BDB 13 The Shadows (73 page)

“Will you try to let me know what happens?”

“I shall.”

“I love you,” she blurted.

“Oh, Paradise, I love you, too. Stay underground.”

“I promise.”

As she hung up the phone, she found herself praying she got the chance to apologize in person to him. Although she supposed that impulse was just her inner four-year-old wanting to be a good girl.

No matter the outcome of the conflict with the Shadows, she had to stand firm.

The threat of war was a good reminder that you only had one life to live.

So you’d better make it count.

As s’Ex met the unwavering stare of the Princess, he decided she was very smart to disarm him and get the Chief Astrologer away from his reach before he got the answer she had prompted from the male.

But the explanation was unnecessary; he knew the “why” of the chart’s alteration.

The Astrologer stumbled through his words. “The infant was the rightful heir, supplanting you, Princess. But the Queen did not want a commoner’s bloodline on the throne. She knew that her executioner was the sire. She forced me to change the time of birth by four minutes, thirty-two seconds—which would place the young under a disadvantageous positioning of the sixth planet from the sun.”

At once, the sound of his daughter’s plaintive cry ran through s’Ex’s mind … and then entered his bloodstream.

His chest began to pump with hard breath.

His fists curled up.

His heart skipped a beat … and then settled into the slow, steady beat of a killer.

The Princess held out his blade to him. Her eyes were full of sorrow, but they were also very, very clear. In a voice that shook, but had strength in it, she spoke four words.

“Do what you must.”

She knew she had just sentenced her mother to death. By this truth coming to light, he would not hesitate to avenge the murder of his blood.

With his war hand, he accepted the serrated blade—and tilted the tip toward his face. With two quick streaks down the hollows of his cheeks, he marked himself.

Once for his daughter whom he would never know.

Once for the wrong he was going to rectify.

As he turned for the break in the tiled partition, he was single-minded—and yet he stopped.

Cranking his head over his shoulder, he pegged the Chief Astrologer with his stare. As the male shrank back in mortal terror, s’Ex said, “If my daughter was to be the heir, who succeeds the Queen now?”

“S-s-s-she d-d-d-does.” The male pointed to the Princess. “She has rightful claim to the throne. Her records have not been altered. She would have been second in line after your daughter, and with the death, she is the legitimate heir—”

“The
murder
,” he cut in, “of my daughter, you mean.”

He glanced at the Princess.

She didn’t seem to care about the repercussions of what had just been said. She didn’t even appear to have heard the words that she was about to become Queen. Instead, she was cradling that long, thin gold box to the chest of her maid’s disguise, her head bowed.

Tears hit the brilliant yellow metal, falling from her eyes.

“You must rule,” s’Ex announced. “You must take the reins of this community and rule it properly. Do you hear me? Snap out of this emotion, and get ready for what is about to happen.”

Her stare shifted up to his. “She was my sister. They killed … my sister.”

For a moment, s’Ex recoiled. It was the last thing in the world he expected her to say.

And abruptly, the reality that his grief was shared hit him, and he was strangely touched.

Walking over to the Princess, he cupped her face and lifted it unto his own. After wiping away her cheeks, he bent down and pressed his lips to her forehead.

“Thank you for that,” he whispered.

“What?”

He just shook his head and stepped back. “You.” He pointed to the Chief Astrologer. “You need to take care of her. You believe in your traditions, you hated your lies? Prove it by making sure she survives—in about ten minutes she is going to be your Queen.”

Instantly, the male shuffled around on the floor, prostrating himself and putting his forehead to the bloodied red marble at the female’s feet.
“By all that is written in the stars, I shall serve Queen Catra vin SuLaneh etl MuLanen deh FonLerahn until the final beat of my heart and the last breath of my lungs.”

s’Ex sensed the sincerity, and knew that the new Queen was going to be safe. “You have the ceremonial garb in here, do you not?”

The Chief Astrologer answered at the floor. “I do.”

“Get her dressed. In twenty minutes, her mother’s head is going to be at the foot of the throne. Bring Catra there so that the change-of-power ceremony can be completed.”

