The King

  Except all she had to do was blink. Blink, blink, blink ... and he was back with her, clear as day.

  And that made her cry more. Because her strong, beloved man was blind--and though that didn't make him handicapped in her opinion, it did cheat him out of some fundamentals, and that just wasn't fair.

  "Oh, fuck, I hurt you--"

  "No, no..." She took his face in her hands. "Don't stop."

  "I should have gone over to the bed--"

  The sure way to get him refocused was to arch under him, and she did, undulating and rolling her hips so that her core stroked him. And Hello, big boy, the friction registered, rendering him tongue-tied and torn.

  "Don't stop," she reiterated, trying to draw him back down to her vein. "Ever..."

  But Wrath held off, stroking a piece of hair away from her face. "Don't think like that."

  "I'm not."

  "You are."

  There was no reason to define what "like that" meant: Treasonous plots. Wrath at that ornate desk, strangled by his position. The future unknown and not in a good way.

  "I'm goin' nowhere, leelan. You don't worry about a goddamn thing. Understand me?"

  Beth wanted to believe him. Needed to. But she feared it was a promise far harder to keep than speak.

  "Beth?"

  "Make love to me." It was the only truth she could put out there that wouldn't burst the bubble. "Please."

  He kissed her once. Twice. And then started to move again. "Always, leelan. Always."

  Best. Night. Ever.

  As Wrath pushed himself off of his shellan an hour later, he couldn't breathe, he was bleeding at the throat, and his Man of Steel cock had finally gone wet-noodle.

  Although knowing the damn thing's stamina? He had five, maybe ten minutes before Mr. Happy got to grinnin' again.

  The big bed in the center of the loft's vast space had been upgraded since his Beth had mated him, and as he stretched out on his back, he had to admit that having sex on the thing was so much better than doing it on the floor. That said, as he recovered, its sheets were unnecessary as he could have fried an egg on his chest from the exertion. Blankets were an absolute hell-no. Pillows had been lost quickly because there was no headboard, but the advantage was leverage from any compass point.

  Sometimes he liked to put a foot down and really dig in.

  Beth let out a sigh that was longer and more satisfying than a Shakespearian sonnet--and talk about a hell-yeah? Wrath's chest inflated like a hot-air balloon.

  "I do you okay?" he drawled.

  "God. Yes."

  More with the smiling. It was The Mask all over again, nothing but Jim Carrey, Pepsodent white over here. And she was right: The sex had been beyond fantastic. He'd fucked her across the floor until they were in range of the mattress. Then, like the gentlemale he was, he'd put her on the bed ... and had her another three times. Four?

  He could do this all night--

  Sure as an eclipse could wipe out the moon, his cosmic relaxation disappeared and took all warmth with it.

  There was no all night for him anymore. Not when it came to kickin' it with his female.

  "Wrath?"

  "I'm right here, leelan," he murmured.

  As she rolled onto her side, he could feel her staring at him, and even though his vision had finally given up the ghost and conked out on him entirely, he could picture her long, thick black hair and her blue eyes and her beautiful face.

  "You're not."

  "I'm fine."

  Shit, what time was it? Had it been longer than the hour it had felt like? Probably. When it came to the grind with Beth, he could lose motherfucking days.

  "It's after one," she said softly.

  "Fuck me."

  "Would it help to talk? Wrath ... can you tell me where you're at?"

  Ah, hell, she was right. He had been checking out a lot lately, retreating to a place in his mind where the chaos couldn't get to him--not a bad thing, but it was a solo trip.

  "Just not ready to go back to work."

  "I don't blame you." She found his mouth and brushed her lips against his. "Can we stay a little longer?"

  "Yeah." But not long enough ...

  A subtle alarm sounded on his wrist.

  "Goddamn it." Putting his forearm across his face, he shook his head. "Time flies, huh."

