At least with the rise of the sun, he wouldn’t have to be worried about the Brothers still searching for him.

The issues with noontime light affected them equally.

Except then his males had arrived, materializing out of the storm like wraiths coming in for a landing in a cemetery, their great bodies appearing in the midst of the falling snow one by one. So happy he had been to see them that he had opened his mouth to call out from his perch at the window. Years of training in war, however, had silenced him before he had emitted a syllable of greeting.

It had taken everything he had in him to wait for a time, just to make sure they had not been followed.

And as he had entered their lair, he had been unsure of his welcome, worried that the power structure that he had once created and enforced so brutally had caused an irreversible mutiny.

Instead, he had been welcomed as a brother. One whose assumed demise had been sorely mourned.

Oh, how he wished they could stay a little longer in this mood of camaraderie, this emotional reunion. But he had little time, and the longer he was with them, the less safe they were.

“So you escaped from the Brotherhood,” someone chuffed with pride. “How many of them did you kill?”

He thought of Qhuinn trying to claw his way through those gates in that cave. “I killed none of them. And I am not free.”

“Whate’er does that mean?” Zypher asked.

In the steady glow of the male’s electric torch, Xcor crossed his arms over his chest and looked each one of his bastards in the eye. “I have given my vow unto the Blind King. I have sworn my allegiance to the throne.”

The silence that came after his pronouncement was expected. “You were coerced, then?” Zypher said. “For the price of your freedom, you granted Wrath your pledge?”

“No, I granted it to him after I got free.”

Balthazar shook his head. “The Chosen, then.”

“No, the King, then.” Xcor spoke slowly and clearly, relying on their long years of surviving in the field of battle together to give his words the weight of his full conviction. “I have come unto Wrath, son of Wrath, of my own free will, irrespective of the Chosen Layla, and not in the manner of making amends for my previous actions.”

“You have subjugated yourself?” Zypher asked. “Aye. And I say unto you all, the King seeks your oaths as well.”

“Is that an order from you?” Zypher inquired. “No.” Xcor once again met the eyes of his fighters. “He seeks it in return for your freedom from a death sentence. He shall release each and every one of you of your treason, and entertain a safe return for you to the Old Country, if you come unto him and swear your loyalty.”

“But you are not commanding us to do so?”

“I shall fight side by side with any of you until the night I die. But I will never force you to bow your heads before a leader. I respect you too much for the likes of that, and besides, I suspect that Wrath would know it. For all of his blindness … he sees things with a great clarity.”

There were murmurs among the group. And then a deep voice said, “What did they do to you.”

It was Syn, and it was not a question. “They kept me alive.”

“A traitor unto them,” the bastard said as he stepped forward. “A traitor unto their King and they kept you alive?”

“I was injured in the field. They took me in and kept me alive.” Zypher shook his head. “Wrath is not known for his weakness any more than you are. That does not make sense.”

“It is the truth.” Xcor offered both his hands unto the heavens, raising them up. “I offer you naught but what happened. I was injured in the field, they took me in, and they ensured that I survived.” So that they could torture him, true. But if he wanted peace between the Brotherhood and the Bastards, he was going to redact that. “I escaped and now I have come unto you.”

“This makes no sense,” Syn echoed in his low, evil voice. “You escaped, but then how did you make an oath to Wrath? Were you held by a faction of the Brotherhood, unknown to the King?”

“The details are unimportant.”

“The hell they are. And I do not understand this oath. It is not your nature to be under another.”

Xcor smiled coldly. “I do not believe I have heard you speak this much in a very long time, our Syn.”

“If there is ever cause for conversation, this would be it. And so I say unto you again, this makes no sense and I do not comprehend the bowing of your head to another.”

“My thinking has evolved.”

“Or your cock has.”

Before Xcor could think twice, he flashed up in Syn’s face even though the other fighter had considerable weight on him.

Baring his fangs, Xcor said, “Do not o’erstep. I am in an egalitarian mood, but that only goes so far.”

The two of them stayed eye to eye, chest to chest, for quite some time, the others backing away in the event that the conflict exploded.

“Over a female, then,” Syn drawled. “Over the love of my life. And well you remember that, bastard.”

As Xcor spoke, his bonding scent flared, and that got the other male’s attention, Syn’s brows popping high, his recoil subtle but well noticeable to one who knew him to the marrow—which Xcor did.

After a moment, Syn’s incline of the head was slight, but unassailable. “Apologies.”

“Accepted. And she has nothing to do with this.” The group took a collective deep breath as the aggression dissipated, but Xcor did not give them time to relax. “As I said, in exchange for your vows, Wrath will release you all from punishment, but you must return to the Old Country. As must I.”

Zypher laughed a little. “Indeed, that is where we had plans to be the now. We were in the process of departing, but then this snowfall? It prevented us surely as if this reunion were preordained by the Scribe Virgin.”

“Fortuitous, indeed.”

The assembled fell quiet, and Xcor permitted them ample time to study him and think upon what he’d said. But he could not tarry among them for much longer.

He’d already been shot at once tonight. He didn’t want to bring the Brothers unto them.

“So that is what is upon the table,” he said. “And I shall leave you to your considerations. If you choose not to comply, there is a reasonable chance that should you return unto the Motherland, you will be safe for some time. But it will be an existence I personally am well tired of. You shall never not look over your shoulder, and make no mistake, Wrath shall come for you. It will take a while, as there are other priorities that capture his attention the now. In the end, however, his vengeance will find you. He is a male of peace, but not of castration.”

“Wait,” Balthazar interjected. “If you are with the King, why is it not safe for us to be around you? I presume that is why you are departing.”

Xcor hesitated, and then concluded certain information was their due. “There are some among the Brotherhood who are not accepting of my oath.”

“The father of the Chosen’s young, then,” one of his fighters said. Xcor let that stand, as it was both a logical conclusion and nobody’s business. He had never denied the Chosen Layla was with young, but nor had he ever commented upon it—and he was certainly not about to discuss his private life now or ever with anyone.

Xcor went back over to the exit. “I shall leave you presently. There is much for you to ponder among yourselves. I will find you twenty-four hours from now, at our meeting place. You shall give me your answer then.”

He suspected that they all knew what they were going to do already. But he needed time to ensure that if he brought them to Wrath, his males would be safe.

“Where will you go?” Zypher asked. “I will see you at four a.m. tomorrow night.” Xcor turned away. And then before he opened the way out, he looked over his shoulder. “I never thought I would see you again.”

The fact that his voice cracked was nothing he could change. And it was also evidence of how much he had changed.

And it wasn’t that he was a new male, he reflected as he steeled himself and re-entered the cold and the snow.