Epilogue
Maksym
Thursday dusk bled through the slatted blinds in bruised bands of purple and old gold, striping the obsidian top of my desk and the crystal bowl of my glass while the bass from the club below moved through the floor in a low, steady thrum.
Taras stood at the window with his arms folded, all clean angles and judgment, and I reclined in my chair with one ankle over my knee and the distinct satisfaction of a man enjoying, for one polished moment, a kingdom not currently on fire.
The office pleased me for reasons that had very little to do with vanity and a great deal to do with control.
I had built Amethyst in a converted warehouse a few blocks off the Strip, close enough to drink from its traffic and vice, far enough to remain unstained by its vulgarity.
Human eyes saw an ordinary industrial fa?ade and kept driving.
Wards did the rest. Behind those protections, I had carved out a place that answered to western appetites for every type of supernatural.
I swirled the blood-wine once and said, “My favorite thing about being King of the West is the distinct and refreshing absence of catastrophes.”
Taras did not turn immediately. He continued looking down through the slats toward the warehouse frontage below, where staff came and went through controlled entrances and two of my exterior guards changed position with the kind of discreet efficiency I paid for.
“You should be careful saying things like that.”
I took a sip. Aged well. Dark, rich, disciplined. “Why?”
“You are tempting fate.”
That earned him the corner of my mouth. “Fate and I have an understanding.”
Now he turned.
“That,” he said, “is not how fate works.”
“It is exactly how fate works.”
He pushed away from the window and came toward the desk with the economical grace of a man who had spent centuries making himself useful in rooms where chaos entered overdressed and armed. “You say that because you are arrogant.”
“I say that because I am observant.”
“You have survived,” he corrected.
“Repeatedly.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“Close enough to be encouraging.”
He stopped across from me. In the fading light his silver hair caught the last gold from the blinds and turned it colder. “If catastrophe arrives tonight, I would like the record to reflect that I warned you.”
“The record,” I said, “may note whatever it likes so long as it also notes that every significant disaster of the last year originated in Texas and Philadelphia.”
That elicited a subtle shift from him. Not amusement exactly. A recognition that I was, irritatingly, correct.
I set my glass down and ticked the count off on my fingers.
“First, our sister decided it was expedient to turn a wolf shifter; creating the first hybrid vampire/wolf in over a century, then, our father’s long-awaited attempt at emotional ruin came wrapped in a fallen angel with no memory and an archangel with delusions of unilateral authority.
I crossed half the country to stand at Kazimir’s side while heaven attempted murder in formal language. ”
Taras’s mouth moved by a degree. “A concise summary.”
“I strive for clarity.” I lifted another finger.
“And after that, I was barely home before being hauled back east because Nikolay finally located the precise woman capable of forcing him into self-awareness, only for some polished wolf supremacist to decide bloodline purity required a sacrificial altar.”
At that, whatever trace of humor had lived in me flattened.
“That bullshit again, as though Lucia and Doc weren't enough,” I muttered.
Taras’s eyes sharpened. “It never dies. It only changes vocabulary.”
“Yes.” I leaned back farther in the chair, looking past him at the marked western map while my temper cooled itself into something more useful.
“Men like Lynch never believe themselves barbaric. That is what makes them dangerous. He dressed rot in theory and expected everybody to applaud the tailoring.”
“He was not unique.”
“No,” I said. “Which is why the hearings will be intolerable.”
That got his full attention, not because he disagreed, but because Taras liked his disasters itemized before they arrived. “You are certain the Supernatural Council will convene formally?”
“I would if I were them.” I picked up my glass again, though I did not drink.
“A sanctioned wolf alpha dies under his own moon while attempting a forced ritual bond. Iron Valor is yet again on scene? My brother removed the man’s throat.
My father’s interests are adjacent. Fortunately, the Midwest Wolf King is Menace, basically still Iron Valor, and the East King is Griffin his brother-in-law. It won’t stop the inquiry, however.”
“Posturing,” Taras repeated in a tone suggesting he considered the word charitable.
“It’s what they do.”
He moved to the guest chair opposite my desk but did not sit. He rarely sat unless the conversation intended to remain civilized. “Iron Valor will not simplify anything.”
