The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12)(72)
Author: J.R. Ward

His mother had died about three years ago, but this was no shrine to the loss. In fact, he didn’t have the sense that his father had missed the female.

Tyhm had always been most interested in the law—even over matters of the glymera—

Saxton stilled. Pivoted toward the rear of the room.

Distantly, voices mingled—and that was unusual. The house was typically silent as a library, the staff tiptoeing around, the doggen having developed a complex system of hand signals with which to communicate so they did not disturb their master.

Saxton approached a second set of doors. Unlike the ones leading out to the foyer, they were closed.

Cracking a panel, Saxton slipped through into the lofty, octagonal room where his father’s leather-bound volumes of the Old Law were kept. The ceiling was some thirty feet high, the molding of all those shelves dark mahogany, the cornices over the doorways carved into proper Gothic relief—or at least a nineteenth-century reproduction of it.

In the center of the circular space, there was a tremendous round table, the marble top of which was … a bit of a shock.

It was covered with open volumes.

Glancing up at the shelves, he saw slots in the endless lineup of tomes. About twenty of them.

As a warning sounded at the base of his skull, he kept his hands in his pockets and leaned in, tracing the verbiage that was exposed …

“Oh, Jesus…”

Succession.

His father was researching the laws of succession.

Saxton lifted his head toward the voices. They were louder now that he was in this room, although still muffled by another set of closed doors across the way.

Whatever meeting was taking place was in his father’s private study.

Highly unusual. The male never let anyone in there—didn’t even permit clients to come to the house.

This was serious—and Saxton wasn’t stupid. There was a cabal against Wrath in the glymera, and obviously, his father was involved.

No reason for anyone to care about the next generation of King if they weren’t trying to target the current one.

He walked around the table, locking eyes on each open page. The more he saw, the more concerned he became.

“Oh … shit,” he muttered in a rare curse.

This was bad. Very bad—

The sound of a door opening in the study energized him. Jogging on the balls of his loafers, he scooted back into the ladies’ parlor and reclosed the panels silently behind himself.

He was facing the John Singer Sargent over the fireplace when the butler called his name about two minutes later.

“He will see you now.”

No reason to throw a thank-you out. He just followed in the wake of the doggen’s disapproval—and braced himself for more of the same from his father.

Usually, he hated coming here.

But not tonight. No, tonight, he had a far greater purpose than thwarting what was no doubt going to be yet another of his father’s attempts to shame him into going straight.

Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Trez frowned at the sound. Cracking one eye open, he found his brother standing over his bed, Boo the black cat in the male’s arms, an expression of disapproval narrowing those icy eyes.

His brother’s, not the cat’s.

“Are you spending another night on your ass,” iAm bit out.

Not a question, so why bother throwing out an answer.

Groaning as he sat up, Trez had to brace his arms to keep his torso vertical. Apparently, while he’d been out of it, the world had turned into a hula hoop and the planet was going around and around his neck.

Losing the fight, he flopped back down.

As his brother kept standing there, he knew that this was the siren call back to reality. And he wanted to answer it, he really did. His body, however, was out of gas.

“When was the last time you fed?” iAm demanded.

He shifted his eyes over and dodged the question. “Since when are you an animal lover?”

“I hate this goddamn cat.”

“I can tell.”

“Answer me.”

The fact that he couldn’t even think of when he’d … nope, total blank.

“I’ll send someone,” iAm muttered. “And then you and I are going to talk.”

“Let’s talk now.”

“Why, so you can pretend you didn’t hear it right later?”

Well, there was a thought. “No.”

“They’re going after our father and mother.”

Trez sat up again, and this time he didn’t need any extra help. Shit. He should have expected this from the s’Hisbe, but …

“How.”

“How do you think?” His brother shifted his gentle scratching from the black cat’s ears to under its chin. “They’re going to start with her.”

He rubbed his face. “Jesus Christ. I didn’t expect the high priest would be so—”

“It wasn’t him. Nah. He was the second person who came to see me last night.”

“What time is it?” Although the fact that he could see out the windows into the night at least partially answered that one. “Why didn’t you wake me up when you got home?”

“I tried. Three times. I was going to send for a crash cart if you didn’t come around on this trip.”

“So what did the high priest say?”

“s’Ex is the one we have to worry about.”

Trez dropped his hands. Staring up at his brother, he knew he must have heard that wrong. “I’m sorry, who?”

“Not the kind of name I need to repeat, is it?”

“Oh, God.” What the hell was the queen’s enforcer doing paying a visit to his brother? Then again … “They’re really upping the ante, aren’t they.”

iAm sat on the edge of the bed, his weight causing the mattress to shift. “We are at the impasse, Trez. No more pretending, no more persuasion. They’ve used the carrot; now they’re going to use the stick.”

As Trez thought of his parents, he could barely picture their faces. The last time he’d seen them had been … well, there was another thing he couldn’t remember. What was crystal clear, though? The quarters they lived in. Marble everything. Gold fixtures. Silk rugs. Servants everywhere. Jewels hanging from lamps to create a sparkle effect.

They hadn’t started out like that—and that was another thing he could picture: He’d been born in a modest two-bedroom flat in the far corner of court—nice enough by normal standards.

Nothing close to what they’d gotten when they’d sold his future.