“We gotta talk.” Rehv smacked the tube into his palm like it was a baseball bat. “Now.”
Wrath responded with a vile string of curses. And then gritted out, “Fuck me, can you give me one hour to feed my fucking shellan after her needing?”
“No. We can’t. And we need the Brothers. All of them.” Rehv got to his feet with the help of his cane. “The glymera voted you out, my friend. And we need to drum up a response.”
Wrath didn’t move for the longest time. “On what grounds?”
“Your queen.”
That already pale face turned positively ashen.
“Fritz!” the King bellowed at the top of his lungs.
The butler materialized from the second-floor sitting room, as if he had been waiting to be summoned for hours.
“Yes, sire?”
It was with utter exhaustion that the King muttered, “Beth needs food. Bring her everything she could want. I put her in the bath—you’d better check on her now. She was weak and I don’t want her passing out and drowning.”
Fritz bowed so low, it was a wonder his baggy face didn’t brush the carpet. “Right away. At once.”
As the doggen hurried off, Wrath called after him, “And will you take my dog out? And then bring him into my office.”
“Of course, sire. My pleasure.”
Wrath turned and faced the open doors of his study like he was going to the gallows. “Rehv, call the Brotherhood.”
“Roger that. And Saxton needs to be in on the meeting. Someone’s got to render an opinion on the legalities of all this.”
Wrath didn’t respond. He just went into the pale blue room, a living shadow in the center of all the fussy French furniture.
In that moment, Saxton could see the weight bearing down on the male, feel the heat of the fire that burned at those feet, sense the lose-lose that had presented itself in this bend in the road. Wrath was the bow of the race’s ship, and as such … he was going to hit the glaciers first.
It was so thankless, all of it. The hours that male had spent chained to his father’s desk, the paperwork passing in front of him, a blur of pages that had been prepared by others, presented by Saxton, ruled upon by Wrath, and sent back out into the world.
An endless stream of sucking need.
Getting to his feet, Saxton straightened the clothes he’d been wearing since he’d gone to his father’s house and discovered the truth when it was too late.
Whatever was coming next? He was in Wrath’s corner—and not just because his father and he were estranged.
He knew all too well what it was like to be forced into a mold you didn’t fit—and then demonized for failing convention.
He and Wrath were kindred spirits.
Tragically.
In silence and with a heavy heart, Sola walked through the house she had shared with her grandmother, going from room to room, seeing everything and yet nothing.
“I can hire someone to do this,” Assail said quietly.
Stopping in the kitchen, she stood over the little round table and looked out the window. Even though there were no external lights on, she pictured the back porch, seeing it covered with snow. Seeing him standing there in the cold.
Little frustrating. She had come here with collapsed U-Haul boxes to pack up personal stuff—not reminisce about this man. But as she opened cupboards and made estimates about how much wadded newspaper she was going to need, he was all that was really on her mind: Not the house she was leaving, not the things she was going to have to let go of, not the years that had passed since the autumn day she and her grandmother had come here and decided that yes, this house would do for the two of them.
Lot of time had passed.
And yet the only thing on her mind was the man standing behind her.
“Marisol?”
She looked over her shoulder. “I’m sorry?”
“I asked where you would like to start?”
“Ah … upstairs, I think.”
Heading out into the living room, she picked up some of the unformed boxes, slipped some rolls of tape on her wrist, and took the stairs up. At the landing, she decided … her room.
It was the work of a moment to set up one of the medium-size boxes, the tape ripping out with a noise like fabric tearing, her teeth helping her scissor strips off, the four sides becoming solid and capable of holding things.
Her grandmother had been doing Sola’s laundry long enough that the woman had known what clothes were favorites and had already brought them over to Assail’s. What was left in the bureau were the second stringers, and she tossed them over without sweating any folding business: yoga pants that had been washed so many times they were dark gray, not black; turtlenecks that had lost their elastic around the throat but were still functional in a pinch; bras that were a little frayed at the cups; fleeces that had pilled up; jeans from high school that she used as a scale to judge her weight.
“Here,” Assail said gently.
“What…” As she looked at his handkerchief, she realized she was crying. “Sorry.”
Before she knew it, she’d sat down on her twin bed. And after blotting at her eyes, she stared at the handkerchief, running the fine fabric back and forth under her fingertips.
“What ails you?” he asked, his knees cracking as he knelt beside her.
Looking over, she studied his face. God, she couldn’t believe she’d ever thought it was harsh. It was … beautiful.
And his extraordinary moonlight-colored eyes were pools of compassion.
But she had a feeling that was going to change.
“I have to leave,” she said roughly.
“This house? Yes, of course. And we shall put it on the market, and you—”
“Caldwell.”
The stillness that came over him was as pronounced as a burst of activity—everything changed, even as he remained in the same position.
“Why.”
She took a deep breath. “I can’t … I can’t just stay with you forever.”
“Of course you can.”
“No, I can’t.” She refocused on his handkerchief. “I’m leaving in the morning and taking my grandmother with me.”
Assail burst up and paced around the cramped room. “But you are safe with me.”
“I can’t be a part of the life you’re living. I just … can’t.”
“My life? What life.”
“I know what’s coming next. With Benloise gone, you’re going to need to get your product somewhere—and you’re going to solve that problem in a way that puts you in charge of not just supplying Caldwell’s many retail customers, but wholesaling the eastern seaboard.”
“You know not what my plans are.”
“I know you, though. Dominance is what you do—and that’s not a bad thing. Unless you’re someone trying to get away from all”—she motioned her hand back and forth—“this.”
“You don’t need to be a part of my work.”
“Not the way it goes and you know it.” She glanced up at him. “Might be true if you’re a lawyer, but you’re not.”
“Yet you consider leaving me a better option?”
Funny, a part of her perked up that he was talking like they were a couple. But reality stomped that little wink of sunshine out. “You think you’ll start another career?”
The silence that followed answered that one the way she thought it would.
His voice was annoyed. “I fail to understand the abrupt turnaround.”
“I was kidnapped from my home, held against my will, and nearly raped.” As he recoiled as if she’d slapped him, she cursed. “It’s just … it’s about time I go legit and stay that way. I have enough money so that I won’t have to work right away, and I have another place.”
“Where.”
She ducked her eyes. “Not here.”
“You’re not even going to tell me where you’re going.”
“I think you’d come after me. And I’m too weak right now to say no.”
A sudden scent spiked in the air and she looked around, thinking of those cologne inserts that came in magazines. But nothing had changed—it was just the two of them alone in the house, no Glade PlugIns in sight.