Or in his father’s case, the allies.
“Wrath is no King for the race.” Tyhm shook his head. “Nothing good has come since his father was killed. Now, there was a ruler. I was young when I was at court, but I remember Wrath, and whereas the son cares not for the proper way … the sire was a stellar King, a wise male with patience and majesty. Such a failure of this generation.”
Saxton looked at the floor. For some absurd reason, he noted that his own loafers were perfectly polished. All of his shoes were. Neat and tidy, arranged.
He found it difficult to breathe. “I thought the Brotherhood was … taking care of things rather well. After the raids, they have killed many slayers—”
“The fact that you use the word after to modify raids is all one needs to know. A shameful commentary—Wrath did not care to rule until he married that half-breed of his. Only then, when he sought to contaminate the throne with her bastard human genes, did he see fit to try to be King. His father would hate this—that human wearing the ring of his mother? It is a disgrace that cannot…” He had to clear his throat. “It simply cannot be supported.”
As the implications dawned on Saxton, he could feel the blood drain out of his head. Oh, God … why hadn’t they seen this coming?
Beth. They were going to take him down through her.
His father lifted his chin, his Adam’s apple standing out like a fist in the front of his throat. “And one has to do something. One has to … do something when bad choices are made.”
Like being gay, Saxton finished for the male. And then it dawned on him …
It was almost as if his father was joining the effort … only because he couldn’t do anything about his own failure of a progeny.
“Wrath will be removed from the throne,” Tyhm said with a resurgence of strength. “And another who has not strayed from the race’s core values will be put in his place. It is the appropriate consequence for one who does not do things in the proper manner.”
“I had heard…” Saxton paused. “I had heard that it was a love match. Between Wrath and his queen. That he fell in love with her when he helped with her transition.”
“The deviant often couch their actions in the vocabulary of the righteous. It is a deliberate act to attempt to ingratiate themselves to us. That doesn’t mean they have behaved well or that their poor choices should be supported by the masses. Quite the contrary—he has shamed the race, and deserves all that is coming to him.”
“Do you hate me?” Saxton blurted.
His father’s eyes lifted from the books that were going to be used to pave the way to the abdication. As their stares met across the blueprint for Wrath’s destruction, Saxton was reduced to a child who simply wanted to be loved and valued by the only parent he had left.
“Yes,” his father said. “I do.”
Sola pulled the fresh jeans up to her knees and paused. Bracing herself, she eased the waistband over her thigh wound carefully.
“Not bad,” she muttered as she continued to tug them all the way onto her ass, and then button and zip them.
Little loose, but when she put on the fresh white long-sleeved shirt and the cozy black sweater she’d also been given, you’d never know. Oh, and the Nikes were the perfect size—and she even liked the black-and-red color scheme.
Going into her hospital room’s bath, she checked her hair in the mirror. Shiny and smooth, thanks to the blow-dry she’d given herself.
“You look…”
Wheeling around at the voice, she found Assail standing by the bed. His eyes burned across the distance between them, his body looming large.
“You startled me,” she said.
“My apologies.” He offered her a short bow. “I knocked several times, and when you didn’t answer, I was concerned that you had fallen.”
“That’s really … ah, kind of you.” Yeah, sweet couldn’t be associated in any way with him.
“Are you ready to go home?”
She closed her eyes. She wanted to say yes—and of course, she needed to see her grandmother. But she was afraid to, as well.
“Can you … tell?” she asked.
Assail came over to her, walking slowly, as if he knew she was a hairbreadth away from spooking. Lifting his hands, he brushed her hair back over her shoulders. Then he touched the sides of her face.
“No. She will see none of it.”
“Thank God.” Sola exhaled. “She can’t know. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly.”
Turning to face the door out into the corridor, he offered her his elbow … as if he were escorting her to a party.
And Sola took it just because she wanted to feel him against her. Know his warmth. Be close to his size and strength.
It was a different kind of hell to be facing the prospect of meeting her grandmother’s eyes.
“Do not think of it,” he said as he led her down the long hall. “You must remember that. She will see it in your face if you do. None of it happened, Marisol. None of it.”
Sola was dimly aware that the guards that had met them when they’d come to this place had slipped in behind them. But she had so many other things to worry about—and that bunch of men hadn’t pulled any of those triggers as she’d come into the facility. Hard to imagine why they’d bother on the way out.
One of them jumped in front and opened the steel door for them, and the Range Rover was right where it had been parked. Next to it, Assail’s two cousins were standing grimly—watched over by more of those incredibly dangerous-looking guys.
Assail opened the back car door for her and offered her his hand. She needed it. Humping herself up into the SUV caused her thigh to sting until her eyes watered. But as she was shut in, she managed to work the belt herself, pulling it out from her body and clipping it in place.
Sola frowned. Through the tinted glass, she watched as Assail went to each of the men, one after another, and offered them his hand. There were no words spoken, at least not that she saw, but there didn’t need to be.
Grave stares met Assail’s eyes and subtle nods were given with respect as if an accord had been reached among them all.
And then Assail’s cousins hopped in the front, Assail got in the rear with her and they were off.
She had only a vague memory of all the gates and barricades they’d had to go through to get into the place—but she figured the way out would take forever.
At least she wanted it to. She had some hope that if enough time passed, she could convince her inner little girl that she hadn’t broken the main Ten Commandment twice, nearly been raped, and had to deface a body to get herself out of hell.
Unfortunately, they were back on the Northway, heading south toward downtown Caldwell, a heartbeat and a half later. Or it certainly seemed like that.
As they zeroed in on the bridges that would take them over the river and through the woods, to Assail’s fortress they went …
Great. Her brain was non-sequituring it up.
Rubbing her tired eyes, she had to pull things together.
It didn’t happen.
“You know, you may have a point,” she said quietly.
“About what,” Assail asked from beside her.
“Maybe it was all just a dream. A bad, horrible dream…”
The Range Rover mounted the westbound bridge over the Hudson, and with traffic moving smoothly across the span, they were going to be at Assail’s in only five or ten minutes.
Twisting around, she looked at the receding downtown, all those lights like stars having fallen to earth.
“I don’t know if I can see her,” she heard herself say.
“It didn’t happen.”
Watching that cityscape get smaller and smaller, she told her brain to do the same with all the sights and smells and sensations that were so close, too close: Time was a highway and her body and brain were traveling on it. So she needed to hit that fucking gas pedal and get the hell away from the last forty-eight hours.
Before she knew it, they were turning off onto the thin road that went down to the peninsula Assail owned. And then her stomach sank as that glass house came into view, its golden illumination pouring out onto the landscape as if the place were a pot of gold.
They went to the back, the headlights swinging around across the rear of the mansion. And there she was. In the window of the kitchen, head lifting to look out, hands reaching for a dish towel … Sola’s grandmother was watching, waiting—now scrambling for the back door.