The Beast

“To w-w-what do I owe this h-h-honor?”

Wrath’s nostrils flared as the King tested the scent in the air. “You got a monkey on your back, huh.”

“I b-b-beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.”

V checked out the twin cousins over in the corner and found them as straight-backed and unmoving as a pair of cannons. And just about as warm and fuzzy.

On that note, they kind of didn’t annoy him.

“What m-m-m-may I do for you?” Assail asked between twitches.

“I want to thank you for working with us last night,” the King drawled. “I understand your wounds are all stitched up.”

“Y-y-yes—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Wrath glared over at V. “Will you get this cocksucker his drug of choice? I can’t talk to him if he’s all jonesing for his sin. It’s like trying to get someone to focus through an epileptic seizure.”

“Looking for this?” V held up a vial full of powder and tilted the thing back and forth, all tick-tock. “Mmm?”

It was pathetic the way the fucker’s eyes latched on and bugged out. But V knew what that was like—how you needed the very burn you didn’t want, how it became all you could think of, how you withered from the not having of it.

Thank God for Jane. Without her, he’d be walking that stretch of gnawing and ever-empty still.

“And he doesn’t even deny how much he needs it,” V murmured as he approached the bed.

Dayum, as the poor bastard reached out, it was clear that Assail’s hands were shaking too badly for him to hold on to anything.

“Allow me, motherfucker.”

Twisting the black top off, V turned the little brown bottle over and made a line down the inside of his own forearm.

Assail took that shit like a pile driver, snorting half up one nostril, half up the other. Then he fell back against the hospital bed like he had a broken leg and his morphine drip had finally kicked in. And yup, from a clinical standpoint, it was a sad commentary on the SOB’s state that a stimulant like cocaine was bringing him down.

But that was addiction for you. No damn sense.

“Now, you want to try this again?” V muttered as he licked his arm clean and tasted bitterness. The buzz was not bad, either.

Assail rubbed his face and then let his arms fall to his sides. “What.”

Wrath smiled without any warmth, revealing his massive fangs. “I want to know what your business plans are.”

“Why is that your concern?” Assail’s voice was reedy, like he was exhausted. “Or have you decided that a dictatorship, rather than a democracy, is more suited to your personality—”

“Watch your fucking tone,” V snapped.

Wrath kept going as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Your track record is questionable at best. In spite of a more recent trend toward loyalty, you seem to always be on the outskirts of my enemies, whether it’s the Band of Bastards or the Lessening Society. And last I checked, you were running a drug ring—something that cannot be done with a mere crew of two, as capable as your henchmen may be. So I find myself wanting to know where you’re going to go for your middlemen now that the slayers who you’ve been working with are out of the black market business.”

Assail drew his jet-black hair back straight from his forehead and held it in place like he was hoping that would help his brain get to work.

V braced himself for some bullshit.

Except then the male said in a curiously dead voice, “I do not know. In truth . . . I know not what I shall do.”

“You speak no falsity.” Wrath inclined his head as he exhaled. “And as your King, I have a suggestion for you.”

“Or would that be a command,” Assail muttered.

“Take it as you will.” Wrath’s brows disappeared under the rims of his wraparounds. “Bearing in mind that I can kill you or let you go from this place on a whim.”

“There are laws against murder.”

“Sometimes.” The King smiled again with those fangs. “In any event, I want your help—and you’re going to give it to me. One way or another.”

SIXTEEN

About halfway to Safe Place, Mary decided she was going to end up with knee-replacement surgery.

As she took an exit off the Northway, she gritted her teeth and punched in the rock-hard clutch of her husband’s vintage, rehabbed, brilliant purple GTO—a.k.a. his pride and joy. The light of his life after her. The single most valuable anything he owned since he’d given her his gold Presidential Rolex.

The muscle car started making a coughing noise and then it kicked out a pattern of bass explosions followed by some high-pitched squealing as she moved the gearshift forward and back in the box.

“Third? Third . . . I need, no, second? Definitely not first.”

She’d learned that one the hard way when she’d come to a stop at the bottom of the mansion’s hill and had nearly knocked her front teeth out on the steering wheel from the jerking and jumping.

“Oh, Ms. Volvo, I miss you so. . . .”

When she’d come out of the mansion, she’d discovered the station wagon wasn’t out front in the courtyard with the Brotherhood’s other vehicles. But rather than waste time trying to hunt the thing down back at the training center, she’d snagged Rhage’s keys and figured, How hard could it be to take his muscle car in to town? She knew how to drive a stick shift.