The Chosen

Before he could answer, someone started pounding on their door—and that kind of urgency meant one and only one thing: a mobilization of arms. Had the Band of Bastards decided to attack?

Tohr set Autumn aside gently, and then leapt off the bed for his dagger holster.

“What’s going on!” he barked out. “Where are we going?”

The door flew open and Phury looked like hell. “Qhuinn’s down at the Tomb alone with Xcor.”

Tohr froze for a heartbeat, doing the math and coming to a conclusion that meant he was getting cheated out of killing that fucking asshole. “Goddamn it, he’s mine, not Qhuinn’s—”

“You’re staying here. We need someone on Wrath. Everyone else is going there.”

Tohr ground his molars at getting benched, but he wasn’t surprised. And guarding the King himself was hardly a demotion. “Keep me posted?”

“Always.”

With a curse, the brother wheeled away and took off along with the others, joining what became a stampede of shitkickers pounding down the hall of statues.

“Go,” Autumn told him. “Seek out Wrath. It will make you feel purposeful.”

He looked over his shoulder. “You always know me, don’t you.”

His beautiful mate shook her blond head. “You have mysteries that still captivate me.”

As a sudden lust thickened his blood, Tohr released a pumping purr. “Midnight. You are mine, female.”

Her smile was as old as the species and just as enduring. “I cannot wait.”

Tohr was out in the corridor a moment later—and feeling totally cooped up even though the mansion had how many rooms? But then, as he came up to the open doorway of Wrath’s study, the King nearly mowed him over.

“—fucking bullshit, I’m outta here.” Wrath shut the double doors behind him and headed for the top of the grand staircase. “Goddamn it, I’m a brother, I’m allowed in there—”

“My Lord, you can’t go to the Tomb.”

As George, the King’s service dog, whimpered on the far side of the closed-up study, the last purebred vampire on earth hit the stairs on a pounding descent.

“Wrath.” Tohr fell into a jog right on the male’s heels, but didn’t bother much with the whole volume thing. “Stop. No, really. Stop.”

Yup, he was about as persuasive as an asshole with semaphore flags and two broken arms: He wasn’t jumping in front of his ruler. He wasn’t reaching out, grabbing onto the guy, and forcing the King to stay inside. And he wasn’t, ultimately, going to prevent his ruler from leaving for the Tomb. Where Qhuinn was.

Where Xcor was.

Because, hey, if he were guarding the King, he had to go with the male wherever he went, right? And if that just so happened to take him to where that Bastard was? Welllllllll, that was hardly his fault. Besides, given Wrath’s mood? Any argument about staying put was going to be wasted breath. The King was highly reasonable—except when he wasn’t. And when that black-haired SOB with the wraparounds decided he was going to do, or not do, something? Nobody, but nobody, was going to change his mind.

With the exception of maybe Beth—and even that wasn’t a given.

As he and Wrath hit the foyer and crossed the mosaic depiction of an apple tree in bloom, Tohr said in a bored voice, “Seriously. Let the others handle it. Stop.”

Wrath didn’t hesitate and did not falter. Even though he was sightless, he was so familiar with the mansion, he was able to anticipate the number of steps, the direction, even the height of the enormous door handle he was gunning for. Things kept up like this and they were going to be at that cave on the northern side of the mountain in a nanosecond.

Except … as the entrance to the vestibule got yanked open and cold air rushed in, Tohr took a deep breath.

And instantly, his insanity cleared.

Wait a minute, he thought. What the hell was he doing?

It was one thing to go off the handle himself—another to fail at his job as a private guard and allow the King to put himself into a situation that could endanger his life. And also, P.S., it was bullshit to want to kill Xcor for shooting at Wrath, while at the same time be willing to let the King walk into what could be an ambush. The Band of Bastards was even more of a wild card than ever. What if something went wrong down there with Qhuinn going rogue and Xcor somehow got free? Found his boys? Attacked the Brotherhood?

As Wrath pile drove through the vestibule and headed out into the night, Tohr got back on the job.

Now he did leap in front, shove his hands out, punch the pecs of his ruler.

Glaring into those black wraparounds, he said, “Hold up, I can’t let you go to the Tomb. As much as I really want a fucking excuse to get down there and deal with Xcor’s fucking ass on my own terms, I won’t be able to live with myself if—”

Buh-bye.

Without a single word or hesitation, Wrath up and disappeared. Which proved Tohr had been fucking right about the King doing what he wanted—and really fucking stupid for not tackling the male on the grand staircase.

“Damn it!” Tohr muttered as he unholstered both of his forties.

His own dematerialization cut off the rest of the curses that were running a scrimmage through his no-account brain. And then he was resuming his form in the dense woods, at the place he had been forcibly evicted from no more than an hour before.

Oh … God.

Blood. In the midst of the gusting, frigid wind … he could smell Xcor’s blood.

The sonofabitch was out? What the hell? Because that shit was not distilled from a distance, as if it were coming from an injury that was in the cave’s interior.

No, it was right at his feet, in the fallen pine needles and the dirt. A trail.

An escape.

Even though his instinct to track the male was nearly overpowering, Wrath was more important. Pivoting on his shitkicker, he jogged over to his ruler.

“My Lord!” Tohr scanned the environs, looking for movement. “What the fuck is wrong with you! We need to get you out of here!”

Wrath ignored him and headed into the cave, where the voices of other brothers were echoing around and clearly providing him with an orientation. Tohr thought about stopping the male, but better in there with the Brotherhood than out in the forest as a sitting duck.

Man, they were going to have words after this, though.

Great night for the household. For fuck’s sake.

The scent of the blood was thicker here, and yes, he had a stab of jealousy go through his chest. Qhuinn had clearly had at the bastard. But something had gone very, very wrong. There was the trail of barefoot prints and blood leading out of the cave, and Qhuinn was leaking, too. That scent was likewise strong.

Was the brother still alive? Had Xcor somehow overpowered him and taken the key to the gate? But how would that have been possible? Xcor had been half dead on that gurney.

As Tohr and the King went deeper into the cave, the light from the torches at the gate offered a glow to follow and then he and Wrath came up to everyone else—and Tohr confronted a situation that was as unexpected as it was inexplicable.

Qhuinn was on the interior of the great gates of the sanctum sanctorum, sitting on his ass on the rock floor, his elbows on his knees. He was bleeding in a number of places and breathing in a shallow way that suggested he might have some broken ribs. His clothes were all out of order, and stained with blood that was his and had to be Xcor’s, too, and his knuckles were busted up.

But that was not the weirdness.

The key to the gate was on the outside. Sitting upon the earthen floor like it had been placed there deliberately.

Three of his brothers were standing around the thing like it might blow up on them, and everywhere else, people were talking over each other. All that chatter ended, however, as Wrath’s presence registered on the group.

“What the fuck!” someone said.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Okay, that was Butch. “What the hell?”

More brothers jumped on that bandwagon, but the King was having none of it. “What am I looking at! Someone fucking tell me what I’m looking at!”

In the silence that followed, Tohr waited for one of the first responders, so to speak, to do the rundown.