Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last (101 page)

condo: modern, airy, and uncluttered. Which meant that as he poured himself some more caffeine, he

could see his brother in his peripheral vision.

Man, sometimes he hated this place: Unless he was in his bedroom with the door shut, he couldn’t

get a break from those damn eyeballs.

“Am I reading or talking?” iAm said calmly, like he didn’t care either way.

Man, Trez desperately wanted to tell the guy to shove his nose back into the
Times
, but that was like a defeat.

“G’head.” Trez went back to his chair and settled in for more ass kicking.

“You’re not behaving in a professional manner.”

“You eat your own food at Sal’s.”

“My linguine with clam sauce doesn’t require a restraining order when I decide the next night I

want the
Fra Diavolo
.”

Good point. And somehow, that made him feel nearly violent.

“I know what you’re doing,” iAm said steadily. “And why.”

“You’re not a virgin, of course you do—”

“I know what they sent you.”

Trez froze. “How.”

“When you didn’t respond, I received a phone call.”

Trez pushed the rug with his foot and turned himself around to face the river. Shit. He figured he’d clear the air with this, you know, give his brother a little bitch session so that the two of them could go back to being normal—usually they were close as skin to bone, and the relationship was as

fundamental as that to him.

He could handle just about anything except friction with his brother.

Unfortunately, the problems that had gotten alluded to over there were about the only thing in that

“just about anything.”

“Ignoring it will not make it go away, Trez.”

This was said with a certain gentleness of tone—like the guy felt bad for him.

As Trez looked out over the river, he imagined that he was at his club, with humans all around

and cash trading hands and the women who worked there doing their thing in the back. Nice. Normal.

In control and comfortable.

“You have responsibilities.”

Trez tightened his grip on his mug. “I didn’t volunteer for them.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He spun around so fast, hot coffee went flying and landed on his thigh. He ignored the sting. “It

should. It fucking
should
. I’m not some inanimate object that can be given to somebody. That whole thing is bullshit.”

“Some would find it an honor.”

“Well, I don’t. I’m not getting mated to that female. I don’t care who she is or who set it up or

how ‘important’ it is to the s’Hisbe.”

Trez braced himself for a barrage of oh-yeah-you-do. Instead, his brother looked sad, as if he

wouldn’t have wanted the curse, either.

“I’ll say it again, Trez. This is not just magically going to disappear. And trying to fuck your way out of it? That’s not only futile, it’s potentially dangerous.”

Trez rubbed his face. “The women are just humans. They don’t matter.” He turned back to the

river again. “And frankly, if I don’t do something, I’m going to go insane. A couple of orgasms has to be better than that, right?”

As silence resumed, he knew his brother disagreed with him. But proof positive that his life was

in the shitter was the fact that the conversation dried up at that point.

iAm apparently wasn’t into kicking a guy when he was down.

Whatever. He didn’t care what was expected of him—he was
not
going back and being

condemned to a life of service.

He didn’t care if it was to the queen’s daughter.

TWELVE

It was late in the afternoon when Wrath hit the wall. He was at his desk, ass on his father’s throne, fingers running over a report written in Braille, when all of a sudden he couldn’t take one more

damn word of text.

Shoving the papers aside, he cursed and ripped his wraparounds off his face. Just as he was

about to throw them at a wall, a muzzle kicked his elbow.

Putting an arm around his golden retriever, he tightened his hand on the soft fur that grew along the dog’s flanks. “You always know, don’t you.”

George burrowed in deep, pressing his chest into Wrath’s leg—which was the cue that someone

wanted to be up and over.

Wrath leaned down and gathered all ninety pounds up in his arms. As he settled the four paws,

lion’s mane, and flowing tail so that everything fit, he supposed it was a good thing he was so fucking tall. Big thighs offered a bigger lap.

And the act of stroking all that fur calmed him, even though it didn’t ease his mind.

His father had been a great king, capable of withstanding countless hours of ceremony, endless

nights filled with the drafting of proclamations and summonses, whole months and years of protocol

and tradition. And that was before you layered on the perennial stream of bitching that came at you from every corner: letters, phone calls, e-mails—although of course the latters hadn’t been an issue in his pop’s era.

Wrath had been a fighter once. A damn good one.

Putting his hand up, he felt along the side of his neck, to the place where that bullet had entered him—

The knock on the door was sharp and to the point, a demand more than a respectful request for

entrance.

“Come in, V,” he called out.

