Текст книги "The King"

Автор книги: J. R. Ward

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 39 страниц)

EIGHT

Later that morning, an uppercut came flying at Wrath from the left, and in spite of the whistle it made traveling through the air, he couldn’t respond in time: The knuckles nailed him square on the jaw and the crack rang his idiot bell, his head ripping around, blood flying out of his mouth.

It felt fucking great.

After another nightmare throne-al session with Saxton—seven to ten more hours of his life he was never getting back—he’d gone up to his and Beth’s private quarters. Sex had been the only thing on his mind, the only release that was going to save the planet from his rotten mood.

His mate had been not just asleep, but passed out cold.

He’d lasted about an hour staring at the ceiling before hitting up Payne and telling her to meet him here in the training center’s gym.

Like Rhage had always said, sex or fighting to take the burn down. Sex was out, so there ya go.

Harnessing the energy from the impact, he went with the momentum and redirected it into a kick that creamed his opponent in the side, throwing her off balance and sending her reeling. No to-the-mat for V’s sister, though. Her landing was light and quick as a cat’s, and he knew she had plans for him.

Triangulating the rushes of air, the scent of the female fighter, and the sound of her bare feet coming at him with a louder cadence, he knew she was approaching front-on in a crouch. Bracing himself, he sank into his thighs and loved the feel of his muscles tightening up and securing his two-hundred-seventy-pound body in the upright position. Tucking his elbows in, he waited for her to get in range and then punched outward. With her reflexes and the advantage of sight, she dodged the affront and dipped down to come up and cable him around his waist.

Payne didn’t hit like a girl, whether it was with her fists or her feet or her entire body. She was more like an SUV, and as much as his ball sac would have preferred otherwise, she got him but good.

With a curse, he ass-over-elbowed and back-flatted like a little bitch. Not gonna stay that way, however.

And that turned out to be a problem.

As he fell into thin air, he was reminded of the way he’d yard-saled off the bed at the loft—and his inner ignition switch got tripped: True aggression came out—in the blink of an eye, this was not about training or keeping up his skills or getting some exercise. The war instinct was unleashed between him and his sparring partner.

With a growl that reverberated throughout the gym, he caught Payne’s upper arms in a punishing grip and turned her tables, ripping her off him and slamming her facedown into the mats.

She was a solid female, well muscled and deadly—but she was no match for his strength and size—especially as he straddled her and snaked his arm around her neck. With her throat in the crook of his elbow, he locked his free hand on his thick wrist and leaned back into the choke hold.

Lessers. Enemies. Tragic deaths that changed the course of his life—and others’.

Distance from his mate. Sexual frustration. Suspicion Beth was keeping something from him.

Chronic frustration that downshifted quickly into an anxiety load that never left him.

Fear. Unacknowledged, well buried, and poisonous.

Self-hatred.

Against the dark backdrop of his blindness, everything went white, rage taking over when it had no place to go. And the effect was to give him far greater power than his muscles and bones already had: Even as Payne’s fingernails bit into his forearm and she struggled in the manner of a death throe, nothing registered.

He wanted to kill. And he was going to—

“Wrath!”

As with Payne’s defense, whoever was yelling his name didn’t matter to him. He was locked on this path of murder, all sense of what was happening lost to the—

Someone else came and started yanking at him as that name-hollering thing got louder.

Beneath him, Payne was submitting, the fight slowly leaving her body, that eternal stillness exactly what the rage in him wanted. A little longer was all it would take. A little more pressure. A little—

A loud, repetitive noise sounded right in front of his face. Over and over and over again, like a bass drum, the beats perfectly spaced. The only thing that changed was the volume.

It increased.

Or maybe it was gradually cutting through his fury.

Wrath frowned as the racket continued. Lifting his head, he stopped squeezing so hard for a moment.

George.

His beloved, docile golden retriever was directly in his grille, barking loud as a shotgun, sure as if he were demanding that Wrath cease and desist right this moment.

All at once, the reality of what he was doing flooded into him.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

Wrath released his hold, but he didn’t have a chance to jump free. Whoever was pulling at his shoulders took over, tearing his heavy weight off the female fighter.

As he landed on the mat on his back, the retching and heaving breaths of his opponent mixed with the curses of whoever else was with them—as well as a soft whimpering.

“What the fuck are you thinking!” Now someone else was in his face. “You nearly killed her!”

