qhuinn emerged from the hidden door under the grand stairway at around six p.m. that evening. his head was still a little fuzzy, his footfalls more shuffle than step, his body aching all over. but, hey, he was upright, he was mobile, and he was alive.

things could be worse.

plus he had a purpose. when doc jane had come in to check on him just now, she'd told him that wrath had called a meeting of the brotherhood. of course, she'd also informed him that he was off rotation and had to stay in bed in the clinic - but like he was going to miss the postgame wrap-up on what had gone down at assail's? negs.

she'd done her best to persuade him otherwise, naturally, but in the end, she'd dialed up and told the king to expect one more.

as he came around the carved post of the banister, he could hear the brothers talking on the second floor, those voices loud and deep, overriding one another. clearly, wrath hadn't called shit to order yet - which meant there was time to grab a drink of the alcohol variety before going up.

because, duh, that was precisely what you needed when you were rocky on your pins to begin with.

after some careful assessment, he decided that the distance to the library was shorter than that to the billiards room. old-manning his way to the oak doors, he froze as soon as he got to the archway.

"holy hell..."

there were at least fifty books of the old law crowding the floor, and that wasn't the half of it. over at the trestle table beneath the leaded-glass windows, more leather-bound volumes had been cracked open and were lying with their guts exposed like soldiers shot dead on a battlefield.

two computers. a laptop. legal pads.

a creak from up high lifted his eyes. saxton was on the rolling teak ladder, reaching for a book on the top shelf by the ceiling molding.

"good evening to you, cousin," the guy said from his lofty perch.

just the male he needed to see. "what's doing with all this?"

"you're looking rather well recovered." the ladder creaked again as the male descended with his prize. "all and sundry have been worried."

"nah, i'm fine." qhuinn went over to liquor bottles lined up on the marble-topped bombe chest. "so what are you working on?"

do not think of him with blay. do not think of him with blay. do not think of him -

"i didn't know you were a sherry man."

"huh?" qhuinn glanced down at what he'd poured himself. fuck. in the midst of the self-lecture, he'd picked up the wrong bottle. "oh, you know... i'm good with it."

to prove the point, he tossed back the hooch - and nearly choked as the sweetness hit his throat.

he served himself another only so he didn't look like the kind of idiot who wouldn't know what he was dishing out into his own glass.

okay, gag. the second was worse than the first.

from out of the corner of his eye, he watched saxton settle in at the table, the brass lamp in front of him casting the most perfect glow over his face. shiiiiiit, he looked like something out of a ralph lauren ad, with his buff-colored tweed jacket and his pointed pocket square and that button-down/sweater vest combo keeping his fucking liver cozy.

meanwhile, qhuinn was sporting hospital scrubs, bare feet. and sherry.

"so what's the big project?" he asked again.

saxton glanced over with a strange light in his eyes. "it's a game changer, as you might say."

"ohhhh, supersecret king stuff."

"indeed."

"well, good luck with it. looks like you've got enough to keep you busy for a while."

"i'll be at this for a month, maybe more."

"what are you doing, rewriting the whole goddamn law?"

"just a part of it."

"man, you make me love my job. i'd rather get shot at than do paperwork." he poured himself a third cocksucking sherry and then tried not to look too much like a zombie as he headed for the door. "have fun with it."

"and you with your endeavors, dear cousin. i would be up there as well, but i have been given no time to accomplish too much."

"you'll get through it."

"indeed. i will."

as qhuinn nodded and then hit the stairs, he thought... well, at least that exchange hadn't been too bad. he hadn't imagined anything x-rated. or entertained visions of beating the motherfucker until he bled out all over his nice threads.

progress. yay.

up on the second story, the double doors of the study were wide-open, and he paused when he got a gander at the size of the crowd. holy crap... everyone was there. as in not just the brothers and the fighters, but the shellans... and the staff?

there were literally forty people in the room, packed in like sardines around the pansy-ass furniture.

then again, maybe it did make sense. after that goddamn sharpshooter attack, the king was back behind his desk, sitting on his throne, all but risen from the dead. kind of warranted a celebration, he supposed.

before stepping into the fray, he went to take another haul of the sherry, but one whiff of the shit in his nose and his goiter went no-go. leaning to the side, he tossed the stuff out into a potted plant, left the glass on the hall table and -

the instant they saw him come through the door, everyone shut up. sure as if there were a remote to the room and someone had muted the picture.

qhuinn froze. glanced down at himself in case he was flashing something indecent. looked behind him in the event there was someone important coming up the stairs.

