3

“My son is right,” Father said, with a single bang of his fist on the table. “Let’s leave this discussion for another time.” Father at last gestured to the empty seat to his right. “Come. Sit. You should help lead this meeting, as the throne will soon be yours by rights.”

Giving him a single nod of acceptance, I circled the table and took my seat beside him as instructed.

Father stood again, addressing the council.

“On to other, though somewhat connected, items,” he said. “We do have something about the Laurents we must discuss.”

“Their encroachment on our supply lines?” I asked.

He nodded. “They have been inching closer and closer to the areas where we transport our wellspring items out of Hikshil territory and into more direct lines of highway and rail transportation.” He picked up a small remote control, then turned and clicked the next slide on the large screen behind him. “Here we have the most up to date map of the Laurent family movements…”

I

spun the top off a crystal bottle of bourbon and poured myself a very large drink. The meeting had left me emotionally drained in a way I couldn’t even describe. Not once did anyone mention why their meeting took place early. Perhaps some of them hoped to garner favor with my father in my absence. The fact that Father had gone along with it irked me even more.

Just as I was about to take a sip, a sharp tap-tap-tap came at the doors to my quarters

“Blasted hell.” I put the glass down and raised my voice. “Who the hell is it?”

“Your only friends, you ass,” a muffled voice called from beyond the heavy wooden door.

My irritated frown vanished, and I opened the door to see Raspion and Vincent standing in the hall. Rasp smiled broadly, and Vince flashed me a happy but somewhat awkward grin.

“Get in here,” I said. “It’s been weeks since I’ve seen you two.”

Rasp stepped in and made a beeline for the small bar, picking up a bottle and admiring the clear liquid inside.

“Gin. My favorite,” he said as he poured himself a drink.

“A drink, Vincent?” I asked.

“Oh, no. I’m fine,” Vincent said.

Raspion, my baby cousin, was several years younger than me and not quite the brightest bulb in the family. He had a good nature, though, and didn’t treat me with deference the way many in the other families and even my own household did. We had the same strawberry-blonde hair and blue eyes, but he was beefier and bulkier in his musculature. Where I was more lithe, like a swimmer or gymnast, he was the spitting image of a football linebacker.

Vincent was Benedictus Beatrix’s son. As much as I disliked his father, I liked Vincent even more. Vince was every inch a different man than his father. In fact, his difference was what caused Benedictus to mostly isolate and ignore him. Vincent was kind-hearted, if a little awkward. He was somehow both lethal in a fight, yet a gentle giant in most other things. Rather than being outspoken and well-versed in public, he tended to be more quiet and reserved, sometimes stumbling over his words if he got too anxious. The mountain of a man would have been more at home in quiet solitude with a couple of friends than in a boardroom or court meeting. Because of that, Benedictus thought he was an abject failure to their family. I’d befriended him and taken him under my wing at a young age, and that simple kindness had caused him to latch on to me and Rasp in a way I hadn’t anticipated, but never questioned.

He ducked his head under the door as he came in, a strange mannerism he always did even though he was only six foot three, an inch below my own six-four. His dark hair, pulled back into a tight ponytail, hung almost to his broad shoulders.

“How about some water?” I asked Vincent, gently nudging his arm. “Anything? Friends should drink together after spending a long time apart, right?”

Shrugging, he nodded. I was used to him going nonverbal sometimes. It was who he was, and I was okay with that.

After getting him a glass of sparkling water, the three of us sat in the chairs near the window that overlooked the rainy night and the glittering lights of the city below.

Rasp gestured out the window with his glass. “What do you think the humans would do if they knew we were here? Us, the fae, the wolves? You think they’d freak, or what?”

For a moment, I tried to imagine it. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture it. Part of that was because I’d grown up in a world where everyone was distrustful of wolf shifters and humans. Both species outnumbered us. The wolves, of course, but the humans even more so. It was hard to think of living in harmony with shifters who wanted you dead, and humans who spun legends of knights butchering your kind for fairy tales.

“I think,” I said, pausing to take a sip of my drink, “it would be better for us to worry less about the humans and more about ourselves.”

Rasp snorted a laugh. “Bro, really, you need to lighten up. You’re so serious all the time. Why don’t we go out tonight? It’s not even eleven yet. There’s a high-end human strip club I’ve been wanting to go to again. Chicks are fire.”

“Sounds delightful,” I muttered. Rasp was my friend, but some of the things he found fun and exciting were not what I wanted to be caught dead doing. “I’d prefer to stay in tonight, if you don’t mind.”

“Yeah,” Vince said. He held his glass of water in one hand, and used his other to snap a rubber band onto his skin, over and over.

I wasn’t surprised to see the rubber band on Vince’s arm, nor was I bothered at the sound of it snapping. It was a common thing for him to do. People who didn’t know him may have thought it strange, but it wasn’t. He was himself, and it didn’t matter to me what he did to make himself comfortable or calm. He was kind, fun, and good to be around, but his father didn’t see Vince’s ticks and habits as befitting for someone of his station. He expected Vince to be stoic and proper as he himself was. Sometimes I thought it was Benedict’s treatment of his son that made me dislike the man so much.

Rasp frowned at Vince. “Bro, you’ve never seen a woman naked, for fuck’s sake. You should be jumping at the chance. All you can say is ‘yeah’ to Aurelius? You’re killing me.”

Vince only snapped his rubber band again in answer.

I glared at Rasp, who sighed and threw his head back in exhaustion.

“Okay, fine,” Rasp groaned. “We won’t go see hot chicks naked, and I’m sorry, Vince. We cool?”

“Cool,” Vince mumbled. “All cool.”