Putting his hands up to his head, a cold sweat bloomed over every square inch of him. “I didn’t know…” he heard himself say. “I had no idea—”

“Did you think she could breathe like that!” It was Doc Jane. Of course—she was down in the clinic and must have heard the barking or …

And iAm was with them. He could sense the Shadow even though the guy was as usual not saying much.

“I’m sorry—Payne … I’m sorry.”

Dear God, what had he done?

He abhorred violence against females. The problem was, when he was sparring with Payne, he didn’t think of V’s sister as one. She was an opponent, nothing more, nothing less—and he’d had the bruises and even a broken bone or two to show that when it came to her, no quarter was asked for nor given.

“Shit. Payne…” He reached out into the empty air, smelling the remnants of her fear as well as the scent that came with impending death. “Payne—”

“It’s okay,” the female said hoarsely. “Honest.”

Doc Jane muttered a number of foul things.

“This is between me and him,” Payne ordered her sister-in-law. “This is not your—”

As a round of coughing cut her off, Jane snapped, “When he nearly strangles you, it sure as hell is my problem!”

“He was going to let me go—”

“Is that why you were turning blue?”

“I was not—”

“His arm is bleeding onto the mat. You telling me your fingernails didn’t do that?”

Payne caught her breath. “It’s fighting, not Go Fish!”

Doc Jane lowered her voice. “Does your brother know exactly how far this is going?”

As Wrath added his own cursing to the fruit salad of F-words, Payne growled, “You are not to tell Vishous about this—”

“Give me a good goddamn reason why and maybe I’ll consider it. Otherwise, no one tells me what I can and cannot say to my own goddamn husband. Not you, not him—”

Wrath was sure she was shooting a glare his way.

“—and certainly never concerning a fucking safety issue about a member of his family!”

The silence that followed was marked by rising aggression. And then Payne barked, “How many bones have you set on the King? How many stitches? Last week you thought I’d dislocated his shoulder—and at no point did you feel the need to run to his shellan and report it. Did you. Did you?”

“This is different.”

“Because I’m female? Excuse me—maybe you’d like to meet my eyes when you use that double standard, Doc?”

Christ, it was as if his mood had infected both of them. Then again, his actions had started all this. Fuck …

Rubbing his face, he listened to them go back and forth. “She’s right.”

That shut them both up.

“I wasn’t going to stop.” He got to his feet. “So I will tell V and we are never doing this again—”

“Don’t you dare,” the fighter spat before falling into another series of coughs. As soon as she recovered, she went back to being in his face. “Don’t you fucking dare disrespect me—I come here to fight with you to keep my own skills up. If you took advantage of a weakness, that is my fault, not yours.”

“So you think I was just being hard on you?” he asked grimly.

“Of course. And I hadn’t tapped out yet—”

“Do you think for a second that would have gotten through to me.”

A fissure of fear charged the molecules around the female.

“And that is why we will never do this again.” He turned in the direction of Doc Jane. “But she’s also right. This is not your business, so stay out of it.”

“The hell I—”

“Not a request, Jane. An order. And I’ll go see V as soon as I’m out of the shower.”

“You can be a real prick, you know that, Your Highness.”

“And a murderer. Don’t forget that one.”

He started off in the direction of the door, not bothering to take George’s halter handle. When his trajectory got off, the dog course-corrected him by getting in the way and steering him to the proper exit.

“Locker room,” he grunted when they entered the concrete corridor.

George, familiar with either the word or the postworkout ritual, helped him navigate down the hall, his paws clipping along across the bald floor.

Thank God the training center was a ghost town this time of day. The last thing he wanted was to run into anybody.

With the Brothers sleeping, the extensive underground complex was empty, from the gym and its equipment rooms, to the gun range and classrooms, to the Olympic-size swimming pool and the office that ran everything—as well as Doc Jane and Manny’s operating rooms and recovery suites.

Although Payne had almost been a patient.

Shit.

Running his hand down the wall, he stopped when he got to an inset doorway. “You wanna wait here?” he asked George.

Going by the jangling of the collar and the bony tha-bump, the golden decided to sit out shower time which was fairly typical—not a big fan of hot and humid because of that long coat of his.

Pushing his way in, Wrath was able to orient well. Thanks to the closed-in acoustics and all the tile, things were easy to navigate by sound—and habit. Also, spaces that he’d spent a lot of time in back when he’d had some of his sight were so much easier to handle on his own.

Fuck. If that dog hadn’t stopped him just now?

