Lover At Last

FIFTY-SEVEN

Assail took form beside a babbling brook that remained ice-free thanks to its constant movement.

The house before him was one he had been to only one prior time, a brick Victorian with the period’s quintessential gingerbread motifs marking its porches and doorways. So quaint. So homey. Especially with those long four-paned windows made of leaded glass, and the curls of smoke lazying out of not one, but three of its four chimneys.

Which seemed to indicate its owner was back home for the night.

Fine timing, as it were: Dawn was coming soon, so it was logical to batten down one’s personal hatches for the sun. Secure one’s environment. Prepare for the hours that one needed to stay inside to protect oneself from harm.

Assail stalked across the pristine snow, leaving tracks with deep tread. No loafers for this job. No business suit, either.

No Range Rover for his burglar to follow.

Coming up the side lawn, he went over to the floor-to-ceiling windows of the very receiving room into which the master of the house had, not so very long ago, welcomed certain members of the Council…along with the Band of Bastards.

Assail had been numbered among the males at that meeting. At least until it had become clear that he had to remove himself or get drawn into precisely the kind of discourse and drama he was uninterested in.

At the glass, he looked inside.

Elan, son of Larex, was at his desk, a landline telephone up to his ear, a brandy snifter at his elbow, a cigarette smoldering in a cut-crystal ashtray beside him. As he leaned back in his leather club chair and crossed his legs at the knees, he appeared to be in a state of relaxation and self-satisfaction akin to that of postcoital bliss.

Assail made a fist, the black leather of his glove creaking ever so subtly.

And then he dematerialized into the very room, re-forming directly behind the male’s chair.

On one level, he couldn’t believe that Elan didn’t fortify his abode with greater security—a fine steel mesh over the windows and within the walls, for example. Then again, the aristocrat clearly suffered from a lack of appropriate risk assessment—as well as an arrogance that would grant him a greater sense of safety than he actually possessed.

“…and then Wrath shared a story about his father. I must confess, in person, the king is quite…ferocious. Although not enough to change my course, naturally.”

No, Assail was going to take care of that.

Elan leaned forward and reached for the cigarette. The thing was screwed onto one of those old-fashioned holders, the kind that females tended to use, and as he brought the end to his lips to take a drag, the tip extended out past the edge of the chair.

Assail unsheathed a shiny steel blade that was as long as his forearm.

It had e’re been his preferred weapon for this sort of thing.

His heart rate was as steady as his hand, his breathing even and regular whilst he loomed behind the chair. With deliberation, he stepped to one side, positioning himself so that his reflection appeared in the window opposite the desk.

“I am not aware whether it was the entire Brotherhood. How many of them are left? Seven or eight? This is part of the problem. We do not know who they are anymore.” Elan tapped his cigarette, the small stack of ash falling into the belly of the ashtray. “Now, whilst I was at the meeting, I instructed a colleague of mine to be in touch with you—I beg your pardon? Of course I gave him your number, and I resent the tone in your— Yes, he was here at the meeting at my home. He is going to— No, I shan’t do it again. Shall you cease interrupting me? I think so, yes.”

Elan took a drag and released the smoke in a rush, his annoyance manifested in his breath. “May we move on? Thank you. As I was saying, my colleague shall be in touch with regard to a certain legal provision which may help us. He has explained it to me, but as it is rather technical, I assumed you would wish to question him yourself.”

There was a rather long pause. And when Elan spoke next, his tone was calmer, as if placating words had soothed the ruffled feathers of his ego. “Oh, and one last thing. I took care of our little problem with a certain ‘business-minded’ gentlemale—”

Assail deliberately curled up his fist.

As that leather once again let out its quiet sound of protest, Elan straightened in his seat, his crossed foot returning to the floor, his spine stretching upward such that his head appeared over the back of the chair. He looked left. Looked right.

“I must needs go—”

At that moment, Elan’s eyes went to the window across from him, and he saw the reflection of his killer in the glass.

As Xcor stood in an insulated room with a proper heating system, he had to admit he preferred Throe’s newest choice of living quarters over that warehouse dungeon they had been in previously. Mayhap he would thank the Shadow who had intruded, if their paths e’er crossed anew.

Then again, perhaps the sense of warmth in his body was his temper flaring, and not a function of good, operational ductwork: The aristocrat on the other end of his cellular phone was testing his last nerve.

He did not want to be contacted by anybody else on the Council. Managing one member of the glymera was quite enough.

Although he typically took a pacifying approach with Elan, his wrath licked out. “Do not give my number to anyone else.”

