The King

“Please. Thank you,” Abalone replied weakly.

Two seconds later, the fighter delivered a cold Coke in a glass. Which turned out to be the best thing Abalone had ever tasted.

Composing himself, he mumbled, “Forgive me. I feared that I had found your disfavor.”

“Not at all.” Wrath smiled again. “You’re going to be very, very useful to me.”

Abalone stared into the fizzing glass. “My father served yours.”

“Yeah. Very well, I might add.”

“Through your blood’s generosity, mine has prospered.” Abalone took another sip, his shaking hand making the ice tinkle. “May I say something about your father?”

The King seemed to stiffen. “Yeah.”

Abalone looked up to the sunglasses. “The night he and your mother were killed, a part of my father died, too. He was never the same thereafter. I can remember our house being in mourning for a full seven years, the mirrors draped in black cloth, the incense burning, the threshold marked with a black jamb.”

Wrath rubbed his face. “They were good people, my parents.”

Abalone put the soda aside and shifted off the armchair, getting on his knees before his King. “I will serve you just as my father did, down to the bone and marrow.”

Abalone was dimly aware that others had filed into the room and were looking at him. He cared naught. History had come full circle … and he was prepared to carry forward with pride.

Wrath nodded once. “I’m making you my chief cleric. Right here and now. Saxton,” he barked out. “What do I need to do?”

A cultured voice answered smoothly, “You just did it all. I’ll draw up the paperwork.”

The King smiled and put out his palm. “You’re the first member of my court. Boom!”

“I know where you went last night.”

Xcor stopped in the middle of the alley—and did not turn around. “Do you.”

Throe’s voice was flat. “I followed you. I saw her.”

Now he pivoted on his combat boot. Narrowing his eyes on his second in command, he said, “Be of care what you say next. And do not ever do that again.”

Throe stomped his boot. “I talked to her. What the hell are you doing—”

Xcor moved so fast that it was less than a heartbeat later that the other male was up against a brick building, struggling to draw breath through the hold on his throat.

“That is not for you to question.” Xcor made sure he did not take out a dagger—but it was tough. “What transpires within my private life is no concern of yours. And allow me to state this clearly—do not ever approach her again if you want to live to die of natural causes.”

Throe’s voice was strangled. “When we take the throne—”

“No. No more of that.”

Throe’s brows punched up into his forehead. “No?”

Xcor released the male and stalked around. “My ambitions have altered.”

“Because of a female?”

Before he could stop himself, he palmed one of his guns and aimed it directly at Throe’s head. “Watch your tone.”

Throe slowly lifted his palms. “I only question the turnabout.”

“It is not for her. It has nothing to do with her.”

“What then?”

At least Xcor was able to speak the truth. “That male gave up a female he was bonded to in order to retain the throne. I have it on good authority of his actions. If he is willing to do that? He can have the f**king thing.”

Throe exhaled slowly.

And didn’t say anything more. The fighter just stared into Xcor’s eyes.

“What,” Xcor demanded.

“If you want me to say anything further, you’re going to have to lower that weapon.”

It was a while before his arm listened to the commands of his brain. “Speak.”

“You are making a mistake. We were able to make great progress—and there will be another angle.”

“Not from us there won’t.”

“Do not make this choice on an infatuation.”

That was the problem, though. He feared he’d fallen far harder than that. “I am not.”

Throe walked around, hands on hips, head shaking back and forth. “This is a mistake.”

“Then form your own cabal and attempt to prevail. It won’t work, but I will promise you a good burial if I’m still around to see to it.”

“Your ambitions served mine own.” Throe regarded him steadily. “I do not want to relinquish the future so blithely.”

“I do not know this word ‘blithely,’ but I do not care of its definition. This is where we are. You may leave if you like—or you may remain and fight with us as we always have done.”

“You are serious.”

“The past does nae interest me as much as it used to. So go if you want. Take the others if you wish. But our life in the Old Country sufficed for many years, so I fail to see why the King’s identity should be of such concern for you.”

“That is because my blade had not been honed on the stone of the crown—”

“What shall you do the now? That ’tis all I care about.”

“I fear I do not know you anymore.”

“Once that would have been a blessing.”

“No longer.”

Xcor shrugged. “’Tis on you.”

Throe looked up as if searching for inspiration from the heavens. “Fine,” he said tightly.

“Fine, what.”

“Try as I might”—the male’s face became grim—“my fealty is to you.”

Xcor nodded once. “Your pledge is accepted.”

But he wasn’t fooling himself. Throe’s ambition was between them now, and no exchange of words or even parchment was going to change that.

They were not done with this, not in the slightest. And mayhap it would take nights or weeks or years before the split came to the fore … but that which was due would follow them from this moment forward.

And he feared that the currency was female.

SIXTY-NINE

Sitting at his desk at the Iron Mask, Trez had had it with the whole club thing. The noise, the smell, the humans—hell, even the paperwork was getting to him.

Shoving away about a hundred and fifty receipts, he was ready to explode as he rubbed his eyes. And then, as he lowered his hands, his eyes readjusted to the fluorescent light, a pixilation fuzzing out his vision.

Another migraine?

He picked up a random piece of paper and checked to see if he could read the text.

No blind spot—yet.

Giving up on trying to get anything done, he sat back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and glared across at the closed door. The distant thumping of the bass made him think he needed to get some earplugs.

What he really wanted to do was get the f**k out of here. And not just this club. Or the one that was going up in that warehouse across town. He wanted out of the whole cocksucking enterprise, from the booze sales to the prostitutes, from the money to the madness.

