Okay, fine, if you were making salad dressing, the collection was handy, but why Houdini the stuff?

“What’s all that for?” Mae asked.

“We’re going to bring the Book to you.” Tallah nodded at the ingredients. “If it will have you.”

Up north, in the majestic foyer of the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s mansion, Rehvenge strode over the mosaic depiction of an apple tree in full bloom. As he came to the grand staircase, he ascended at a good clip, his Bally loafers eating up the blood red runner, his mink flaring out in his wake. When he got to the top landing, the double doors of the Blind King’s study were open, and at the far end of the pale blue, French-antique’d room, Wrath, son of Wrath, sire of Wrath, was in prime position—i.e., sitting behind a carved desk that was big as a grizzly bear on all fours, his ass planted in his father’s throne. With all that jet black hair falling from a widow’s peak, and his cruel face with those wraparounds, and his warrior’s body, Wrath looked exactly like who should be running the vampire race.

And then there was the fact that even without his sight, he saw things very clearly, and he suffered no fools. Ever.

To Rehv, King of the symphaths, the pair of them were powerful allies. And for fuck’s sake, they were going to need to be after tonight.

“His Excellency is early,” Wrath murmured as those black wraparound sunglasses looked up from the golden retriever in his lap.

George, his guide dog, was in a glorious lounge on his back, his white belly hair all over everything, his head in a loll like he was at a spa. As he scented Rehv, his boxy head lifted briefly and he offered a wag. But then there was a prompt return to being adored.

“That dog’s the real king around here,” Rehv said as he entered and willed the doors closed.

As they clicked into place, one of the Blind King’s brows lifted over the rims of those sunglasses.

“So you’ve come with good news,” Wrath muttered. “How refreshing.”

Rehv stalled things by going on a pace, his travels taking him on a little loop around the silk sofas and the collection of bergère chairs. When he finally lighted on the armchair opposite the carved desk, the retriever looked over again, this time with worried eyes.

And didn’t that prove George had great instincts.

“Wow,” Wrath said as he ran his fingers through blond chest fur that would have counted as shoulder-length hair on a biped. “Uncle Rehv’s wound up. This is gonna be a good one.”

“I would have come last evening.” Rehv arranged the folds of his mink so they covered his legs. “But I had shit to deal with.”

“More fun with your citizens?”

“Humans this time.” All those refunds for that aborted fight. “It was a long night.”

“Why do you fuck with them?”

“It’s a character defect. But one of my less deadly ones, so I give in to it. Living a life of perpetual denial is like being in a coffin aboveground. And please don’t tell me that I already have enough money. There is never enough.”

As the King chuckled, Rehv glanced to the unlit fireplace and wondered if it was worth setting a flame to the preset logs. Even though it was a yeah-sure-fine seventy degrees in the room, he was perpetually cold, the dopamine he took to keep his evil side in check driving down his internal temperature.

Thus the full-length mink. Which he wore even in the summer.

And on that note, pause. Long pause.

Wrath turned in his throne and lifted up the golden like he intended to put George on the floor. The dog had other plans, however, shimmying around in his master’s huge arms and wrapping his big front paws about Wrath’s neck to hold on. Like he was about to be lowered into a lava pit.

Wrath chuckled as he eased back into place. “Guess that’s a no, huh.”

The King shuffled the dog around so that he was back to cradling George like a big baby. As he resumed the petting routine, Rehv focused on the inner-forearm tattoos that depicted Wrath’s impeccable, purebred lineage.

“Start talking, symphath, you’re fucking up my dog.”

Rehv nodded even though his comrade in royal arms couldn’t see it. “We’ve got problems, you and me.”

“And here I thought you were coming to talk fashion. I was going to redirect you to Butch.”

“Listen, there’s only so much you can do with this black-muscleshirt-and-leathers rut you’ve been in for a hundred years. I keep telling you this.”

“Yeah, my goal’s to get on the cover of fucking GQ. Now talk.”

“Print is dead.”

“That’s a line from Ghostbusters. And a deflection.”

Rehv settled his cane between his knees and batted it back and forth with his palms. “I had a female approach me tonight.”

On a laugh, Wrath said, “Ehlena is totally secure in your relationship. And I know you better than to think you’d ever do something stupid.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Good, ’cuz I ain’t no Ann Landers.”

“The female was looking for something neither of us wants her to find.” He forced himself to lean back in the chair. “Have you ever heard of the Book?”

“I’ve heard of the humans’ Good Book. You talking about the Bible?”

“The opposite. The one I’m referring to is a conduit to the dark side. It’s bound in flesh and I have no idea what the pages are made out of—and I don’t want to know the answer to that one. It’s traveled through history, finding people and wreaking havoc.”

“So it’s a book of spells or some shit?”

“The Book of spells. Capital-B time.”

Wrath frowned. And this time, when he went to set George onto the floor, he didn’t take no for answer. As the dog collapsed in defeat at his feet, the King sat forward—and his expression as he looked across the desk at Rehv was so intense, you could forget he was blind.

“I’ve heard rumors about magic throughout the centuries.” Wrath shrugged his powerful shoulders. “But I’ve been too fucking busy with the Omega and the Lessening Society to worry about hocus-pocus bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit.”

“So you’ve seen this thing? Or have you used it.”

“Neither.” Rehv dropped his eyes to the blotter. “But I had a . . . friend . . . who told me about the damn thing and what it could do.”

“Friend” was not the right word for the symphath Princess who had blackmailed him into fucking her for decades. The fact that the sex had always nearly killed him had been only part of her fun; fuck knew there had been so many other amusements to the relationship for her. But he’d settled that score, and then some.

The sandman had come for her.

Still, he should have known she wouldn’t be done with him, and this Book shit was the kind of blast from the past that made a male want to give himself a concussion.

You know, for the amnesia.

Wrath’s eyebrow lifted again. “A ‘friend’ told you. This sounds like a confession on the Internet.”

“Not even close. And before you ask, yes, she’d used it.”

“To do what.”