The King

TWENTY-EIGHT

“Your cousin is getting mated.”

As Saxton was led through the doors of his father’s study, that was the greeting he received.

Here we go, he thought. And next time they talked, no doubt it was going to be about said cousin having a perfectly healthy baby boy who was going to grow up normal. Guess this was his birthday “gift”—a report on some relation living the right sort of life, with subtitles that he was a shame to the bloodline and a great waste of DNA for his father.

Actually, the happy little updates had started up soon after his father had learned that he was gay, and he remembered every single statement, arranging them like ugly figurines on the mantel of his mind. His absolute, bar-none favorite? The newsflash a couple of months ago about a gay male who had gone out with another gay male of the species, and ended up beaten in an alley by a group of humans.

His father had had no idea he was talking about his own son on that one.

The hate crime had been the capper on his first date with Blay, and he had nearly died from the injuries: There had been no going for medical help—Havers, the only physician in the race, was a devoted traditionalist, and was in the practice of turning away known homosexuals from treatment. And going to a human doctor had been a no-go. Yes, there were twenty-four-hour clinics open in the city, but it had taken all the energy he’d had left to drag himself home—and he’d been too ashamed to call anyone for help.

But Blay had shown up—and everything had changed for them.

For a while, at least.

“Did you hear what I said,” his father demanded.

“How wonderful for him—which cousin is it?”

“Enoch’s son. It was arranged. The families are going to have an eventing weekend to celebrate.”

“At their estate here or in South Carolina?”

“Here. It is time for the race to reestablish proper traditions in Caldwell. Without tradition, we are nothing.”

Read: You are worthless unless you get with the program.

Although naturally his father would couch the directive in much more scholarly terms.

Saxton frowned as he finally looked at the male. Sitting behind his desk, Tyhm had always been thin, an Ichabod Crane figure in suits that hung like funeral draping from his bony shoulders. Compared to their last visit, he appeared to have lost weight, his sharp features holding up his facial skin like supports under a pitched tent.

Saxton didn’t look anything like his sire, that dark hair and those dark eyes, that pale skin and lanky body not what the genetic lottery had dealt him. Instead, his mother and he had been pea-and-pod in disposition and decoration, fair and gray eyed with a healthy glow to their skin.

His father had often remarked on how similar he was to his mahmen—and looking back on it, he wasn’t sure that had been a compliment.

“So what are you doing for work,” his father muttered as he drummed his fingers on the leather blotter.

Over the male’s head, the portrait of his own father loomed with identical disapproval.

As Saxton was pegged with two sets of narrowed eyes, there was an almost irresistible urge to answer that question honestly: Saxton was, in fact, First Counsel to the King. And even in these times, when regard for the monarchy was at an all-time low, that was still impressive.

Especially to someone who revered the law like his father.

But no, Saxton thought. He was going to keep that to himself.

“I’m where I was,” he murmured.

“Trusts and estates is rather a complicated field. I was surprised you chose it. Who are some of your more recent clients?”

“You know I can’t divulge that information.”

His father brushed that aside. “It would not be anyone I know, surely.”

“No. Probably not.” Saxton tried to smile a little. “And you?”

That demeanor changed instantly, the subtle distaste ebbing out and being replaced by a mask that had all the revelatory quality of a slab of slate. “There are always things to command my attention.”

“Of course.”

As both of them continued speaking in a volley, the conversation remained stilted and irrelevant, and Saxton passed the time by putting his hand in his pocket and fitting his iPhone to his palm. He had planned his departure, and wondered when he could take his cue.

And then it came.

The phone on the desk, the one that had been made to appear “old-fashioned,” rang with an electronic bell that sounded as close to real as anything not actually brass could get.

“I’ll leave you,” Saxton said, taking a step back.

His father stared at the carefully hidden digital display … and appeared to forget how to answer the thing.

“Goodbye, F—” Saxton stopped himself. Ever since his orientation had been revealed, that was an f-word worse than fuck—at least when used by him.

As his father just waved him off, he had a passing relief. Usually, the worst part of any in-person visit was the departure: As he’d leave, and his father confronted yet another failed attempt to bring his son around, it was the walk of shame all over again.

Saxton hadn’t come out to his family. He’d never intended his father to know.

But someone had blabbed and he was fairly sure he knew who.

So every time he left, he relived getting kicked out of this very house about a week after his mother had died: He’d been booted with his clothes on his back, no money, and nowhere to stay as dawn approached.

He’d learned later that all of his things had been ritually burned in the woods out behind the manor house.

One more handy use for all the acreage.

“Shut the door behind you,” his father snapped.

He was more than happy to obey that one: Closing things silently, for once he didn’t waste a moment on all the pain. Looking left and right, he listened.

Silence.

