FORTY
Down here was better for the announcement, Wrath thought as he strode into the dining room with George at his side.
Taking his place at the head of the thirty-foot-long table, he waited for everyone to arrive. No way he was having this kind of a meeting while his ass was in his father’s throne. Not going to happen. And there was no reason to exclude anyone in the household. This was going to affect everyone.
And no premeeting, also. He didn’t need some private conclave with Rehv and Saxton where he learned the particulars and then had to sit around while they were regurgitated for everybody else. He didn’t have a thing to hide in front of his family and nothing was going to make this any easier to hear.
Removing his wraparounds, he rubbed his eyes and thought of another reason he was glad he wasn’t upstairs … too close to Beth. Fritz had assured him she was in bed and eating, but one thing he knew about his shellan? She was fully capable, even after the rigors of her needing, of heading down to see him and reconnect with the outside world.
If this was about her? She didn’t need to hear it right now. Shit knew there was going to be plenty of time to tell her—
“Have a seat,” Wrath muttered as he put his sunglasses back on. “You, too, Z.”
He could sense Phury hesitating on the threshold of the room with his twin, and in the awkward beat that followed, Wrath shook his head. “No kissing the ring, okay? Just give me some space.”
“Fair enough,” Phury murmured. “Whatever you need.”
So they’d been tipped off. Either that or Wrath looked as bad as he felt.
As the others arrived one by one or in small groups, he could tell by the scents who entered and in what order. Nobody said anything, and he imagined that Phury was giving hand signals to people, telling them to shut the fuck up and stay the hell back.
“I’m on your right,” Rehv announced. “Saxton is next to me.”
Wrath nodded in their general direction.
Sometime later, Tohr said, “We’re all here now.”
Wrath drummed his fingers on the table, his brain overwhelmed by the sad, anxious scents in his nose—as well as the silence. “Talk to us, Rehv,” he demanded.
There was the soft sound of a chair getting pushed back on the rug, and then the symphath King and leahdyre of the glymera’s Council started wrestling with something. There was a pop … followed by an unsheathing rush.
Then parchment, a large piece … being unrolled. With a lot of something brushing the table.
The ribbons of the families, Wrath thought.
“I’m not going to read this shit,” Rehv groused. “It’s not worth my time. Upshot, they all put their seals on this. In their minds, Wrath is no longer the King.”
A wellspring of anger jumped out of the throats of his household, many voices intermixing and lifting the roof, the sentiments all the same.
And actually, it was Butch’s shellan, Marissa, who was hands down the most refined female in the house, who summed it up best:
“Those goddamn sons of bitches.”
Wrath would have laughed under any other circumstances. Hell, he’d never heard her curse before. Didn’t know she could pass that shit through her perfect lips.
“What are the grounds?” someone asked.
Wrath cut through the chatter with two words: “My mate.”
Pin-drop silence ensued.
“The mating was entirely legal,” Tohr pointed out.
“But she’s not entirely vampire.” Wrath rubbed his temples and thought of what he and Beth had done for the last eighteen hours. “And that means if we have young, neither are they.”
Jesus Christ, this was a mess. A total fucking mess. He might have had a shot if he hadn’t had any young—then the throne could have passed to his next closest relation. Butch, for example. Or any young that that brother and his mate would have.
Now, though … the stakes were different, weren’t they.
“No one’s a purebred—”
“—isn’t the Middle Ages—”
“—we need to take them all out—”
“This is fucking ridiculous—”
“—why are they wasting time on—”
Wrath quieted the chaos by curling up a fist and slamming it down on the table. “What’s done is done.” God, this hurt. “The question is, what now. What is our response, and who the hell do they think is going to rule?”
Rehv spoke up. “I’ll let Saxton tackle the legal aspects of the first part—but I can answer the second. It’s a guy named Ichan, son of Enoch. It states in here”—rustling—“that he’s a cousin of yours?”
“Who the fuck knows.” Wrath shifted in his chair. “I’ve never met him. The question is, where are the Band of Bastards. They have to be involved in this.”
“I don’t know,” Rehv said as he rerolled the proclamation. “Seems a little sophisticated for Xcor’s tastes. Bullet to the brain is more his style.”
“He’s behind this.” Wrath shook his head. “My guess is that he’ll let the dust settle, kill this Ichan motherfucker, and get himself appointed.”
Tohr spoke up. “Can’t you just modify the Old Laws? As King, you can do anything you want, right?”
When Wrath nodded in Saxton’s direction, the attorney stood up, his chair creaking quietly. “What the vote of no confidence does, from a legal point of view, is remove from the King all powers to command and rule. Any attempt now to change verbiage would be null and void. You are still King, in the sense that you have the throne and ring, but in practice, you have no power.”
“So they can appoint someone else?” Wrath asked. “Just like that?”
“I’m afraid so. I found a hidden procedural note that in the absence of a King, the Council can appoint a ruler de facto with a super-majority, and that is what they have done. The passage was intended to be triggered in wartimes, in the event the entire First Family was wiped out along with any immediate heirs.”
Been there, done that, Wrath thought.
Saxton continued. “They have triggered that provision, and unfortunately, from a legal standpoint, it is valid—even though it’s being used in a way that was not contemplated by the original drafters of the laws.”
“How did we not see this coming?” someone said.