The Shadows

TWENTY-THREE

Rhage re-formed on the lawn of Darius’s former mansion and strode up to the front entrance. The second he came into the house, he heard a series of gasps, and glanced to the left. In the parlor, there were a number of civilians clustered in an awkward, standing group, like they didn’t feel comfortable sitting on all the fancy silk-covered furniture—and their eyes were popped large at the sight of him.

Yeah, his reputation still preceded him.

Geez, you’re a slut for a couple of centuries, and people just can’t let that shit go after you get properly mated.

It was a PITA, and on an ordinary night, he would have gone over and introduced himself just to bring his Mary up in conversation.

Tonight, though, he headed to the closed doors of what had once been the dining room. Knocking twice, he said, “It’s me.”

Tohr opened things up with a “What’s doin’,” and Rhage stepped into the cavernous, mostly barren room: All they had in there were a bunch of armchairs, a desk with an office chair, and some ancillary seats in case an audience had a lot of guest ass to accommodate.

“No explosives,” Wrath was saying from one of the armchairs. “No traps.”

V was in the process of lighting up a hand-rolled, and as he exhaled, the scent of Turkish tobacco drifted over. “Hollywood and I went through the place with a fine-toothed comb. They had been there, clearly. Had just left as far as we could tell. But they hadn’t bothered to try to fuck us.”

With his dagger hand, Wrath stroked the boxy blond head of the golden retriever who helped him get around. George, ever adoring of his master, had his face turned to the King, his throat offered freely. “So Throe didn’t lie.”

“Not about that at least,” V muttered.

“Interesting.”

Rhage glanced around at the faces of his brothers. Z and Phury were standing together as they always did. Qhuinn was next to Z, and then Blay and John Matthew, even though the males weren’t members, were beside him. Butch was opposite the King, propping his forearms on top of an armchair and leaning his weight in; V was behind him. Tohr stayed by the door.

“So what next,” Rhage asked.

“We wait.” Wrath bent down further and scratched at the dog’s ruff. “If he’s got shit to stir, he’ll hang himself. The aristocracy will have to be monitored—we need an inside source there. Any ideas?”

At that moment, there was another knock. Tohr put his ear to the panels and then cracked the door. “Ask and ye shall receive.”

Abalone leaned in. “My lord? I’m sorry to intrude, but may I please make the presentation of mine blooded daughter prior to us getting started with tonight’s audiences?”

Wrath gestured the male forward with his free hand. “Yeah. Bring her in.”

Abalone ducked out and there was a hushed conversation. Then he reappeared, ushering in a sapling of a female. With her blond hair, slight build, and long legs, she was on the Arctic Princess spectrum of the fairer sex.

Pretty. Very pretty. Maybe even beautiful—although she didn’t hold a candle to his Mary.

Abalone walked the girl forward, one hand at her elbow, his fatherly pride plumping up his chest. “My esteemed ruler, great King of all—”

“Yeah, yeah, enough with that,” Wrath cut in. “Paradise, I understand you’re moving into my shellan’s and her brother’s house here. Welcome.”

As the black diamond was offered, Paradise bent at the waist, her hands shaking so badly they seemed to shimmer in the light from the chandelier.

“My lord,” she whispered before kissing the stone.

Releasing his hand, she straightened and stared at the floor, her shoulders curling into her chest, her feet locked together.

“You want to meet my dog?” the King asked.

George, ever up for a good head rub, thumped his tail on the floor, the sound like someone was beating a rope into the hardwood.

“Pet him,” Wrath said. “You’re allowed.”

The girl glanced around at the Brotherhood, her eyes sticking to the shitkicker level. And that was when Rhage felt sorry for her. A lot of the aristocracy sat on their females so hard, they were rarely around males they were not related to—so this was no doubt the first time she had been in the same room with so much testosterone.

“G’head, George. Go say hi.”

At Wrath’s urging, the dog padded forward and sat his fluffy butt down right in front of her, his ears pricking, that tail sweeping back and forth.

“Is . . . he a boy?” she asked softly as she lowered herself to the floor and reached up to all the fur.

“Yup.” Wrath looked up. “All right, assholes, introduce yourselves, will ya? And keep it classy.”

Cue the throat clearing. At least until Phury stepped forward and did the intros. Probably best—he was the closest to a gentlemale they had.

“Glad you’re here,” the Primale said. “I’m Phury—we love your dad, by the way. Good guy.”

Annnnnd now Abalone was levitating right out of his Bally loafers.

She looked up into those yellow eyes and offered him a shy smile. “Hi.”

“Over there is my twin.” He indicated Z—and Zsadist, ever aware of what he looked like with that scar down his face, stayed way back, lifting his hand as Paradise recoiled. “Zsadist’s mated and has a daughter named Nalla. She’s gorgeous—here’s a picture.”

