L.W. arrived at his sire’s Audience House, re-forming around the back by the kitchen entrance. Everything was plowed and shoveled on the property, not just at the main building, but over at Four Toys HQ, Vishous’s satellite barn of IT brainiacs. It had been a long time since he’d been out here—had it been fall? maybe the end of summer—and he measured all the snow.
Goddamn, he’d hated coming to this place.
It was a reminder of the lie he’d been expected to carry on his own wherever he went for thirty fucking years. He’d been the only one of his generation to know the truth, that his father had died and been replaced with a chimera. And while he’d been on the sidelines, watching all the other young yuck it up with their pops, he’d been expected to keep his mourning to himself.
Couldn’t fuck the ruse. And the real biter of it all? The whole thing had been to save the throne for him: Rahvyn had projected an image of the great Blind King in front of the civilians, L.W.’smahmenmade all the decisions as Queen, and everybody had held the reins with the expectation that he’d drop his ass in Daddy’s old chair when he was mature enough.
No one had asked him what he’d wanted, and he’d grown up in the stew of grief that had been projected onto him, the Brothers, thefighters, and their mates always looking at him like he was some kind of antidote to his father’s death.
Not as him as his own person.
He’d been over being a holy grail to catch their metaphorical tears as soon as he’d been aware of his purpose in their lives. But everywhere he went, there it was, as unrelenting as the color of his hair and his eyes and the bone structure of his face—which, given what had shown up the other week, back from the dead, was also because he was a “dead” ringer for the one they’d all lost.
Put like that, going after Lash was a way ofahvenginghimself.
And he was running out of time.
Jacking his leathers up, he did a quick double-check under his jacket. Both his guns were holstered at his ribs, his steel daggers were across his chest, and his waist belt was locked on with another set of nine millimeters as well as a lineup of ammo across the small of his back. With the inventory over, he approached that back door, the one that was always mounted with a seasonal wreath to hide the camera lens.
At the moment, the thing was made of evergreen sprigs and red and green ribbons.
As the lock sprung the second his shitkickers hit the welcome mat, he wasn’t surprised they knew he was here, and the same thing happened at each of the two inner portals, the bolts clearing for him without him having to make any calls or even speak a word for the mics to pick up.
No doubt they had known where he’d spent the day, too—
The kitchen was bustling,doggenin chef’s whites making pastries for the audiences that were going to start up in the next hour or so—
“Your Highness—”
“Oh! Your—”
“—Highness.”
All three females stopped what they were doing—one even dropped the egg she’d been about to crack over a bowl—and with a fluster, they whipped off their caps and bowed to him.
The deference was another thing he hated.
It was a mirror that showed him too much for the fraud he was.
“?’Scuse me,” he muttered.
Getting the hell out of there, he pushed through a flap door and walked down one of the common corridors. He probably would have been given access to the central, secured core of the building, where the Brothers gathered before things started for the night or took breaks between audiences, but he wasn’t in a big hurry to run into any of those males. After fucking everybody off last night and going rogue, he could just imagine they’d stab him, but for his—
“—Highness!”
Saxton, the King’s solicitor, bent down low. “Are you expected? Your father isn’t here quite yet—”
“Not expected, no. Just need to see him.”
The dapper male was all tweeded out, his ascot in place, his brown, navy blue, and cream checked suit jacket tailored so perfectly it was as if he’d been born with it on and the thing had grown along with him. As usual, his thick blond hair was swooped to the side, and with his perfect skin and nails, the guy looked like he was ready to ride off on a fox hunt.
Or at least a magazine shoot of one.
“Allow me to show you into the Audience Room, then.”
“I’ll wait. In the waiting room.”
There was a pause. “I think it would be best if you—”
