“At least you’re honest.”

Butch spoke up. “I’m going back into the field at sunset, and I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. We’re so close—” The Brother made a pinchie with his thumb and forefinger“—and that’s why it’s safe for me to go out there.”

“I will tell you what you can and can’t do,” Wrath cut in. “Unless you think this big-ass chair is a prop?”

“This is our shot.” Butch looked around the room. “And I’m not going to be the one who blows it.”

“But you need to be protected,” V gritted.

As arguments popped up in all corners, Syn let the various debates recede into the background. He already knew what the outcome was going to be. Butch was going to be allowed to go out into the field—because he was right. They were getting close to the end and the King knew that. No one wanted to put somebody as mission critical as the fucking Dhestroyer at risk. On the other hand, how the fuck was the cop going to be able to fulfill the prophecy if he were cooling his heels at home like he was made of cut glass?

The meeting broke up sometime later. Maybe it was five minutes. Maybe it was an hour. Syn didn’t care. And guess what. Butch was free to do his job, even though V looked like he wanted to file a protest to that royal decree with a dagger.

Syn never waited for anyone, and with his position close to the double doors, he was the first out.

As he headed to his room to crash, the footfalls in his wake stuck with him as he passed through the second-story sitting room—and were still hanging tough when he entered the corridor that led down to his suite.

“Syn.”

He just shook his head and grabbed for his door.

“Syn,” his cousin said, “we gotta talk.”

“Nope. We don’t.”

As he went to slam the panel shut, Balthazar caught it. “Yeah, we do.”

Syn gave up fighting over entry control and headed for his bathroom, shedding clothes as he went, letting them fall on the floor. “I think the meeting was self-explanatory. I didn’t take notes if you’re looking for a review of it—”

“Who’s the female.”

Syn stopped in front of the dual sinks. Lifting his eyes to the mirror, he looked at his cousin. Balthazar was standing just inside the bath, his jet-black clothes loose and comfortable, his flexible, non-heeled shoes the kind of thing you could climb up the outside of a building with. Syn recognized the uniform instantly.

Guess the thief been working a little side hustle of his own at the end of the night.

“Been brushing up on your perishable skills, cousin?” Syn drawled.

“Who’s the female.”

“What did you steal?”

“Don’t play games with me.”

“If I ask you to empty your pockets, what’s in them? Necklaces of the diamond variety? Cash? A couple of expensive watches?”

When Balz just stared at his reflection, Syn recognized the steady-Eddie expression for what it was: evidence that the goddamn bastard was prepared to spend as much time as it took to get what he wanted. The tenacious fucker.

Syn started the water running in the sink and soaped up his hands like he was a surgeon about to amputate a leg. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part.

“I don’t recall,” he said, “there having been any discussion about a female at the meeting. Then again, I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Back in that alley earlier. Who is this female you want me to get ahold of in the event of your death.”

Syn looked down at his soapy hands. Because, hello, cleanliness was next to godliness, and who wanted to be a dirty bird. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I was delirious.”

“You can’t be trusted with females, Syn. Not like you are right now.”

“I’m naked.” He indicated his body. “So they’re perfectly safe. Unless you think my… difficulties… have resolved themselves. Which I assure you they have not.”

Shit, that thing with Jo. He hadn’t wanted it to end like it had.

“We’re coming down to the end of the war, Syn. We don’t need your kind of complications right now.”

“And again, I say unto you, I dinnae know what you’re talking about.”

Balthazar stared at him. “There are limits to what I can clean up, Syn.”

“Then don’t play doggen for me. Pretty simple solution there, burglar mine.”

When the male cursed and walked off, Syn met his own eyes in the mirror. As his cousin’s words rebounded in his head, his thoughts went back to the past—and though he tried to fight it, the memories were stronger than his resolve to deny them.

* * *

’Twas three nights following the death of his sire and the onset of his transition that Syn stood in the hut that had been the only home he had ever known. As he looked at the pallet where his sire had slept, and the remains of his mahmen, and the pathetic valuables that were nothing more than containers for rope and fur, and bladders for mead, he knew what he had to do.

“You’re leaving?”

He pivoted to the heavy tarp flap. Balthazar was standing just inside the doorway, the male’s pre-transition face grown up in spite of the immaturity of the features.

“I dinnae hear you come in, cousin,” Syn said.

“You know me. I’m very quiet.”

Outside the cave, the cold wind howled, a harbinger of autumn. Summer was indeed over, and Syn felt in his bones that it would never come again.

Not that it had ever been there for him, no matter how warm any night was.

“Thank you,” Syn said as he went over and picked up one of the discarded bladders of mead.

“For what?”

As Syn sniffed the open neck, he grimaced and knew he would ne’er drink such. Ever. The memories that came with the scent made him cringe. Tossing the empty aside, he went to find another, sifting through the discord.

“Getting the female when you did,” he said. “I would have died.”

“She came on her own.”

Syn looked up with a frown. “How did she know then?”

“You saved her life. Did you think she wouldnae come see about you?”

“She should have stayed away.”

“She had the choice to or not only because of you. She told me what you did. She saw your sire in one of his moods, on the verge of their property. You drew him away. She was home alone with her brother. Fates know what would have happened.”

Syn grunted, for he couldnae speak any further of her, especially as both he and his cousin knew exactly what his sire would have done to such a delicate beauty.

Leaning down, he at last found a bladder that was half full. Lucky. His father rarely left them with anything in their confines.

“You saved her life,” Balthazar said. “She saved yours.”

“Not a fair swap,” Syn said as he took the cork out of the neck. “Not by any distance at all.”

Walking around, he poured the strong, fermented alcohol out, the smell making him choke. Since his transition, his senses were painfully acute, and his body did not feel like his own. He was so tall, his limbs flopping about, his feet too large for even his sire’s old shoes, his hands broad and long-fingered.