Qhuinn took form on a snow-covered terrace, and as everyone in the Brotherhood but Butch materialized alongside of him, he was not surprised by all the swank. The estate that the Council meeting was being held at was your standard glymera setup: lot of land that had been cleared and landscaped. Little cottage down by the entrance that looked like it belonged on a postcard of the Cotswalds. Big-ass mansion that, in this case, was made of brick and had dentil molding, shiny shutters, and slate roofing.

"Let's do this," V said, walking over to a side door.

The instant he pounded on it, the thing opened, as if that, along with so much, had been prearranged. But oh, man, if this was their hostess? The female who stood in the doorway was dressed in a long dark evening gown that was cut down to her navel, and she had a ring of diamonds around her throat the size of a Doberman's collar. Her perfume so heavy it was like a slap in the sinuses - in spite of the fact that he was still outdoors.

"I'm ready for you," she said in a low, husky voice.

Qhuinn frowned, thinking that even in that designer whatever it was, the chick came off as a tart. Not his problem, though.

As he filed in with the others, the room they entered was some kind of conservatory, the oversize potted green things and grand piano suggesting many an evening with guests staring up at some opera singer yodeling in the corner.

Gag.

"This way," the female announced with a flourish of a hand that sparkled.

In her wake, that perfume - maybe it was more than sprays from a single source, like a layering of all kinds of crap? - nearly colored the air behind her, and her hips were doing double duty with every step, like she was hoping they were all looking at her ass and wanting a piece of it.

Nope. As with the others, he was searching every nook and cranny, ready to shoot and ask questions after the body dropped.

It wasn't until they came out to the front hall, with its oil paintings spotlit from the ceiling, and its dark red Oriental rugs, and the...

Shit, that mirror was exactly like the one that had hung in his parents' house. Same position, same floor-to-ceiling, same curlicue gold leafing.

Yeah, he had the creeps. Bad.

The whole house reminded him of the mansion he'd grown up in, everything in its place, the decor far, far, far from middle-class, yet not anything gaudy and Trumpilicious. Nah, this shit was that subtle blend of old wealth and classic sense of style that could only be bred, not taught.

His eyes searched out Blay.

The guy was doing his job, staying tight, checking the place out.

Blay's mom and pops hadn't been quite this rich. But his home had been so much nicer on so many levels. Warmer - and that hadn't been about the HVAC systems.

How were Blay's parents? he wondered abruptly. He'd spent almost more time under their roof than his own, and he missed them. The last time he'd seen them...God, long time. Maybe that night of the raids, when Blay's father had gone from Mr. Suit accountant to serious ass-kicker. After that, the pair of them had moved out to their safe house, and then he and Blay had completely fallen apart.

He hoped they were well -

The image of Blay and Saxton standing chest-to-chest, hip-to-hip, in Blay's bedroom sliced into his brain.

God...damn...that had hurt.

And man, karma was good at its job.

Replugging into reality, he followed that double-jointed pelvis and the Brotherhood into a huge dining room that had been set up to Tohr's specifications: All the drapery had been pulled across the bank of windows that overlooked the back gardens, and the flap door that he figured led into the kitchen had been barricaded by a weighty antique sideboard. Whatever table had sat in the center of the room had been removed, and twenty-five matching mahogany chairs with red silk seats had been lined up in rows facing a marble fireplace.

Wrath was going to stand in front of the mantel to make his address, and Qhuinn went over and checked that the steel flue was closed. It was.

On either side of the fireplace, there were two sets of paneled doors that opened into an old-fashioned receiving salon. He and John Matthew and Rhage did a walk-through of the room, closed the thing off, and then he took up res in front of the entrance on the left, and John Matthew did the same on the right.

"I trust all is to your liking?" the female said.

Rehv went over to the fireplace and turned to face all the empty chairs. "Where's your hellren?"

"Upstairs."

"Get him down here. Now. Otherwise, if he moves through the house, he's liable to get shot in the chest."

The female's eyes flared, and this time when she walked off, there was no exaggeration to her hips, no check-me-out toss of the hair over the shoulder. Clearly the we're-not-fucking-around message had been received, and she wanted whoever her mate was to live through the night.

In the wait that followed, Qhuinn kept his gun in his palm, his eyes on the room, his hearing fine-tuned for something, anything out of order.

Nothing.

Which suggested their host and hostess had followed orders -

A strange prickling unease tickled its way up his spine, causing him to frown and go from high alert to DEFCON I. On the far side of the fireplace, John seemed to catch the same gist, his gun lifting, his eyes narrowing.

And then a cold mist hit Qhuinn's ankles.

"I've asked a couple of special guests to join us," Rehv said dryly.

At that moment, two columns of haze pulled up from the floor, the disturbance of air molecules finding forms...that Qhuinn instantly recognized.

Thank fuck.

