watering, irritated eyes. “Get back in the house!”
Great, now his nose was running, too—like he’d just sucked back seventeen trillion Scoville units with a blowtorch chaser.
“Don’t you get it,” Balthazar said as he sneezed and teared up from the glare. “We’ve been with you for centuries.”
“We don’t leave a bastard behind,” someone—Syphon?—said . . . who the fuck knew, his hearing was going now.
Zypher seemed to be nodding. Or else he was going into a seizure. “If you die, we all die—”
The voice that exploded out of the house was the kind of thing that made James Earl Jones sound like a soprano and turned Gordon Ramsay into a grief counselor.
“In the house now!”
Xcor, leader of the Band of Bastards, did not blink in the sun. Nor did he bow against the heat of the encroaching rays or shelter his face in any way. Harelipped, heavily muscled, and a vicious stallion of war, he, by his presence alone, made silly the stunt Syn was pulling.
One by one, they ducked their heads and filed by the great male who held the vestibule door wide. The relief was immediate. As soon as they stepped into the mansion, that system of impenetrable panels slamming shut behind them, the infernal rise in temperature relented, the spine of the onslaught broken.
Xcor didn’t spare any of them a glance. Or, at least, Syn didn’t think the male did. Hard to know, given that his eyes were still watering. No, that didn’t cover it. It was more like he had a pair of golf sprinklers mounted on his face.
And to that end, he couldn’t see anything of the splendor he’d entered. Not the marble columns, not the mosaic floor with its depiction of an apple tree in full bloom, not the gold-leafed balustrade up the blood-red stairs or the mural of warriors upon stallions three stories high on the ceiling.
Not the backs of the other bastards as they started to walk off toward the dining room, where Last Meal had been served for the community.
“Man, I’m hungry,” Zypher said casually, like they hadn’t all just been marshmallows on sticks. Or yelled at by the boss. “You know, I think I’m going to go keto.”
“As opposed to what?” Syphon asked.
“Atkins.”
“What’s the difference?
“One you eat meat, and the other . . . you eat meat.”
“Wow, look at you making the hard decisions.”
“Don’t make me take my eyeball out and throw it at you.”
As they all went groooosssss, Syn caught Balz’s arm and pulled him back. Staring the other bastard in the face, he spoke softly.
“Just so you know, I would have stayed out there. Until it was flames and nothing else.”
“Just so you know . . .” Balthazar leaned in and spoke even more softly. “No, you wouldn’t have.”
“You’re wrong.”
His cousin shook his head. “I know you better than you do.”
“Don’t make a hero out of me. You’ll only get hurt.”
“Oh, I’m not making you a hero. No need to worry about that. But you would no more see the death of any of us than you would save yourself from a ring of fire.”
“That makes no sense.”
Balz just shook his head like he wasn’t going to waste time with stupid and walked off. Syn wanted to go after him and force a fistfight, just to release his pent-up energy. But Wrath wouldn’t have that in his house—and besides, there were young at the dining table. No reason to hasten their education into the dark arts of arguing with one’s bloodline.
Turning away, Syn headed instead for the grand stairs that led up to the second floor. As he took the steps two at the time, he didn’t know why he was rushing.
Bullshit. He knew exactly why.
When had he ever wanted to sit for a meal.
His room was located in the wing that he understood had been opened specially for the Band of Bastards’ inclusion in the household. He thought the hospitality was wasted. For centuries in the Old Country, the bastards had lived on the fly, camping out in hovels and hiding places in the forests, sheltered from the sun on a wing and a prayer with weapons their blankets, aggression their food, and the blood of their enemies the libation that sustained them.
He had done much better with that, he decided as he opened his bedroom door. As opposed to these comforts of a home that would never be his own.
Stepping inside, his boots made hard impacts over the bare floor and there was no furniture to get