  And responsibilities waited for him. He had petitions to review. Proclamations to draft. And e-mails in his inbox, those fucking e-mails that the glymera pulled out of their asses on a nightly basis ... although those had been drying up lately--probably a sign that that bunch of fruit loops were talking among themselves. Not good news.

  Wrath cursed again. "I don't know how my father did this. Night after night. Year after year."

  Only to be killed brutally too young.

  At least when the elder Wrath had been on his throne, things had been stable: His citizenry had loved him and he had loved them. No treasonous plots cooking in back rooms. The enemy had been from without, not within.

  "I'm so sorry," Beth said. "Are you sure there aren't some things you can put off?"

  Wrath sat up, brushing his long hair back. As he stared off ahead, seeing nothing, he wanted to be out fighting.

  Not an option. In fact, the only thing on his dance card was going back to Caldie and rechaining himself to that desk. His fate had been sealed many, many years ago, when his mother had gone into her needing, and his father had done what a hellren should ... and against all odds, the heir had been conceived, and birthed, and then nurtured long enough so he could see both of them killed by lessers right in front of his still-functional, pretrans eyes.

  Crystal clear, the memories were.

  It hadn't been until after his change when the ocular defect had begun to manifest itself. But that weakness was, like the throne, part of his hereditary due. The Scribe Virgin had had a prescribed breeding plan, one that had amplified the most desirable traits in males and females and created a caste-like system of social hierarchy. Good plan, up to a point. As usual with shit like Mother Nature, the law of unintended consequences had decided to slap a bitch--and that was how this King with his "perfect" lineage had ended up blind.

  Frustrated, he jacked out of bed--and naturally hit one of those pillows instead of the floor. As his foot flipped out from underneath him and his balance went carnival funhouse, he threw out hands to catch himself, but didn't know where he was in space--

  Wrath slammed into the floor, the pain exploding on his left side, but that wasn't the worst part. He could hear Beth scrambling through the messed-up sheets to get to him.

  "No!" he barked, shoving himself out of her range. "I got it."

  As his voice ricocheted around the open space of the loft, he wanted to put his head through a plate-glass window. "Sorry," he muttered, yanking his hair back.

  "It's okay."

  "I didn't mean to bite your head off."

  "You've been under a lot of stress. It happens."

  Christ, like they were talking about him going soft during sex?

  God, when he'd started in with the King shit, he'd done that internal-resolution bullcrap and made a commitment to rock that crown, be a standup guy, step into his daddy's boots, blah, blah, blah. But the unfortunate reality was, this was a marathon that was going to last his entire breathing life--and he was flagging after only two years. Three. However long it had been.

  What the hell year was it anyway?

  Shit knew he'd always had a short fuse, but being locked in the midnight of his blindness with nothing except demands he didn't jones over was making him volcanic.

  No, wait, that was a little more temperate than where he was at--and the underlying issue was his personality. Fighting was his first and best calling, not ruling from a chair.

  The father had been a male of the pen; the son was of the sword.

  "Wrath?"

  "Sorry, what?"

  "I asked if you wanted something to eat before we leave."

  He p
ictured going back to the mansion, doggen everywhere, Brothers in and out, shellans all around ... and felt like he couldn't breathe. He loved them all, but goddamn, there was no privacy there.

  "Thanks, but I'll just catch something at my desk."

  There was a long silence. "All right."

  Wrath stayed on the floor as she got dressed, the soft shifting of her jeans going up those long, luscious legs like a funeral dirge.

  "Is it okay to wear your muscle shirt?" she asked. "My blouse is done for."

  "Yeah. Abso."

  Her sadness smelled like autumn rain and felt just as cold in the air to him.

  Man, to think there were people out there who wanted to be King, he thought as he got to his feet.

  Fucking. Crazy.

  If it weren't for his father's legacy, and all those vampires who had truly, deeply loved his sire, he would have blown it all off and not looked back. But pulling out? He couldn't do that. His father had been a King for the history books, a male who had not just commanded authority by virtue of the throne he sat on, but had inspired honest devotion.

