The Beast

But sacrifices had to be made.

He did not bother with the pantry. It would be consumed soon enough. Instead, he set about lighting afire the fine professional kitchen, starting with the drapes on either side of the banks of windows and continuing on to all the wooden cabinetry that his cousins had so competently covered with accelerant.

The great whoosh! as things caught and flames held was a rush every time it happened, and he felt himself get hard, some primal part of him expressing dominance and demanding submission from this static environment of inanimate objects. Indeed, with each explosion of power, it seemed as though he were reclaiming some part of himself that he had lost along the way.

Sure as if he had been the one chained down below.

Soon, the re-doubling heat became unbearable, his hair curling up at the ends, the skin of his face tightening to the point of pain.

As he rounded the circuit back to the foyer, he realized that he was surrounded by the fire he had sought to create, trapped in the inferno. Smoke, billowing and toxic, needled his eyes and stung his nose and sinuses, whilst undulating walls of fire blocked every exit.

Perhaps this was the end, he thought as he lowered the muzzle of his thrower.

All around him, great waves of orange and red flames ebbed and flowed, like mouths chewing on the mansion and its contents, and he was momentarily mesmerized by the deadly beauty of the blaze.

Calming down, he took out his phone.

Summoning up a number, he hit send and turned in a circle slowly as it rang, and rang, and rang—

“Hello?” came her voice.

He closed his eyes. Oh, that voice. Marisol’s beautiful voice.

“Hello,” she demanded.

There was a silence over the connection, although no silence in the house. No, things were creaking and popping, moaning and cursing as if the studs and plaster had bones that broke and nerve receptors to feel the pain.

“Assail?” she said urgently. “Assail . . . is this you?”

“I love you,” he replied.

“Assail! What is—”

He cut off the call. Turned off his phone. And then he removed the pack and placed it at his feet.

As the temperature increased and the chaos rose e’er higher, he straightened his jacket and tugged his cuffs into place.

After all, he might have been a degenerate, self-interested, drug-dealing sociopath, but one should have standards and look good when one passed.

Dhund or the Fade, he wondered.

Probably Dhund—

From out of the tsunami of flame, a black figure streaked into the eye of the inferno’s hurricane where Assail was standing.

It was the Brother Zsadist. And contrary to the impending death and destruction that was overwhelming things, the gentlemale seemed more annoyed than frantic as he skidded to a halt.

“Not going to die here,” the male yelled over the din.

“This is a fitting end for me.”

Those black, soulless eyes rolled. “Oh, please.”

“Even though this arson is for proper reason,” Assail hollered, “your King will have to prosecute me for murder, as there was no due process for the blood slave transgression of that female. So allow me to perish here, on my terms, satisfied that I have—”

“Not on my watch, asshole.”

The punch came from the right and plowed into Assail’s jaw so hard, it cut off not just his rather poetic speech, if he did say so himself, but his link to consciousness.

The last thing he heard as he went lights-out was, “—carry you out of here like luggage, you goddamn fool.”

For Fates’ sake, Assail thought as everything went dark and silent. The principles of others were so fucking inconvenient.

Especially when one was trying to kill oneself.

SIXTY-EIGHT

As Rhage went back home after his meeting at I’ve Bean, he was feeling like a fucking boss.

Rhym had even given him a hug at the end of the interview. And that had to mean something, right?

The first thing he wanted to do, as he headed up the mansion’s grand staircase, was call his Mary, but she was in her meeting now, so he’d have to wait. Whatever, he could get changed and maybe go downtown to do some hunting and burn off some—

His phone went off with a bing! just as he hit the second floor and saw that the King was sitting on the throne at his desk—as opposed to being at the Audience House, where he should have been.

Ignoring the text, Rhage strode forward and knocked on the open door. “My Lord?”

Wrath’s head jerked up as if he’d been surprised by the interruption—which was the first clue that something big had happened: That brother might have been blind, but he had the instincts of the keenest predator.

“You’re early,” Wrath muttered. “The meeting doesn’t start for another twenty minutes.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You get V’s text?”

Rhage entered the frilly pale blue room with its French furniture and its air of butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth. The study or parlor or whatever it was the most ludicrous environment to plan fights and wars and strategy in, but now, like so much of Darius’s mansion, it was a tradition that no one wanted to change.

Patting his chest where his phone had vibrated, he murmured, “Guess that’s what just came through. What’s doing?”

Wrath sat back in his father’s great ornate chair, and beside him on the floor, George lifted his boxy blond head in inquiry, as if the dog wanted to know whether they were going somewhere or staying put.