then he looked around the room, wondering what he had missed -

in the great, yawning absence of sound and movement, wrath braced himself against his queen's arm and grunted as he rose to his feet. he had a bandage around his neck, and he looked a little pale, but he was alive... and wearing an expression so intense, qhuinn felt like he was being physically enveloped.

and then the king put the hand that bore the black diamond ring of the race to his own chest, right in the middle, directly over his heart... and slowly, gingerly, with the help of his shellan, bent over at the waist.

to bow at qhuinn.

as all the blood drained out of qhuinn's head, and he wondered what the fuck the most important vampire on the planet was doing, someone started clapping slowly.

clap. clap. clap!

others joined in, until the entire assembly, from phury and cormia, to z and bella and baby nalla, to fritz and his staff... to vishous and payne and their mates, to butch and marissa and rehv and ehlena... were clapping for him with tears unshed in their eyes.

qhuinn tucked his arms around himself as his mismatched stare bounced anywhere and everywhere.

until it settled on blaylock.

the redhead was over to the right-hand side, clapping like the rest of them, his blue eyes luminous with emotion.

then again, he would know how much something like this meant to a fucked-up kid with a congenital defect whose family hadn't wanted him around for the embarrassment and social disgrace.

he would know how hard the gratitude was to accept.

he would know how much qhuinn just wanted to escape from the attention... even as he was touched beyond measure at this honor he did not deserve.

in the midst of all he couldn't handle, he just looked at his old, dear friend.

as always, blay was the anchor who kept him from being swept away.

as xhex tooled up through the mhis on her bike, she found it hard to believe she was making the trip to the mansion under royal command: wrath himself had extended the "invite" - and as much of an iconoclast as she was, she wasn't about to shut down a direct order from the king.

man, she was nauseous.

when she'd first gotten the voice mail, she'd assumed that john was dead, having been killed out on the field. a quick hail mary text to him had been replied to immediately, however. short and sweet. just will u come @ nightfall?

that was all she got back; even after she said yes, and had expected something further from him.

so yeah, she felt like throwing up because this was probably john putting an end to them officially. the vampire equivalent of divorce was rare, but the old laws did provide for an out legally. and naturally, for people at john's social level - namely, that of the blooded son of a black dagger brother - the king was the only one who could give them dispensation to split.

this had to be the end.

shit, she actually was going to throw up.

pulling around in front of the mansion, she didn't park the ducati at the tail end of the orderly row of muscle cars, suvs, and station wagons. nope - she left the bike right at the base of the stairs. if this was a royal divorce decree, she was going to help john put an end to their misery, and then she was...

well, she was going to call trez and tell him she couldn't come to work. then she was going to lock herself in her cabin and cry like a girl. for a week or two...

so stupid. this whole thing between them was so fucking stupid. but she couldn't change him, and he couldn't change her, so what the hell did they have left? it had been months since they'd had anything but distance and awkard silence between them. and the trend wasn't reversing itself; the black hole was just getting deeper and darker....

as she mounted the steps to the grand double doors, she was breaking in half, shattering sure as if her bones had turned brittle and were collapsing under the weight of her muscles. but she kept going, because that was what fighters did. they pushed on past the pain and took out their objective - and sure as shit she and john were killing something tonight, something that had been so precious and rare she was ashamed of them both for not finding a way to nurture it in the midst of the cold, hard world.

inside the vestibule, she didn't step up immediately to the camera's eye. never a prepper-upper kind of female, she nonetheless found herself brushing fingertips under her eyes and shuffling a palm over her short hair. a quick straightening of her leather jacket - and her spine - and she told herself to suck it up.

she had gotten through legions of things worse than this.

through pride alone, she could marshal some self-control for the next ten or fifteen minutes.

she had the rest of her natural life to lose her goddamn composure in private.

with a curse, she hit the summons button and stepped back, forcing herself to look into the camera. as she waited, she straightened her jacket again. stomped her boots. double-checked that her guns were where they'd been holstered.

played with her hair.

okay, what the hell.

leaning to the side, she gave that button another stab. the doggen here had high standards. you rang that bell, and it was answered within moments.

on the third try, she debated how many more times she was going to have to beg for -

the vestibule's inner door was thrown wide and fritz looked mortified. "my lady! i am so sorry - "

a loud cacophony drowned out whatever else the butler said, and she frowned as she looked past the old male. up over the doggen's white head, at the top of the grand staircase, there was a tremendous crowd milling around and drifting off, as if a party had just broken up.

maybe someone had just told everybody they were getting mated.

good luck with that, she thought.

