Page 27 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

Less than thirty minutes after Shuli arrived at the Audience House, he stepped back out of its cottagey front door in a stunned stupor.

The meeting with the King hadn’t lasted long, and though he was grateful he hadn’t been run through with a black dagger on the spot, he was downright fucking flabbergasted that L.W.

had shown up here first and come clean about the situation.

What the fuck?

In any event, the King had declined to go the pink slip/coffin route. He’d just grimly told Shuli to do his best to stick with his son—who, apparently, was no longer going to be on the schedule.

And that was it. Meeting over.

So yeah, here he was now, standing out in the cold in a suit and cashmere overcoat, more than a little shell-shocked—

As a pair of vampires re-formed in front of him, the well-dressed male and female jumped back in surprise.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just leaving—”

“Shuli?”

He frowned and focused properly on the male. It took a couple of blinks for the face to place—then again, he’d been drunk on Dom Pérignon every time he’d ever hung out with the guy.

“Mitchus?”

“Yes! How have you been, old dog?”

The pair of them embraced, and Shuli looked over the male’s shoulder.

The female on the periphery was beautiful in the restrained way of the glymera , every hair in place, the pearls and sweater set peeking through a stylish caramel-colored mink coat.

She was young, going by her open expression and her frozen smile, but she could have been five hundred years old for her matching pumps and handbag.

As Shuli eased back, he pounded Mitchus on the shoulder of his fine coat. “Are you here for any particular reason, my guy?”

“I’ll bet you can’t guess.” The male motioned with a directorial hand. “May I present the lovely Mistress Perighrine, my intended. We’re here for our blessing.”

The female floated over and extended a glove-covered hand. “How do you do?”

And that was when Shuli scented it. Pregnant… Mistress Perighrine was with young.

Ah, so that was why the male had disappeared from the scene.

And it was interesting that Mitchus was going through with the mating.

There were only two kinds of females in the aristocracy, the virtuous ones you claimed before family and the glymera , who were virgins, and the ruined sort you slept with and enjoyed.

You never showed up in front of your King with the latters, looking for down-the-aisle a-okays.

“The pleasure is mine,” Shuli murmured.

He touched the tips of her fingers with his own, then placed his palm over his heart and bowed. As their eye contact was broken, a series of images flipped through his mind, all of them of Mitchus fucking various human and vampire women, usually in pairs.

And usually in Shuli’s guest room on the first floor. The one L.W. supposedly lived in now.

Come to think of it, though… that shit had stopped months ago. Maybe the guy had met the One.

“So when’s the date?” Shuli asked as he straightened.

“Next year.” Mitchus smiled, showing even white teeth, his fangs just slightly elongated. “You’re on the guest list, of course.”

Then the male stepped in and put his arm around his female’s waist.

Wow. Talk about your turnarounds.

Except then Shuli thought of the call he’d made to Lyric, the one that had gone unanswered, the one he’d made just before coming over here.

Sometimes a good female could turn you around. Or fuck your shit up.

“Thanks.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll be there with bells on.”

“Great.” Mitchus inclined his head. “See you then.”

“Looking forward to it.”

The happy couple waltzed up to the front door and, ever the gentlemale, Mitchus opened things for his female. As she walked past him, he glanced back at Shuli and gave a final, gallant wave.

And then they were gone, the heavy reinforced door that was made up to look like something cheerful easing shut in their wake.

Frankly, he was surprised that the pair had come here.

So many of the aristocracy thought a common audience was beneath them.

Mitchus’s family had always been sticklers for propriety, though.

Guess the knock to the ego was worth the royal rubber stamp, although how they’d accepted that pregnancy and still given their own blessing was a thing.

But whatever. Not his business, on so many levels.

He was never getting mated.

Closing his eyes, it was a hot minute before he could dematerialize—and then he was spiriting off, flying in a scatter of molecules.

It didn’t take him long to get home, and as he re-formed in front of his modern mansion, he surveyed the white, low-slung exterior with tired eyes.

