“I know.” Tohr walked over to the fire and stared into the flames. “I, ah, my Wellsie would have been two hundred and twenty-six years old three nights ago. My young that she carried would have been two and a half years old. I think that’s getting to me.”

“Fuck,” the King breathed. “I’d forgotten.”

The brother shrugged. “It doesn’t excuse my actions. What I did is not worthy of you or myself. But I will say that …” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been in search of some kind of vengeance for quite a while, and I found it in an inappropriate goal. The real target of my anger is fate, and that is nothing you can stab or shoot. It just is—and on some nights, that is harder to accept than others.”

Wrath sat back on his throne and let his head loll onto the high carved back of the grand chair. After a moment, he pointed to the door. “Leave me. Both of you. My skull is about to fucking explode and I don’t want the dry-cleaning bill for your goddamn shirts.”

Tohr bowed low. “As you wish, my Lord. And Autumn and I will depart—”

“No offense,” Wrath muttered, “but stop fucking talking, okay? Just leave me. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow night—and bring the rest of the brothers with you. Go. Go.”

Outside the King’s study, Tohr paused as his brother V closed the doors and looked over with hard eyes.

“FYI,” the male said, “Xcor denied it.”

Tohr frowned. “I’m sorry, what?”

V lit up a hand-rolled and exhaled smoke like it was a curse. “I was right there when Wrath asked him who had shot him, and he refused to give you up. Does he know it was you?”

“Yeah.”

“Who else was there with you?” When Tohr didn’t immediately answer, the brother leaned in and pointed with his hand-rolled. “I knew it. And you tell Qhuinn to cut the shit, or I will. I got no love for Xcor, I could give a fuck about him and the Band of Bastards. Kill ’em, leave ’em breathing, I don’t care. But Wrath’s right. We’ve fought a millennium to deliver the Dhestroyer Prophecy right up the Omega’s ass, and the timing is getting ripe. No distractions, true. Enough with this petty shit.”

“I can’t control Qhuinn. No one can. We all saw that a couple of nights ago, didn’t we.”

“That motherfucker. He needs to reel himself in.”

As V looked down the hall like he intended to go to the guy, Tohr put himself in the way. “I’ll talk with him. I may be out of the Brotherhood, but your delivery sucks.”

“I’m not that bad.”

“Compared to a chainsaw, that’s probably true. But we don’t need any more hotheads going off right now. Everybody’s about to blow.”

V used his cigarette tip as a pointer. “You fix this shit, Tohr. Or I will.”

“You’re the second person who’s said that to me tonight.”

“Then get on it.”

On that note, V took his leave and descended the grand staircase like he had a job to do—which involved putting someone who annoyed him in a choke hold.

When Tohr was sure there was no one around, he went to the hall of statues and strode down, passing by the contoured depictions of humans in war poses. At the third door, he kept his knock quiet, and when an answer came, he looked both ways once again.

Slipping into Qhuinn’s bedroom—or rather, the one Layla had stayed in—he closed the door quickly and almost locked it.

Qhuinn was over by the youngs’ bassinets, doing something with a bottle. “Hey,” he said without glancing up.

“We need to talk.”

“Do we?” The brother looked over. “Did you kill him?”

“No, but I did just get kicked out of the Brotherhood.”

Qhuinn straightened and turned around. “What?”

“Wrath was right to do it.”

“Wait, so Xcor ran like a little fucking coward to the King and—”

“He lied. For you and me. Xcor refused to give us up. He refused to tell Wrath what we did.”

“Well, isn’t he a fucking hero.” Qhuinn frowned. “But if he didn’t spill, who did?”

“Layla figured it out. She came to me—she saw that he was shot and didn’t believe him when he said it was slayers. I didn’t deny it to her.”

“Ah, yes, the Chosen paragon.” Qhuinn refocused on the young. “How tight is she, huh? She’s always willing to stick up for her man. Too bad that kind of loyalty doesn’t run in our direction.”

Tohr shook his head. “Don’t do it, Qhuinn. I may be out, but you’ll be there tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night? What’s going on?”

“The Brotherhood and the Band of Bastards are meeting. You’ll hear about it first thing after sunset tomorrow. Wrath is going to call the brothers together and take you all out to meet with them so you can witness their oath to Xcor.”

“Why the fuck would I care about that?” The brother took the bottle into the bathroom and came back out wiping his hands with a towel. “Xcor’s boys want to circle jerk with that bastard, it’s not my business.”

Tohr shook his head and felt like he was hopping on Wrath’s skull-plosion train: In the space of about thirty minutes, he had nearly gotten violent with a female for the first time in his life, found out he had a long-lost brother, and been kicked out of the Brotherhood.

It was too much to comprehend, too much to process.

All he wanted to do was find Autumn and talk to her, tell her that he was sorry … but that courtesy of his piss-poor decision making, they were going to have to find another place to live.

Jesus, was this his life?

“Don’t do it,” he heard himself say. “Please, I’ve let this go. You need to as well.”

“I don’t have to do shit.” The brother pointed at the bassinets. “Except take care of those two and try to convince Blay to come home to me and them. That’s all I owe anybody.”

“Including Wrath? The Brotherhood? The people in this house?”

As Qhuinn fell silent, Tohr pointed to the corner where the bullet holes had been, the evidence of Qhuinn’s temper obviously having been replastered and repainted. “Everybody’s lost their damn minds lately. And that is what happens when emotions run hot and logic goes out the window and stress rules the night. You’re right, you have to take care of your kids. So do it by not getting yourself killed. You discharge a firearm at Xcor before, during, or after that meeting, and people are going to die. Maybe most of them are Bastards, maybe you even take out Xcor, but bulletproof vests only protect the heart, and if you want to do right by those two kids, you make it so you come home at dawn. Because I will guarantee you we will lose some of our people, too, and one of those casualties might just be yourself.”

Qhuinn turned back to the bassinets, and it seemed incongruous, inappropriate, just all around bad, that they were having this kind of conversation anywhere near such innocents.

“This is not a bunch of civilians,” Tohr pointed out. “You’re not meeting the Bastards in a drawing room tomorrow night and trading paperwork back and forth. I’ll say it again, people are going to get killed if you decide to take matters into your own hands. And if that happens, and it will, you’re going to have to look those two kids in the eyes when they’re older with those deaths on your conscience. You will turn their father into a murderer, and you’re going to put Wrath in a horrible position—again, assuming the two of you survive. Think about it. Ask yourself if vengeance is worth the price.”

Tohr turned away to leave, but then stopped. “I was almost a father once. It was a job I was looking forward to, praying for. I would do almost anything to be where you stand now over those young of yours. Sacrifice is relative … and you got a lot to lose over a male who’s really not of consequence to your larger life. Don’t be an asshole on this one, my brother, just don’t.”

FIFTY-SEVEN

“Well, this rather settles things, doesn’t it.”

As Throe stood over the bloody bed, he looked at his balloon, as he had come to think of the shadow, and smiled.