The King(13)

“He could retaliate against the aristocracy.”
“What’s he going to do—kill us all? Then what?”
When Abalone finally hung up, he stared into the eyes of his father. His heart told him the race was in good hands with Wrath, even if the King isolated himself in many ways. But his cousin made a lot of sense.
After a long while, he made another call that sickened his stomach. When it was answered, he didn’t bother with any preamble. “You have my vote,” he said roughly.
Before Ichan could laud his good sense, he ended the call. And promptly dragged over a wastepaper basket so he could vomit.
The only thing worse than having no legacy at all … was not living up to the one you’d been given.
As Xcor strode out of the aristocrat’s house, he was annoyed to find that Ichan, the Council’s representative, and Tyhm, the lawyer, were waiting for him in the moonlight.
“I think we were persuasive enough,” Ichan announced.
So much pride in that haughty voice—as if the male had already placed his sagging arse upon the throne.
Xcor looked back at the Tudor mansion. Through the diamond-pane windows, the male they had confronted was on the phone, smoking a cigarette like his lungs required nicotine more than oxygen. Then he paused and stared up at something. A moment later, shoulders sloping in defeat, he put the cell back to his ear.
Ichan’s phone went off and he smiled as he took it out of his pocket. “Hello? How lovely of you to call—” There was a pause. “Oh, I think that’s so wise of you—hello? Hello?”
Ichan put the cellular device away with a shrug. “I shan’t even be offended that he hung up on me.”
And another one falls to the logic.
Xcor gripped his stolen apple and wrenched it from his blade. With a sure hand, he began to peel the bloodred skin from its crisp, white flesh, whittling around and around until a curling strip formed beneath his weapon.
As opposed to his favored stance of assassination, this new legal approach to a forced abdication was going well. They had another half dozen members of the First Families to meet and brief, and then it was time to make this official at the Council level. After that? The killings would have to be done—no doubt one or all of the aristocrats they were dealing with would have delusions of the crownal variety.
Easily cured, however, and then he would have what he wanted.
“…meal of our choice?”
As Ichan and Tyhm looked at him, he realized that he’d just been asked out to eat.
Xcor let the strip of skin fall to the snow at his feet. No doubt the dandy inside had groundspeople who would pick it up, although given how unsettled the dear boy was, mayhap he would venture out for a walk amongst his fucking topiaries and see it himself.
Threats were best made on multiple levels.
“The field awaits me the now,” Xcor said as he carved out a section of flesh and bared his fangs, bringing his knife up to his mouth along with the piece.
The crack as he bit down had its desired effect.
“Yes, well, of course, indeed, for truth,” Ichan said, his words like a ballerina spinning off her pointed shoes and careening into the orchestra pit.
How cute.
And then there was a pause, as if the adieu was to be repaid. When Xcor merely cocked a brow, the two dematerialized sure as if there were emergencies afoot at their respective manses.
So irrelevant these pawns were—he had used some up already and no doubt one or both of the pair that had just departed would find their graves in service to him.
Inside the great house, the Council member they had come to see was still hanging his head—but not for long. Someone entered the room, and whoever it was, the aristocrat didn’t want them to know of his upset. He pulled himself together, smiling and holding out his arms. As a young female went unto him, Xcor figured her to be the daughter.
She was beautiful, it was true—the drawing had been accurate.
But she was not a patch on another.
Unbidden, memories flooded his mind, images of fair skin and hair, and eyes that were capable of stopping him in his tracks sure as a bullet, tangled his thoughts until he was the one tripping over his boots even as he remained standing.
No, however pretty and young that daughter was, she was but a far-off echo of loveliness compared to his unattainable Chosen.
“You must stop this,” he said into the cold night breeze. “Stop this the now.”
A fine command, indeed—and yet it was several minutes before he could calm himself enough to focus and dematerialize from the front lawn.
A blink later and Xcor was finally in his element: The alley before him was an urban armpit, the snow filthy from the tire grab left over after countless dump and delivery trucks had passed o’er this stretch behind half a dozen cheap restaurants. In spite of frigid December gusts, the stench of spoiled meat and denaturing green matter was enough to make the inside of the nose tingle.