Inside was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in rubies. Cut. Ready to be set.

“You need to come home.”

He was too tired to play the game. “That colony is not my home.”

“Wrong. So very wrong. But you’ll come around. I guarantee it.” On that she disappeared into thin air.

Rehv sagged, planting his palm onto the cabin’s wall as a black wave of exhaustion shot through him.

As the door opened, he righted himself and picked up his pants. Trez said nothing, just came over and steadied him.

Sick as he was, and would become, he himself put his clothes on. That was important to him. He always did that himself.

When his jacket was back in place and his tie looped around his neck and his cane in his hand, his best friend and bodyguard scooped him up and carried him like a child back to his car.

Chapter Thirty-six

Stress in a person was like air in a balloon. Too much pressure, too much shit, too much bad news… and the birthday party gets messy.

Phury ripped open his bedside table drawer even though he’d just looked in it. “Shit.”

Where the fuck was all his red smoke?

He took his near-empty Baggie out of his breast pocket. Barely enough for a thin one. Which meant he’d better hightail it down to ZeroSum before the Reverend closed for the night.

He pulled on his light jacket so that he’d have someplace to hide the full bag when he came back, then jogged down the grand staircase. As he hit the foyer, his head was alive and writhing, swelling up with the wizard’s Top Ten Reasons Phury, Son of Ahgony, Is a Shithead.

Number ten: Manages to get self kicked out of Brotherhood. Number nine: Drug addict. Number eight: Fights with twin when twin’s pregnant shellan is in a bad way. Number seven: Drug addict. Number six: Shits on female he wants to be with, driving her away. Number five: Tells lies to protect addictive behavior.

Or did that fall under nine and seven?

Number four: Lets down parents. Number three: Drug addict. Number two: Falls in love with aforementioned driven-away female-

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

Had he fallen in love with Cormia? How? When?

The wizard popped into his head. To hell with that, mate. Finish the list. C’mon. Fine… I think we’ll put “Drug Addict ” as number one, shall we?

“Where are you going?” Wrath’s voice came down from above like some kind of conscience, and Phury froze with his hand on the vestibule’s door.

“Where?” the king demanded.

Nowhere special, Phury thought without turning around. Just fucking insane.

“Out for a drive,” he said, and held his car keys up over his head.

At this point, the lie didn’t bother him in the slightest. He just wanted everyone to get out of his way. When he had his red smoke, when he was calm and his head was no longer a pipe bomb waiting to go off, he could go back to interacting.

Wrath’s boots hit the stairs, the beat of his stride a countdown to one fuck of a bitch-slapping. Phury turned to face the king, a low-boil anger lighting off in his chest.

And what do you know, Wrath wasn’t in a Hallmark mood either. His brows were behind his wraparounds, his fangs long, his body tense as hell.

Clearly there had been more bad news.

“What’s happened now?” Phury bit out, wondering when in the hell the current shit storm was going to move on to another group of people’s lives.

“Four families from the glymera got hit tonight, and there were no survivors. I’ve got something awful to tell Qhuinn, but can’t get hold of him or John Matthew at their stakeout at Blaylock’s.”

“You want me to go over there?”

“No, I want you to get your ass to the Sanctuary and do your fucking duty,” Wrath snapped. “We need more Brothers, and you agreed to be the Primale, so stop putting the shit off.”

Phury was itching to bare his fangs, but he stayed tight. “I’ve chosen another First Mate. She’s being prepared, and I’m going there at nightfall tomorrow.”

Wrath’s brows flicked up. Then he nodded once. “Okay. Good. Now, what’s Blaylock’s number? I’m going to send the kid back over to his house. All the Brothers are busy, and I don’t want Qhuinn hearing this over the phone.”

“I can go-”

“The hell you can,” the king shot back. “Even if you were still part of the Brotherhood, with the shit that’s going down right now, I’m not losing the race’s Primale, fuck you very much. Now what the good goddamn is Blaylock’s number?”

Phury gave Wrath the digits, nodded a good-bye, and walked out through the vestibule. He didn’t give a shit that he’d told Wrath he was going for a drive; he left his BMW where it was parked in the courtyard and dematerialized downtown.

Wrath knew he’d been lying anyway. And there was no reason to delay the trip to ZeroSum by taking his car just to live up to a falsity they were both well aware of.

When he came up to the club’s entrance, Phury bypassed the wait line by simply walking up and having the bouncer get out of his way.

In the VIP section, iAm was standing at the door to Rehvenge ’s office. The Moor didn’t seem to be surprised to see him, but, then, it was hard to surprise either one of Rehv’s private guards.

“Boss isn’t here; you want to make a buy?” the guy asked.

Phury nodded, and iAm showed him the way in. Rally, the scale minion, scampered off after Phury flashed his open palm twice.

iAm leaned his hip against Rehvenge’s desk and simply stared across the office, his black eyes impassive, calm. His brother, Trez, was the hothead of the two of them, so Phury had always thought that iAm was the one you needed to watch out for.

Although he supposed it was kind of like choosing between two different guns: a matter of degree.

“Word of advice,” the Moor said.

“I’ll pass.”

“Tough. Don’t jump to the harder stuff, my friend.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit.”

Rally came out from the hidden door in the corner, and as Phury looked at all those leaves in that clear plastic bag, his blood pressure dropped and his heartbeat eased up. He gave his thousand dollars over and got out of that office as fast as he could, ready for business back in his bedroom.

Just as he headed for the side exit, he saw Xhex standing by the VIP bar. Her eyes dropped to his arm, which was buried in his coat, and then she frowned and mouthed, Fuck.

As she came striding toward him, he had the bizarre impression she was going to try to snatch back his stash, and that was a no-go. He’d paid in good cash and bought what he had at a fair price. There was no reason for management to have beef with him.

He quickly ducked out the door and dematerialized. He had no fucking clue what the problem was, and he didn’t care. He had what he needed and was going home.

As he traveled in a scramble of molecules back to the mansion, he thought about that druggie in the alley, the one who’d sliced up his dealer and then picked through the man’s pockets while blood went everywhere.

Phury tried to believe that wasn’t him. Tried not to see the desperation of the last twenty minutes as the stepping-stone to what that druggie had done with that switchblade.

The reality was, though, that nothing and no one was safe if they were between an addict and what he craved.

As John looked around Blay’s backyard, he felt like he’d done this a thousand times. This waiting, this watching… this predatory pause, it all seemed second nature to him. Which was nuts.

Nah, something told him. This is really just business as usual. You’re only figuring that out now, though.

Next to him in the shadows, Qhuinn was surprisingly still. Usually the guy was always moving, tapping his feet and hands, walking around, chattering. Not tonight, not in this stand of honeysuckle bushes.