  Wrath lost the crown? He might as well piss all over his sire's grave.

  When his shellan's palm slid into his own, he jumped. "Here are your clothes," she said, putting them into his hands. "And I have your wraparounds."

  With a quick shift, he pulled her against him, holding her to his naked body. She was a tall female, but even so she barely came up to his pecs, and as he closed his eyes, he curled himself around her.

  "I want you to know something," he said into her hair.

  As she went still, he tried to pull something worth hearing out of his ass. Some string of words that were even in the same zip code as what was doing in his chest.

  "What," she whispered.

  "You are everything to me."

  It was so incredibly, totally not enough--and yet she sighed and melted into him like that was all she'd wanted to hear. And a bag of chips.

  Sometimes you got lucky.

  And as he continued to hold her, he knew he'd do well to remember that. As long as he had this female by his side?

  He could get through anything.

  TWO

  CALDWELL, NEW YORK

  "Long live the King."

  As Abalone, son of Abalone, spoke the words, he tried to gauge the response of the three males who had knocked upon his door, marched into his home and were standing in his library, staring at him as if measuring him for a shroud.

  Actually, no. He tracked only one expression--that of the disfigured warrior who stood far behind the others, lounging against the silk wallpaper, combat boots solidly on the Persian carpet.

  The male's eyes were hidden beneath the overhang of a heavy brow, the irises dark enough so there was no telling what color they were, blue or brown or green. His body was enormous, and even at rest, it was a bald-faced threat, a grenade with a slippery pin. And his response to what had been said?

  No change in his features, that harelip nothing but a slash, the frown the same. No emotion shown.

  But that dagger hand flexed wide-open and then curled into a fist.

  Clearly, the aristocrat Ichan and the lawyer Tyhm, who had brought this fighter over, had lied. This was not a "conversation about the future"--no, something like that would suggest that Abalone had a choice in the matter.

  This was a warning shot across his bloodline's bow, an all-aboard call to which there was but one answer.

  And yet, even still, the words had come out of his mouth as they had, and he could not change them.

  "Are you certain of your reply?" Ichan asked with an arched brow.

  Ichan was typical of his breeding and financial net worth, refined to the point of femininity in spite of his gender, dressed in a coordinated suit and tie with every hair in place. Beside him, Tyhm, the solicitor, was the same only even thinner, as if his considerable mental prowess sapped his caloric intake.

  And both of them, as well as the warrior, were prepared to wait for the answer they'd been given to change.

  Abalone's eyes went to an ancient scroll that had been framed and mounted on the wall by the double doors. He couldn't read the small Old Language characters from across the room, but there was no need to go in for a close-up. He knew each one by heart.

  "I was unaware that there was a question posed of me," Abalone said.

  Ichan smiled falsely and strolled around, fingering a sterling silver bowl of red apples, the collection of Cartier desk clocks on a side table, the bronze bust of Napoleon on the desk by the windowed alcove.

  "We are, of course, interested in your position." The aristocrat stopped in front of a pen-and-ink drawing on a stand. "This is your daughter, I believe?"

  Abalone's chest got tight.

  "She is about to be presented, is she not?" Ichan looked over his shoulder. "Yes?"

  Abalone wanted to shove the male away from the image.

  Of all things that were considered "his," his precious young, the only offspring he and his shellan had had, was the moon in his night sky, the joy that marked the household's hours, his compass for the future. And he wanted so many things for her--not in glymera terms, though. No, he wished for her what her mahmen and he had found--at least for the years until his female had been called unto the Fade.

  He wished for his daughter abiding love with a male of worth who would take care of her.

  If she was not allowed to be presented to society? That might never happen.

  "I'm sorry," Ichan drawled. "Did you answer and I missed the reply?"

  "She is due to be offered soon, yes."

  "Yes." The aristocrat smiled again. "I know that you worry appropriately at her prospects. As a father myself, I am in your shoes--with daughters, you need to make sure they are mated well."