Wrath sagged back against the slick walls, letting his head hang loose. Jesus Christ.

Scrubbing his face, his brain played tricks on him, flashing images of what the aftermath would have been like.

The moan that rose up his throat sounded like a foghorn. His brother’s sister. A fighter he respected. Ruined.

He owed that dog. As usual.

Stripping off his sweaty muscle shirt, he let it flop onto the floor as he shucked his nylon board shorts. Using his hand on the wall once again, he walked forward and knew when he got into the shower room because of the way the floor sloped. The faucet cranks were lined up on three sides and he zeroed in on them, feeling the slick circular drains under his bare feet.

Picking one at random, he turned on the water and braced himself against the cold rush that hit him square in the face.

God, that surge of anger. It was a familiar octane—but not anything he wanted back in his life again. That unholy burn had sustained him all those years between when his parents had been killed and when he’d met and mated Beth. He’d thought it was gone for good.

“Fuck,” he bit out.

Closing his eyes, he braced his palms by the showerhead and leaned into the heavy roping of his arms. His nasty mood made his head feel like it had a set of helicopter blades on it—and they were about two rotations short of separating his skull from the rest of his body.

God … damn.

He’d never thought about it before, but “insanity” was largely a hypothetical concept to the sane; a derogative slur to slam someone you didn’t respect; a descriptor applied to inappropriate behavior.

Standing in the shower, he realized that true insanity had nothing to do with PMS or “hitting the wall” or going on a bender and trashing a hotel room before you passed out. It wasn’t driving crazy or robbing a bank or temporarily taking your temper out on an inanimate object.

It was the removal of the world around you, a good-bye to sensation and awareness that was like a video camera manipulation—your internal shit got zoomed in and everything else, your mate, your job, your community, your health and well-being, went not just out of reach … but out of existence.

And the scariest part? This in-between when you had one foot in reality and the other in your own personal, living-breathing purgatory—and you could feel the former slip, slip, slippin’ away—

From out of nowhere, Wrath’s equilibrium went haywire, the whole world tilting on its axis to the point where he wasn’t sure whether he’d fallen back or not.

But then he felt a sharp blade right under his chin, and realized that someone had grabbed hold of his hair.

“At this moment in time,” came the hiss in his ear, “we know two things. But only one of them is a game changer.”

NINE

This was a bad migraine.

As iAm cracked the door to his brother’s room, the poor bastard’s suffering stained the very air, making it hard to breathe—and even see properly.

Then again, everything was dark by design.

“Trez?”

The moaned answer was nothing good, a combination of wounded animal and sore throat from throwing up. iAm lifted his wrist into the light streaming in from behind and cursed at his Piaget. By this time, the SOB should have been solidly in recovery, his body digging itself out of the headache hole that had swallowed him.

Not the case.

“You want something for your stomach?”

Mumble, mumble, groan, mumble?

“Okay, I’m sure they’ve got some.”

Mumble, moan, moan. Mutter, mutter.

“Yeah, that, too. You want some Milanos?”

Mmmmmmmmmoan.

“Roger that.”

iAm shut the door and walked back to the stairs that took him down to the juncture between the hall of statues and the second-story foyer. Like the rest of the house, everything was silent as a tomb, but as he hit the grand staircase, his chef’s nose picked up the subtle scents of First Meal being cooked in the kitchen wing.

The closer he got to the hub of doggen, the more his own stomach got to talking. Logical. After he’d finished making the Bolognese, he’d checked on his brother and then gone to the gym for hours.

Where he’d seen a hell of a lot more than just the inside of the weight room.

The last thing he’d bargained for was trying to pull the King off of that female fighter. He’d been coming to the end of his workout when he’d heard someone yelling and gone to check it out—whereupon he’d found, hello, the King pythoning that female.

Needless to say he had a newfound respect for that blind vampire. There were very few things iAm hadn’t been able to move in his adult life. He’d changed a tire while acting as his own tire iron. Had been known to walk vats of sauce big as washing machines around a kitchen. Hell, he’d even actually relocated a washer and dryer without thinking much about it.

And then he’d had to lift that truck off his brother about two years ago.

Another example of Trez’s love life getting out of control.

But down in the training center with Wrath? There’d been no budging that fucker. The King had been bulldog-locked on—and the expression on his face? No emotion, not even a grimace of effort. And that body—viciously strong.

iAm shook his head as he crossed that apple tree in full bloom.

