The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12)(77)
Author: J.R. Ward

The rumbling of doors opening directly behind him had him spinning around.

His father seemed confused as he stood in the doorway that led out of his study. “Whate’er are you doing?”

“Nothing. I was just looking at your volumes. They’re quite impressive.”

Tyhm glanced at the doors Saxton had shut behind himself—as if wondering why they were closed. “You should not have come in here.”

“I’m sorry.” Surreptitiously, he slipped the phone into his pocket, tilting his torso to the side as if to nod at the books. “It’s just … I wanted to marvel over your collection. Mine are cloth covered.”

“You have a set of the Old Laws?”

“I do. I bought them from an estate.”

His father went forward and touched the pages of the closest volume open on the round table. The loving way with which he stroked those words, that paper, that inanimate object … suggested that maybe Saxton wasn’t the biggest heartbreak in his life.

If the law let him down? That would break him.

“What is this all about?” Saxton said softly. “I heard the King was shot, and now … this is all about the succession.”

When there was no reply, he began to think he needed to leave in a hurry: There was a high probability his father was in with the Band of Bastards, and it would be folly to think Tyhm would hesitate for even a second in turning his g*y son over to the enemy.

Or in his father’s case, the allies.

“Wrath is no King for the race.” Tyhm shook his head. “Nothing good has come since his father was killed. Now, there was a ruler. I was young when I was at court, but I remember Wrath, and whereas the son cares not for the proper way … the sire was a stellar King, a wise male with patience and majesty. Such a failure of this generation.”

Saxton looked at the floor. For some absurd reason, he noted that his own loafers were perfectly polished. All of his shoes were. Neat and tidy, arranged.

He found it difficult to breathe. “I thought the Brotherhood was … taking care of things rather well. After the raids, they have killed many slayers—”

“The fact that you use the word after to modify raids is all one needs to know. A shameful commentary—Wrath did not care to rule until he married that half-breed of his. Only then, when he sought to contaminate the throne with her bastard human genes, did he see fit to try to be King. His father would hate this—that human wearing the ring of his mother? It is a disgrace that cannot…” He had to clear his throat. “It simply cannot be supported.”

As the implications dawned on Saxton, he could feel the blood drain out of his head. Oh, God … why hadn’t they seen this coming?

Beth. They were going to take him down through her.

His father lifted his chin, his Adam’s apple standing out like a fist in the front of his throat. “And one has to do something. One has to … do something when bad choices are made.”

Like being g*y, Saxton finished for the male. And then it dawned on him …

It was almost as if his father was joining the effort … only because he couldn’t do anything about his own failure of a progeny.

“Wrath will be removed from the throne,” Tyhm said with a resurgence of strength. “And another who has not strayed from the race’s core values will be put in his place. It is the appropriate consequence for one who does not do things in the proper manner.”

“I had heard…” Saxton paused. “I had heard that it was a love match. Between Wrath and his queen. That he fell in love with her when he helped with her transition.”

“The deviant often couch their actions in the vocabulary of the righteous. It is a deliberate act to attempt to ingratiate themselves to us. That doesn’t mean they have behaved well or that their poor choices should be supported by the masses. Quite the contrary—he has shamed the race, and deserves all that is coming to him.”

“Do you hate me?” Saxton blurted.

His father’s eyes lifted from the books that were going to be used to pave the way to the abdication. As their stares met across the blueprint for Wrath’s destruction, Saxton was reduced to a child who simply wanted to be loved and valued by the only parent he had left.

“Yes,” his father said. “I do.”

Sola pulled the fresh jeans up to her knees and paused. Bracing herself, she eased the waistband over her thigh wound carefully.

“Not bad,” she muttered as she continued to tug them all the way onto her ass, and then button and zip them.

Little loose, but when she put on the fresh white long-sleeved shirt and the cozy black sweater she’d also been given, you’d never know. Oh, and the Nikes were the perfect size—and she even liked the black-and-red color scheme.

Going into her hospital room’s bath, she checked her hair in the mirror. Shiny and smooth, thanks to the blow-dry she’d given herself.

“You look…”

Wheeling around at the voice, she found Assail standing by the bed. His eyes burned across the distance between them, his body looming large.

“You startled me,” she said.

“My apologies.” He offered her a short bow. “I knocked several times, and when you didn’t answer, I was concerned that you had fallen.”

“That’s really … ah, kind of you.” Yeah, sweet couldn’t be associated in any way with him.

“Are you ready to go home?”

She closed her eyes. She wanted to say yes—and of course, she needed to see her grandmother. But she was afraid to, as well.

“Can you … tell?” she asked.

Assail came over to her, walking slowly, as if he knew she was a hairbreadth away from spooking. Lifting his hands, he brushed her hair back over her shoulders. Then he touched the sides of her face.

“No. She will see none of it.”

“Thank God.” Sola exhaled. “She can’t know. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly.”

Turning to face the door out into the corridor, he offered her his elbow … as if he were escorting her to a party.

And Sola took it just because she wanted to feel him against her. Know his warmth. Be close to his size and strength.

It was a different kind of hell to be facing the prospect of meeting her grandmother’s eyes.

“Do not think of it,” he said as he led her down the long hall. “You must remember that. She will see it in your face if you do. None of it happened, Marisol. None of it.”