does take the sting off of it.”
The knock that interrupted them was quiet and respectful—a couple of soft taps that seemed to suggest whoever it was would be happy to be blown off, content to wait, and hoping for an immediate audience all at the same time.
“Yeah,” Wrath called out.
Expensive cologne announced his solicitor’s arrival: Saxton always smelled good, and that fit his persona. From what Wrath remembered, in addition to the guy’s great education and the quality of his thinking, he dressed in the fashion of a well-bred son of the glymera. I.e., perfectly.
Not that Wrath had seen it recently.
He put his wraparounds on in a quick surge. It was one thing to be exposed in front of V; not going to happen in front of the young, efficient male who was coming through the door—no matter how much Sax was trusted and consulted.
“What have you got for me?” Wrath said as George’s tail brushed back and forth in greeting.
There was a long pause. “Mayhap I should come back?”
“You can say anything in front of my brother.”
Another long pause, during which V was probably eyeing the attorney like he wanted to take a chunk out of his fancy, pretty-boy ass for suggesting there was an information divide that needed to be respected.
“Even if it’s about the Brotherhood?” Saxton said levelly.
Wrath could practically feel V’s icy eyes swing around. And sure enough, the brother bit out, “What about us.”
When Saxton remained silent, Wrath clued into what it was. “Can you give us a minute, V?”
“Are you fucking me?”
Wrath picked up George and put him down on the floor. “I just need five minutes.”
“Fine. Have fun with it, my lord,” V spat as he got to his feet. “Fuckin’ A.”
A moment later, the door slammed shut.
Saxton cleared his throat. “I could have come back.”
“If I’d wanted that, I would have told you to. Talk to me.”
A deep breath was taken and let out, as if the civilian was staring at that exit and wondering if V’s pissed-off departure might just cause him to wake up dead later on in the day. “Ah…the audit of the Old Laws is complete, and I can provide you with a comprehensive listing of all sections that require amendment, along with proposed rewording, and a timeline on which the changes could be made if—”
“Yes or no. That’s all I care about.”
Going by the whisper-soft sound of loafers treading an Aubusson, Wrath extrapolated that his lawyer was going for a little walkabout. From memory, he pictured the study, with its pale blue walls and its curlicue molding and all the flimsy, antique French furniture.
Saxton made more sense in this room than Wrath did with his leathers and his muscle shirt.
But the law prescribed who was to be king.
“You need to start flapping your gums, Saxton. I will guarantee you that you won’t be fired if you tell me how it is straight up. Try editing the truth or softballing it? And you’re out on your ass, I don’t care who you’re sleeping with.”
There was another throat clearing. And then that cultured voice came at him from head-on across the desk. “Yes, you can do as you wish. I have concerns about the timing, however.”
“Why? ’Cuz it’s going to take you two years to make the amendments?”
“You’re making a fundamental change to a section of society that protects the species—and it could further destabilize your rule. I am not unaware of the pressures you’re under, and it would be remiss of me not to p
oint out the obvious. If you alter the prescription of who may enter the Black Dagger Brotherhood, it could well give even further opening for dissent—this is unlike anything you’ve attempted during your reign, and it’s coming in an era of extreme social upset.”
Wrath inhaled long and slow through his nose—and caught a whole lot of no bad juju: there was no evidence to suggest the guy was being duplicitous or not wanting to do the work.
And he had a point.
“I appreciate the insight,” Wrath said. “But I’m not going to bow to the past. I refuse to. And if I had doubts about the male in question, I wouldn’t be doing this.”
“How do the other Brothers feel?”
“That’s none of your business.” In fact, he hadn’t broached this idea with them yet. After all, why bother if there was no possibility of moving forward. Tohr and Beth were the only ones who knew exactly how far he was prepared to take this. “How long will it take you to make it legal?”
“I can have everything drawn up by dawn tomorrow—nightfall at the latest.”
“Do it.” Wrath made a fist and banged it onto the arm of the throne. “Do it now.”
“As you wish, my lord.”
There was a rustle of fine clothing, as if the male were bowing, and then more padding feet before one half of the double doors opened and shut.
Wrath stared off into the nothingness he was provided by his blind eyes.
Dangerous times was right. And frankly, the smart thing to do was add more Brothers, not think of reasons not to—although the counter-argument to that was, if those three boys were willing to fight alongside them without being inducted, why bother?
But fuck that. It was old-school to want to honor someone who had put his life on the line so your own could continue.
The real issue, even apart from the laws, however…was, What would the others think?
That was more likely to put the kibosh on this than any legal snafu.
As night fell hours later, Qhuinn lay naked in tangled sheets, neither his body nor his mind at rest, even as he slept.
In his dream, he was back at the side of the road, walking off from his family’s house. He had a duffel over one shoulder, a proclamation of disinheritance shoved into his waistband, and a wallet that was eleven dollars away from being empty.
Everything was crystal clear—nothing denatured due to memory’s faulty playback: from the humid summer night to the sound of his New Rocks on the pebbles at the shoulder…to the fact that he was aware he had nothing in his future.
He had nowhere to go. No home to return to.
No prospects. Not even a past anymore.
When the car pulled in behind him, he knew it was John and Blay—
Except, no. It was not his friends. It was death in the form of four males in black robes who streamed out of four doors and swarmed around him.
An Honor Guard. Sent by his father to beat him for dishonoring the family’s name.
How ironic. One would assume that knifing a sociopath who’d been trying to rape your buddy would be considered a good thing. But not when the assailant was your perfect first cousin.
In slow motion, Qhuinn sank down into his fighting stance, prepared to meet the attack. There were no eyes to look directly into, no faces to note—and there was a reason for that: The fact that the robes obscured their identities was supposed to make the person who’d transgressed feel as though all of society was disapproving of the actions he had taken.
