The symphath was already inside. Lash knew it sure as he felt the flurries on his cheeks and heard loose stones crunch under his combat boots.
Mr. D opened the door and Lash stepped inside first to show he didn’t need a subordinate to clear the way. The interior of the mill was nothing but a lot of cold air, the rectangular building having long ago been stripped of anything useful.
The symphath was waiting down at the far end, near the massive wheel that still sat in the river like an old fat woman in a cooling bath.
“My friend, how nice to see you once more,” the king said, that snake voice rippling along the rafters.
Lash walked over to the guy nice and slow, taking his time, checking and double-checking the shadows thrown by the glass windows. Nothing but the king. This was good.
“Have you considered my proposal?” the king said.
Lash was not in a fucking-around mood. After the shit with the Domino’s delivery guy the night before and the fact that there was another drug dealer to pick off in about an hour, now wasn’t the time to play.
“Yeah. And you know what? I’m not sure I need to do you any favors. I’m thinking either you give me what I want, or…maybe I just send my men north to slaughter you and all the other freaks up there.”
That flat, pale face broke into a serene smile. “But how would that work for you? It would be destroying the very tools with which you wish to best your enemy. Not a logical step for any ruler to take.”
Lash’s cock tingled at the tip, respect turning him on, though he refused to acknowledge the fact. “You know, I wouldn’t think the king would need help. Why can’t you just do the killing yourself?”
“There are extenuating circumstances, and benefits to making it appear as if the demise occurred outside of my influence. You will learn, over time, that machinations in the background are at times far more effective than those you conduct in full view of your population.”
Point taken, though again, Lash wasn’t going to give props.
“I’m not as young as you think,” he said instead. Fuck it, he’d aged about a billion years in the last four months.
“And you are not as old as you believe. But that is another conversation for a different time.”
“I’m not looking for a therapist.”
“Which is a shame. I’m rather good at getting into the heads of others.”
Yeah, Lash could see that. “This target of yours. Is it a male or a female.”
“Would it matter?”
“Not in the slightest.”
The symphath positively beamed. “It is a male. And as I said, there are unusual circumstances.”
“How so?”
“He will be difficult to get to. His private guard is rather fierce.” The king floated over to a window and looked out. After a moment, his head turned as an owl’s would, rotating on the spine until it was nearly facing backward, and then his white eyes flared red for a moment. “Do you think you can handle such a penetration?”
“Are you a homo?” Lash blurted.
The king laughed. “You mean, do I prefer lovers of my same sex?”
“Yeah.”
“Would that make you uncomfortable?”
“No.” Yes, because it would mean that he kinda sorta had the hots for a guy who swung that way.
“You don’t lie very well,” the king murmured. “But it will come with age.”
Fuck that. “And I don’t think you’re as powerful as you think you are.”
When the sexual speculation disappeared Lash knew he’d hit a sore spot. “Beware the waters of confrontation-”
“Spare me the two-bit, fortune-cookie bullshit, Your Highness. If you were filling out that robe with a good set of balls, you’d get rid of this guy yourself.”
Serenity returned to the king’s face, as if Lash had just proven his inferiority with the outburst. “Yet instead I’m having someone else take care of it for me. Far more sophisticated, although I don’t expect you to understand that.”
Lash dematerialized right in front of the guy and locked his palms around that slender throat. With a single, brutal thrust, he forced the king up against the wall.
Their eyes locked, and as Lash felt a probe into his mind, he instinctively shut the entryway through his frontal lobe.
“You’re not unlocking my trunk there, asshole. Sorry.”
The king’s stare grew red as blood. “No.”
“No what?”
“I do not prefer lovers of my own sex.”
It was the perfect shoe to drop, of course: the implication being that Lash was staying close because he was the one who liked cock out of the pair of them. He let go and stalked around.