The astringent witch-hazel scent that preceded the Brother was a clear tip-off that somebody was

feeling pissy. And sure enough, that deep voice had a nasty edge.

“I finally finished the ballistic testing. Damn fragments always take forever.”

“And?” Wrath prompted.

“It’s a one hundred percent match.” As Vishous sat down in the chair across the desk, the thing

creaked under the weight. “We got ’em.”

Wrath exhaled, some of the impotent buzz draining from his brain.

“Good.” He ran his palm from the top of George’s boxy head down to his ribs. “This is our

ammunition, then.”

“Yup. What was going to happen anyway is now nice and legal.”

The Brotherhood had known all along who had been on the trigger of the shot that had nearly

killed him back in the fall—and the duty of picking off the Band of Bastards one by one was

something they were looking at as so much more than a sacred duty to the race.

“Listen, I gotta be honest, true?”

“When are you not?” Wrath drawled.

“Why the hell are you tying our hands?”

“Didn’t know I was.”

“With Tohr.”

Wrath repositioned George so that the blood supply to his left leg wasn’t completely cut off by the dog’s weight. “He asked for the proclamation.”

“We all have a right to take out Xcor. That asshole is the prize we all want. It shouldn’t be

restricted to just him.”

“He asked.”

“It makes it more difficult to kill the bastard. What if one of us finds him out there and Tohr isn’t with us?”

“Then you bring him in.” There was a long, tense silence. “Do you hear me, V. You bring that

piece of shit in, and let Tohr do his duty.”

“The goal is to eliminate the Band of Bastards.”

“And how’s that keeping you from the job?” When there was no reply, Wrath shook his head.

“Tohr was in that van with me, my brother. He saved my life. Without him…”

As the sentence drifted, V cursed softly—like he was running the math on that memory, and

coming to the conclusion that the Brother who had had to cut a plastic tube free of his CamelBak and performed a tracheotomy on his king in a moving vehicle miles away from any medical help might

have sliiiiiiiightly more right to kill the perp.

Wrath smiled a little. “Tell you what—just because I’m nice guy, I’ll promise you all a crack at

him before Tohr kills the motherfucker with his bare hands. Deal?”

V laughed. “That does take the sting off of it.”

The knock that interrupted them was quiet and respectful—a couple of soft taps that seemed to

suggest whoever it was would be happy to be blown off, content to wait, and hoping for an immediate audience all at the same time.

“Yeah,” Wrath called out.

Expensive cologne announced his solicitor’s arrival: Saxton always smelled good, and that fit his

persona. From what Wrath remembered, in addition to the guy’s great education and the quality of his thinking, he dressed in the fashion of a well-bred son of the
glymera
. I.e., perfectly.

Not that Wrath had seen it recently.

He put his wraparounds on in a quick surge. It was one thing to be exposed in front of V; not going to happen in front of the young, efficient male who was coming through the door—no matter how

much Sax was trusted and consulted.

“What have you got for me?” Wrath said as George’s tail brushed back and forth in greeting.

There was a long pause. “Mayhap I should come back?”

“You can say anything in front of my brother.”

Another long pause, during which V was probably eyeing the attorney like he wanted to take a

chunk out of his fancy, pretty-boy ass for suggesting there was an information divide that needed to be respected.

“Even if it’s about the Brotherhood?” Saxton said levelly.

Wrath could practically feel V’s icy eyes swing around. And sure enough, the brother bit out,

“What about
us
.”

When Saxton remained silent, Wrath clued into what it was. “Can you give us a minute, V?”

“Are you fucking me?”

Wrath picked up George and put him down on the floor. “I just need five minutes.”

“Fine. Have fun with it, my lord,” V spat as he got to his feet. “Fuckin’ A.”

A moment later, the door slammed shut.

Saxton cleared his throat. “I could have come back.”

“If I’d wanted that, I would have told you to. Talk to me.”

A deep breath was taken and let out, as if the civilian was staring at that exit and wondering if V’s pissed-off departure might just cause him to wake up dead later on in the day. “Ah…the audit of the Old Laws is complete, and I can provide you with a comprehensive listing of all sections that require amendment, along with proposed rewording, and a timeline on which the changes could be made if

—”

“Yes or no. That’s all I care about.”

Going by the whisper-soft sound of loafers treading an Aubusson, Wrath extrapolated that his

lawyer was going for a little walkabout. From memory, he pictured the study, with its pale blue walls and its curlicue molding and all the flimsy, antique French furniture.

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?