Page 4 of Lover Forbidden (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #23)

Caldwell, New York

If you were going to be a traitor against Wrath, son of Wrath, sire of Wrath, two things were guaranteed to happen. One, every worldly possession you had, whether it was stocks, bonds, or cold hard cash or the house you lived in or the clothes on your fucking back, was confiscated unto the King.

And two—

Qhuinn re-formed in a snowbank and looked up at a modern version of the kind of stately mansion he grew up in.

“We’re gonna hunt you until we find you,” he finished.

Fucking aristocrats. Always planning shit.

Taking out a copper key, he mounted the shoveled front steps and unlocked the heavy door.

As he opened things up, the alarm that had been installed a week ago started to tick down, and while he traded that slip of rosy-colored metal for a big-ass block of Beretta, things were turned off back at headquarters.

He did not shut himself in as he stepped over the threshold.

While he flipped the safety off his gun and glanced around, all he wanted to do was get his hands around Whestmorel’s pencil neck and snap it off the spine at the ascot.

The aristocrat had proven to be craftier than expected, however.

He’d made his threat—and then done what most members of the glymera could not handle.

He’d gone underground and stayed there, quiet as a mouse.

Not the move of an amateur, and no doubt the snob wasn’t just twiddling his thumbs.

“You’ll have to come up for air sometime,” Qhuinn muttered.

Sooner or later, there would be a tip-off. A financial flare sent up through the web that Vishous could trace. An associate who blabbed to somebody, a sighting at an event, a mistake that led to a crack in the conspiracy.

Or… an actual attempt made on the King’s life.

That last one was the contingency everybody least wanted.

And the reason he felt like jumping out of his own skin.

Stalking forward into the drawing room, he looked at the vacant spot over the fireplace—and wondered what kind of oil painting had been boosted on Whestmorel’s way to the exit.

The guy had taken all computer components, cell phones, and security monitoring equipment with him.

Safe was also empty—the Brotherhood’d figured that out when Zsadist had blown the door off.

And there were all kinds of vacancies on the walls and the shelves that suggested some of the choice art had been taken on the evac, too.

What the hell were they going to do with the rest of Whestmorel’s shit? The male’s daughter had renounced her own bloodline—to the point that she’d even left her things behind in the house, in spite of the fact that she was totally innocent and had been offered the chance to take what she wanted.

So the rest of this was just high-class junk, really, all of which needed to be sold or donated so they could put the mansion on the open human market and cash the fuck out.

“Or we can just light this bitch on fire.” He paused by a gilt-framed mirror and deliberately moved it off-kilter. “And get out the marshmallows—”

“Did someone say ‘Stay Puft?’?”

He swung around with his weapon pointed at chest level—but was already lowering it before Rhage shoved a grape Tootsie Pop into his mouth and put his palms up.

“You can keep your s’mores,” Hollywood maintained. “Just don’t shoot me before I get my licks in.”

Qhuinn cursed. “You could have made a little noise—”

“I did. I asked you about the Stay and the Puft. Very important stuff.”

The Brotherhood’s golden boy lowered his hands and crunched down into the chocolate center. That he was eating was no surprise. And go figure, he was still resplendently handsome, big as a house, blond as a sunny day.

Then again, he’d been all that long before Qhuinn had even been on the planet.

“Entering,” a deep male voice announced.

“See?” Qhuinn pointed at Zsadist as the brother came in. “ That’s how you do it.”

Rhage popped the lollipop stick out of his mouth and pointed with it. “You know what I like about you, kid?”

It seemed stupid to remind the male that he was mated and had two full-grown young of his own. “Tell me.”

“You always follow the rules.” Rhage clapped Qhuinn on the shoulder. “Which means you’re good backup.”

Qhuinn blinked. He’d been called a lot of things in his life. Rule follower…?

As some of the other brothers filed in, he reassured himself that his piercings were all in place.

Even—discreetly—his Prince Albert.