With Payne out of commission for whatever reason, he'd been feeling like they were a little light on coverage, even recognizing the skills in the Brotherhood. But as Trez and iAm appeared, he took a deep breath.

Now that was a pair of straight-up killers, the kind of thing you really didn't want against you in any kind of fight. The good news was that Rehvenge had long been aligned with the Shadows, and Rehv's connection with the Brotherhood and the king meant that the two brothers were obviously willing to come and play a little backup.

Qhuinn stepped up to say hello to the pair, greeting them as the others did with a palm join, a quick pull, and a clap on the back. "Hey, my man..."

"What's doing..."

"How you been..."

After the hi-how're-yas were done, Trez glanced around. "Okay, so we're just going to stay outta sight unless you need us. But rest assured, we're here."

After a course of thank-yous from the Brothers, Rehv said a couple of private words to the Shadows...and then the two were gone, misting out of their forms and seething around the floors, that cold draft now a reassurance.

Perfect timing. Less than a minute later, the hostess came back with a diminutive older male at her side. Given the way vampires aged, with a rapid acceleration of physical decline toward the end of the life span, Qhuinn guessed the guy had five years left. Ten at the very most.

Some introductions were made, but Qhuinn didn't care about that shit. He was more worried about whether the rest of the house was empty.

"Any doggen here?" Rehv demanded as the female settled her geezer into one of the dining chairs.

"As you have requested, they are all gone for this part of the evening."

V nodded to Phury and Z. "The three of us'll search the premises. See if that's right."

Even though Blay trusted himself, the Brotherhood, and John Matthew, and Qhuinn, he felt a lot better knowing the Shadows were around. Trez and iAm were not just awesome fighters, and inherently dangerous to anyone they declared an enemy; they had a striking advantage over the Brotherhood.

Invisibility.

He wasn't sure whether they could actually engage while in that state, but it didn't matter. Anyone who broke in here - like, say, the Band of fucking Bastards - would make an engagement assessment that included only the visible hard bodies in the room.

Not those two brothers.

So this was good.

At that moment, V returned with Phury and Z from their walk-around - and Butch was with them, suggesting the Brother had just arrived via car. "Clear."

There was a brief pause. And then, as prearranged, Tohr went to the front door and opened the way in for Wrath.

Showtime, Blay thought, his eyes flicking in Qhuinn's direction before he snapped himself back into focus.

Tohr and the king entered the dining room side by side, their heads together as if they were in deep conversation about something important, the Brother's hand on Wrath's forearm like the guy was trying to drive some point home.

It was all an act for the host and hostess.

Tohr was, in fact, leading Wrath by that hold on the arm, taking him over to the fireplace, positioning him right in the middle of the mantelpiece. And that conversation? It was about where the two aristocratic hosts were sitting, where the chairs were aligned, where the Brothers and the fighters were - and the two Shadows as well.

While Wrath nodded, the king deliberately moved his head around as if his keen eyes were taking the details of the room in. And then he acknowledged the host and hostess as they were brought forward to kiss his huge black diamond ring.

After that, the creme de la creme of the glymera began to arrive.

From his assigned spot at the back of the room by the wall of windows, Blay got a good look at each one. Jesus, he could remember some of them from his life back before the raids, before he'd started living at the mansion and fighting with the Brothers. His parents had not been on a par with these males and females, but rather on the periphery - still, his family's bloodlines had been good ones, and they had been included in many festival celebrations at the big houses.

So these folks were not unknown to him.

But he sure as hell couldn't say he'd missed them.

In fact, he had to laugh to himself as a number of the females frowned and looked down to their delicately clad feet, Louboutins being lifted and shaken...as if the chill of the Shadows were registering.

When Havers arrived, the race's healer looked a little frazzled. No doubt he was nervous about seeing his sister again, and he had reason to be. From what Blay understood, Marissa had kicked his ass across the room at the last formal meeting of the Council.

Blay was sorry he'd missed that one.

Marissa arrived shortly after her brother, and Butch went over to her, greeting her with a lingering kiss before leading her, with a proud and protective arm, to a seat in the corner right next to where he was stationed. After the cop helped her into her chair, he stood beside her, big, broad, and mean-looking...especially as he locked eyes with Havers and smiled with fangs bared.

Blay found himself envying the couple a little. Not about the familial estrangement, for sure. But God...to be able to be seen with your mate in public, show your love for them, have your relationship respected by everyone else? Heterosexual couples took that for granted because they never knew anything different. Their unions were sanctioned by the glymera, even if the pairs were not in love, or were cheating on each other or were otherwise a fraud.

Two males?

Hah.

Just one more reason to resent the aristocracy, he supposed. Although in reality, he had the sense he wasn't going to have to worry about being discriminated against. The male he wanted was never going to stand beside him in public, and not because Qhuinn gave a shit about what people thought. One, the guy wasn't demonstrative like that. And two, sex did not a couple make.

