“That about covers it, my man. You heading up to the house?”
Under the strict interpretation of the ahstrux nohtrum job, Qhuinn needed to be with John twenty-four/seven. But the king had given them a dispensation if they were within the confines of the compound. Otherwise Qhuinn would have been learning way too much about his buddy and Xhex.
And John would have had to witness him and Layla…um, yeah.
When John nodded, Qhuinn opened the door and held it wide. “After you.”
He refused to look his friend in the face as the fighter passed, just couldn’t do it. Because he knew exactly what was on the guy’s mind—and he had no interest in talking about what had happened on that stretch of road he’d walked down before. Not the crap from tonight. Not the crap from…all those nights ago thanks to the Honor Guard.
He was finished with chatting it up.
Shit never helped anyone over nuthin’.
Saxton, son of Tyhm, closed the final Book of Oral History and could only stare at the fine-grain leather cover with its gold-embossed detailing.
The last one.
He couldn’t believe it. How long had this research been going on? Three months? Four months? How could it be over?
A quick visual survey of the Brotherhood’s library, with its hundreds and hundreds of volumes of law, discourse, and royal decrees…and he thought, yes, indeed, it had taken months and months to go through them all. And now, with the digging complete, the notations made, and the legal path for what the king wanted to accomplish carved out, there should have been a sense of accomplishment.
Instead, he felt dread.
In his training and practice as a lawyer, he had tackled sticky problems before—especially after he had come here to this vast house and begun to function as the Blind King’s personal solicitor: The Old Laws were very convoluted, archaic not just in their wording, but in their very content—and the ruler of the vampire race was not at all like that. Wrath’s thinking was both straightforward and revolutionary, and when it came to his rule, the past and the future did not often coexist without a good deal of reframing—of the Old Laws, that was.
This was on a whole different level, however.
Wrath, as sovereign, could do fairly much what he wanted—provided the appropriate precedents were identified, recast, and recorded. After all, the king was the living, breathing law, a physical manifestation of the order necessary for a civilized society. The problem was, tradition didn’t happen by accident; it was the result of generations upon generations living and making choices based on a certain set of rules that was accepted by the public. Progressive thinkers trying to lead entrenched, conservative societies in new directions tended to run into problems.
And this…further alteration of the way things were done? In the current political environment, where Wrath’s leadership was already being challenged—
“You’re deep in thought.”
At the sound of Blay’s voice, Saxton jumped and nearly lost his Montblanc over his shoulder.
Immediately, Blay reached forward as if to calm what had been ruffled. “Oh, I’m sorry—”
“No, it’s all right, I—” Saxton frowned as he regarded the soldier’s wet and bloodied clothing. “Dearest Virgin Scribe…what happened tonight?”
Evidently in lieu of answering, Blay headed over for the bar on the antique bombé chest in the corner. As he took his time choosing between the sherry and a Dubonnet, it was rather clear he was preparing a sequence of words in his head.
Which meant it had to do with Qhuinn.
In fact, Blay cared for neither sherry nor Dubonnet. And sure enough, he helped himself to a port.
Saxton eased back in his chair and looked upward at the chandelier that hung so far above the floor. The fixture was a stunning specimen from Baccarat, made in the middle nineteenth century, with all of the leaded-glass crystals and careful workmanship one would expect.
He recalled it swinging from side to side subtly, the rainbow refractions of light twinkling all around the room.
How many nights ago had that been? How long since Qhuinn had serviced that Chosen directly above this room?
Nothing had been the same since.
“A broken-down car.” Blay took a long swallow. “Just mechanical issues.”
Is that why your leathers are wet, and there is blood down the front of your shirt? Saxton wondered.
And yet he kept the demand to himself.
He had become used to keeping things to himself.
Silence.
Blay finished his port and poured another with the kind of alacrity typically reserved for drunkards. Which he was not. “And…you?” the male said. “How’s your work?”
“I’m finished. Well, nearly so.”
Blay’s blue eyes shot over. “Really? I thought you were going to be at this forever.”
Saxton traced that face he knew so well. That stare he’d looked into for what seemed like a lifetime. Those lips he had spent hours locked onto.
The crushing sense of sadness he felt was as undeniable as the attraction that had brought him to this house, his job, his new life.
“So did I,” he said after a moment. “I, too…thought it would last far longer than it did.”
Blay stared down into his glass. “It’s been how long since you started?”
“I don’t…I can’t remember.” Saxton put a hand up and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It does not matter.”
More silence. In which Saxton was willing to bet the very breath in his lungs that Blaylock’s mind had retreated to the other male, the one he loved like nobody else, his other half.
“So what was it?” Blay asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“Your project. All of this work.” Blay motioned his glass around elegantly. “These books you’ve been poring over. If you’re finished, you can tell me what it was all about now, right?”
Saxton briefly considered telling the truth…that there had been other, equally pressing and important things that he had been quiet on. Things that he had thought he could live with, but which, over time, had proven too heavy a burden to carry.
“You shall find out soon enough.”
Blay nodded, but it was with that vital distraction that he had had since the very beginning. Except then he said, “I’m glad you’re here.”
Saxton’s brows rose. “Indeed…?”
“Wrath should have a really good lawyer at his side.”
Ah.
Saxton pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “Yes. How true.”
It was with a strange feeling of fragility that he gathered his reams of papers. It certainly seemed, in this tense, sad moment, as though they were all that sustained him, these flimsy, yet powerful sheets with their countless words, each handwritten and crafted with care, contained neatly in their lines of text.
He did not know what he would do without them on a night like this.
He cleared his throat. “What plans have you for what little remains of the eve?”
As he waited for the reply, his heart pounded within his rib cage, because he, and he alone, seemed to realize that the assignment from the king wasn’t the only thing that was ending tonight. Indeed, the baseless optimism that had sustained him in the initial stages of this love affair had decayed into a kind of desperation that had had him grasping at straws in an uncharacteristic way…but now, even that was gone.
It was ironic, really. Sex was but a transient physical connection—and there were many times in his life when that had been all he’d been looking for. Even with Blaylock, in the beginning, such had been the case. Over time, however, the heart had gotten involved, and that had left him where he was tonight.
At the end of the road.
“…work out.”
Saxton shook himself. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m going to work out for a while.”
After you’ve had a decanter of port? Saxton thought.