To the point where, even though she had shared half of it all with John Matthew after he’d come into their lives? Hadn’t made a dent in spite of her half-brother taking millions and millions.
Totally nuts.
Crossing over the depiction of an apple tree in bloom, she hit the bloodred carpeted stairs and gunned for the second floor. An orphan all her life, it had been a shock to find out her father had known of her, had watched over her, had provided for her. But then from everything she’d heard, Darius had been like that. Never one to shirk duty.
God, she wished she’d known him.
Especially now.
As she reached the top of the stairs, she found the doors to the study open, and her man was where he hated to be—curled over acres of paperwork done in Braille, his huge shoulders blocking out most of the carved throne he sat in, his talented fingers tracing line by line, his brow furrowed trench-deep behind those wraparounds—
Both her man and George, his beloved service dog, looked over as if they’d caught her scent.
“Leelan,” Wrath said on an exhale.
With a scramble, the golden retriever jumped up from his curled position on the floor, flagged tail wagging, jowls scrunching into a grin that made him sneeze.
She was the only one he smiled for—although even as much as he loved her, he did not leave Wrath’s side.
Putting the silver tray of ice cream down on a hall table, she strode in and waved to Saxton, who was in his usual spot on one of the pale blue French sofas. “How are the hardest-working menfolk on the planet?”
The attorney in the Old Laws stood up from his own pile of papers and gave her a bow, his fine bespoke suit accommodating the movement with ease. “You are looking well.”
Yeah, well, nothin’ like a little lovin’.
“Thanks.” She went around the massive desk and took her husband’s face in her hands. “Hey.”
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he breathed—like it had been years since they’d seen each other.
Leaning down to kiss his mouth, she knew that he had closed his eyes even though she couldn’t see behind the dark lenses.
And then she had to be about the dog.
“How are you, George?” Just like her hubs, she gave that puppy-soft face a smooch. “You taking care of our King?”
The chuff and the thud-thud-thud of his tail hitting the edge of the throne was a big, fat yes if she’d ever heard it.
“So what are you guys working on?” she asked as Wrath pulled her into his lap and stroked her back.
It was so odd. Before she’d met him, she’d hated the touchy-feely, cutesy cuddle stuff couples pulled. But what do you know, times changed.
“Just petitions.” Read: Bullshit I’d rather light on fire than deal with.
“And we have another two dozen left.” Saxton stretched his right arm as if it had kinked. “And then we have dispute resolutions and birth and death announcements.”
Wrath let his head fall back. “I keep thinking there’s a better way of dealing with this. I hate turning you into a secretary, Saxton.”
The male shrugged over his legal pad. “I don’t mind it a’tall. Anything to get the job done.”
“On that note, what’s our next one?”
Saxton took a piece of paper out of a thick folder. “Right. So this gentlemale wants to take on another shellan—”
Beth rolled her eyes. “What, like, Sister Wives, the vampire edition?”
“It is lawful.” Saxton shook his head. “Although frankly, as a gay male, I don’t know why anybody would want one, much less multiple—oh, I mean but for your good self, my queen. You would be worth making an exception for.”
“Watch it, solicitor,” Wrath growled.
“Kidding,” the solicitor shot back.
Beth smiled at how comfortable they’d become with each other. “Wait, so is the two-wives thing common?”
Saxton lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “It used to be more prevalent when the population was larger. Now, we have fewer of everything: matings, births, deaths.”
Wrath put his lips by her ear. “Can you stay and have my break with me?”
A roll of his hips suggested his brain had taken a U-ie into horizontal territory. Or vertical—God knew he was strong enough to hold her off the floor for however long he wanted.
As her body began to warm … she thought of the ice cream she’d left in the hall. “Can you give me an hour? I have to—”
A loud crash out on the second-floor landing brought everyone’s heads around.
“What the fuck is that?” Wrath gritted.
Downtown in that alley, Xcor crouched and covered his bullet wound as popping sounds rang out all around him and screeching tires announced the arrival of more gang members.
Cover. He needed cover—now. These humans did not care about him, but their gunfire was thick as a downpour and as unpredictable and undiscriminating as a stampede of bulls.
Leaping backward, he threw his body against the building, and the pain in his shoulder was a stunner. No time to dwell on it. Looking to the left … the right …
The only thing he saw was a door about fifteen feet away, and he dropped to the ground and rolled to it, outing his own gun in the process. Discharging two shots into the steel locking mechanism, he kicked hard and dove into the darkness beyond.
The air inside was fetid … and sweet.
Sickly sweet. Like the rot of death.
Rancid … like a lesser.
As he shut himself in, shots continued to be fired, and it wasn’t going to be long before sirens would ring out. The question was, how many dead, how many wounded, and would any of that bunch of rats without tails find their way in here?
Alas, those silly questions would have to be answered after he figured out why this place smelled of his enemy.
Taking out his penlight, he flashed it around from his position on the dirty floor. The commercial kitchen had clearly been abandoned, spiderwebs hanging from the industrial fan over the stove and the empty racks above the counters … dust having settled on all surfaces … the detritus of a move hastily executed littering the way to the door.
Getting to his feet, Xcor panned his illumination in fat circles. Empty, tipped-over buckets that had once held commercial portions of sauces and yogurts cluttered a prep station, and topless tubs still full of mustard and ketchup revealed contents that had turned into solids, long since past rot and into a state of mummification. Farther in, a lineup of trays by a rusty industrial dishwasher had an errant spoon or fork in them, and opaque, half-broken glassware sat as if waiting for a ghostly washer to send them through the machine.
Crunching through the remnants of white china plates, he followed the scent that had commanded his attention.
The Lessening Society was made up of humans recruited into a war against vampires, weaklings transformed out of their pitiful state by the Omega—the side effect of which was a permanent stench somewhere between a two-day-old dead deer and spoiled milk.
One could always find the enemy by one’s nose …
The kitchen’s meat locker was in the far corner, its prison-worthy door cracked open, its interior another pitch-black slice of God only knew what.
As he reached forward for the latch, his skin glowed white in the flashlight beam, and the creak of him widening the gap was loud enough to make his ears hum. A mad-dash scattering of tiny paws suggested actual rats were fleeing his arrival, and he felt them go over the tops of his combat boots.
The stink was enough to make his eyes water.
The beam entered first.
And there it was.
Hanging in the center of the walk-in unit, suspended on a hook through the back of the neck, a human male was doing an excellent bovine imitation.