Trying to budge Wrath had been like pulling on a boulder. Nothing moved; nothing gave.

That canine had gotten through, though. Thank God.

Now, ordinarily, iAm didn’t like animals in the house—and he definitely wasn’t a dog person. They were too big, too dependent, the shedding—too much. But he respected that golden whatever it was now—

Meeeeeeeeeeeerowwwwwwwwwwwwww.

“Fuck!”

Speak of the devil. As the queen’s black cat wound its way around his feet, he was forced to Michael Jackson it over the damn thing so he didn’t step on it.

“Damn it, cat!”

The feline followed him all the way into the kitchen, always with the in-and-out around the ankles—almost like it knew he’d been thinking benes about the dog and was establishing dominance.

Except cats couldn’t read minds, of course.

He stopped and glared at the thing. “What the hell do you want.”

Not really a question, as he didn’t care to give the feline an opening.

One black paw lifted and then …

Next thing he knew, the goddamn cat was leaping into his arms, rolling over onto its back … and purring like a Ferrari.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” he muttered. “I don’t like you. Goddamn it.”

“Master, what may I get for you?”

As Fritz, the ancient doggen butler, got up in his face big as a billboard, iAm took a moment to dial back to his happy place. Which, unfortunately, looked a lot like a Saw movie—the body parts of others all over everywhere.

But that was just a stress-induced fantasy. Like, he could remember once, a loooooong time ago, he hadn’t been bitched about everything and everybody. Really. It was true.

Paw, paw, paw. On his shirt.

“Fucking hell.” He gave in and rubbed that black belly. “And no, I don’t need anything.”

The purring got so loud, he had to lean in to the butler. “What did you say?”

“I’m happy to oblige whatever you require.”

“Yeah. I know. But I’m going to take care of my brother. No one else. Are we clear.”

The cat was now rubbing its head into his pec. Then stretching up into the itching.

Oh, God, this was awful—especially as the butler’s already droopy face sagged down to what were no doubt knobby knees.

“Ah, shit, Fritz—”

“Is he ill?”

iAm closed his eyes briefly as the female voice registered. Fantastic. Another party heard from.

“He’s fine,” iAm said without looking at the Chosen Selena.

Leaving the kibitzers in the dust, he went into the pantry with the freeloading cat and …

Right. How was he going to get the load of post-migraine recovery rations down from the shelves with his arms full of—

What was its name?

Fine. It was Goddamn Cat, then.

Looking down into those wide, contented eyes, iAm thinned his lips as he rubbed under its chin. Behind an ear.

“Okay, enough with this.” He played with one of the paws. “I gotta put you down now.”

Assuming control, he took the cat out of its recline and went to put it down on the—

Somehow the thing managed to claw its way into the very fibers of his fleece and hang off the front of him like a tie.

“Are you kidding me.”

More purring. A blink of those luminous eyes. An expression of self-possession that iAm took to mean this interaction was going to go the cat’s way—and no one else’s.

“Mayhap I shall help?” Selena asked softly.

iAm bit out a curse and glared at the cat. Then at the Chosen. But short of taking off his pullover? Goddamn Cat was sticking with him.

“I need some of those Milanos up there?” The Chosen reached up and took a bag from the Pepperidge Farm munchie department. “And he’s going to need some of those tortilla chips.”

“Plain or the lime flavor?”

“Plain.” iAm gave up the ghost and resumed servicing Goddamn—and the cat immediately went into full La-Z-Boy again. “He’s going to want one of the Entenmann’s pound cakes. And we’re going to bring him three ice-cold Cokes, two big Poland Springs, room temperature, and a partridge in a pear tree.”

After one of his headaches, Trez wanted hydration, glucose, and caffeine. Made sense. Twelve hours of no food was bad news. And then there was the heaving he got to party down with.

Five minutes later, he and the Chosen and Goddamn Cat were heading for the third floor. And at least iAm managed to help with things by tucking the long water bottles under his pits. Fritz had also provided one of those handled Whole Foods bags for the rest of it.

Christ, he would have infinitely preferred to make this trip by himself.

“He likes you very much,” the female commented as they ascended.

“He’s my brother. He’d better.”

“Oh, no—I meant the cat. Boo adores you.”

“The feeling is not mutual.”

iAm had every intention of hitting the female with an “I got this” when they finally showed up at the bedroom door—but Goddamn still wasn’t going anywhere.

Which was how the Chosen Selena ended up in Trez’s crib.

Exactly what the situation did not need.