Otherwise that bastard would be engaged to half of Caldwell, FFS.

Oh, what was he saying.

He was long over that Qhuinn pipe dream thing.

Really.

Totally -

"Shut it," he muttered to himself as the last of the Council arrived.

Rehv didn't waste any time. Every second that Wrath was in front of this group, the king was not only mortally exposed, but also running the chance that his blindness would somehow be ferreted out.

The symphath king addressed the Council, his purple gaze scanning the crowd, a sly smile on his face - like maybe he was enjoying the fact that this group of know-it-alls had no clue that a sin-eater was leading them. "I hereby call this meeting of the Council to order. The date and time are..."

As the preamble continued, Blay kept his eyes busy, checking out the backs of the males and females, where the arms and hands were, whether anyone was twitchy. Naturally, the group had turned out in black tie and velvet, with jewels on the females, and gold pocket watches on the males. Then again, it had been a long time since they'd been together formally, and that meant that their desire to compete with one another for the social upper hand had no doubt suffered from grossly insufficient airtime.

"...our leader, Wrath, son of Wrath."

As polite applause sounded, and the crowd straightened in their chairs, Wrath took a single step forward.

Man, blind or not, he certainly appeared to be a force of nature: Even though he wasn't dressed in some kind of ermine-trimmed robe, the king was irrefutably in charge, his massive body and long dark hair and black wraparounds making him more menace than monarch.

And that was the idea.

Leadership, especially when it came to the glymera, was based in part upon perception - and no one could deny that Wrath looked like a living, breathing representation of power and authority.

And that deep, commanding voice didn't hurt, either.

"I recognize that it has been a long time since I've seen you. The raids of nearly two years ago decimated a lot of your families, and I share in your pain. I, too, lost my bloodline in a lesser raid, so I know exactly what you're going through as you try to get your lives back on track."

A male down in front shifted in his chair....

But it was only a change in position, not the prelude to a weapon coming out.

Blay eased back on his stance, as did several others. Goddamn, he couldn't wait to get through this meeting and have Wrath back home safe.

"Many of you knew my father well, and remember his time in the Old Country. My sire was a wise and temperate leader, a gentlemale of logical thinking and regal bearing who occupied himself solely with the betterment of this race and its citizenry." Wrath paused, those wraparounds making a circle of the room. "I share a few of my father's characteristics...but not all. In fact, I am not temperate. I am not forgiving. I am a male of war, not of peace."

At this, Wrath unsheathed one of his black daggers, the dark blade flashing in the light of the crystal chandelier overhead. Out in front of the king, the crowd of highfliers reacted with a collective shiver.

"I am very comfortable with conflict, be it of the legal or mortal kind. My father was a mediator, a bridge maker. I am a grave maker. My father was a persuader. I am a taker. My father was a king who would willingly sit at your dinner tables and converse with you about minutiae. I am not that male."

Yeah, whoa. The Council had no doubt never been addressed like this. But Blay couldn't disagree with the approach. Weakness was not respected. Moreover, with this group, law alone probably wasn't going to keep Wrath's throne stable anymore.

Fear, on the other hand?

Much better chance.

"My father and I do have one thing in common, however." Wrath angled his head down, as if he were staring at the black blade. "My father caused the deaths of eight of your relations."

There was a collective gasp. But Wrath didn't let that slow him up.

"Over the course of my father's reign, there were eight attempts on his life, and no matter how long it took, whether it was days, weeks, or even months, he made it his business to find out who was behind each...and he hunted the individuals down personally, and killed them. You may not have heard the true stories, but you will know of the deaths - the perpetrators were beheaded with the tongues removed. Surely, as you cast your mind back, you can recall members of your bloodlines who were interred that way?"

Fidgeting. Lot of fidgeting. Which suggested memories had been jogged.

"You will further recall that those deaths were attributed to the Lessening Society. I say unto you now, I know the names, and I know where the graves are, because my father made sure I memorized them. It was the first lesson in kingship he ever taught me. My citizenry is to be honored, protected, and served well. Traitors, on the other hand, are a disease to any lawful society and need to be eradicated." Wrath smiled in a purely evil way. "Say what you will about me, I studied well at the foot of my father. And let us be clear - my father, not the Brotherhood, was the one who attended those deaths. I know because he beheaded four of them in front of me. That was how important the lesson was."

Several of the females moved closer to whatever male happened to be seated beside them.

Wrath continued. "I will not hesitate to follow my father's lead in this. I recognize that you all have suffered. I respect your trials and I want to lead you. I will not, however, hesitate to treat any insurgency against me and mine as the act of a traitor."

The king lowered his chin, and appeared to glare out from behind the wraparounds, to the point that even Blay felt a frisson of adrenaline.

"And if you think what my father did was violent, you haven't seen a goddamn thing yet. I will make those deaths look merciful. I swear on my lineage."