For shit’s sake, every time he closed his eyes, he saw Selena’s face. Heard her voice as she said she wanted to get dressed. Smelled the scent of her disappointment.

As he thought back over their “relationship,” if you could call it that, he defined things in terms of pullouts. Failed conversations. Half-truths. Hidden secrets.

All his.

And it was weird. His brother had been yakking at him to clean up his act for how long? Telling him he had to get a grip and stop the sexing, warning him that time was getting tighter, hoping and praying that a turnaround would come—even when there had been no hope of that ever occurring. Meanwhile, he’d been balling whores in public places, getting migraines, and riding a huge wave of self-destruction—poppin’ his collar and paying no attention.

In spite of all of iAm’s best efforts, Selena had been the one to make him really see himself.

Seemed disrespectful to his brother to admit that, but there you go.

God … he prayed the queen had a daughter who was chosen. Maybe that way, at least part of this nightmare would be over—

The knock on his door was soft, and he caught a whiff of body spray even before the thing opened.

“Come in,” he muttered.

The working girl who walked in was leggy enough to be a model, but her face wasn’t quite there: nose a little too big, lips a little too small, eyes a little off center. And that was even after all the plastic surgery. Still, from a distance or in the dark, she was a goddamned knockout.

“I heard you want to see me?”

Her voice was up to phone-sex standards, deep and raspy, and her hair, as she pushed it over her shoulder, was naturally thick.

“Yeah.” Good thing she didn’t know him well enough to be aware he was half-dead. “I’ve got a special client who—”

“Is this the guy they’ve been talking about?” Her eyes widened in a rush. “Like, the sex god?”

“Yeah. I want to know if you can go to an apartment tomorrow and meet him.” He and s’Ex had agreed to be on a once-a-week schedule, but when your blackmailer called you up and wanted a date? You went with it. “I’ll introduce you and—”

“Oh, f**k, yeah. The other girls were talking about him—he’s a stallion.”

She started running her hands up and down her body, cupping her br**sts and her sex.

“Tomorrow noon.” He gave her his Commodore address. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Thanks, boss.”

As her eyes narrowed, he had a feeling what was coming next. Sure enough, she said, “What can I do to show my gratitude?”

He shook his head. “Nada. Just come on time tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

Staring across at her, part of him wanted to give in. It was so much easier that way—like falling backward into a swimming pool in July—splash, and you weren’t hot anymore. The problem was, in that hypothetical, he didn’t know how to swim. And every single time he let himself go just to get cooled down, he ended up underwater, unable to breathe.

The struggle to get to the surface simply wasn’t worth the momentary relief.

“Thank you, baby girl. But I gotta pass.”

The woman smiled. “You got a female there, boss?”

Trez opened his mouth to say no. “Yeah, I do.”

Ha, he thought. Yeah, right.

After their happy little convo, Selena had not come down to the Brotherhood house again, and he sure as hell hadn’t gone up to the great camp.

He could still remember exactly what she’d looked like as she’d stared at him. Eventually he’d gotten up and left her room—after the silence had stretched waaaaay out. Yeah, sure, he could have pressed her for some kind of closure or something. But the bottom line was, whether or not he had to go back to the s’Hisbe, he’d still contaminated himself.

What he had to offer her or anybody else wasn’t worth the breath to apologize with.

“Ohhhh, that’s big gossip,” the whore said. “Can I tell the other girls.”

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever.”

She all but danced out of his office.

As the door reclosed, he went back to staring at it. On its flat plane, all he could see was Selena, sure as if she’d died and her ghost had come to haunt him.

For a moment, he was actually crazy enough to wish there was some unfinished business between them that he could use as an excuse to see her. Then again, the reality was, he could come at her in a thousand different ways … and all he had to offer was himself.

Not good enough yesterday. Today. Or tomorrow—

Deep inside of him, a shift began. At first he just recognized it as an errant thought. But then, as that thought resonated, he realized it went much, much further than that.

As he looked into the future, he saw nothing of substance in his life except his brother. iAm was it, the extent of any value he had in this world. And abruptly, the idea of turning himself over to the queen and her daughter, becoming a sexual slave imprisoned in the walls of the palace, used only for his c*ck and his ejaculate … didn’t seem like anything very different from the way he had been living his life.

He’d been f**king things regularly and it hadn’t mattered.

It wasn’t like any of those women had meant a goddamn thing.

Why would the queen’s daughter be any different?

Well, shit … the only thing that wouldn’t be the same? His brother would be free to live his life.

Liberated.

And that would be the one truly honorable thing Trez could do.

Sitting back in his chair, he realized … not a bad way to end things.

Sola left her condo even though it was the middle of the night. She just couldn’t stand the confines anymore, and the terrace wasn’t doing it for her wanderlust.

Heading down the concrete steps, she went past the glowing pool to the pathway that cut through the bushes. On the far side, the beach stretched out a mile in both directions, the strong, warm wind hitting her in the face.

She picked right for no particular reason and put her hands in the pockets of her light jacket, feeling for her phone.

It had remained silent.

And as she looked out over the dark ocean and listened to the waves on the shore, she knew it wasn’t going to ring.

Oh, sure, she’d get calls from her grandmother. Maybe the phone company. Maybe the repair shop for her new beater of a car.

But not from the 518 area code.

Stopping, she watched the moonlight that streamed from behind her touch the tops of the restless sea. Even though it made her queasy, she deliberately put herself back in the trunk of that car, feeling the cold and the vibration, the fear of knowing that whatever was coming next was going to hurt. A lot.