“I’ll clear the first floor,” he announced, getting his second gun out.

Walking fast, he put both weapons up as he continued through the standard category of formal rooms, all of which had their drapes drawn. Even though the whole place had been camera’d and mic’d up ever since they’d assumed ownership last week, no one could take any chances tonight.

They already knew shit was clear. But again, that didn’t matter.

He wasn’t about to trust a bunch of cameras with what was coming. None of them were.

Opening up his senses, he sent a healthy dose of paranoid out into the drawing room.

The study. The library. The music room. As he went along, refreshing his memory of the silk-covered furniture and the museum quality antiques, the Persian rugs on the floors and the portraits on the walls, he heard the others walking around upstairs through the bedrooms, the closets, the laundry room.

Another team went all the way to the attic, and a final one dove into the basement and the garage.

As he came to the kitchen, he tracked every shadow thrown by the bright ceiling lights.

In contrast to the rest of the house, which was a showcase for glymera visitors, back here it was all business, the appliances stainless steel, the pans hanging on racks in descending size, the ladles and knives and utensils all organized and within reach of the cutting boards, the stoves and ovens, the service line.

Big-ticket setup for a house that catered to a big-ticket master.

After checking the walk-in refrigerator and then the freezer—because hey, aristocrats, like all snakes, were cold-blooded—he did a pass through the pantry, and came out into the dining room.

That was when he stopped.

The table was what pulled him up, that long, glossy run down the middle of the formal room with all those chairs tucked in tight like soldiers called for inspection: twenty-two chairs, the two at the ends sporting arms.

“Now is not the time,” he said under his breath.

Nonetheless, his memory banks coughed up a hairball of the past, the room before him replaced by a what-once-was.

Instead of this grand setup, he saw a downright imperial one, and instead of empty chairs, there were familiar faces in candlelight…

the Brotherhood, their mates, and the fighters, along with the First Family.

And all the young were there, too, everybody eating, drinking… being merry.

It was so clear, so painfully clear. Even though it had been thirty years and change since they’d gathered in that gargoyle’d royal house up on Great Bear Mountain, he could picture the amalgam of countless Last Meals vividly, like it was a dream he was in, rather than a memory that stalked him.

A lingering nostalgia registered as pain in the center of his chest. There had been problems back then for all of them, issues in life that ranged from the little annoyances to the big worries to the outright terrors. And the war, always the fucking war.

But things seemed simpler—

He went to rub his pounding head, then remembered he had a loaded gun in each hand with the safety off—and now was so not the time to shoot himself in the dome for a dumb reason.

And not just because it’d ruin all this pretentious gold-leafed wallpaper.

On that note, he thought of another table, a totally different one—and this time, it really was from memory, not some post-traumatic mental spasm that he couldn’t seem to move past: A cozy family table now, in an open, casual kitchen that was ringed with windows overlooking a meadow and a pond.

No butler and waitstaff. No sterling or crystal.

No swooping drapes or heavy chandeliers.

No brothers, either.

Just his immediate family: Blay, and the male’s parents, Lyric and Rocke, with the twins, Lyric and Rhamp, in high chairs.

The Last Meal spread was served in mismatched dishes and steaming with warmth, but the plates were as yet empty because there was one more dish being brought over.

Meanwhile, snow was falling outside, and the decor was red and green for Christmas, even though there were no humans in the house…

Rocke saying something about his shellan and looking her way. And Qhuinn also glanced over to the stove.

The elder Lyric was there, with her apron on and her hair pulled back sensibly. She was cutting up the lasagna she’d made just for Qhuinn, the light fixtures over the island catching the planes of her lovely face.

Healthy. Whole. With life still in front of her—

“One minute out.”

Qhuinn jerked around to the archway. Rhage was standing there, filling the double doorjambs, and there were no more lollipops in sight. It was game time, so he had a gun in each hand.

Still, the guy asked, “You okay?”

No, he wasn’t. But Hollywood—just like everybody else—knew that already, and knew the reason. Some things you just didn’t want to say out loud, though.

