Without looking away from the view inside, Murhder said softly, “Are they discussing the weather in there? Or the lack of good help.”

Vishous’s voice was dry. “Both. I swear to fucking God, I’d rather binge-watch Bubble Guppies than be at a party like this.”

Murhder looked at the brother. “Guppy what?”

“You don’t want to know. The things you learn when there are—”

“You live with young? I mean, I guess I’ve heard there are lots of young around now.”

“I’m not talking about the toddlers. It’s that fucking Lassiter. The Fallen Angel. You’ll meet him at some point. Hell, he probably already knows you’re here.” Those diamond eyes shifted over. “I’m glad you’re back, by the way. All the way back.”

Murhder glanced at the fighter again. Vishous had always been the most intelligent of them all, and also the most cynical—so it was kinda touching that he’d ditched the snark for once.

“Thanks, man,” Murhder said.

“My brother.”

As a leather-gloved fist was presented, Murhder pounded it. And then they both went back to work.

Just like old times.

There was one couple who had yet to arrive, and under any other circumstance, Throe would have told the butler to send them away. Thirty minutes late! What disrespect.

Alas, there was no butler, but the offense still stood.

Over at the bar, he poured himself a sherry, and downed it in two pulls. Other than the tardiness, however, things were progressing well. Following the initial hellos, all of which were as disingenuously warm and effusive as ever, talk had shifted to the attacks in the alleys downtown. How they all knew a family who had lost a son to some nefarious new foe. How the Brotherhood had not made it to the rescue in time. How it had happened again. And a third time.

Yes, this was precisely why Throe had sent his shadows after the offspring of these people. Set the stage. Then create the chaos here at this gathering.

Whereupon he would save the attendees, except for the two who had to die to give it all teeth. And then the tide would begin to turn.

In the direction he dictated.

Before he got things truly going, he made sure to take a mental snapshot of it all, and it was a sustaining sight for a male such as himself: the remaining members of the glymera’s best cut of bloodlines talking with animation, the jewels of the females winking under the chandelier, the fire crackling, the ambiance matching the prestige of the decor.

A shame the way the evening was going to have to end.

“That’s a bit quick, is it not?”

Throe turned to the gentlemale who had spoken. “I beg your pardon.”

“Your sherry is too fine to take that fast.” The male smiled smoothly. “But I suppose we all have our different ways of doing things.”

Altamere, Throe thought. The male’s name was Altamere.

“Cat got your tongue, old friend.” Altamere put his hand on Throe’s shoulder and pushed down. “Although old is a bit of a stretch for us, isn’t it. You have only just arrived.”

Throe narrowed his eyes. “Our bloodlines have mingled for centuries.”

“But not you and I. You’re a newcomer here in Caldwell. An upstart, as it were.” The male indicated the grand room. “Tell me, where is the true master of this house. Does he know you’re using his estate for your own purposes? Or will he be joining us.”

Throe smiled coldly. “No, he will not.”

“A squatter playing sire.” The male leaned in. “Such a cliché.”

“Will you excuse me?” Throe said. “I must go check on the meal.”

“Why? Because you cooked it for us?”

As the male smiled slyly, Throe put his glass down on the makeshift bar. “Your son is in the training center program, isn’t he. Don’t you find that beneath you? I mean, fighting is no longer something that people in our class do. Unless you’re trying to teach him a lesson in social humility?”

The male clamped his teeth together. “It is Rexboone’s honor to serve the race. And with our sons dying in downtown Caldwell, I would say it’s an excellent skill for a male of my class to have.”

Nice little dig there, wasn’t it.

Now Throe was the one leaning in. “If you truly believed that, you would announce that he’s in training. That he’s fighting. That he’s working for the Brotherhood. The only way I found out was through the female that plays tennis with your shellan. Not exactly shouting it from the rooftops, are you.”

As the male’s pale eyes shot across the way and locked on his mate, Throe felt a stab of satisfaction at causing mated strife. After all, the aristocracy was centuries away from any fighting tradition. In this modern era, it was shameful to have any male in one’s bloodline wield a gun in defense of the species.

“Things get around in society, don’t they,” Throe murmured as he turned away. “It’s hard to keep secrets. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Walking out of the rear of the room, he went into the study which he had deliberately kept dark—and all he wanted to do was stab the fucker himself.

