It was, he decided, kind of like a cut on your finger, one that didn’t hurt until you flexed your thumb—and then the thing really stung. Except on a much grander scale, of course.

Was this what it was going to be like? Him going through his nights and days bumping into random things and getting jolted back into the depths of his grief?

“I don’t know how to do this,” he said to her clothes, “without you.”

And he wasn’t just talking about getting dressed.

When there was no reply—but come on, like he expected her ghost to answer?—he took the nearest pants and shirt that he got to, threw them on his body, and walked out. For a good ten minutes, he stood in the center of the room and entertained the temptation to trash everything around him. But his body didn’t have the strength or the coordination, and his emotions couldn’t sustain the boil of the anger he felt.

He looked over at the window Selena had broken. She had been magnificent in her fury, so alive, so …

Holy shit, he was going to drive himself insane.

On his way to the door, he picked up his cell phone out of habit and then stopped in front of the exit to his room. He was pretty sure he wasn’t ready for pitying looks or prying questions. But he thought he’d seen that the shutters were still down?

Yup.

So hopefully the whole Last Meal thing would have been long cleaned up and the doggen retired for their brief rest before the daytime cleaning started up.

He thought he’d seen a seven in the time.

Yeah. Seven something o’clock in the morning, the numbers had said.

Grasping the brass doorknob, he felt like he was back downstairs at the clinic, when he’d gone to leave the examination room after all that time with Selena’s body: this was another portal he was going to have to push himself through.

With a twist of the wrist, he released the mechanism and put some weight into the—

On the bald floor across from his bedroom, iAm was horizontal and out cold in the hallway, his head on the curl of his arm, a half-consumed, fully capped bourbon bottle cozied up to his chest like a loyal dog, his brows down like even in his sleep he was dealing with shit.

Trez took a deep breath.

It was good to know the male was still with him.

But he was not waking the guy up.

Stepping with care so he didn’t disturb his brother, he found himself wanting to take this first trip out into the world on his own.

Down at the bottom of the shallow stairs, he did another brace-yourself with a door latch—and wondered how long it was going to take to get himself over that habit—then he pushed things open.

“…you bunch of photophobic freaks.”

Shaking himself, he frowned.

Lassiter, the fallen angel, was in the doorway to Wrath’s study, hands on his hips, blond-and-black hair pulled back in a braid. “You’d better show some fucking respect or I’m not going to say one damn thing about what I found out on my little trip to the Territory.”

From inside the room, there were all kinds of muttering.

“No,” Lassiter said, “I want you to say you’re sorry, Vishous.”

It was so weird. Like a camera lens that was suddenly focusing, Trez came back online, his senses sharpening, some shadow of his former self returning.

“I’m waiting.” There was a pause. “Good enough. And I want the remote for the next week—days and nights.”

Incredible grousing, and someone threw something at the guy, the coaster landing on the carpet outside the room.

“Well, if you’re going to get nasty again—”

Following an instinct, Trez dematerialized—at the very instant Lassiter dropped the asshole act and shot a shrewd glance in the direction of where Trez had been standing.

His presence had been sensed.

But he would not allow that to happen again.

Shadowing along the carpet, he seeped into the study as Lassiter stepped inside, closed the doors and addressed the Brotherhood.

“We got a map?” the angel said.

Being careful to stay out of the way of anyone’s feet, lest they tweak to his altered state, Trez pooled in the corner farthest away from Wrath’s dog. Fortunately, George was sound asleep by his master’s throne.

The Brotherhood clustered around Wrath’s desk as Butch flipped a blue-and-green, three-foot-by-three-foot square of paper out of its folds.

“Here,” the angel said, pointing with his forefinger. “This is where I found it. There’s a retaining wall that runs around the entire property. Dwellings are here and here. The palace … right here. Security is tight, and from what I was able to see, they are gathering their forces.”

Gathering forces? Trez thought.

“We need to get to them first,” Wrath muttered. “First strike is critical. We don’t want them coming into Caldwell.”

What the hell was going on?

“…can’t find this house. No one can find this house,” V said. “But yeah, I’ll stay behind. I don’t like it, but someone needs to be here on a just-in-case.”

Lassiter looked across the desk at the Brother and proved that he could get serious if he had to: “I gotchu. I’ll be here, too.”

There was a split second where the males stared into each other’s eyes. “Good,” V said. “That’s good.”

“Where’s iAm?” Wrath asked.

“Last I saw of him,” Rhage answered, “he was heading upstairs to check on Trez and crash.”

“We need to make sure he keeps Trez under this roof. I don’t want that Shadow getting kidnapped in the middle of this. I’m happy to fight—shit, I’m looking forward to it—but I don’t want them getting a hold of the poor bastard. That’s a complication I don’t want to have to worry about.”

What the fuck?

This was all about him?

Trez stayed in that French study, with those Brothers and fighters, until he learned everything he needed to know—and then he had to get gone before Rehvenge arrived from having readied his people up north in the symphath colony.

His old friend the sin-eater would have known he was in there.

When it was time to go, he didn’t take a chance. He shadowed out under the door and continued on down the grand staircase, across the foyer’s mosaic floor … and out farther, passing through the minuscule gaps in the jambs of the vestibule’s entrance and exit.

Outside, the sun was rising over the autumnal landscape, golden and pink rays hitting the yellow and orange and red leaves as well as the bristly dark green pine boughs and spiky cedar branches.

He did not reassume form until he was some distance away from the house, although the security cameras would no doubt register the appearance of his presence anyway. The good news, if you could call it that, was that the Brothers were all talking about the upcoming battle, so they weren’t going to be going ADT on shit. And if one of the doggen happened to see him out here? They would just assume he was out for a walk to clear his head.

He hadn’t put on a jacket, and he was glad.

The cold slapped him even further awake.

Even though it had been sinking in for a good hour, he still couldn’t believe any of it: the Queen declaring war on Wrath and the Brotherhood. Their refusing to turn him over. The sin-eaters joining in on the side of the vampires.

He couldn’t believe that there were so many prepared to rally to his cause.

“Selena?” he said, letting his head fall back so that he was looking at the heavens.

No stars because of the daylight.

No clouds, for that matter.

Nothing but pale blue.

Trez thought about that time he had tried to escape the palace and had ended up slaughtering all those guards in front of s’Ex. So much bloodshed.

Only back then, it had been strangers to him.

If he thought that had been bad, shit was going to be so much worse if the Brotherhood went into the Territory. They would ultimately prevail, with the sin-eaters at their backs … but there would be death. Maiming.

More lives ruined.

Turning around, he looked up at the great gray mansion.

However dour the exterior of the manse was, the interior was full of life and love and family.

If this war went forward, where he was in his mourning, this terrible stretch of pain, was going to rain down upon this house and the people in it.

He would not put someone he hated in his shoes, living with this loneliness and heartache.

He could not put those he loved where he was.

Not if there were a way to stop it.

At the very moment he made his decision, a ray of sunlight broke across the rooftop, that incredible light spilling down over the orderly rows of slate.

Selena had made him swear he would live without her, and he had given her that vow, but only because she’d forced him to.

It wasn’t as if he’d believed what he’d told her.

Now, though, as he imagined all the lives he could save, how he could protect these males and females and their young?

“This is as close as I can come, my queen,” he said to the sky.

SEVENTY-EIGHT

It took them forever to get to the sacred astrology chamber.