Chapter Six #2
This was engineered, she thought. Her time with those photographs, with her memories of the way things had been.
“Beth?”
“Nothing,” she replied roughly. “Ah, just give me a minute to try and locate him.”
Closing her eyes, she did her best to concentrate, but all that registered was the squeaking sound Rhage’s shitkickers made on the snowpack as he joined her and shut them out of the house’s warmth.
And then things went seriously sideways.
As nothing came back at her, no signal of her own blood, no bead on where Wrath was, true fear broke through all her frustration and the impotent anger she’d been feeling toward him.
Was he gone? Again? Lost in the present, and this time, there was going to be no magical intervention.
Rahvyn had told her it was a one-time thing—
The Polo to her Marco came through. Strongly. Clearly.
“Oh, thank God.” Turning to the northeast, she pointed with a shaky hand. “He’s that way.”
As she dropped her arm, Rhage exhaled into the subzero chill. “Okay, let me get a group together to scout out the location in case it’s a trap or—”
She dematerialized without being aware that was her intention, her scatter of molecules starting off in the direction she’d indicated.
Zeroing in on the echo of her own blood, she was confident of where she was going in a way that she couldn’t be about what she was going to find. At least he was alive.
For the moment.
It was on that thought that she re-formed, and she had to blink in a glare so bright, she could swear her pupils were never going to recover. Putting her arm up over her face, she had to let her eyes adjust before she could even attempt to assess the—
Another fucking aristocrat’s house. She should have known.
And this time, he was all alone, no Brotherhood to protect him.
As anger bloomed, she knew she had to get a grip. She might be royally pissed off, but she wasn’t about to get the both of them killed, and there was no backup coming.
Rhage had no idea where she’d been going, and she didn’t have her damn phone.
Blowing out a curse, she focused on her surroundings.
She was standing at the base of a plowed driveway that led up to a stark, modern mansion that was low, sprawling, and the same sharp white of the snowdrifts blanketing the rolling lawn.
Given how polished everything looked, it was hard to imagine there was danger inside. But you never knew.
Which was the fucking point.
“Goddamn it, Wrath,” she muttered, her breath drifting off in puffs like she was smoking.
As a cold wind blew in from behind her, her hair whipped into her face, and she twisted around on her hips to let the gust do the work of clearing things out of her eyes.
No surprise, there wasn’t a rest-of-the-neighborhood anywhere close.
This was a proper estate, with plenty of buffering acreage to spare at the end of a long lane.
Privacy for nefarious things.
And in coming here, Wrath had chosen to go right into the heart of danger, hadn’t he.
“Fuck it.”
Even though there were all kinds of reasons why she needed to go get help first, she started marching the driveway, and the next thing she knew, she wasn’t even knocking.
She was trying the front door, and when it turned out to be unlocked, opening things and stepping into a very elegant black and white foyer that was hung with bright, blocky paintings—
And that was when she lost track of Wrath’s presence.
One second, it was there. The next, he was gone.
Oh, so now he was running from her? “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me—”
“Mahmen? What the hell are you doing here?”
Cranking her head to the left, she recoiled.
Her son was standing on the far side of some kind of parlor, a pair of scrubs riding low on his hips, his tattooed chest rising up into his big shoulders, his long, black hair braided down the center, shaved on the sides.
None of his appearance had changed, but she felt like it had been a year since she’d seen him.
And then there was the obvious injury, unless he’d decided that bandages used as an epaulet were a fashion statement.
“You’re hurt.” Wasn’t he banned from the field? “Has Doc Jane seen that?”
“No,” he said in a low voice. “She was busy.”
“Never too busy to see you—and wait, what are you doing here?” Wherever this particular here was. “What is—”
That was when she noticed there was another person with them. Even though she instantly recognized the male, she had to blink a couple of times.
“Shuli? Is this…your house?”
No, shit, Sherlock, she thought. Shuli and L.W. lived together, which was how the ahstrux nohtrum thing worked.
She’d just never been here before. No reason to before the appointment of that station to the other male…and no invitation afterward.
“Yes, this is my place.” Shuli bowed, his monogrammed bathrobe shifting over his muscular build. “Welcome, may we get you anything?”
As a uniformed butler stepped into the room, she stayed focused on Shuli.
He had the bone structure, bank account, and manners of a glymera-raised best son.
But that was just the superficial stuff.
He was canny, smart, a terrific fighter, although she couldn’t say she’d ever really trusted him.
That was probably just her own prejudices at work, however, after so many years down at the Audience House seeing how badly the aristocracy behaved.
There was no arguing his loyalty to L.W.
“Ah, no, thank you. I’m good.” She was not fucking good. “L.W., what’s going on here? The Brotherhood’s looking for your father, and I know he’s just left—he obviously came to talk to you.”
L.W.’s pale green eyes narrowed, but his voice stayed casual. Like he was talking about the weather: “He dropped by to tell me he was stepping down from the throne, and I was King now.”
As Beth blinked a couple of times, a loud ringing sound replaced all the sound in the world.
“What.”