Miles away, in the wealthiest section of Caldwell, Arcshuli, son of Arcshuliae the Younger, arched his brows and cranked off the gold faucets of his black marble tub with his toe.
In between drips, he did a double-take. “I’m sorry…the King ishere?”
Before his uniformed butler answered, Shuli was already standing up from the suds and pulling on his monogrammed bathrobe. He was stoned out of his mind, limping from an injury from the night before, and he might possibly be really drunk, too.
Oh, who the hell was he kidding. He’d had to leave Bathe because his pain meds had amplified the one shot he’d done into an entire bottle of Pappy van Winkle. The world was going around like a carousel, and he was pretty sure all the warm water and suds had actually made things worse.
“Yes, Sire. The King is here.” Whillis bowed low. “I have installed him in the parlor.”
Like Wrath was a new TV.
“Here?” He looked around his agate bathroom as if any of the fancy, veined stone was going to help him out. “Is there anybody with him?”
“His dog.”
“No Brothers?” When Whillis shook his head, Shuli smoothed his hair in the mirror over the gold sinks. “Okay. Right. I’m coming.”
At least if this was a solo trip, it meant he wasn’t getting fired as L.W.’sahstrux nohtrum. Good thing, as the pink slip that came with that happy little bodyguard job he hadn’t asked for came with a headstone as a chaser.
Striding out into his all-white bedroom, he kept his muttering to an under-the-breath. “Shit. Shit…shit…”
Whillis hurried along in his wake, a penguin all aflutter in his formal uniform. “I will bring in someamuse-bouche, then?”
“He’s not here for food.”
Taking the stairs down at as close to a dead run as his limp and lack of depth perception would let him, he started to practice lines in his head and didn’t get far with that bullshit. What the fuck did it matter, though. He could take up tap dancing in the next four seconds if he wanted, and it wasn’t going to help.
Someone had found out what he, L.W., and Rhamp were doing illicitly in the field, and the reckoning for all that under-the-radar had arrived.
With its dog.
Hitting his foyer, he rounded the corner of his parlor—
Okay. Yup. The great Blind King was actually in his house.
Wrath, son of Wrath, sire of Wrath, was standing in the middle of the white room, his brutal figure dressed in black leather, his wraparounds hiding eyes that tracked you in spite of his blindness, his lack of obvious weapons not reassuring in the slightest. Meanwhile, George, the golden, was sitting beside his master, pretty as a picture, all blond-locked and happy-faced like the doe-eyed lion he was.
“My Lord,” Shuli said as he stopped short and bowed. Even though Wrath couldn’t see him.
Straightening, he focused on the enormous black diamond on the male’s hand. Then his gaze rode up the massive chest to that cruel, aristocratic face.
“Don’t worry, son.” The King’s voice was deep as thunder. “I’m not here for you.”
“Oh? I mean…oh. Right. Yeah.” He glanced to archway into the other hall and felt absolutely no better. “Your son, then.”
No, the fucker came for the goddamn Tooth Fairy.
“Yes. My son.”
“L.W.’s crashed out at the moment.” If only he could say the fighter wasn’t injured. “You know, sleeping—”
“I’ll see him now. If you’ll just take me to his room—or tell me the way, and George and I will figure it out.”
Shuli opened his mouth. Closed it.
The corner of the King’s lips lifted. “You really are in the habit of protecting him, aren’t you. But I can smell my son’s blood. Did he hurt himself in the kitchen here? Stub his toe? Most accidents happen in the home, you know.”
No, L.W. had been shot in the shoulder, down around Thirtieth Avenue, behind an abandoned walkup. By alesser.
