by J. R. Ward
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 point 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.
“Five minutes,” Blay muttered. “That’s all I need.”
He hoped the Brotherhood would open those doors by then—the last thing he wanted was to get stuck passing time anywhere near Qhuinn.
Cursing as he went, Blay jogged down to his room. Usually he took his time getting ready, especially if Sax was in the mood, but this was going to be a wham-bam, thank you, ma—
As he opened his door, he froze.
What the…hell?
Duffels. On the bed. So many of them he couldn’t see more than an inch and a half of the king-size duvet—and he knew whose they were. Matching Guccis, in white with the navy blue logo and the navy blue and red cloth strapping—because according to Saxton, the traditional brown-on-brown with the red and green was “too obvious.”
Blay shut the door quietly. His first thought was, Holy shit, Saxton knew. Somehow, the guy knew what had happened in the training center.
The male in question came out of the bathroom with an armful of shampoo, conditioner, and product. He stopped dead.
“Hi,” Blay said. “Taking a vacation?”
After a tense moment, Saxton calmly came over, put his load down in a travel bag, and turned back around. As always, his beautiful blond hair was swept off his forehead in thick waves. And he was dressed perfectly, in another tweed suit with matching waistcoat, a red cravat and red pocket square adding just the right accent of color.
“I think you know what I’m going to say.” Saxton smiled sadly. “Because you’re far from stupid—just as I am.”
Blay went to sit down on the bed, but had to recalibrate because there was nowhere to put himself. He ended up on the chaise lounge, and, with a discreet lean to one side, he tucked the wadded shirt under the skirting. Out of sight. It was the least he could do.
God, was this really happening?
“I don’t want you to go,” Blay heard himself say roughly.
“I believe that.”
Blay looked across all those duffels. “Why now?”
He thought of the pair of them just the day before, under the sheets, having hard sex. They had been so close—although if he were brutally honest, maybe that had just been physically.
Take out the maybe.
“I’ve been fooling myself.” Saxton shook his head. “I thought I could keep going with you like this—but I can’t. It’s killing me.”
Blay closed his eyes. “I know I’ve been out a lot in the field—”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
As Qhuinn took up all the space between them, Blay wanted to scream. But what good would that do: it appeared that he and Saxton had gotten to the same difficult corner at the same sorrowful moment.
His lover looked over the luggage. “I’ve just finished that assignment for Wrath. It’s a good time to make a break, move out and find another job—”
“Wait, so you’re leaving the king as well?” Blay frowned. “However things stand between us, you need to keep working for him. That is bigger than our relationship.”
Saxton’s eyes dipped down. “I suspect that is far easier for you to say.”
“Not true,” Blay countered grimly. “God, I’m so…sorry.”
“You’ve done nothing wrong—you need to know that I’m not angry at you, or bitter. You’ve always been honest, and I’ve always known that things were going to end like this. I just didn’t know the timeline—I didn’t know…until I reached the end. Which is now.”
Oh, fuck.
Even though he knew Saxton was right, Blay felt a compulsive need to fight for them. “Listen, I’ve been really distracted for the last week, and I’m sorry. But things have a way of regulating, and you and I will get back to normal—”
“I’m in love with you.”
Blay shut his mouth with a clap.
“So you see,” Saxton continued hoarsely, “it’s not that you have changed. It’s that I have—and I’m afraid my silly emotions have put us at quite a distance from each other.”
Blay surged to his feet and strode across the fine-napped carpet to the other male.
When he got to his destination, he was relieved to the point of tearing up that Saxton accepted his embrace. And as he held his first true lover against him, feeling that familiar difference in their heights and smelling that wonderful cologne, part of him wanted to debate this break up until they both gave in and kept trying.
But that wasn’t fair.
Like Saxton, he’d had the vague notion that things were going to end at some point. And like his lover, he was also surprised it was now.
That didn’t change the outcome, however.
Saxton stepped back. “I never meant to get emotionally involved.”
“I’m so sorry, I’m…I’m so sorry….” Shit, that was all that was coming out of his mouth. “I would give anything to be different. I wish I could…be different.”
“I know.” Saxton reached up and bru
shed a hand down the side of his face. “I forgive you—and you need to forgive yourself.”
Whatever, he wasn’t sure he could do that—especially as, at this moment, and as fucking usual, an emotional attachment he didn’t want and couldn’t change was yet again robbing him of something he wanted.
Qhuinn was a fucking curse to him, the guy really was.
* * *
About fifteen miles south of the Brotherhood’s mountaintop compound, Assail woke up on his circular bed in the grand master suite of his mansion on the Hudson. Above him, in the mirrored panels mounted on the ceiling, his naked body was gleaming in the soft glow of the lights installed around the base of the mattress. The octagonal room beyond was dark, the interior shutters still down, the fallen night hidden.
As he considered all the glass in the house, he knew so many vampires would have found these accommodations unacceptable. Most would have avoided the manse altogether.
Too much risk during daylight hours.
Assail, however, had never been bound by convention, and the dangers inherent in living in a building with so much access to light were something to be managed, not bound by.
Getting up, he went over to the desk, signed into his computer, and accessed the security system that monitored not just the house, but the grounds. Alerts had sounded several times during the earlier hours of the day, notifications not of an impending attack, but of some kind of activity that had been flagged by the security system’s filtering program.
In truth, he lacked the energy to be overly concerned, an unwelcome sign that he needed to feed—
Assail frowned as he reviewed the report.
Well, wasn’t this instructive.
And indeed, this was why he’d installed all his checks and balances.
On the images feed from the rear cameras, he watched as a figure dressed in snowfield camouflage traveled on cross-country skis through the forest, closing in on his house from the north. Whoever it was stayed hidden in and among the pines for the most part, and surveyed the property from various vantage points for approximately nineteen minutes…before traversing the westerly border of trees, crossing into the neighbor’s property, and going down onto the ice. Two hundred yards later the man stopped, got out the binoculars again, and stared at Assail’s home. Then he circled around the peninsula that jutted out into the river, reentered the forest, and disappeared.
