He bowed to his king and left without another word. Bravo, the wizard called out. Such a shame your parents are already dead, mate. They’d be so delighted in this proud moment-wait, let’s bring them back, shall we?

He was slammed with two quick images: his father passed out in a room full of empty ale bottles, his mother lying in a bed with her face turned to the wall.

Phury went back to his room, took out his stash, rolled up a blunt, and lit it.

With everything that had happened tonight, and the wizard playing the role of the anti-Oprah, he either smoked or he screamed. So he smoked.

Across town, Xhex was not in her happy place as she escorted Rehvenge out of ZeroSum’s back door and into his bulletproof Bentley. Rehv didn’t look any better than she felt, her boss nothing but a grim dark shadow in a full-length sable coat as he slowly moved through the alley.

She opened the driver’s-side door for him and waited as he eased himself into the bucket seat with the help of his cane. Even in the seventy-degree night, he cranked the heater and pulled his coat’s lapels closer to his neck-a sign that his last hit of dopamine had yet to wear off. It would soon enough. He always went unmedicated. It wasn’t safe otherwise.

Wasn’t safe, period.

For twenty-five years, she had wanted to go with him to back his ass up for these visits with his blackmailer, but getting shut down every time she asked had made her cut her losses and keep her yap shut. The cost of her silence was a bad fucking mood, though.

“You staying at your safe house?” she said.

“Yeah.”

She shut the door and watched him drive off. He didn’t tell her where the meetings were, but she knew the rough vicinity. The GPS system in the car indicated he went upstate.

God, she hated what he had to do.

Thanks to her fuckup two and a half decades ago, Rehv had to whore himself out the first Tuesday of every month to protect them.

The symphath Princess he serviced was dangerous. And hungry for him.

At first, Xhex had waited for the bitch to turn him and Xhex in anonymously for deportation to the symphath colony. But she was smarter than that. If they got shipped, they’d be lucky to survive six months, even as strong as they were. Half-breeds were no match for the full-bloods, and besides, the Princess was mated to her own uncle.

Who was a power-driven, possessive despot if there ever was one.

Xhex cursed. She had no idea why Rehv didn’t hate her, and she couldn’t fathom how he could stand the fucking part of it. She had a feeling, though, these nights were why he took such good care of his girls. Unlike your average pimp, he knew exactly how the prostitutes felt, knew precisely what it was like to screw someone you didn’t want because they had something you needed, be it cash or silence.

Xhex had yet to find them a way out, and what made the situation even more untenable was that Rehv had stopped looking to get free. What had once been a crisis situation had become the new reality. Two decades later, he was still fucking to protect them, and it was still Xhex’s fault, and every first Tuesday of the month, he went and did the unthinkable with someone he hated… and that was life.

“Fuck,” she said to the alleyway. “When is this going to change?”

The only reply she got was a gust that blew newspaper pages and plastic bags her way.

As she went back into the club, her eyes adjusted to the flaring lasers, her ears absorbed the trippy music, her skin registered a slight drop in temperature.

The VIP section seemed relatively quiet with just the usual regulars, but she made eye contact with both her bouncers anyway. After they nodded the all-clear, she looked over the girls who were working the banquettes. Watched the cocktail waitresses tray empties and deliver replacements. Measured the bottle levels behind the VIP bar.

When she got to the velvet rope, she looked over the crowd in the main part of the club. The great throng on the dance floor was moving like an unsettled ocean, surging and parting and coming together again. Couples and trios on the fringes were gyrating while they hooked up, the lasers bouncing off shadowy faces and bodies that were melded together.

Tonight was relatively low traffic, as the weeks geared up slowly, attendance growing until traffic peaked on Saturday nights. For her as head of security, Fridays were usually the most intense, with idiots burning off the residue of a bad workweek by doing too many drugs and either OD’ing or breaking into brawls.

That being said, as dumb-asses with addictions were the club’s bread and butter, shit could go south any moment of any night.

Good thing she rocked at her job. Rehv handled the sale of drugs, booze, and women, managed his fleet of sports bookies that ran lines to the mob in Vegas, and contracted for certain special projects involving “enforcement.” She was in charge of keeping the club’s environment in control so business could be conducted with as little interference from the human police and the idiot patrons as possible.

She was about to go check the mezzanine level when she saw what she referred to as the Boys come in the front door.

Stepping back into the shadows, she watched as the three young males came through the VIP section’s velvet rope and headed for the back. They always went for the Brotherhood ’s table if the thing was empty, which meant they were either strategic, as it was next to an emergency exit and in a corner, or they’d been told to sit there and mind their manners by the powers that be.

“Powers” as in the king, Wrath.

Yeah, the Boys weren’t your average little cock cabal, she thought as they parked it. For a whole host of reasons.

The one with the mismatched eyes was trouble looking for a landing pad, and true to form, after he ordered his Corona he got up and went out to the main part of the club to find some tail. The redhead stayed behind, which was also not a surprise. He was your essential Eagle Scout, straight up as a ruler. Which made her suspicious as to what was under that apple-pie image.

Of the three, though, the mute was the real issue. His name was Tehrror, a.k.a. John Matthew, and the king was his whard. Which meant the kid was a china plate in a bullpen, as far as Xhex was concerned. Anything happened to him? The club was flushed.

Man, the kid had changed over the last few months. She’d seen him pretransition, all scrawny and weak, totally crushable, but now she was looking at one fuck of a big male… and big males were problems if they got to throwing their meat around. Although John had up until now been a sit-back -and-watch type, the kid’s eyes were way too old in his young face, which suggested he’d been through some bad shit. And bad shit tended to be the gas on the fire when people cracked.

Mismatched Eyes, a.k.a. Qhuinn, son of Lohstrong, came back with a pair of ready-and-willings, two blondes who’d evidently color-coordinated their outfits to match their cosmopolitans: both were wearing not much pink.

The redhead, Blaylock, didn’t have a lot of game, but that was no problem, because Qhuinn had plenty for both of them. Hell, the guy would have had plenty for John Matthew, too, except that one didn’t play. At least, not that Xhex had ever seen.

After John’s buddies disappeared into the back with the R amp;Ws, Xhex walked over to the kid for no good reason. He stiffened as he caught sight of her, but he always did that, just like he always watched her. When you were head of security, folks tended to want to know where you were.

“How you doing?” she asked.

He shrugged and fiddled with his Corona bottle. Bet he wished it had a label to pick off, she thought.

“Mind if I ask you something?”

His eyes popped a little, but he shrugged again.