Yes, he thought. This was the reckoning he needed, and it was about so much more than the war.
Standing over the aristocrat who had spoon-fed him the very aspirations he should have germinated within himself, he reflected on the nature of fathers and sons. He had readily stepped into the role of his sire—and there had been a time when he had expected his own son to do the same.
The fact that the great Blind King always had his progeny right by his side, in lockstep, was just one more reason to hate the male. Lash’s son, on the other hand, had fucked him off years ago.
What a disappointment Devlin had been, but that sonofabitch was too much like his mother.
Hell, for all Lash knew, the pair of them could be scheming to overthrow him right this very minute.
It was something he always worried about—
What if this emissary is actually their doing,he suddenly thought.Or someone else’s?
“Who shall you rule,” the aristocrat repeated. “And wouldn’t you like to get to Wrath. Tonight.”
As the tantalizing taunt rose up to him through the cold, blustery air, he tried anew to get into the male’s mind. And when he failed, he narrowed his eyes.
What lurked behind this offer? Was this a chimera created by his ex, something to trip him up, a play to his lust for power? Was this a plant from Lassiter? Or the great Blind King?
Lash regarded the male who lay sprawled at his feet. The rage that boiled up was no news flash. Hatred had always defined him. Except he was older now, and much, much wiser.
Even as his emotions swirled, he retained self-control.
If he lost his composure, the veil of protection he’d put up here would slip, and fuck knew what was waiting for him on the periphery of this park.
The safest thing he could do was get out of here.
Glancing suspiciously over his shoulder, Lash couldn’t remember a time when he had felt so destabilized. It was almost as if some kind of fulcrum was being established, and his energy was being drained because of it. He had been aware of this for a while, but as with all incremental changes, he’d been the frog getting boiled by inches.
Until now he was here, in this snowy city park, with his own resolutions crashing down on his head, along with a sense that there… was something else. Some other kind of alignment happening to his detriment—oh, fuck it. He was going in circles again, his mind on a loop that he couldn’t get un-snared of.
This was happening a lot lately.
“I don’t believe you,” he heard himself say.
As he departed, he didn’t kill the messenger. He wanted the male to go back to where he’d come from, and take with him the fact that the ruse hadn’t been fallen for.
And there was a second reason to keep Whestmorel alive.
He knew how to get hold of the aristocrat.
If Lash was wrong, and this was an honest offer of treason, there would be time to reel it in. The most important thing right now was to find out exactly why his own energy was being drained, and deal with that first.
Then he could proceed.
With other things.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Lyric arrived first to her grandparents’ house, and the instant she walked through the front door, she could smell the death. As she breathed in, the surface scents were all the same, the floor cleaner, the Windex, the coffee, the shampoos, and that horrid medicinal tint, everything she was used to, but now there was a deeper undertow to the familiar, a musty calling card that, though she had never had it in her nose before, some ancient part of her was able to identify.
As she shot down to the kitchen, she stumbled to a halt. There were so many people in the house, clustered in the family room, gathered over the counter by the sink, seated at the table. Faces turned to her, and looked at her with love and sadness—yet she couldn’t place them even though she had known each all of her life.
Smothering a cry, she wheeled toward the first-floor bedroom, her sloppy boot falls echoing the chaos in her mind. She had known this was coming. They all knew this was coming. So why was this such a shock—
The door was closed, but she didn’t knock. She burst in, broke in, fell in—
Lyric pulled up short. Hergranmahmenwas lying back against the pillows, her eyes closed, her face drawn and nearly gray, the smocked front of her flannel nightgown showing only the frailest of breaths.
