“Oh … that’s right.” Their parents had been sitting with the queen’s Primaries, as they were called. Front and center. Smiling.
They hadn’t acknowledged him or iAm when they’d come in, but that was not unusual. Once sold, he had become the queen’s. And once drafted into service to smooth things over, iAm was no longer theirs, either.
“They never looked back, did they,” Trez murmured. “I’m just a commodity to them. And, man, they got a good price.”
iAm stayed silent, as was his way. He just sat there, stroking that cat.
“How much time do I have?” Trez asked.
“You have to go tonight.” Dark eyes shifted over. “Like now.”
“And if I don’t…” There was no reason to answer that, and iAm didn’t bother: If he didn’t get out of bed and turn himself in, his parents were going to be slaughtered. Or worse.
Probably much worse.
“They’re such a part of the system,” he said. “Those two really got what they wanted.”
“So you’re not going.”
Once he set foot back within the Territory, he was never going to see the outside world again. The queen’s guard was going to shut him in that maze of corridors, lock him up so that he was the male equivalent of a harem, separate him even from his brother.
And meanwhile, his parents would live on, uncaring.
“She looked at me,” he muttered. “That night of the party. Her eyes went to mine—and she gave me this secret little smile of superiority. Like she’d made all the right moves, and the added benefit had been that she hadn’t had to deal with me. What the fuck kind of mother does that?”
“So you’re going to let them die.”
“No.”
“So you’re going back.”
“No.”
iAm shook his head. “It’s binary, Trez. I know you’re pissed off at them, at the queen, at a hundred thousand things. But we’ve reached the crossroads, and there are only two options. You’ve really got to understand that—and I’ll go back with you.”
“No, you’ll stay here.” As his muddled head tried to wrap itself around the variables, his brain was all fizzle, no flash. “Besides, I’m not going.”
Shit, he needed to feed before he tried to deal with this.
“Fuck, that human blood is for crap,” he mumbled, rubbing his temples like maybe the friction could jump-start his IQ. “You know what? I really can’t talk about this right now—and I’m not being an asshole. I literally can’t think.”
“I’ll send someone.” iAm got up and went to the door that separated their suites. “And then you need to make your mind up. You’ve got two hours.”
“Will you hate me,” he blurted.
“About them?”
“Yeah.”
It was a long while before he got an answer. And the cat stopped purring, iAm’s hand stilling at that throat.
“I don’t know.”
Trez nodded. “Fair enough.”
The door was shut and his brother well on his way when Trez’s brain coughed up a hey-wait.
“Not Selena,” he called out. “iAm! Yo! Not Selena!”
He did not trust himself with her on a good night—the last thing he needed was to get close to her right now.
TWENTY-SEVEN
As Wrath knocked on the door in front of him, he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. Maybe he’d luck out and there’d be no answer.
He needed more time before doing something like this—
Denied. Things opened up and a deep voice said, “Hey. What’s doing?”
As he tried to think of an answer to that, he closed his eyes behind his wraparounds. “Z…”
“Yeah. Hey.” The brother cleared his throat. Which really drove home the silence thing. “Yeah. So. What’s up?”
Abruptly, like the universe was sending him a shot in the nuts, a young’s cry rippled out. “Ah, listen, I was just getting her up. You mind?”
Wrath dragged a hand through his hair. “No, no, yeah, it’s cool.”
“You want me to come to your office afterward?”
He wondered what the room looked like, and painted the space according to what his Beth had said was in it. Cluttered, he thought. Homey. Cheerful.
Pink.
Nothing that Z would have been caught dead in before he’d met Bella.
“Wrath? What’s going on here?”
“You mind if I come in?”
“Ah … sure. Yeah, I mean, Bella’s working out so we’ve got some privacy. But you’re going to want to—”
Chhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
“—watch where you step.”
Wrath lifted up his shitkicker and whatever toy he’d crushed reinflated with a wheeze. “Fuck, did I break it?”
“I think it’s a dog toy, actually. Yeah, I’m pretty sure she picked it up from George downstairs. You want it back?”
“He’s got plenty. She can have it.”
As he shut the door, he was painfully aware that they were each talking about their young—only Wrath’s had four paws and a tail.
Least he didn’t have to worry about George succeeding him or being blind.
Z’s voice came from deeper in the room. “You can sit on the foot of the bed if you go fifteen feet straight ahead of you.”
“Thanks.”
He didn’t particularly want to park it, but if he stayed standing, he was going to want to pace and it wouldn’t be long before he tripped over something that wasn’t a toy.
Over in the corner, Z spoke softly to his daughter, the words rolling into some kind of rhythm like he was talking through a song. In reply, there were all kinds of cooing.
And then came something that sounded terrifyingly clear: “Dada.”
Wrath winced behind his wraparounds, and figured he might as well get this over with. “Beth wants me to talk to you.”
“About?”
As he imagined the Z he knew so well, he pictured the brother he’d been convinced was going to implode and take out half a dozen of them with him: skull trim, scarred face, eyes that had been black and opaque as a shark’s until Bella had come. Then they had gone yellow—at least as long as he wasn’t pissed off, and that didn’t happen anymore unless he was out in the field.
Big turnaround.
“Are you holding her?” Wrath asked.
There was a pause. “As soon as I get this bow tied in the back—hold on, girlie. Okay, up you go. She’s in a pink dress that Cormia made her by hand. I hate pink. I like it on her, though—but keep that to yourself.”
Wrath flexed his hands. “What’s it like?”
“Not totally hating pink? Pretty fuck—ehrm, frickin’ emasculating.”
“Yeah.”
“Do not tell me Lassiter’s been metrosexualizing even you. I heard he talked Manello into going for a pedicure with him—but I’m praying that’s just gossip.”
It was hard to ignore how easily the brother was talking. Like normal, really. Then again, he had his family, his shellan was safe, and he’d been disappearing into the basement with Mary on a regular basis for how long now?
Nobody knew precisely what they talked about down there. But everyone could guess.
“Actually, I don’t know why I’m here,” Wrath said roughly.
Liar.
Footfalls came forward, and then there was a regular creaking, like the male had taken a seat in a rocking chair and was going back and forth. Apparently, Nalla liked whatever positioning had occurred, the young doing more of that cooing.
A soft squeaking suggested Z had picked up another toy and was keeping her occupied.
“This about Beth spending time with Layla?”
“Am I the only person who didn’t know?”
“You don’t leave your office much.”
“One more reason not to want to have a kid.”
“So it’s true.”
Wrath bowed his head and wished his vision was working so he could pretend to inspect something. The bedspread. His boots. A watch.
“Yeah, Beth wants one.” He shook his head. “I mean, how did you do it? Getting Bella pregnant—you must have been terrified at the idea.”
“There was no planning involved. She went into her needing, and when push came to shrug … I mean, I had the drugs. I begged her to let me take care of her that way. In the end, though, I did what a male does to see his female through it. The pregnancy was rough, but the birth scared me more than anything I’ve ever been through in my life.”