Circling, circling, closing in…eventually they were going to take him down, but he was going to hurt them in the process.
And he did.
But he was also right: After what seemed like hours of defense, he ended up on his back, and that was when the beating really happened. Lying on the asphalt, he covered his head and his nut sac as best he could, the blows raining down on him, black robes flying like the wings of crows as he was struck again and again.
After a little while, he felt no pain.
He was going to die here at the side of the road—
“Stop! We’re not supposed to kill him!”
His brother’s voice cut through it all, sinking in in a way that the pummeling no longer did—
Qhuinn woke up with a shout, throwing his arms over his face, his thighs thrusting up to protect that groin of his—
No fists or clubs were coming at him.
And he was not at the side of the road.
Willing on some lights, he looked around the bedroom that he’d been staying in since he’d been kicked out of his family’s home. It didn’t suit him in the slightest, the silk wallpaper and the antiques something his mother would have picked out—and yet at the moment, the sight of all that old crap someone else had chosen, bought, hung, and kept after made him calm down.
Even as the memory lingered.
God, the sound of his brother’s voice.
His own brother had been part of the Honor Guard that had been sent for him. Then again, that sent a more powerful message to the glymera about how seriously the family was taking things—and it wasn’t as if the guy hadn’t been trained. He’d been taught the martial arts, although naturally he’d never been allowed to fight. Hell, he’d barely been permitted to spar.
Too valuable to the bloodline. If he got hurt? The one who was going to walk in Daddio’s footsteps and eventually become a leahdyre of the Council could be compromised.
Small risk of a catastrophic injury to the family.
Qhuinn, on the other hand? Before he’d been disavowed, he’d been put into the training program, maybe in hopes that he’d sustain a mortal injury in the field and have the good grace to die honorably for everyone.
Stop! We’re not supposed to kill him!
That had been the last time he’d heard his brother’s voice. Shortly after Qhuinn had been thrown out of the house, the Lessening Society had gone on a raid and slaughtered them all, Father, Mother, sister—and Luchas.
All gone. And even though a part of him had hated them for all they’d done to him, he wouldn’t wish that kind of death on anyone.
Qhuinn rubbed his face.
Shower time. That was all he knew.
Getting up on his feet, he stretched until his back cracked, and checked his phone. A group text to everyone announced there was a meeting in Wrath’s study—and a quick glance at the clock told him he was out of time.
Which was not a bad thing. As he flipped into high gear and hustled into the bath, it was a relief to focus on real stuff instead of the bullshit past.
Nothing he could do about the latter except curse it. And shit knew he’d done enough of that for twelve lifetimes.
Wakey-wakey, he thought.
Time to go to work.
THIRTEEN
Around the same time Qhuinn was cleaning himself up at the main house, Blay came awake in the chair in that little underground office. The headache that served as his alarm clock was not from the port—it was from the fact that he’d skipped Last Meal. But man, he wished the booze had been behind the pounding in his skull. He could have used the out that he’d been a total, sloppy, lost-his-mind mess when he’d come down here.
Cursing, he withdrew his legs from the desktop and sat up. His body was stiff as a board, aches blooming in all kinds of places as he willed on the overhead light.
Crap. He was still naked.
But come on, like the modesty elves would have snuck in and clothed him in his sleep? Just so he wasn’t reminded of what he’d done?
Putting his shorts on, he shoved his feet into his trainers and then reached for his shirt—before remembering what he’d used it for.
As he stared at the crumpled folds of cotton and felt the stiff places in the soft cloth, he realized that no amount of rationalization was going to change the fact that he’d cheated on Saxton. Physical contact with someone else was only one way of measuring infidelity—and yeah, that was the biggest divide. But what he’d done last night had been a violation of the relationship,
even though the orgasm had been caused by his brain, not his hand.
Getting to his feet, he was half-dead as he went to the door and opened it a crack. If there was anyone around, he was going to duck back inside and wait for a clear shot into the corridor: He so completely did not want to get caught coming out of this empty office, half-clothed and looking like hell. The upside to living at the compound was that you were surrounded by people who cared about you; the downside was that everybody had eyes and ears, and no one’s business was just their own.
When he didn’t hear voices or footsteps, he exploded out into the hall and started walking briskly, like he’d been somewhere for a good reason and was heading to his room for an equally important purpose. He had a feeling he’d gotten away with it when he hit the tunnel. Sure, he didn’t usually go shirtless, but a lot of the Brothers or males did when they were coming from the gym—nothing unusual.
And he really felt like he’d won the lottery when he stepped out from under the mansion’s grand staircase and got another good dose of empty-bowling-alley. The only problem was that, going by the sounds of china being cleared in the dining room, it must be later than he’d thought. He’d obviously missed First Meal—bad news for his head, but at least he had some protein bars in his room.
His luck ran out as he took the stairs up to the second floor. Standing in front of the closed doors to Wrath’s study, Qhuinn and John were dressed for fighting, their weapons strapped on, their bodies covered in black leather.
No way in hell was he looking at Qhuinn. Just having the guy in his peripheral vision was bad enough.
“What’s going on?” Blay asked.
We’ve got a meeting now, John signed. Or at least, we’re supposed to. Didn’t you get the text?
Shit, he had no idea where his phone was. His room? Hopefully.
“I’ll hit the shower and be right back.”
You might not have to rush. The Brothers have been sequestered for the last half hour. I don’t have any idea what’s going on.
Next to the guy, Qhuinn was rocking back and forth in his shitkickers, his weight shifting like he was on a walk even as he went nowhere.
