Ensconced in his high-rise apartment, a glass and steel work of art that pierced the clouds, Adam dialed up Kapoor, filling the seconds between hitting send and the call being answered with the myriad ways he had fucked up his operation. Underestimating his father had bitten him on the ass too many times to count in his youth, but he liked to think he had long ago accepted the hard truth his father was capable of anything.
Anything, yes, but he still hadn’t expected The Hole.
No war was won without casualties.
Two hundred inmates. Three dozen civilians. Over three hundred guards. All gone.
And it was his fault. His careless words had ended in an execution . . . and in mass murder.
“What fresh fuckery do you have for me?” Kapoor rasped. “I’m goddamn finished with today.”
“Luce wants to meet Ezra.” Adam kept it blunt. “She wants to hold him accountable and turn him to her cause.”
“I don’t have enough fingers to count off the reasons why that’s a bad idea, but damn if I have a better one.” Kapoor shut a door, probably to his office, to give them privacy. “Adam, this has gone on too long. You’ve got to come clean with her, or we’re going to lose her.”
“She’s mated,” he said softly. “They have a child.”
“Half of that you already knew.” Kapoor wasn’t pulling punches, probably why Adam called him in the first place. “The kid changes nothing.” Bitterness weighted his words. “You have to focus on Conquest, or Luce, or whatever the hell you sleep better calling her at night. We need her to seal the breach, or the Otillians will just keep coming. Earth is already on the brink. We can’t keep taking in charun refugees while pretending they don’t exist. This needs to end. She can do that for us.”
“Farhan,” he allowed himself the brief intimacy of acknowledging their friendship. “She’ll die.”
“There’s only one way to plug a hole between worlds, and she’s it.” He sighed. “We’re never going to get another chance like this one. There will never be another Conquest willing to sacrifice herself for the sake of this world. Either Luce Boudreau dies, or we all do.”
Adam disconnected without saying goodbye and padded into his library. A portrait hung over the fireplace, a reproduction of a reproduction of a reproduction. The original was in a climate-controlled storage unit safe from the ravages of time in a way his human wife had not been.
What he recalled of her was not a flesh and blood woman, but the sweep of paint on canvas. He had memorized each brushstroke, absorbed each detail with rapt fascination, until it all blurred in his mind.
Marrying her had been forbidden, mating her biologically impossible.
Humans simply lacked the depth of soul required to forge a bond that weathered eternity.
Love was not enough. That wasn’t the first lesson he learned, nor the hardest, but it left an impression.
Adam should have died with her. She should have lived with him. But neither of those things happened.
His kind mated only once in their very long lives.
He had mated twice.
First, he gave away his heart, and then he gave away his soul.
Luce wasn’t the only one condemned by his scheming. Adam had finally succeeded in what he failed to do all those centuries ago. Adam had damned himself too.
Kapoor listened to the dead air and sighed. Wu was fraying under the strain. He’d been holding together fine until his father got involved ahead of schedule. Then again, maybe it would have always gone this route. Maybe his old man really was divine, and they had all been doomed from the start.
A pulse of energy swept through the room like a spring breeze, and Kapoor shut his eyes and prayed to any gods who might hear. But the trouble with living in the shadow of fear cast by one was you didn’t have much faith that any others might be roused to lend a hand.
Heart slamming against his chest, he watched as the knob turned, and the door swung open. The man who entered his office was tall and lean, dressed in pressed jeans and a white button-down shirt. His shoes were brown loafers, and they matched his belt. Looking higher than his collar—that was the problem.
Ezra was the most beautiful person Kapoor had ever seen. You had to look and then look again to be certain you were seeing what you thought you saw. Sometimes even that wasn’t enough. He was compelling, emitting his own gravitational pull that had Kapoor rising from his chair to greet what amounted to certain death.
The would-be god just smiled, benevolent, used to the attention he commanded from either sex.
Square jaw, bladed cheekbones, aquiline nose. He was the whole package. The curtain of wavy blond hair that brushed his wide shoulders didn’t hurt things either. His eyes, though. That’s what trapped you if you were dumb enough to meet his gaze.
As it turned out, Kapoor wasn’t half as smart as he thought. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Just the word—pleasure—and the throaty rasp that passed for his voice left Ezra chuckling.
“I need to have a word with my son.” He strolled over and shook the hand Kapoor didn’t remember extending. “I was told you could make that happen.”
The touch of skin on skin was electric, and Kapoor shuddered from the wash of power across his nerves. “Adam doesn’t report to me, but I’m sure I can locate him.” The oxygen punched from his lungs when he severed the contact, a small death that reminded him how alive Ezra could make you feel. “He was out in the field last I heard, so it will take a few days.”
“A few days,” Ezra mused. “Are we going to pretend you didn’t end a call with him before I arrived?”
Only his mastery in the art of lying, a job requirement with the NSB, saved him from stumbling.
“Big difference between answering a call and arranging for a meeting between the two of you.” He flicked his hand toward the mountain of paperwork on his desk. “Adam heard about The Hole. He was calling in to confirm the casualties.”
“Famine is dead. I snapped her neck before the charge detonated.” He stared at Kapoor and let his inner monster slip its leash. Just a bit. “The cadre must be eliminated. They are foul creatures bent on destruction. They are not pets to be fed and watered and kept in cages.”
“We had hoped to develop more effective weapons to use during the next ascension by allowing scientists access to a live specimen.”
The way things were going, there would be plenty more to come.
Goddamn, he was tired of the subterfuge. How Wu survived playing both teams this long mystified him.
“Otillian biology makes the creation of effective weaponry impossible.” He steepled his fingers. “They’re too altered when they arrive to be taken down by anything but brute force. The standard protocols don’t apply.”
Since Kapoor’s best chance at survival was keeping his mouth shut, that’s what he did.
“I’m aware of my son’s perversions.” The monster in Ezra wet its lips when it looked at him. “I have made the same mistake as so many parents before me. Indulgence. The time for such leniency has passed.” He tucked it back out of sight. “I want you to arrange a meeting with my son, and I expect Luce Boudreau to be in attendance.”
Ezra didn’t lower himself to explaining what would happen to Kapoor if his demands weren’t met.
“I’ll get right on that.” Kapoor’s hand trembled when he reached for a pen. “Where can I reach you?”
“There’s a converted warehouse in Summit, near Lake Bevin.” A smile tugged at his lips, and the effect almost struck Kapoor dumb. “I’m going to pay the inhabitants a visit.”
The enclave.
The fucker knew about the enclave.
“Leave the address with me.” Kapoor kept his expression blank, his soul dark. “I’ll be in touch.”
“See that you are.” Ezra pivoted on his heel. “I am not your god, but I’m not without my wrath.”
Whatever magic had strung Kapoor upright during his conversation with Ezra got cut once the door closed. Knees buckling, he collapsed in a limp heap, his tailbone driving into the hardwood floor. Hidden behind his desk, panting like he’d just run a marathon—or for his life—he dialed Wu. “We’ve got a problem.”
Talk about the understatement of the century.