Thank you, cat.

As the door was swung wide, light sliced in, and as luck would have it, the shit spotlit Trez as that big, ugly lug shot up.

Someone had caught the female’s scent.

Oh, FFS.

And P.S., why couldn’t the fucker look worse? His brother should be roadkill nasty after the way he’d spent the daylight hours.

“Where shall I set this?” the Chosen asked either or both of them.

“Over on the desk,” iAm muttered. It was the farthest point away from the bed—

“Leave us,” came a grunt from the patient.

Okay, thank God Trez was finally having a moment of clarity. The Chosen could keep going about her business, and he and his brother could try the whole come-to-Jesus thing again …

iAm became aware that no one was moving. Trez, however, was still upright and the Chosen was deer-in-headlights frozen. And they both were looking at him.

“What?” he said.

When light dawned on Marblehead, iAm narrowed his eyes at his brother. “Are you serious.”

“Leave us,” was all the bastard said again.

Goddamn Cat stopped purring in his arms, as if the animal knew that bad juju was flooding into the room.

But here was the thing: You couldn’t deal with stupid—and iAm was just about ready to stop trying.

Turning to the Chosen, he said in a low voice, “Watch yourself.”

On that note, he took Goddamn and his own sorry ass out of there.

No doubt for the best. He was feeling like going Wrath on his brother, and nothing good was going to come of that.

Striding to the stairs, he retraced his steps. Sometime along the way, he got to tending to the animal in his arms again, fingertips finding that chin and settling into a tight circular stroke.

Back down in the kitchen, which was now full of staff on shift once again, it was time to part company with his shadow.

“Fritz.”

The butler rushed over from the crudité arrangement he was working on. “Yes, master! I am eager to be of aid.”

“Take this.” iAm peeled the cat off himself, prying both of its front claws out of his fleece. “And do whatever it is you do with it.”

As he turned away, he felt like glancing back and making sure Goddamn was okay. But why the fuck would he do that?

He had to get to Sal’s and check on his staff. Usually he hit the restaurant in the early afternoon, but shit had not been “usual,” what with that migraine: Every time his brother had one, they both got a headache. Now, though, with Trez rebounding and no doubt soon to be on the grind with that Chosen, it was time to get back on his own track.

If only to keep himself from going psychotic.

Jesus Christ, Trez was now going to fuck that female. And God only knew where that was going to land them all.

Just as he hit the exit, he called out over his shoulder, “Fritz.”

Through the din of First Meal prep, the doggen answered back, “Yes, master?”

“I never find any seafood in this place. Why is that?”

“The King does not favor any manner of fin.”

“Would he allow it in here?”

“Oh, yes, master. Just not upon his table, and certainly never upon his plate.”

iAm stared at the panels of the door in front of him. “I want you to get some fresh salmon and poach it. Tonight.”

“But of course. I will not have it ready afore First Meal for you—”

“Not for me. I hate fish. It’s for Goddamn Cat. I want him served that regularly.” He pushed the door open. “And get him some fresh veggies. What kind of cat food does he eat?”

“Only the best. Hill’s Science Diet.”

“Find out what is in his food—and then I want everything hand-prepared. Nothing out of the bag for him from now on.”

Approval bloomed in the old doggen’s voice: “I’m sure Master Boo will appreciate your special interest.”

“I’m not interested in that bag of fur.”

Totally annoyed with himself and everybody else on the planet, he got the fuck not just out the kitchen, but out the entire mansion. Good timing. The sun had set and the light was draining from the sky.

He loved the night and took a moment to breathe in deep. The cold winter air made his sinuses sing.

If he had been his own male, free of the tether of his brother and the prison imposed upon Trez by their parents, he would have chosen such a different existence. He would be out west somewhere, living off the land and far from anyone else.

It wasn’t just that he was a recluse by nature. He saw no value in what so many others did. In his mind, the world simply did not need another iPhone, or faster Internet service, or a twenty-seventh Real Housewives franchise. Hell, who the fuck cared if your neighbor had a bigger house/car/boat/trailer/mower. Why be bothered if somebody had a better watch/ring/phone/TV/lottery ticket. And don’t get him started on sneakers. Fashion-forward anything. Makeup ads, movie-star drama, manic home-network shoppers and mindless human drones who actually believed what their preachers forced down their throats.

And no, it wasn’t just humans who bought into all that shit.

Vampires were equally guilty—they just clothed their cow mentality in superiority over those rats without tails.

