The Shadows(5)

“You know, I used Selena tonight and her blood is amazing—”

It all happened so fast. One minute V was jawing at him while he was bringing up the very salient point that the Shadow needed to take a vein.

The next, Trez’s racket-size palm was locked on his neck, cutting off all his air supply.

While the guy bared his teeth and snarled like Rhage was the enemy.

In the blink of an eye, and in spite of that nasty shoulder wound, Vishous counter-attacked the Shadow, tackling him in a total body slam as Rhage grabbed at that thick wrist to pull the grip free. Incredibly, it got them nowhere. Even with V’s close to three hundred pounds trying to pry Trez off and all of Rhage’s tensile strength getting thrown into the mix, the Shadow was brick-wall-going-nowhere, barely moving.

And then the three of them had something to really worry about.

Rhage blinked, and when he opened his eyes, brilliant light flooded the cramped, black space.

“Fuck,” V gritted. “Let him fucking go, Trez! We got problems!”

Beneath Rhage’s skin, his beast surged to life, awoken by the mortal threat.

“Trez! Let go!”

Something got through to the Shadow—whether it was all that light, or the fact that Rhage’s features were already starting to morph—and he loosened his hold just a little.

V took it from there, throwing the Shadow to the slick floor and jumping on him, a black dagger flashing out and being put directly to the jugular.

On a sagging curse, Rhage coughed and breathed deep a couple of times. Shit. His beast had a hair trigger on a good night, when he was well-fed, well-fucked, and properly exercised. But when someone tried to kill him?

Even if there might have been a good goddamn reason for it?

Clearly, the Shadow had bonded with the Chosen. ’Cuz that reaction had male hormones all over it.

“I’m sorry,” Trez mumbled. “I don’t know what came over me. Swear on my brother’s life.”

“Why didn’t you”—Rhage tripped over his own words—“tell us you bonded with her?”

There was a pause. Then Trez said, “I … shit.”

V added a string of curse words. “You gonna stay put, Shadow, or am I slicing the front of your throat open?”

“I’m good. Swear.”

A moment later, V came over. “Rhage…? My brother?”

Rhage put his palms to his face and let himself slide off the vertical until he was ass-on-the-floor. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

They already had a lesser in the club.

His beast was the last kind of patron they needed.

Breathe in.

Breathe out—

“What’s going on with him?” Trez asked.

“Don’t ever aggress on that motherfucker,” was the last thing Rhage heard before the world receded like smoke in a draft.





THREE


In the most sacred hall of the s’Hisbe’s Grand Palace, s’Ex stood on the far side of a door that had no knob, no handle, hardly any seam to distinguish the panel from the wall it was set into.

On the far side, he could hear the infant crying, and the sound, that plaintive entreaty for help, aid, succor, went into his ears and through to his soul. His hand shook as he put it to the cool expanse. His daughter. His offspring. The only one he would probably ever have.

The infant was not alone in the ceremonial room. There was the high priest, AnsLai; the Chief Astrologer; and the Tretary, a position charged with witnessing and recording events such as this.

The baby had been wrapped in a pure white blanket of woven wool by the nursemaid before being taken in there and left behind with those three males.

To cry for a father who would not come to save her.

s’Ex’s heart pounded so violently the whites of his eyes registered the rhythmic pressure. He had not expected this reaction, but mayhap this precise fervor was why he had not been allowed to touch the child—or be alone with her. Ever since the Queen had given birth to her approximately six hours ago, he had been permitted to view her twice: once after she had been cleaned, and just now, as she had been rendered into that white marble room that had no windows and only one door … that locked from the inside.

The second of her birth had determined this, demanded this. That was what custom dictated. The stars had aligned in such a way that his daughter was not to be the heir to the throne, and thus she had to be …

Get in there! his heart screamed. Stop this, stop this before—

Silence.

Suddenly there was silence.

A sound like that of a wounded animal vibrated up his throat and out of his mouth, and s’Ex curled a fist, banging it into that door so hard, fissures formed in a star pattern, radiating outward from the point of impact.