As Phury flashed his cell phone, the girl looked at the image. Glanced at Z. Went back to the snapshot.

“My baby girl,” Z said in a deep voice. “She’s two, and she got her mahmen’s looks.”

Instantly, the girl relaxed. Then Phury intro’d Vishous, who just nodded, and Butch, who gave her a Bostonian, “Hi, hawre ya!” John Matthew, Blay, and Qhuinn were up next, and then Phury indicated Rhage.

“And Brad Pitt over there is Hollywood.”

He smiled. “Glad you’re here.”

Paradise’s stare stayed on him, her eyes getting big, but not because she was scared. Far from it.

“Yeah, he’s a looker,” someone said. “Until you get to know him.”

“Aww, come now,” Rhage tossed back. “Don’t hate.”

Talk sprang up, with Wrath asking Paradise some questions to get her talking about herself. As the girl refocused on the King, Rhage thought back to before he’d met his Mary. No doubt he would have made a run at that innocent—and would have been successful. He’d had a zero failure rate as he’d controlled his beast by fucking anything and everything that had moved. Which had been good for him. Not so hot for females who’d wanted to keep their virtue.

And he had no doubt Paradise was one of those.

So yeah, he was glad he was meeting her now, when there was absolutely no chance of him getting with her. He had mated his Virgin, just as Vishous had said he would, and his life had been saved.

For some reason, a sick feeling came over him.

Shoving his hand in his pocket, he took out his cell phone. Checked his texts.

Trez, the poor bastard, still hadn’t gotten back to him yet. It seemed stupid to bother the guy again, given everything that was on his plate, but it was hard not to reach out one more time.

Rhage wished there was more to be done to help the guy and his Chosen.

He truly did.

There was no doing any kind of turn signal.

As Layla drove her Mercedes back to the Brotherhood mansion, she had her injured arm propped on the middle console between the seats, a spare jacket wadded up to increase its height and provide some extra cushioning.

The pain was stunning, the kind of thing that was so bad, it registered in her gut.

So no, there was no signaling left or right.

At least there was nobody else out on the country roads this late at night.

It was hours, maybe years, before she made it to the turn off to the compound’s mountain, and the mhis was a nightmare. V’s distortion of the landscape, a security measure to keep them safe, meant that everything was blurry, as if a fog had overtaken the forest. Exhaustion from fighting the urge to vomit, combined with her vision beginning to fail, meant that she felt utterly lost, and her instinct was to lean in and get closer to the windshield—not that that helped.

All that did was just piss her arm off even more.

When the glowing lights of the mansion finally came into view, she prayed, prayed that the Brothers were all out fighting and she could make it to her room without anybody seeing her. Pulling around the just-winterized fountain, she parked next to Rhage’s purple GTO and Butch’s new toy, a black Mercedes that looked like a bread box.

She had to reach around the wheel and push the gear lever in to get the engine into park—and discovered she had to stretch even more to hit the Stop/Start button to turn the sedan off. Then it was a case of breathing shallowly through her mouth as she recovered from the effort. Looking in the rearview mirror, she caught sight of the entrance to the mansion . . . and had no clue how she was going to get over there. Much less haul herself up to her room.

There was no other choice. Either she did it on her own, or she had to ask someone to lie for her: There was no hiding the injury, not as fresh as it was. And she couldn’t let Qhuinn find out what had happened.

Or, even worse, what she’d really been doing when she’d fallen.

Damn it, this situation was the punishment for her double life—her two opposing realities slamming together, knocking her senseless, exposing her.

Potentially.

Time to go inside.

Layla got a fresh lesson in pain as she opened her door and tried to straighten up from the leather seat, her arm letting out a scream as the broken bone ground against itself.

Recovery breath. A number of them.

And then somehow, she got herself out of the car.

Had the mansion always been so far from the parking area?

Walking around the fountain wasn’t so much a case of putting one foot in front of the other, but shuffling over the cobblestones and trying not to pass out. When she got to the stone stairs that led up to the cathedral-size doors, she wanted to cry. Instead, she surmounted them one at a time.

Pulling open the vestibule’s door, she realized she’d made two mistakes: She had left her car door unshut . . . and she was, in fact, going to have to interact with someone—there was no getting into the house this way without putting your face in the security camera and waiting for an answer.

Glancing back at the Mercedes, she didn’t have the energy to go back there and close things up.

And trying to get around to the staff entrance by the garage was—

That was where things ended.

As her mind labored over her limited options, her body pulled its own plug out of the consciousness socket: Lights-out and gravity did their business on her, the stoop rushing up to greet her with a hard, hard embrace.

That she did not feel.