The King(100)

“At that party. You know, for the queen.”
“Oh … that’s right.” Their parents had been sitting with the queen’s Primaries, as they were called. Front and center. Smiling.
They hadn’t acknowledged him or iAm when they’d come in, but that was not unusual. Once sold, he had become the queen’s. And once drafted into service to smooth things over, iAm was no longer theirs, either.
“They never looked back, did they,” Trez murmured. “I’m just a commodity to them. And, man, they got a good price.”
iAm stayed silent, as was his way. He just sat there, stroking that cat.
“How much time do I have?” Trez asked.
“You have to go tonight.” Dark eyes shifted over. “Like now.”
“And if I don’t…” There was no reason to answer that, and iAm didn’t bother: If he didn’t get out of bed and turn himself in, his parents were going to be slaughtered. Or worse.
Probably much worse.
“They’re such a part of the system,” he said. “Those two really got what they wanted.”
“So you’re not going.”
Once he set foot back within the Territory, he was never going to see the outside world again. The queen’s guard was going to shut him in that maze of corridors, lock him up so that he was the male equivalent of a harem, separate him even from his brother.
And meanwhile, his parents would live on, uncaring.
“She looked at me,” he muttered. “That night of the party. Her eyes went to mine—and she gave me this secret little smile of superiority. Like she’d made all the right moves, and the added benefit had been that she hadn’t had to deal with me. What the fuck kind of mother does that?”
“So you’re going to let them die.”
“No.”
“So you’re going back.”
“No.”
iAm shook his head. “It’s binary, Trez. I know you’re pissed off at them, at the queen, at a hundred thousand things. But we’ve reached the crossroads, and there are only two options. You’ve really got to understand that—and I’ll go back with you.”
“No, you’ll stay here.” As his muddled head tried to wrap itself around the variables, his brain was all fizzle, no flash. “Besides, I’m not going.”
Shit, he needed to feed before he tried to deal with this.
“Fuck, that human blood is for crap,” he mumbled, rubbing his temples like maybe the friction could jump-start his IQ. “You know what? I really can’t talk about this right now—and I’m not being an asshole. I literally can’t think.”
“I’ll send someone.” iAm got up and went to the door that separated their suites. “And then you need to make your mind up. You’ve got two hours.”
“Will you hate me,” he blurted.
“About them?”
“Yeah.”
It was a long while before he got an answer. And the cat stopped purring, iAm’s hand stilling at that throat.
“I don’t know.”
Trez nodded. “Fair enough.”
The door was shut and his brother well on his way when Trez’s brain coughed up a hey-wait.
“Not Selena,” he called out. “iAm! Yo! Not Selena!”
He did not trust himself with her on a good night—the last thing he needed was to get close to her right now.

TWENTY-SEVEN
As Wrath knocked on the door in front of him, he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. Maybe he’d luck out and there’d be no answer.
He needed more time before doing something like this—
Denied. Things opened up and a deep voice said, “Hey. What’s doing?”
As he tried to think of an answer to that, he closed his eyes behind his wraparounds. “Z…”
“Yeah. Hey.” The brother cleared his throat. Which really drove home the silence thing. “Yeah. So. What’s up?”
Abruptly, like the universe was sending him a shot in the nuts, a young’s cry rippled out. “Ah, listen, I was just getting her up. You mind?”
Wrath dragged a hand through his hair. “No, no, yeah, it’s cool.”
“You want me to come to your office afterward?”
He wondered what the room looked like, and painted the space according to what his Beth had said was in it. Cluttered, he thought. Homey. Cheerful.
Pink.
Nothing that Z would have been caught dead in before he’d met Bella.
“Wrath? What’s going on here?”
“You mind if I come in?”
“Ah … sure. Yeah, I mean, Bella’s working out so we’ve got some privacy. But you’re going to want to—”
Chhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
“—watch where you step.”