Elan and he went back and forth a bit, the aristocrat’s own ire rising.

Which was, of course, no good. One wanted a usable tool in one’s hands. Not something with a prickly grip.

“My apologies,” Xcor murmured after a bit. “It is just that I prefer to deal with decision makers only. That is why I contact you and you alone. I have no interest in the others. Only you.”

As if Elan were a female and theirs was a romantic liaison.

Xcor rolled his eyes as the aristocrat fell for it, and resumed his discourse. “…and one last thing. I took care of our little problem with a certain ‘business-minded’ gentlemale—”

Instantly, Xcor’s attention picked up. What in Fate’s name had the idiot done now?

In truth, this could be monstrously inconvenient. Say what one would about Assail’s failure to see the light around Wrath’s dethroning, that particular “gentlemale” was not cut from Elan’s fragile, rippable silk. And as much as Xcor detested dealing with the son of Larex, he had invested considerable time and resources in the relationship. ’Twould be a shame to lose the miscreant now, and have to establish yet another conduit within the Council.

“What did you say?” Xcor demanded.

Elan’s tone changed, wariness creeping in. “I must needs go—”

The scream that blared through the phone was so loud and high-pitched, Xcor ripped the cell away from his ear and held it outward.

At the sound, his fighters, who were lounging around the room in various positions, turned their heads in his direction, playing witness, as he did, to Elan’s murder.

The caterwauling went on for quite some time, but there was no begging for mercy—either because his assailant was working quickly, or because it was very clear, even to a dying male, that there would be none from the attacker.

“Messy,” Zypher remarked as yet another crescendo vibrated out of the phone. “Very messy.”

“Still has an airway,” another pointed out.

“Not for long,” another chimed in.

And they were right. No more than a moment later, something hit the floor hard and that was the end of the sounds.

“Assail,” Xcor said sharply. “Pick up the fucking phone. Assail.”

There was a rustling, as if the receiver Elan had been speaking into had been retrieved from wherever it had fallen to. And then there was the sound of raking breath on the line.

Which suggested Elan might well be in pieces.

“I know this is you, Assail,” Xcor said. “And I can only guess that Elan o’erstepped and the indiscretion got back to your ears. However, you have taken my partner from me, and that cannae go unahvenged.”

It was a surprise when the male answered, his voice deep and strong. “Back in the Old Country, provisions were made for affronts against one’s reputation. Surely you not only recall them, but you shall not deny me my right of retribution in the New World.”

Xcor bared his fangs, though not because he was frustrated with the one he was speaking to. Fucking Elan. If the dumb bastard had just stuck to being an informant, he’d still be alive—and Xcor could have had the satisfaction of killing him at the end of all of this.

Assail continued. “He stated unto representatives of the king that I was responsible for your rifle shot, the one that was discharged upon my property without my knowledge or permission—and,” he cut in before Xcor could speak, “you are well aware of exactly how little I had to do with that attack, are you not.”

Back in the Bloodletter’s time, this conversation would never have occurred. Assail would have been hunted down as an obstructionist and eliminated for both purpose and sport.

But Xcor had learned his lesson.

As his eyes went to Throe, standing so tall and elegant among the others, he thought, aye, he had learned that there was an appropriate place and time for certain…standards, he believed the word was.

“I meant what I said unto you, Xcor, son of the Bloodletter.” As Xcor flinched at the reference, he was glad this conversation was occurring over the phone. “I have no interest in either your agenda or the king’s. I am a businessman only—I am resigned from the Council, and I am unaligned with you. And Elan attempted to make a traitor out of me—something which, as you well know, comes with a price on one’s head. I took Elan’s life because he tried to take mine. It is entirely lawful.”

Xcor cursed to himself. The male had a rather good point. And whereas Assail’s rigid neutrality had at first seemed unbelievable, now Xcor was beginning to…well, trust was not a word he used with anyone other than his soldiers.

“Tell me something,” Xcor drawled.

“Yes?”

“Is his piggish head still attached to that weak little body of his?”

Assail chuckled. “No.”

“Do you know that is among my favorite ways of killing?”

“A warning for me, Xcor?”

Xcor glanced back at Throe, and thought again of the virtue of codes of behavior among even warring males.

“No,” he declared. “Just something we have in common. Fare thee well, Assail, for what is left of this night.”

“Yourself as well. And in the words of our mutual acquaintance, I must needs go. Afore I am forced to slaughter the doggen butler who is pounding, at this very instant, upon the door I have locked.”

Xcor threw his head back and laughed as he ended the call.

“You know,” he said to his fighters, “I rather like him.”