My beloved mahmen -in-law is dying was still not a statement he was prepared to make. And the same was true about the inevitable add-on: And it’s killing everybody.

So he pivoted on his reply. Even though now was also not the time for him to get a hair across his ass because someone who lived off Fluffernutter sandwiches, chips, and ice cream suggested that maybe he was halfway following rules.

“Just so we’re clear.” He touched the silver hoop in his lower lip, even though his Beretta nearly poked him in the eyeball. “I’m still who I’ve always been.”

Rhage chuckled. “You mean a badass?”

“Yeah, exactly.” He cleared his throat. “But enough about me. How is this happening?”

“It was not my idea,” Hollywood muttered. Then he called out, “Basement and garage, clear.”

Qhuinn put volume into his voice as well: “First floor, clear.”

From out in the foyer, Z answered with, “Second floor, clear.”

And Phury chimed in, “Attic, clear.”

A vibration went off inside Qhuinn’s leather jacket, and when the text was answered—the countdown started.

Exactly thirty Mississippi’s later, headlights washed across the front of the mansion, the hard beams penetrating a seam in the heavy, closed curtains like an adversary that’d found a weakness.

“Let’s get this over with,” he gritted as he headed for the foyer.

Joining the other brothers who were milling around beneath a crystal chandelier, he rolled his shoulders and then cracked his neck by cranking his head from side to side. Everybody was double-dipping into their holsters, but no daggers. Those vicious black blades had all stayed put.

A gun was better in this situation.

Two forties were even better.

Tohr was the one who opened things up, and the cold air came in before him, the dark night on the other side like a void he’d somehow managed to step out of.

Vishous was next, the goateed brother looking like he was ready to fight, his hands up at chest level, the pair of Glocks in them the perfect accessory to all his black leather and fuck-off.

And behind him, the male of the hour.

Wrath, the great Blind King, was taller than everybody—or at least it felt that way.

With those wraparounds hiding his eyes, his cruel, aristocratic face, and all his long black hair falling from that widow’s peak, he single-handedly validated the human bullshit mythology about vampires.

He was the real deal, the last purebred of the species left on the planet, a force of nature, a stone-cold killer, and a shrewd leader.

Whose side hustle was rank impatience.

The second he was past the threshold, John Matthew and Xcor entered in his wake and shut the front door with a resounding thud . The two of them had twin sets of guns out as well, and both put their backs to the wood. There was a brief silence, as if everybody in the foyer was taking a moment.

“Relief” was the wrong word.

No, relief wasn’t going to come until they were back at the Audience House. Safely, with all of the King’s fingers and toes accounted for.

Instead, this pause was what happened when a group of males were determined to keep their yaps shut—and choking on the fucking effort.

As Wrath’s nostrils flared while he tested the air, Qhuinn leaned to the side and traced the blind corners in that drawing room he’d just gone through.

And then he glanced back at the front entrance, even though there was no reason to worry about the exterior.

The Band of Bastards was covering the property lines, and they did not need primers on how to shoot to kill.

Still, he felt like his balls had crawled up into his lower abdomen—and turned into grenades.

Then again, the last time Wrath had left the house to go anywhere except for audiences with civilians, three decades of hell had ensued.

Frankly, he was surprised that Beth had gotten on board with the plan, but that was none of Qhuinn’s business—although he could imagine how the conversation had gone.

Good times, good times. J/k.

When Wrath finally stepped forward and Tohr fell in beside him, the latter holstered one of his guns and put his hand behind the King’s elbow to subtly guide him. The brothers then fanned out, and Qhuinn went with the flow, the lot of them like a living organism with a single mind, a single body.

No components, only the whole.

It was an ancient tradition, the Black Dagger Brotherhood not only protectors of the race, but the private guard to the King… prepared to lay down their lives in service to the male who mattered most.

Fucking hell , Qhuinn thought as he continued along. Let nothing go wrong tonight.