Moving quickly, he went back to the parlor and through into the library, pulling the doors shut behind him. Taking out his phone, he started snapping pictures, his heart beating as fast as he was tapping. He didn’t bother to arrange angles or do anything sequentially—the only thing he cared about was that the focus and the lighting were good and that he didn’t move—

The rumbling of doors opening directly behind him had him spinning around.

His father seemed confused as he stood in the doorway that led out of his study. “Whate’er are you doing?”

“Nothing. I was just looking at your volumes. They’re quite impressive.”

Tyhm glanced at the doors Saxton had shut behind himself—as if wondering why they were closed. “You should not have come in here.”

“I’m sorry.” Surreptitiously, he slipped the phone into his pocket, tilting his torso to the side as if to nod at the books. “It’s just … I wanted to marvel over your collection. Mine are cloth covered.”

“You have a set of the Old Laws?”

“I do. I bought them from an estate.”

His father went forward and touched the pages of the closest volume open on the round table. The loving way with which he stroked those words, that paper, that inanimate object … suggested that maybe Saxton wasn’t the biggest heartbreak in his life.

If the law let him down? That would break him.

“What is this all about?” Saxton said softly. “I heard the King was shot, and now … this is all about the succession.”

When there was no reply, he began to think he needed to leave in a hurry: There was a high probability his father was in with the Band of Bastards, and it would be folly to think Tyhm would hesitate for even a second in turning his gay son over to the enemy.

Or in his father’s case, the allies.

“Wrath is no King for the race.” Tyhm shook his head. “Nothing good has come since his father was killed. Now, there was a ruler. I was young when I was at court, but I remember Wrath, and whereas the son cares not for the proper way … the sire was a stellar King, a wise male with patience and majesty. Such a failure of this generation.”

Saxton looked at the floor. For some absurd reason, he noted that his own loafers were perfectly polished. All of his shoes were. Neat and tidy, arranged.

He found it difficult to breathe. “I thought the Brotherhood was … taking care of things rather well. After the raids, they have killed many slayers—”

“The fact that you use the word after to modify raids is all one needs to know. A shameful commentary—Wrath did not care to rule until he married that half-breed of his. Only then, when he sought to contaminate the throne with her bastard human genes, did he see fit to try to be King. His father would hate this—that human wearing the ring of his mother? It is a disgrace that cannot…” He had to clear his throat. “It simply cannot be supported.”

As the implications dawned on Saxton, he could feel the blood drain out of his head. Oh, God … why hadn’t they seen this coming?

Beth. They were going to take him down through her.

His father lifted his chin, his Adam’s apple standing out like a fist in the front of his throat. “And one has to do something. One has to … do something when bad choices are made.”

Like being gay, Saxton finished for the male. And then it dawned on him …

It was almost as if his father was joining the effort … only because he couldn’t do anything about his own failure of a progeny.

“Wrath will be removed from the throne,” Tyhm said with a resurgence of strength. “And another who has not strayed from the race’s core values will be put in his place. It is the appropriate consequence for one who does not do things in the proper manner.”

“I had heard…” Saxton paused. “I had heard that it was a love match. Between Wrath and his queen. That he fell in love with her when he helped with her transition.”

“The deviant often couch their actions in the vocabulary of the righteous. It is a deliberate act to attempt to ingratiate themselves to us. That doesn’t mean they have behaved well or that their poor choices should be supported by the masses. Quite the contrary—he has shamed the race, and deserves all that is coming to him.”

“Do you hate me?” Saxton blurted.

His father’s eyes lifted from the books that were going to be used to pave the way to the abdication. As their stares met across the blueprint for Wrath’s destruction, Saxton was reduced to a child who simply wanted to be loved and valued by the only parent he had left.

“Yes,” his father said. “I do.”

Sola pulled the fresh jeans up to her knees and paused. Bracing herself, she eased the waistband over her thigh wound carefully.

“Not bad,” she muttered as she continued to tug them all the way onto her ass, and then button and zip them.

Little loose, but when she put on the fresh white long-sleeved shirt and the cozy black sweater she’d also been given, you’d never know. Oh, and the Nikes were the perfect size—and she even liked the black-and-red color scheme.

Going into her hospital room’s bath, she checked her hair in the mirror. Shiny and smooth, thanks to the blow-dry she’d given herself.

“You look…”

Wheeling around at the voice, she found Assail standing by the bed. His eyes burned across the distance between them, his body looming large.

“You startled me,” she said.

“My apologies.” He offered her a short bow. “I knocked several times, and when you didn’t answer, I was concerned that you had fallen.”

“That’s really … ah, kind of you.” Yeah, sweet couldn’t be associated in any way with him.

“Are you ready to go home?”

She closed her eyes. She wanted to say yes—and of course, she needed to see her grandmother. But she was afraid to, as well.