But that was not how things were going to go.

“Come here,” he commanded into the darkness.

His favorite shadow, the one that he had tasked to protect himself, materialized beside him, a bobbing void with the slightest shimmer denoting its contours.

“You see that male?” He pointed to Altamere. “That is the one they start with. Are we clear?”

More bobbing, not that he’d expected any kind of disagreement. And to hell with waiting for the remaining two people to arrive. It wasn’t as if they were going to make it to the table, anyway.

Throe checked his watch.

Regarded his guests for one last time.

“I think now. I think we shall commence … now.”

John Matthew had been paired with Qhuinn and Blay on the stakeout of the party, the three of them clustered halfway down the flank of the house in the dark wedge between spotlights that shined out onto the rolling, snow-covered lawn. They were to wait for a signal to infiltrate, and as he watched the people circulate in a room that was so elegant, he wouldn’t have wanted to try to sit in a chair there, he really hoped these fancy types weren’t planning to make a move on Wrath.

John had dispatched a lot of lessers back to the Omega. But he hadn’t killed members of the species before. Not that he would hesitate if they were committing treason.

Tohr’s directive was clear. If the signal was given, the Brotherhood and the fighters on the property were going to burst in and take the assembled guests into custody. Things were only going to get deadly if somebody did something stupid.

Throe, on the other hand, was a different story—

John frowned and leaned forward. Speak of the devil. The host with the most had just taken his leave of the gathering and walked into a totally dark room. Silhouetted in the light streaming in from the parlor, his dark form tilted forward, as if he were speaking to someone.

Tapping Qhuinn on the shoulder, John pointed to the window.

“Yeah,” the Brother whispered. “I see it, too. What the hell?”

A sense of foreboding had John reaching for his gun; he had a really bad feeling about all this: Throe was not alone in that room. And yet there didn’t seem to be a corporeal figure with him.

When the male returned to the party, John moved with him, tracking the aristocrat from window to window. Coming up to V and Murhder, John tapped them both.

Something’s wrong—

The attack happened in slow motion. One moment, the cocktail party was in full swing, people talking and gesturing with the exaggerated politeness of the glymera—the next, a figment of John’s nightmares wafted into the room.

A shadow.

Vishous barked into his shoulder mic. “Now. Now. Now!”

Without thinking, John took two running strides and leaped into the air, tucking his head and rolling forward such that his leather-covered shoulders shattered the glass. Swinging his feet over his head to complete the somersault, he landed on his boots with his gun up.

But it was too late for the male who was attacked. Before John could squeeze off a round of the Brotherhood’s sacred bullets, the shadow entity lashed out at a guest, piercing him through the chest, the male’s screams bloodcurdling until they were cut off by a throat slash.

Blood flew from an open artery in the aristocrat’s neck, the arc as graceful as the violence was terrible.

John set his position, leveled his gun … and squeezed off two rounds as soon as he got a clear shot. But that was all he could do. In the panic typical of laypeople, the party guests fell into a disorganized scramble, tripping over gowns, over each other, running in all directions like the spooked sheep they were.

He’d hit the entity at least once, though: Its high-pitched squeal cut through even the yelling and the pounding of feet.

And then the shadow turned on him.

As the crowd scattered away, John smiled. And pulled his trigger again. Two more times. A sixth—

With each bullet, the shadow was forced back, the slugs of lead that were treated with holy water from the Scribe Virgin’s fountain driving the entity into a retreat. Even as fins licked out of its translucent black core, and those knives flew around, John was too dominant as he pursued the thing.

Smaller. The outer edges of the shadow were shrinking in, its size diminishing. And fortunately, the crowd and the other fighters were staying out of range, so he had the room he needed to finish the damn thing off.

John kicked out the clip he’d emptied. Slammed in a new one.

He was careful not to get too close.

He had no intention of getting stung—

“John! Watch out!”

Before he could look in the direction of the voice, a massive body tackled him, throwing him off his shitkickers. He kept shooting even as he headed for the floor, focusing only on his target. Just before he slammed into the carpet, the shadow became lit from the inside, an evil glow emanating from the center of its bulbous form. In the blink of an eye, that glow rippled outward—