It was his scythe. The one that had protected him against those males of the Bloodletter’s in that forest. The one that he had claimed and used as his own for centuries. The one that was as much a part of him as his arms or his legs.
“Where did you find it?” he whispered as he accepted the grips.
It was like coming home.
Zypher looked at the others and then spoke. “At the Brownswick School for Girls. It was the only remnant we e’er located of you.”
Xcor shifted his weight back and swung the great blade around. It was an old habit joyfully renewed, and with the way it moved under his power … it was proof that water wasn’t the only thing that could exist in different states.
A blade in the right hands could also be both a solid and a liquid.
Except then he stopped. “I shall not use this against the Brotherhood. Do you understand my position.”
Zypher glanced around at the group. And then over the brisk, cold wind, he said, “We are prepared to follow you. And if you follow Wrath, then we are prepared to follow Wrath.”
“He is expecting you to swear unto him your fealty. On your lives so that you may remain alive.”
“We follow you. If you follow Wrath, we are prepared to follow Wrath.”
Xcor looked at Balthazar. “What say you?”
“The same,” the male said.
“And you?” Xcor asked the next one. When there was a nod, he asked the next.
This was not the agreement the Blind King sought.
“If this costs you your lives,” Xcor intoned, “if this makes you hunted, what say you then?”
“We are warriors,” Zypher spoke up. “We live and die by the dagger, and we are hunted already. Naught will be different to us save the integrity of our long-held service unto our one true lord. We are at peace with our station in this manner. In any other, we are not.”
They had clearly discussed the matter at some length … and arrived at a position that was unified and unwavering, not subject to alteration or negotiation.
Xcor felt a swell in his heart, and he followed an instinct to bow low. “I shall present this unto the King and we shall see whate’er he says.”
As a unit, they bowed back to him.
“Tomorrow at midnight,” Xcor announced. “I shall present you with the conclusion to all this.”
“And then we shall go home,” Zypher tacked on. As if that was another unalterable.
“Aye,” Xcor said into the wind. “We go home.”
Layla left the ranch by the sliding door, slipping out into the cold and bundling herself in the coat she had taken from the closet. As she closed her eyes to dematerialize, her heart was pounding and she knew a rage that was close to unholy.
When next she re-formed, it was out on a peninsula that jutted into the Hudson River, about fifteen miles up and across the waterway from where she had spent a good two hours pacing around. The hunting cabin that was her destination was small, and as modest and enduring as an old shoe well-repaired, situated such that it faced the city from its shore. Farther out on the jutting of land, a glass mansion of great size and elegance sat like a museum exhibit on wealth, its glow reaching all around the point as the sun’s radiance fortified the solar system.
But that other structure was not her business nor her care.
Fates knew she had enough to contend with as it was.
As she marched through the snow toward the cabin’s back door, her footprints were the first to disturb the pristine blanket. But there was an inhabitant within the structure, and he opened the way inside before she could knock.
The Brother Tohrment’s huge body was silhouetted in the light behind him. “Hey! So this is a surprise! Sorry it took a little bit to get back to you, I—”
“Which one of you did it?” she snapped. “Which one of you shot him?”
As the Brother stopped speaking, she didn’t give him a chance to answer. She shoved past him to enter the warmth of the interior and promptly took to pacing around the minimal, sparsely furnished space.
She kept her eyes on him as he closed them in together and leaned back against that which he had shut.
“Well,” she demanded. “And don’t fucking tell me I’ve got this wrong. He said it was a lesser—and then told me he hadn’t seen one since well before you bunch of monsters kidnapped him—”
“Monsters?” Tohr shot back. “You’re calling us monsters? After that piece of shit put a bullet into your King?”
Layla stopped in front of him and put a finger right in his face, punctuating her words with it. “That ‘piece of shit’ gave up the opportunity to sell your ass down the river. So watch what you call him.”
Tohr jerked forward on his hips. “Don’t make him a hero, Layla. It didn’t help you out before, and sure as hell won’t make things better for you now.”
“FYI, I don’t hear you denying that it was you. Was Qhuinn with you or did you decide to go out after him alone—and before you tell me to be a good little female and mind my own damn business, I was there when Xcor got on one knee and kissed the King’s ring. I saw him make the oath, and I know damn well that Wrath told all of you to make sure he was safe. But you didn’t listen, did you. You think you’re more important than that—”
“This is none of your business, Layla.”
“Fuck you, it isn’t. I love him—”
Tohr threw up his hands. “Oh! Right, right, right, you fell in love with a murderer and a thief and a traitor, and suddenly all that tarnish is wiped clean, all those happy little details going poof! because you’ve got a case of the crushies! Okay, good to know, I’ll just erase the fact that Wrath almost died in front of me because you want to suck some male’s cock—”
She slapped him so hard she felt the sting all the way up her forearm. And she felt absolutely no regret whatsoever in the aftermath.
“I will remind you of my station,” she snapped. “Whether you like it or not, I have been a Chosen and you will not disrespect me. I have earned the right through my years of service to be treated better than that.”
Tohr didn’t even seem to notice she’d hit him. He just leaned forward again and bared his fangs. “And may I remind you that it’s my fucking job to protect the King. Your love life doesn’t interest me in the slightest on a good night. When it conflicts with me keeping alive a male of worth like Wrath? I will mow you and your precious little delusions down faster than an arterial bleed will solve this problem.”
“You”—she jabbed her finger at him again—“are the one who’s going to be a murderer if you kill him, and so will Qhuinn.”
She waited for him to deny that Qhuinn was involved. And was not surprised when he didn’t.
Tohr just shrugged. “I have an executive order that says I can be the one who puts him in his grave.”
“Which clearly was revoked.” She shook her head and put her hands on her hips. “I don’t know what you’re going on about, but this is clearly nothing to do with Xcor—”
“The fuck it isn’t!”
“Bullshit! Wrath’s moved on. Wrath was the one who almost died. You’re the person hanging onto what happened, and that’s why there has to be another agenda at work here. If it were actually about Xcor and what he did to Wrath, it’d be as over for you as it is for him.”
Tohr bared his fangs at her. “Listen to me, and listen to me good, because I will only say this once. You may be a Chosen, and you can swan around in your white robes and your holier-than-thou attitude all you want, but you are not in this war. You never have been and you never will be. So go home and sit on your fucking tuffet and eat your curds and whey, because nothing you can say to me is going to change my mind or my course in the slightest. You are not that important to me, female, and more to the point, this role that you demand respect for is not that significant when it comes down to the race’s survival.”
High-octane fury raged through her veins. “You sexist blowhard. Wow. Does Autumn know how condescending you can be? Or do you hide it from her so she’ll still sleep next to you during the day?”