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“George,” she said, patting her thigh. “C’mere, baby boy. Come on.”
The golden looked back and forth, clearly concerned he was needed in the mix, but when she shook her head, he obeyed the command, walking over and planting his butt on her bare foot as he faced out and kept an eye on his master.
All of the doggen wore the same white shifts, but the males had those caps and the females wore bonnets on their heads. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they formed an aura of adoration, insulation… and protection around Wrath.
Beth glanced back at the Brothers. A couple of them were wiping their eyes with quick swipes of their thumbs, all nah-I-ain’t-cryin’, it’s-just-dust.
Even though Fritz, with all his high standards, would never allow such a thing, even in the servant wing of his house.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
As night fell on Caldwell, Shuli sat on the foot of his bed in his room at his parents’ mansion and watched the shutters retract. With no lights on around him, the details of his chamber were muted to the point of disappearing, and his eyes sought the shapes and shadows of the gardens outside. Funny, how the familiar could look so different, so foreign.
There had been no sleep for him during the day. An endless reel of everything that had happened behind Dandelion—lesserattacktryingtointervenefightingforcontrolofthegunpop!Theoxinjureddying… death—had been a relentless battering, mental in origin, physical in effect. He felt sore all over.
Then again, maybe some of that was from wrestling with that slayer.
As yet another image of Theox going down at the back of the club speared through his brain, he covered his eyes. Which was stupid. What he was seeing was not in front of him—
The sound of a text hitting his phone was the last thing he was interested in. He’d been getting all kinds of DMs and shit throughout the day as word of what had happened spread. Everyone was touting him as some sort of hero, which was fucked up. Theox was gone, and the idea that Shuli now had some kind of war cred was obscene.
Flipping his phone over, he just wanted to clear the screen so he didn’t have to look—
It was Nate.
Frowning, he went into his phone… and he had to read the message twice. And a third time.
The knock on his door was soft, and he twisted around. “Come in.”
Probably a doggen with a tray from First Meal, not that he had any appetite—
It wasn’t a doggen. Shuli’s sire stood in the jambs, the illumination from the crystal-strung ceiling fixture behind Arcshuliae turning him into nothing more than a dense black hole that conformed to his body’s distinguished outline.
Years of careful training came back as Shuli jumped up and made sure his hands were down at his sides.
“Sit, my son.”
Collapsing his spine, Shuli fell back down onto the bed. As his father entered, he had a thought that he couldn’t remember the last time the male had been in his room.
There was an awkward pause. “I am… checking upon you.”
“Thank you, Father. I am well enough.”
It was a glymera answer to a glymera question. And his sire acknowledged the response in the aristocratic fashion, inclining his head.
Then there was a clearing of the throat, but it was not a reprimand for once. “If you think you perhaps shall eschew First Meal, that would not be inappropriate.”
Shuli inclined his head. “Thank you, Father.”
His father inclined himself again. And wasn’t this proof that Princeps families could have full-on conversations about tragic things using nothing but eyebrows and the occasional hand gesture.
“Very well, then.” On that note, his sire turned away—
“Father,” Shuli said as he burst up again.
As the male pivoted back around, Shuli slapped his hand on his phone and surged forward before he was aware of moving.
“Father,” he repeated.
“Yes?”
Now it was his turn to go silent. Off in the distance, he heard strings playing and pictured the quartet that came in regularly for the hour before First Meal all set up in the corner of the red parlor downstairs. His mahmen and brother, his sister-in-law, and his three cousins would be there, all dressed formally, but not in tuxedos or gowns. That only came at the end of the night, at Last Meal.
Shuli lifted up his cell, even though the lock screen was showing. “I want to go into the Black Dagger Brotherhood training program. I just got a text from Nate. They want to talk to us about… coming in and learning. Things.”
His sire tilted his head. “What manner of ‘things.’?”
Glancing down, Shuli blinked and was instantly there again, behind the club. “I want to learn how to fight, Father. In the war.”
His sire’s torso shifted back ever so slightly, which was the equivalent of anybody else screaming, WHAT THE FUCK!
“I know that you and I have always had our differences.” Shuli noted his father’s handmade alligator shoes for no good reason. “And until last night, I don’t think I appreciated the message you’ve been trying to give me all along. I don’t want to waste my life. I have everything I could ever need, and more than that, I have everything I could ever want. But I’ve been pissing it all away, haven’t I. And too busy arguing with you to see the merit in what you were saying. I didn’t sleep all day. I can’t…” He grabbed the front of his monogrammed silk bathrobe. “I can’t hold this feeling inside me. I need to let it out by doing something… worthwhile. Finally. And I want to fight in the war.”