“What about you?” Catra said. “You’ll be there, too? Please tell me you’ll be there.”

“Worry about yourself, my Queen. You are so much more important than any one individual in this room, this palace, this land.”

With that, he turned and disappeared into the hidden passageway.

T
he cleaning and preservation of a warrior’s weapons were a sacred duty, a way of honoring the connection between the fighter and his tools.

As Rhage sat with his head bent over the second of his two favorite forties, the sweet scent of metallurgical detergent was as familiar as the sound of his own voice.

Across the bedroom, he could feel his Mary’s tension. But she did not say a word.

“I’ll be careful,” he told her, putting the spray can back in his gun cleaning box. “I promise … I’ll be really careful.”

He gave the vow even though he knew that personal discretion was only part of surviving a battle. Being aware of your surroundings, watching your back, having your brothers watch out for you as well—all of that helped, sure. There would always be the element of luck, however.

Or destiny.

Fate.

Whatever you wanted to call it.

“I know you will,” she said tightly.

He brought the chamois square up one side of the barrel and down the other. “If I don’t … come home, though.”

He stopped there. She was going to know the question he was asking. He’d given her enough to go on.

“I’ll find you,” she choked out. “I’ll find you somehow.”

He nodded—and thought he probably should go over to her, but he couldn’t handle the closeness. As it was, he was on the thin edge of falling apart, and with a flat-out war waiting for him at nightfall, he just couldn’t afford the emotion.

“I simply can’t bear the thought of you getting hurt,” she said as she blew her nose with a tissue and blotted at her eyes. “That bothers me almost more than the dying.”

Well, yeah, because they had been granted that miracle—which would pay dividends when death tried to separate them.

He thought of Trez and wanted to vomit.

God … the sight of that male mounting that fucking funeral pyre was a tattoo on his brain.

Abruptly, he dropped his gun and his cloth to his knees. “I’m a horrible person. I’m a really horrible fucking asshole.”

Across the way, Mary sniffled again. “What are you talking about?”

He forced himself to resume cleaning, mostly because if he looked her in the eye, he wasn’t going to say it.

Hell, maybe he shouldn’t say it—although he never could keep things from her.

“I, ah … I hated what Trez and Selena went through. The same with Tohr.”

From out of nowhere, he remembered sitting in Manny’s fancy-ass clinical RV and demanding that the doctor save the Chosen.

Like if he just ordered the guy to find a cure it would happen.

Then he had a snapshot of Layla, bundled up outside as the flames had roared into the sky. Pregnant Layla, who was carrying Qhuinn’s twins, for fuck’s sake.

Who had looked as if she were going to expire from the mourning of her sister’s passing—to the point where Rhage wasn’t the only one worried about her pregnancy, her life, the young.

“I’m an asshole,” he whispered.

“Talk to me, Rhage.”

“I’m glad that wasn’t us,” he choked out. “As much as I love all of them, and I mourn with them … I’m so fucking glad I didn’t lose you…”

Tears came to his eyes.

And his
shellan
came over to him.

As she took his gun and put it aside, and then wrapped her arms around him, murmuring support into his ear, he felt even worse.

It just reminded him of what Trez was never going to have again—

Boom! Boom! Boom!

“Rhage,” V barked from out in the hall. “Trez turned himself in.”

Rhage straightened up and scraped his tears away.
“What?”

Moving Mary out of the way, he jumped across to the door and ripped it open. “What the
fuck
are you talking about?”

“You heard me—meeting in Wrath’s.
Now
.”

As the Brother went to run off, Rhage grabbed V’s arm. “Are you sure?”

“The call just came in from the s’Hisbe.”

“Does iAm know?”

That stopped the Brother, and he looked up to the ceiling. “Shit.”

“Are you sure Trez isn’t in the house?”

“No, he’s gone. I checked the security camera feeds. He left his cell phone on the stone steps and disappeared about an hour ago.”

“Holy …
shit
. Okay, all right…” Except he wasn’t sure if that was true. Maybe there was no war … but what about the Shadows?

Their two Shadows?