The shit was like a bunker in the snowy landscape, just one more bank in the bunch, and he knew he couldn’t stay long.

He had to somehow find L.W.

And not just because it was his job. He’d come to a decision about—

His front door opened, and the shape that appeared between the jambs was way too enormous to be Willhis.

Also, his butler had never favored black leather with a chaser of weapons.

Shuli exhaled a curse as he started up his shoveled walkway. “I thought you wanted to avoid me like the plague.”

L.W. shrugged and stirred his Cup Noodles. “My clothes are here.”

As Shuli hopped up the steps and caught a whiff of chicken stock, the male didn’t budge—so he shoved L.W.

out of the way. Which, yeah, only happened because the fucker allowed himself to get moved, but hey, you had to take your victories where you found them.

And then Shuli stalled out in his foyer because there was no reason to have this throw down happen any farther into the house.

Willhis hated conflict, and he didn’t want to upset his doggen .

“Just take your shit and go.” Shuli indicated the general direction of the wing L.W.

had been camping out in. “Your pops gave me a pass on this bullshit job, told me to do my best. And I’ve just decided that my best is telling you to fuck off and do whatever it is you’re going to do. You want to go solo, you got it.”

As L.W. leaned back against the arch into the library, he was like a stain against all the white walls, and damn if the sonofabitch didn’t look like some kind of brutalist sculpture come to life. But what do you know, there was already enough abstract art in the place.

“So…” Shuli walked over to the archway of the guest wing. “There ya go.”

He swooped both hands forward. Like His Royal Cocksucking Highness didn’t know where he’d been crashing during the days since the pair of them had been Love Match ’d up.

When L.W. just kept standing there, eating those goddamned plastic noodles, Shuli frowned. “You’re kidding me.”

“What.”

“You came to apologize?” he said in disbelief. “Is that what this is? You’re… apologizing?”

Those black brows went down so hard, it was like they were trying to relocate to his nostrils.

“Wow.” Shuli drew a hand through his hair. “You’re full of surprises tonight, aren’t you.”

Those pale green eyes shifted away to the yellow-and-black Jackson Pollock that hung over a Biedermeier console table.

And then the silence stretched out, big as the horizon.

With the white marble floors and the white staircase and all the unadorned white everywhere, it was like they were still outside.

“You really suck at this whole ‘sorry’ thing, FYI,” Shuli remarked.

“I don’t do it often.” The fighter tilted the cup and drank some of the broth.

When there was no tack onto that, no but-when-I-do-I-mean-it shit, it wasn’t really a shocker. “That I believe.”

Even more quiet. At which point Shuli closed his eyes and let his head fall back on his spine. “You could at least say the word. Or how about a synonym for it—hey, I’d even take something that rhymes. Worry. Quarry.”

“Furry.”

“That doesn’t rhyme.”

“Yeah, it does—”

“No. It doesn’t. That only shares three letters—”

“It totally rhymes—”

“Then you’re pronouncing ‘sorry’ as ‘Surrey’—or ‘furry’ like ‘fawrry,’ like you’re four fucking years old and missing a couple of teeth.”

The front door opened, and without skipping a beat, they both spun toward it and pulled out guns. Or rather, L.W. pulled a Smith & Wesson and Shuli shoved his hand uselessly under his arm because of course he hadn’t gone to see the King with any weapons on him.

The good news, though? It wasn’t a lesser they had to take out or some human robber they could decide whether to kill or play mind games with.

Lyric’s twin, Rhamp, came right into the house.

The guy was dressed to be out in the field, his dark hair pulled back in man bun territory, a fresh pair of shitkickers on, the scent of firearms and honed steel preceding him.

All of which was business as usual. What was not normal?

His laconic attitude was nowhere in sight.

In fact, he looked like his nuts were in a vise.

“Thank fuck you two are together,” the guy said roughly. “I need you both to come with me. Don’t ask any questions, and no, I don’t want to talk about it after, either.”

L.W. and Shuli glanced at each other.

“Gimme a minute to change and get my guns,” Shuli said as he hit the stairs at a dead run.