It had never dawned on him that they weren’t good for each other. That there wouldn’t be, in the future, some kind of meeting of the minds now that he’d opened himself after all these years.
Curling up a fist, he slammed it into the doorjamb, the imprint of the molding biting back into the heel of his hand.
As pain flared and then thumped, for some reason, he thought of punching that flatbed’s dashboard and screaming to get out. Felt like that had been a lifetime ago.
But he wasn’t turning back. If sex was what he could have, he was going to take it. Besides, what Blay had done for Layla?
Surely that meant something. The guy had cared enough to change the course of Qhuinn’s entire life.
Not that Blay hadn’t done that long ago.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Assail took form beside a babbling brook that remained ice-free thanks to its constant movement.
The house before him was one he had been to only one prior time, a brick Victorian with the period’s quintessential gingerbread motifs marking its porches and doorways. So quaint. So homey. Especially with those long four-paned windows made of leaded glass, and the curls of smoke lazying out of not one, but three of its four chimneys.
Which seemed to indicate its owner was back home for the night.
Fine timing, as it were: Dawn was coming soon, so it was logical to batten down one’s personal hatches for the sun. Secure one’s environment. Prepare for the hours that one needed to stay inside to protect oneself from harm.
Assail stalked across the pristine snow, leaving tracks with deep tread. No loafers for this job. No business suit, either.
No Range Rover for his burglar to follow.
Coming up the side lawn, he went over to the floor-to-ceiling windows of the very receiving room into which the master of the house had, not so very long ago, welcomed certain members of the Council…along with the Band of Bastards.
Assail had been numbered among the males at that meeting. At least until it had become clear that he had to remove himself or get drawn into precisely the kind of discourse and drama he was uninterested in.
At the glass, he looked inside.
Elan, son of Larex, was at his desk, a landline telephone up to his ear, a brandy snifter at his elbow, a cigarette smoldering in a cut-crystal ashtray beside him. As he leaned back in his leather club chair and crossed his legs at the knees, he appeared to be in a state of relaxation and self-satisfaction akin to that of postcoital bliss.
Assail made a fist, the black leather of his glove creaking ever so subtly.
And then he dematerialized into the very room, re-forming directly behind the male’s chair.
On one level, he couldn’t believe that Elan didn’t fortify his abode with greater security—a fine steel mesh over the windows and within the walls, for example. Then again, the aristocrat clearly suffered from a lack of appropriate risk assessment—as well as an arrogance that would grant him a greater sense of safety than he actually possessed.
“…and then Wrath shared a story about his father. I must confess, in person, the king is quite…ferocious. Although not enough to change my course, naturally.”
No, Assail was going to take care of that.
Elan leaned forward and reached for the cigarette. The thing was screwed onto one of those old-fashioned holders, the kind that females tended to use, and as he brought the end to his lips to take a drag, the tip extended out past the edge of the chair.
Assail unsheathed a shiny steel blade that was as long as his forearm.
It had e’re been his preferred weapon for this sort of thing.
His heart rate was as steady as his hand, his breathing even and regular whilst he loomed behind the chair. With deliberation, he stepped to one side, positioning himself so that his reflection appeared in the window opposite the desk.
“I am not aware whether it was the entire Brotherhood. How many of them are left? Seven or eight? This is part of the problem. We do not know who they are anymore.” Elan tapped his cigarette, the small stack of ash falling into the belly of the ashtray. “Now, whilst I was at the meeting, I instructed a colleague of mine to be in touch with you—I beg your pardon? Of course I gave him your number, and I resent the tone in your— Yes, he was here at the meeting at my home. He is going to— No, I shan’t do it again. Shall you cease interrupting me? I think so, yes.”
Elan took a drag and released the smoke in a rush, his annoyance manifested in his breath. “May we move on? Thank you. As I was saying, my colleague shall be in touch with regard to a certain legal provision which may help us. He has explained it to me, but as it is rather technical, I assumed you would wish to question him yourself.”
There was a rather long pause. And when Elan spoke next, his tone was calmer, as if placating words had soothed the ruffled feathers of his ego. “Oh, and one last thing. I took care of our little problem with a certain ‘business-minded’ gentlemale—”