“Let me go up and tell iAm,” he heard himself say as he glanced back at Mary.

“Do you want me to come with you?” she said.

“Yeah, I do.”

iAm came awake to two pairs of shoes at eye level. One was a set of shitkickers, big as recliners. The others were Coach sneakers, with the logo in gray and black, and Velcro straps instead of laces.

As he lifted his head, he looked up at Rhage and Mary. “What time is it?”

Mary knelt down, and that was his first clue that whatever message they were delivering was bad, bad news.

Rhage was the one who spoke up, though, “iAm … we got reason to believe your brother has turned himself in.”

The words filtered through his mind on a series of clunks and mis-hits, the combination of nouns and verbs and other things making no sense.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

As he sat up, the bottle he’d been nursing rolled away, knocking into Rhage’s boots.

“We received word from the Territory that the Queen is no longer going to attack because Trez has voluntarily returned to the s’Hisbe—”

“Jesus
Christ
!”

Jumping to his feet, he shoved through the pair of them and burst into his brother’s room. The bed was messy, and the closet doors were open … and there was absolutely, positively no sign of Trez.

“No—no, we’re supposed to leave!” he shouted at nothing and nobody. “I’m arranging everything! We’re going to leave!”

When he wheeled around, the two were standing in the doorway.

Mary’s voice grew strident, as if she knew damn well he was liable not to follow what she was saying otherwise: “We know you’re going to want to go after him, iAm. But before you do—”

He headed out of the room, prepared to mow them down if he had to, as much as he appreciated their concern.

But Rhage caught his arm and yanked him back. “Let me get you armed first. And Lassiter is going with you. He can be out in the sunshine.”

iAm was about to argue when he thought, Well, duh.

“We’re still prepared to back you up, my man,” the Brother said grimly. “You’re not in this alone.”

For a moment, iAm couldn’t figure out what the guy was saying—and then he realized, Shit. If he went back in there and got Trez out … the Queen was likely to attack Caldwell in retaliation.

And then these people would be under siege.

“Why did he do it?” iAm moaned. “Oh, God, why did he do it?”

Mary took his hand. “He must have found out about the threat. Somehow he must have heard something in the house.”

iAm closed his eyes. “This has to stop. This whole goddamn thing has to stop.”

Because assuming Trez had finally fallen on that sword he’d been cursed with? The guy was going to mate and have sex with the only female iAm had ever loved.

’Cuz he and his brother were lucky like that. Yup.

“Come on,” Rhage said. “Let’s get some weapons on you. Lassiter is already waiting.”

What happened next was all a dizzy haze. Down to the second floor. Holsters belted onto his hips, wrapped around his shoulders. Guns. Knives. A long black leather trench coat that covered the lot of it.

Then it was down to the foyer, where the fallen angel was similarly adorned, and not making jokes at all.

Just before the pair of them left, Rehvenge stepped up and embraced him. “I have to stay here. In case the Shadows attack Caldwell, I need to be able to command my sin-eaters to defend during the daylight hours.”

Fuck. He and his brother’s private misery had become so many’s.

“I’m so sorry,” iAm said, glancing around at the Brothers. Wrath. The rest of the household. “I can’t believe it’s coming to this.”

Rhage shook his head. “We gotchu. We do what we have to, to take care of our own.”

And then the talking was over and iAm and Lassiter were out through the vestibule and on the front steps of the mansion.

The fallen angel reached out and grabbed his arm. “Get ready to ride.”

Frowning, iAm looked over at the black-and-blond-haired male. “What are you talking about—”

In an instant, he was consumed by a sun ray, up and out of there without any control or thought or will of his own …

… heading for the home he hated and the destiny he was still fighting against.

T
he gems were cold and heavy.

As the Chief Astrologer draped Catra with mesh after mesh of platinum-set diamonds and sapphires and emeralds and rubies, she was less and less able to breathe right.

Although that was probably more because the enormity of what was happening was sinking in, rather than the weight of the ceremonial robes.

The final part of the Queen’s dress was a thin veil that drifted down over her face like a breeze.