  Abalone didn't release his breath until the male resumed his lazy loop around the room. "Does it not give you a degree of security to think that there are such clear demarcations within our society? Corrective breeding has resulted in a superior group of individuals, and we are required by custom and common sense to preserve our associations with like members of our race. Can you imagine your daughter married to a commoner?"

  That last word lingered, carrying the pronunciation of an expletive and the threat of a cocked gun.

  "No, you would not," Ichan answered for himself.

  In truth, Abalone wasn't so certain. If the male loved her enough? But that was not the point of all this, was it.

  Ichan paused to glance over the oil paintings that hung in front of the family's vast collection of shelved first editions. The artwork was, naturally, of ancestors, with the most prominent among them mounted over the marble fireplace's grand mantel.

  A famous male in the history of the race, and of Abalone's bloodline. The Noble Redeemer, as he was known among the family.

  Abalone's sire.

  Ichan waved his hand around, including not just the room, but the house, all of its contents, and all the persons under its roof. "This is worthy of conservation, and the only way that happens is if the Old Ways are respected. The tenets that we, the glymera, seek to uphold are the very basis of what you hope to provide your daughter--without them, who knows where she could end up."

  Abalone closed his eyes briefly.

  And didn't that make the aristocrat assume a kinder, gentler voice. "That King you just spoke of so reverently--he's mated to a half-breed."

  Abalone's lids flipped open. As with all members of the Council, he had been informed of the royal union, and that was the extent of it. "I thought he was mated unto Marissa, daughter of Wallen."

  "In fact, not. The ceremony took place just a year before the raids, and the assumption was that the King had followed through on the promise to Havers's sister--but suspicions arose when Marissa was subsequently unioned with a Brother. Later, it came out to us through Tyhm"--he nodded to the lawyer--"that Wrath had taken another female--who is not of our race."

  There was a pause, as if Aba
lone were being given the chance to gasp at the revelation. When he didn't become woozy from shock, Ichan leaned in and spoke slowly--as if to a mental deficient. "If they have offspring, the heir to the throne would be a quarter human."

  "No one is of truly pure blood," Abalone murmured.

  "More's the pity. Surely you will agree, however, that there is a tremendous difference between distant human relations ... and a King who is substantially of that horrid race. But even if you are not offended--and surely that is not the case--the Old Laws provide the dictate. The King is to be a full-bred male--and Wrath, son of Wrath, cannot provide that for us in an heir."

  "Assuming this is true--"

  "It is."

  "What do you expect of me?"

  "I'm simply making you aware of the situation. I am nothing more than a concerned citizen."

  Then why come with the violent backup? "Well, I appreciate your keeping me informed--"

  "The Council is going to have to take action."

  "In what form?"

  "There will be a vote. Soon."

  "To disavow any heirs?"

  "To remove the King. His authority is such that he could change the laws at any time, eradicating the provision and further weakening the race. He must be taken down lawfully as soon as possible." The aristocrat glanced over at the drawing of Abalone's daughter. "I trust that at the Council's special session, your bloodline will be well represented by your seal and your colors."

  Abalone glanced at the fighter leaning against his wall. The male seemed barely to breathe, but he was far from asleep.

  How long until ruination came upon this house if he did not pledge his vote? And what form would it take?

  He imagined his daughter mourning the loss of her only parent and being forsaken for the rest of her future. Himself tortured and then killed in some gruesome way.

  Dearest Virgin Scribe, the narrowed eyes of that warrior were trained on him like he was a target.

  "Long live the proper King," Ichan said, "is more like it."

  On that note, the natty "concerned citizen" took his leave, filing out of the room with the attorney.

  Abalone's heart thundered as he was left alone with the fighter ... and after a moment of screaming silence, the male uncoiled himself and went to the silver bowl of apples.

  In a low, heavily accented voice, he said, "These are for the taking, are they not."