“Iron Valor,” I said, “has a reliable talent for being at the center of every mess, as if the Goddess herself grew bored and threw wolves at the problem.”
That drew a short laugh from me before I could stop it.
Taras noticed at once. He always did. “You sound almost fond.”
“Do I?”
“You do.”
I considered the accusation and found it, unfortunately, not without merit. “Bronc is competent. His people are effective. Their timing is often appalling, and their lives resemble military reports written by drunk prophets, but they are proficient.”
“I could swear you like them.”
“Do not repeat it.”
His mouth shifted again. With Taras, that was practically mirth.
I took another sip and let the warmth of it settle. “Nikolay is going to have his hands absolutely full.”
This time Taras did sit. He lowered himself into the chair with unhurried precision, linked his fingers over one knee, and regarded me across the dark gleam of the desk. “With Madelyn Baucaum?”
“With no one else.” I let the sentence stand a moment. “She is loud, bright, stubborn, unafraid to bite at his heels, and entirely unimpressed by every civilized wall he spent three centuries constructing around himself.”
“Yes.”
The agreement came too quickly to argue. We both went quiet for a beat, because some truths did not improve with embellishment.
I thought of my brother before and after.
Of Nikolay in the years between campaigns and courts, reading late into the night, collecting everyone else’s hurts with that infuriating gentleness of his, taking strategic lovers and leaving none of himself behind with them.
He had not been unhappy, exactly. Men like us learned to make functionality look like fulfillment.
But he had been solitary in a way that had become structural.
One more old room in the Kozlov house that no one entered because no one had the key.
Then a wolf from Texas arrived with rough edges and soft hands and managed, by a combination of courage and exasperation, to set fire to the lock.
“He needed the disruption,” I said at last.
Taras inclined his head. “He needed the joy.”
It would have been easy to sneer at that word if it had come from anyone else. From Taras, it landed with the weight of measured truth. My brother did not romanticize. If he called something joy, he had audited the evidence.
I exhaled once through my nose. “Three centuries. It is a humiliating amount of time to spend being wrong about one’s own requirements.”
“Not all of us are so quick to self-knowledge.”
“No,” I said dryly. “Some of us wait until a woman is tied to a stone and then announce our feelings over a corpse.”
He reached for the folder set near the edge of my desk and opened it to the marked reports within. The transition from fraternal commentary to business was seamless. We had spent too long working side by side for it to feel abrupt.
“Amethyst,” he said, “continues to outperform projections.”
Now I did smile properly.
He leaned over the ledger, tapping the figures. “Membership numbers continue to climb, higher in the VIP areas across the board. Vampires are still our biggest demo, but witches are catching up, demons aren’t far behind, whiny bastards. Amethyst isn’t just holding its own; it’s killing it.”
Hearing this success, pride swelled within me. My vision of a balanced club with the addition of overnight rooms had materialized, no longer an experiment but a venue rivaling Obsidian itself. “You’ve sharpened what we’ve built into a blade; now we keep it honed.”
Taras met my gaze, a fierce edge to his smile. “Agreed. Complacency would be the only true threat here. But I’ve got my foot on the gas, brother. I don’t intend to slow down.”
Satisfaction settled warm in my chest. Amethyst was no longer an experiment. It was a rival.
“You've done an excellent job, my king. The west holds.”
I smiled at him, calling me by my title. “It does.”
“Amethyst holds.”
“Yes.”
“You hold.”
I turned my head enough to study his face. Few people spoke to me in such a direct way. My twin was the exception.
“I do,” I said.
He glanced up at me then, hazel eyes cool and sharp in the half-light. “Try not to announce your immunity to catastrophe again in the future.”
“I made no such announcement. I simply observed a pattern.”
“Your pattern may be about to grow ambitious.”
I finished the glass and set it on the corner of the desk. “If catastrophe wishes an audience, it may request one through proper channels.”
Taras looked at me as if deciding whether to pray for me or leave me to my own education.
In the end, he said only, “Come. If we stay any longer, you will say something else reckless, and the desert will hear you.”
I collected my jacket from the stand by the door, gave the office one final sweep of satisfaction, and followed him out while below us the club’s pulse thickened into full evening.
If fate had been listening, it chose not to answer just yet.