So many sublimating who they really were to the dictates of what they were told to want, need, seek, acquire.

Then again, he hadn’t managed to break free of his brother’s drama, so who was he—

As his phone went off in his fleece’s pocket, he shoved a hand in and grabbed it. He knew who was calling him even before he looked at the screen, accepted the ring-a-ding-ding, and put the cell up to his ear.

What small part of him had flared to life died in the center of his chest once again.

“Your Excellency,” he greeted the high priest. “To what do I owe this honor.”

* * *

As Assail paced around his kitchen, he checked his watch. Turned in front of the sink. Strode back toward the bar. Checked his watch again.

Ehric had left about twenty-one—no, twenty-two minutes ago—and the trip that he’d been sent on should have required twenty-five at the most.

Assail’s heart pounded. He had a plan for the evening and this first piece was as critical as the conclusion.

He took out his cell phone and dialed—

The double beep that went off indicated that a vehicle was entering the garage.

Assail ran to the mudroom, threw open the reinforced door, and tried to see into the black-tinted windows of his bulletproof Range Rover. Had the cousins in fact secured …

Protocol was to wait for everything to be closed up again before exiting any vehicle, but impatience and that fear that was plaguing him threw the sensible rule right out the dormer: Striding fast over the bald concrete floor, he zeroed in on the SUV as Ehric cut the engine and got out along with his brother.

Before Assail could make an assessment of his cousins’ faces, or start barking demands for explanation, the rear door opened slowly.

Ehric and his brother froze. Like they maybe hadn’t had a lot of control over their cargo—and knew anything could happen next.

The older human female who emerged was five feet tall and stocky as a bureau. Her hair was thick and white and curled back from her lined face, and her dark eyes stared out bright and intelligent from a heavy overhang of lid. Beneath a shaggy black wool coat, her dress was a simple, bag-like blue flowered frock, but her short-heeled shoes and her matching bag were patent leather—as if she’d wanted to wear the best she had and that was all that was in her closet.

He bowed to her. “Madam, welcome.”

Sola’s grandmother held her little purse just under her bosom. “My things. I have them.”

Her Portuguese accent was heavy, and he had to sift through the words to translate.

“Good.” He nodded at the cousins and at the command, they went around to the back of the SUV and took out three modest mismatched suitcases. “Your room is ready.”

She nodded curtly. “Proceed.”

As Ehric came around with the luggage, he popped a brow and he was right to be shocked. Assail didn’t take kindly to being ordered around.

Allowances would be made with her, however.

“But of course.” Assail took a step back and bowed again, indicating the door that he’d stepped out of.

Regal as a queen, the little old lady clipped along across the floor toward the three shallow steps that led into the house.

Assail jumped ahead to open things up. “This is our utility room. Onward unto the kitchen.”

He fell in behind her, swallowing his impatience. Yet there was no hurry. He had to make sure that the legitimate face of Benloise’s empire was empty of its art dealers and office workers before he could go there. And that would be a good hour at least.

He continued on his tour. “Beyond, the eating alcove and the entertaining space.” As he walked ahead into the tremendous open space that overlooked the Hudson, he regarded his sparse furnishings with a new eye. “Not that I care for entertaining.”

There was nothing personal in the house. Just the “staging” that had been installed to sell the property, anonymous vases and rugs and set pieces of neutral sofas and love seats. The same was true with the bedrooms, of which there were four down below and one on the second floor.

“My office is over here—”

He stopped. Frowned. Looked about.

Had to backtrack to the kitchen in order to find the various parties.

Sola’s grandmother had her head in the Sub-Zero refrigerator, rather as if she were a gnome looking for a cool place in the summer.

“Madam?” Assail inquired.

She shut the door and moved on to the floor-to-ceiling cabinets. “There is nothing here. Nothing. What do you eat?”

“Ah…” Assail found himself looking at the cousins for aid. “Usually we take our meals in town.”

The scoffing sound certainly appeared like the old-lady equivalent of Fuck that. “I need the staples.”

She pivoted on her little shiny shoes and put her hands on her hips. “Who is taking me to supermarket.”

Not an inquiry.

And as she stared up at the three of them, it appeared as though Ehric and his violent killer of a twin were as nonplussed as Assail was.

The evening had been planned out to the minute—and a trip to the local Hannaford was not on the list.

“You two are too thin,” she announced, flicking her hand in the direction of the twins. “You need to eat.”