do every night. Stare at my reflection and rue the day I was born.”
“Seriously.”
“Fine, let’s go with something cheerful. How about yoga. Pilates. No, wait, I was ordering shit I do not need off of Amazon—”
“What were you doing when you should have been at the meeting, Syn?”
The question was put out there calmly and evenly. Which was also characteristic of Balthazar. The guy was a straight shooter—and to be fair, he had reason to be suspicious. He knew about . . . things . . . that had happened back in the Old Country. Things that had involved females and blood and bodies being found.
“It wasn’t me,” Syn said dryly. “I didn’t kill whoever it was.”
The lie sounded convincing, at least to his own ears. Unfortunately, that was a table, party of one.
“Syn, I don’t judge you.” Balthazar shook his head. “You know I never have.”
“Oh, fuck this, I’m not wasting time—”
“I have always left you to your business. No questions asked. I know that things are . . . different . . . for you.” Balthazar shook his head again. “But let me be very clear. You cannot be doing that shit over here. We’re in the New World now. It’s going to get noticed, and then we’ve got problems because we’re not just on our own anymore. We’re aligned with the King, and Wrath is not going to stand for anybody in his household doing what you do. People miss their dead over here.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it under control.”
As Syn started walking again, Balthazar didn’t budge. “I don’t think you do.”
Syn stopped and refused to turn back around. Addressing the empty alley in front of him, he said, “In the Old World, I did what I did for a good goddamn purpose. I channeled it properly.”
“True enough, but there are rules on this side of the ocean.”
Staring straight ahead, Syn saw trash cans that were knocked over and a stray cat pawing through a torn-open Hefty bag. As he watched the animal search for dinner, he thought about the female from the other night. There had been no justification that he was aware of for him killing her. Even if she had been a criminal, a murderer, a thief—which were his targeted prey—he hadn’t known it when he’d taken her down into that lower level. Where she had been found not just dead, but defiled as well.
So maybe she was an innocent. And he had done a very, very bad thing.
He didn’t want to hear what Balthazar was saying.
He didn’t want the holes in his memory.
He didn’t want . . . to be dealing with this bullshit any longer.
“Do me a favor,” he said softly.
“No,” Balthazar shot back. “I’m not going there. Don’t you fucking ask me to.”
Syn twisted around. As his eyes changed color, the alley was flooded with a red glow, his cousin spotlit by the color of blood. Behind him, the cat screeched and tore off, sending a glass bottle rolling.
His voice was warped as he spoke. “Then you need to stop talking to me about dead females.”
Balthazar cursed under his breath. “There has to be another way.”
“I told you a century ago. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to put a bullet through my head. Or find someone who will.”
It would be a public service, at this point. And a relief to him.
God knew he would have done it himself years ago, if suicide didn’t mean you were locked out of the Fade. Although given what he had gotten up to over the years?
He was going to end up in Dhunhd anyway.
“You know there’s only one way to stop me,” he said with a growl.
“And if you don’t do it, the blood of the females I hurt is on your hands, too.”
Boone made it back to his father’s house with about two hours to go before the Fade ceremony he’d convened. As he entered through the front door, he was rank pissed. Leaving Helania had been the last thing he wanted to do, and the fact that he’d had to go because of something connected to Altamere?
He wasn’t happy about sacrificing even a second of his life to memorialize the male, much less anything as important as spending time with his female.
Not that she was technically his. She just felt that way.
Closing out the cold, he put his hands on his hips and glared at the marble floor. Which, granted, hadn’t done anything wrong. It was just there to