Just not for a reason he would admit to anyone.
Without this . . . he had nothing.
What had started as an extension of his European businesses had grown into his raison d’être, the sole purpose he had in his life, the only drive that got him out of bed in the evening, and dressed, and out the door.
To be fair, he’d always enjoyed making money.
But ever since last winter . . .
Cursing, he leaned back in his leather chair and put his head in his hand. Then without looking, he reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and took out his phone.
He had memorized Sola’s number long ago.
But he hadn’t called it. Not since she had moved away from Caldwell to Miami with her grandmother. Not since she had left here to get out of exactly the kind of criminal life he was leading.
Going into his phone, he went to the numerical dial pad. As he had so many times before, he punched in the sequence of ten numbers, one after another, his fingertip finding and following the pattern he knew by heart.
No, he hadn’t called her. But on a regular basis he did this: ten numbers that were anything but random to him, punched into his phone . . . and cleared away without him having hit “send.”
If the King took his livelihood away? Then he was going to have fucking nothing to do but stew in the fact that the one woman he wanted was utterly unobtainable.
Woman. Not female.
She was human, not vampire. Hell, she didn’t even know that vampires existed.
And therein lay the catch. Even if he broke out of the drug dealing? It wasn’t like he could go down to Miami, show up on her doorstep, and be all like, Hey! Let’s pick up where we were!
Not going to happen—because sooner or later, his species was going to come out and then where were they going to be?
For some reason, the stillness and silence of his glass house sank in, reminding him exactly how alone he was—and would be if he stopped his drugging. Hell, his cousins were not going to be content with sitting around and mourning a female they were not in love with—he would lose them, too.
God, he was rather pathetic, wasn’t he.
More to the point, what was he going to do?
With the cocaine sizzling in his veins, his brain made a sudden A + B = C calculation that was based on a totally . . . preposterous idea.
Which nonetheless offered him a rather stunning solution to all this.
Straightening in his seat, he frowned and looked around the room, his eyes going on a wander as his brain pick, pick, picked apart the plan. When he could find no fault, he cleared Sola’s digits from the screen of his phone and dialed Ehric. When he got voice mail, he figured they were probably still dematerialized.
A second later, his phone rang and he answered, not bothering with a greeting. “Have you left the symbol for him yet?”
Ehric’s reply was muffled by the wind down by the river. “We’ve just arrived.”
“Wait for him. Do not reveal yourself.”
Assail continued to give instructions, and at the end of it all, Ehric’s response was perfect: “As you wish.”
Assail ended the call and sank back into the chair. Taking a deep breath, he cursed. This was going to be a lot of work. But it was the only solution he seemed to have.
Plus, the fact that this would consume him for the appreciable future? Was exactly what he wanted. And if it didn’t work? Well, then he’d be dead and he wouldn’t care about anything anymore.
Not even the woman he longed for with every inch of his body and all of his black, misbegotten heart.
Her mother had gotten it right with that name of hers.
Marisol had indeed stolen his soul.
FIFTY-TWO
iAm had not intended for Trez’s words to sink in any more than the cold breeze had when they’d been standing in the courtyard. He had planned to go inside, eat something fast, and forget that whole interaction had occurred. Go about his night. Head over to the clubs and the restaurant. Push papers, take control, make some decisions that were concrete and solid.
Instead, he was stuck in the foyer, staring up at the three-story-high ceiling that had been painted by some great artist. The subject matter was, he supposed, inspirationaclass="underline" heroes on venerable steeds, fighting in the clouds, heavenly warriors who were brave and strong and on the side of the righteous.
But all that glory wasn’t why he’d gone into pause mode.
Trez’s destiny was a house of cards, a delicate, tricky thing that had had to be managed all of both their lives. Every move iAm took had to be careful, deliberate, and calculated with the goal of survival.
His brother’s.
He was a centuries-old virgin because of it.
Hell, he hadn’t even looked at a female, like, ever.
Whether Trez had been banging them in the clubs, or throwing porn up on the TV, or talking about what he’d done all over his desk, in the back of his car, outside in the fucking parking lot, iAm had never had any interest in any of it.
He’d been a flatline motherfucker.
Mother-not-fucker, as it were.
And yeah, he’d tried on the whole gay thing for size, wondering if maybe he was attracted to men and males.
Nope.
It had gotten to the point where, if it weren’t for the fact that he washed them every night, he’d have wondered whether or not he had any balls.
Ask yourself what’s going to be left for you after I’m gone. If you’re honest, I don’t think you’re going to like the answer any more than I do.
Without being aware of having come to a decision, iAm turned on his heel and went out through the vestibule. On the front stoop of the massive gray mansion, he stood in the wind . . .
. . . and then took flight.
On the journey to his destination, flashes of the past battered at him: Trez escaping from the palace. iAm being held until he promised to bring the male back—which had been the last thing he’d actually intended on doing. The mad hunt.
The cabin on Black Snake Mountain.
As iAm resumed his form, he had a moment of straight-up nausea as he took in the ragged, weathered structure with its rough vertical siding and its cedar shingles and that rock chimney which extruded from the roofline like a bad tooth. It was . . . exactly the same. Not even kind of the same, with different windows or shrubbery growing or trees that had fallen or overgrown.
No, for a split second he wasn’t sure whether this was years ago or right now.
Shaking himself, he walked to the front door. The hinges creaked as he opened things up, and at least he was better prepared for what he saw.
Precisely the same. From the placement of the no-frills furniture, to the old-fire smell, to the drafts that wheedled their way through the walls.
He closed the door behind him and walked around, his boots making the rough-cut floorboards clap and groan. Over by the river-rock hearth, he found a generous supply of wood—guess the last hunters who had used the place had been good little helpers and ready to pay shit forward.
His hands shook as he laid logs on the andirons and shoved pine needles underneath. Taking out the lighter he kept on him thanks to having worked with a lot of temperamental gas cooktops, he lit things, fanned them, got the flames up and rolling.
He told himself it was a waste of time and heat. She wasn’t going to come. There was no way she was going to come.
He was just going to hang here for a half hour or so, play witness to his brain sinking into some dark, dangerous territory, and then put out the fire and head back to Caldie.
The clubs. He would go to the clubs first, and then—
The sound of that creaky door opening made him stiffen.
maichen’s scent flooded the interior.
Cranking his head around, he lifted his eyes. There in the doorway, she stood in the flesh, her robes flapping in the cold wind rushing in from behind her.
She was both a ghost . . . and soul-shatteringly vital.
And as he looked at her, he knew exactly why they had both come.