nature wasn’t the kind of thing you just pulled out of your ass, and there were others in on it. Had to be.
“As you well know, the council is to meet in a couple of days in Caldwell specifically for us to have an audience with the king. Wrath will arrive and…a mortal event will occur.”
“He travels with the Brotherhood. Not exactly the kind of muscle you can easily work around.”
“Death wears many masks. And has many different stages on which to perform.”
“And my role is…?” Even though he knew.
Montrag’s pale eyes were like ice, luminescent and cold. “I know what kind of male you are. So I know exactly what you are capable of.”
This was not a surprise. Rehv had been a drug lord for the past twenty-five years, and though he hadn’t announced his avocation to the aristocracy, vampires did hit his clubs regularly, and a number of them were in the ranks of his chemical customers.
No one but the Brothers knew about his symphath side-and he would have kept it from them if he’d had the choice. For the past two decades he’d been paying his blackmailer well to make sure the secret was his to keep.
“That is why I come to you,” Montrag said. “You will know how to take care of this.”
“True enough.”
“As leahdyre of the council, you would be in a position of enormous power. Even if you are not elected as president, the council is going nowhere. And let me reassure you about the Black Dagger Brotherhood. I know your sister is mated to one of them. The Brothers will not be affected by this.”
“You don’t think it’s going to piss them off? Wrath is not just their king. He’s their blood.”
“Protecting our race is their primary mandate. Whither we go they must follow. And you have to know that there are many who feel they have been doing a poor job of late. Methinks perhaps they require better leadership.”
“From you. Right. Of course.”
That would be like an interior decorator trying to command a tank platoon: a shitload of noisy chirping until one of the soldiers offed the lightweight flash in the pan and churned over the body a couple of times.
Perfect plan there. Yup.
And yet…who said Montrag had to be the one elected? Accidents happened to both kings and aristocrats.
“I must say unto you,” Montrag continued, “as my father always said unto me, timing is everything. We need to proceed with haste. May we rely on you, my friend?”
Rehv got to his feet and towered over the other male. With a quick tug on his jacket cuffs, he straightened his Tom Ford, then reached for his cane. He felt nothing in his body, not his clothes or the weight shifting from his ass to his soles or the handle against the palm he’d burned. The numbness was a side effect of the drug he used to keep his bad side from coming out in mixed company, the prison in which he jailed his sociopathic impulses.
All he needed to get back to basics was one missed dose, though. An hour later? The evil in him was alive and kicking and ready to play.
“What say you?” Montrag prompted.
Wasn’t that the question.
Sometimes in life, from out of the myriad of prosaic decisions like what to eat and where to sleep and how to dress, a true crossroads is revealed. In these moments, when the fog of relative irrelevancy lifts and fate rolls out a demand for free will, there is only left or right-no option of four-by-fouring into the underbrush between two paths, no negotiating with the choice that has been presented.
You must answer the call and pick your way. And there is no reverse.
Of course, the problem was, navigating a moral landscape was something he’d had to teach himself to do to fit in with the vampires. The lessons he’d learned had stuck, although only to a point.
And his drugs only kind of, sort of worked.
Abruptly, Montrag’s pale face became cast in variations of pastel pink and the male’s dark hair went magenta and his smoking jacket became the color of ketchup. As a red wash tinted everything, Rehv’s visual field flattened out so it was like a movie screen of the world.
Which perhaps explained why symphaths found it so easy to use people. With his dark side taking over, the universe had all the depth of a chessboard, and the people in it were pawns to his omniscient hand. Every one of them. Enemies…and friends.
“I’ll take care of it,” Rehv announced. “As you said, I know what to do.”
“Your word.” Montrag put forward his smooth palm. “Your word that this shall be carried out in secret and in silence.”
Rehv let that hand hang in the breeze, but he smiled, once again revealing his fangs. “Trust me.”
TWO
As Wrath, son of Wrath, pounded down one of Caldwell’s urban alleys, he was bleeding in two places. There was a gash along his left shoulder, made by a serrated knife, and a hunk out of his thigh, thanks to the rusty corner of a Dumpster. The lesser up ahead, the one he was about to gut like a fish, had been responsible for neither: The asshole’s two pale-haired, girlie-smelling buddies had done the damage.
Right before they’d been reduced to a matched set of mulch bags three hundred yards and three minutes ago.
This bastard up ahead was the real target.
The slayer was hauling ass, but Wrath was faster-not just because his legs were longer, and despite the fact that he was leaking like a corroded cistern. There was no question the third would die.
It was an issue of will.
The lesser had chosen the wrong path tonight-although not in picking this particular alley. That had been the only right and just thing the undead had probably done for decades, because privacy was important for fighting. Last thing the Brothers or the Lessening Society needed was for human police to get involved in anything so much as a nose blow in this war.
No, the bastard’s I’m-sorry-that’s-not-the-correct-answer had happened when he’d killed a male civilian about fifteen minutes ago. With a smile on his face. In front of Wrath.
The scent of fresh vampire blood had been how the king had first found the trio of slayers, catching them in the act as they tried to abduct one of his civilians. They’d clearly known he was at least a member of the Brotherhood, because this lesser up ahead had killed the male so he and his squadron could be hands-free and fully focused for the fight.
The sad part was, Wrath’s arrival had spared his civilian a long, slow, tortured death in one of the Society’s persuasion camps. But it still burned his ass to see a terrified innocent sliced open and dropped like an empty lunch box onto the icy, cracked pavement.
So this motherfucker up here was going down.
Eye-for-an-eye-and-then-some-style.
At the alley’s dead end, the lesser did a pivot-and-prepare, spinning around, planting his feet, bringing up his knife. Wrath didn’t slow. In midstride, he slipped free one of his hira shuriken and sent the weapon out with a flick of his hand, making a show of the throw.
Sometimes you wanted your opponent to know what was coming at him.
The lesser followed the choreography perfectly, shifting his balance, losing his fighting form. As Wrath closed the distance, he winged another throwing star and another, driving the lesser into a crouch.
The Blind King dematerialized right on the motherfucker, striking from above with fangs bared to lock into the back of the slayer’s neck. The stinging sweetness of the lesser’s blood was the taste of triumph, and the chorus of victory was not long in coming either as Wrath grabbed onto both of the bastard’s upper arms.
Payback was a snap. Or two, as it were.
The thing screamed as both bones popped out of their sockets, but the howl didn’t travel far after Wrath clapped his palm over its mouth.
“That’s just a warm-up,” Wrath hissed. “It’s important to get loose before you’re worked out.”