“Can you … tell?” she asked.

Assail came over to her, walking slowly, as if he knew she was a hairbreadth away from spooking. Lifting his hands, he brushed her hair back over her shoulders. Then he touched the sides of her face.

“No. She will see none of it.”

“Thank God.” Sola exhaled. “She can’t know. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly.”

Turning to face the door out into the corridor, he offered her his elbow … as if he were escorting her to a party.

And Sola took it just because she wanted to feel him against her. Know his warmth. Be close to his size and strength.

It was a different kind of hell to be facing the prospect of meeting her grandmother’s eyes.

“Do not think of it,” he said as he led her down the long hall. “You must remember that. She will see it in your face if you do. None of it happened, Marisol. None of it.”

Sola was dimly aware that the guards that had met them when they’d come to this place had slipped in behind them. But she had so many other things to worry about—and that bunch of men hadn’t pulled any of those triggers as she’d come into the facility. Hard to imagine why they’d bother on the way out.

One of them jumped in front and opened the steel door for them, and the Range Rover was right where it had been parked. Next to it, Assail’s two cousins were standing grimly—watched over by more of those incredibly dangerous-looking guys.

Assail opened the back car door for her and offered her his hand. She needed it. Humping herself up into the SUV caused her thigh to sting until her eyes watered. But as she was shut in, she managed to work the belt herself, pulling it out from her body and clipping it in place.

Sola frowned. Through the tinted glass, she watched as Assail went to each of the men, one after another, and offered them his hand. There were no words spoken, at least not that she saw, but there didn’t need to be.

Grave stares met Assail’s eyes and subtle nods were given with respect as if an accord had been reached among them all.

And then Assail’s cousins hopped in the front, Assail got in the rear with her and they were off.

She had only a vague memory of all the gates and barricades they’d had to go through to get into the place—but she figured the way out would take forever.

At least she wanted it to. She had some hope that if enough time passed, she could convince her inner little girl that she hadn’t broken the main Ten Commandment twice, nearly been raped, and had to deface a body to get herself out of hell.

Unfortunately, they were back on the Northway, heading south toward downtown Caldwell, a heartbeat and a half later. Or it certainly seemed like that.

As they zeroed in on the bridges that would take them over the river and through the woods, to Assail’s fortress they went …

Great. Her brain was non-sequituring it up.

Rubbing her tired eyes, she had to pull things together.

It didn’t happen.

“You know, you may have a point,” she said quietly.

“About what,” Assail asked from beside her.

“Maybe it was all just a dream. A bad, horrible dream…”

The Range Rover mounted the westbound bridge over the Hudson, and with traffic moving smoothly across the span, they were going to be at Assail’s in only five or ten minutes.

Twisting around, she looked at the receding downtown, all those lights like stars having fallen to earth.

“I don’t know if I can see her,” she heard herself say.

“It didn’t happen.”

Watching that cityscape get smaller and smaller, she told her brain to do the same with all the sights and smells and sensations that were so close, too close: Time was a highway and her body and brain were traveling on it. So she needed to hit that fucking gas pedal and get the hell away from the last forty-eight hours.

Before she knew it, they were turning off onto the thin road that went down to the peninsula Assail owned. And then her stomach sank as that glass house came into view, its golden illumination pouring out onto the landscape as if the place were a pot of gold.

They went to the back, the headlights swinging around across the rear of the mansion. And there she was. In the window of the kitchen, head lifting to look out, hands reaching for a dish towel … Sola’s grandmother was watching, waiting—now scrambling for the back door.

Abruptly, everything went out of Sola’s mind as her hand fumbled for the latch.

Assail gripped her arm. “No. Not until we’re in the garage.”

Unlike the rest of the trip, getting undercover took forever, that reinforced door trundling down like it had all the time in the world.

The instant it thumped into place, Sola burst out of that SUV and ran for the door. It was locked, and in her jammed-up mind, the only thing that occurred to her was to grip the handle harder and yank and pull—

Someone unlocked it remotely, because there was a clunk! and then suddenly things sprang open.

Her grandmother was on the far side of a squat anteroom, standing in the center of the kitchen, that white dish towel wadded up to her face, the scents of home cooking like love in the air.

Sola ran forward as her grandmother opened the only arms that had ever been there to hold her.

She had no clear knowledge of what was said in Portuguese, but on both sides, words flowed fast. Until her grandmother pushed her back and captured her face in those weathered hands.

“Why for you this sorry?” the woman demanded, brushing tears away with her thumbs. “No sorry for you. Never.”

Sola got pulled back in hard and held against that generous bosom. Closing her eyes, she sagged and let her brain shut down.

This was all that mattered. They were together. They were safe.

“Thank you, God,” she whispered. “Thank you, dear Lord.”