The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12) - J.R. Ward Page 0,139

flared. “I thought you were a club owner.”

“I don’t just sell booze,” he muttered.

“Hmm, what a job.” The executioner frowned. “Just so we’re clear, she may order me to go after your brother.”

“Then I’m going to have to kill you.”

s’Ex threw his head back and laughed. “Very cocky.”

“Let me make myself perfectly clear. You touch iAm and I will find you. Your last breath will be mine and your heart will still be warm when I take it out of your chest and eat it raw.”

“You know, it’s a wonder we don’t get along better.”

Trez put out his free hand. “Have we come to terms?”

“There is the queen to consider. I may not be able to sway her. And just so you’re aware, if she doesn’t go for it, your deadline will have passed.”

“So kill them.” He held s’Ex’s black stare without wavering. “I mean it.”

The executioner tilted his head, as if considering all angles. “Yes, evidently you do. Meet me here at noon tomorrow with a sample—and I’ll see what I can do in the Territory.”

Before s’Ex disappeared, the male clasped the palm that was offered briefly. And then he was gone, like a nightmare banished upon waking.

Unfortunately … Trez knew the male would be back.

The question was, with what kind of news. And what kind of appetite.

THIRTY-EIGHT

It was an hour past sundown when Abalone left his home, dematerializing off his side lawn. The night was bitterly cold, and as he re-formed on the estate of one of the glymera’s wealthiest families, he took a moment to breathe until his sinuses went numb.

Others were gathering, the males and females appearing out of the darkness, straightening their furs and fine clothes and jewels before striding toward the light.

With a heavy heart, he followed.

The grand carved doors of the mansion were held open by doggen, the staff unmoving in their livery, naught but blinking stops.

The lady of the house, such that she was, was standing under a chandelier in the foyer, her dress a bright red couture number that fell to the ground in drapes of silk. Her jewels were rubies, the flashes at her throat and her ears and her wrists an ostentatious display.

For no particular reason, he thought that the true queen of the race’s red gems were much better, bigger, clearer. He had seen an oil painting of the majestic female back in the Old Country, and even distilled through paint and age, the Saturnine Ruby and its counterparts had had a resplendence that would destroy the pretense before him.

The hostess’s mate was nowhere to be seen. But then again, that male had difficulty standing for long periods of time.

Not long for the world, he was.

The receiving line that had formed proceeded apace, and soon enough Abalone was kissing the powdered cheek of the female.

“So glad you could come,” she said grandly, flicking a hand in the direction behind her. “The dining room, if you will.”

As her rubies flashed, he pictured his daughter as such, a grand lady in a grand house with glassy eyes.

Mayhap the punishment for not going along with this affront to the throne was worth it. He had found love with his shellan for the years she had been on the Earth, but that had been luck, he’d come to realize. Most of his contemporaries, now slaughtered in the raids, had been in loveless, sexless relationships that had revolved around the party circuit instead of the familial dinner table.

He did not want that for his daughter.

Yet, if love had happened for him, surely there was a chance for her even in the glymera?

Right?

Walking into the dining room, he found that it was just as it had been when the King had addressed them all so recently: the long thin table was moved out and the twenty or so chairs were set up in rows. This time, however, the survivors of the aristocracy were settling in along with their mates.

Usually shellans were not included in Council meetings, but there was nothing usual about this gathering. Or the last.

And indeed, the gathered should have been more somber, he thought as he picked a silk-covered seat in the back: As opposed to showing any respect for the historical significance, the danger, the unprecedented nature of all this, they were chatting among themselves, the gentlemales blustering, the ladies casting their hands this way and that so that their jewels flashed.

Indeed, Abalone was alone in the back row, and instead of greeting those whom he knew, he freed the