"big announcement?" she asked as she stepped through into the foyer and braced herself for someone else's happy news.

"more a recognition." the butler put his weight, such as it was, into shutting the door. "i shall allow the others to inform you."

ever the dutiful butler - discreet to his very marrow.

"i'm here to see - "

"the brotherhood. yes, i know."

xhex frowned. "it was wrath, i thought."

"well, yes, of course the king as well. please come up to the royal study."

as she crossed the mosaic floor and started her ascent, she nodded at the folks coming down... the shellans, the staff she knew, the people she had lived with for a mere matter of weeks, but who had become, in a short time, a sort of family to her.

she was going to miss them almost as much as john.

"madam?" the butler asked. "are you all right?"

xhex forced a smile and guessed she had probably let out some kind of curse. "fine, just fine."

when she got to wrath's study, there was so much approval in the air, she practically had to push the shit aside to walk into the room: the brothers were all thick chested with pride... except for qhuinn, who was blushing so deeply he'd turned himself into a roman candle.

john, however, appeared reserved - not looking at her at all, but at some middle ground right in front of himself.

from behind the desk, wrath focused on her. "and now on to business," the king announced.

as the doors shut behind her, she had no fucking clue what was doing. john still refused to even glance at her... and, shit, the king had a wound on his neck - assuming he hadn't decided that white gauze at the throat was some kind of fashion statement.

everyone shut up, settled down, got serious.

oh, man, they had to do this in front of the whole brotherhood?

then again, what else could she have expected? the groupthink was so pervasive in this bunch of males, of course they'd all want to be present when things were finished.

she stood strong. "let's get this over with. where do i sign?"

wrath frowned. "i'm sorry?"

"on the papers."

the king glanced over at john. looked back. "this is not the kind of thing i'll be reducing to writing. ever."

xhex glanced around and then refocused on john, reading his emotional grid. he was... nervous. saddened. and purposeful in such a powerful way, she was momentarily struck stupid.

"what the hell is going on here," she demanded.

the king's voice was loud and clear. "i have an assignment for you - if you're interested. something that i have on good authority you can discharge with remarkable skill. assuming you are open to helping us."

xhex stared at john in shock.

he was responsible for this, she thought. whatever wheels were turning in this room, he had set them in motion.

"what have you done?" she said directly to him.

that got him to look at her properly. raising his hands, he signed, there are limits to what we can do. we need you for this.

glancing at rehv, she got a whole lot of grave coming back at her - and nothing more. no censure, no girls-not-allowed. same for the rest of the males in the room: there was nothing but calm acceptance of her presence... and her capabilities.

"what exactly do you want from me?" she said to the king slowly.

as the male spoke, she continued to look at john while hearing things like band of bastards... an assassination attempt... their lair... a rifle.

with each passing sentence, her brows cranked higher and higher.

okay, so not about a bake sale or some shit. this was locating the heart of the enemy, infiltrating their secure domain, and removing any long-range weaponry that could have been used to try to kill wrath the night before.

thus providing the brotherhood, if all went as expected, with the proof they needed to condemn xcor and his soldiers to death.

xhex put her hands on her hips - so they wouldn't start rubbing together with glee. this was right up her alley - an impossible proposition backed up by a principle she could get behind: revenge on someone who had fucked you.

"so what do you think?" wrath asked.

xhex stared over at john, willing him to look at her again. when he did not, she just reread his emotional grid: he was terrified, but he was resolved.

he wanted her to do this. but why? what the hell had changed?

"yeah, it's something i'm interested in," she heard herself say.

as deep male voices growled approval, the king curled up a fist and banged it on the desk. "good! well-done. there's just one thing."

a catch. naturally. "i work best on my own. i don't want eight hundred pounds of babysitter sneaking around behind me."

"nope. you go by yourself - knowing that you have all our resources as backup if you need or want them. the one constraint is that you can't kill xcor."

"no problem, i'll just bring him in alive for questioning."

"nope. you can't touch him. no one can until we analyze the bullet. and then if we find what i think we will, he's tohr's to kill. by official proclamation."

xhex glanced over at the brother. jesus christ, he looked totally different, as if he were a younger, healthy relation of the guy she had known since wellsie had been killed. and given the way he was now? xcor had a grave with his name on it already dug.

"what happens if i have to defend myself?"

"you have permission to do whatever you have to in order to secure your safety. in fact, in that event..." the king turned his blind eyes in john's direction. "i encourage you to bring every weapon you have to bear in your own defense."

read: use that symphath side of yours, girlfriend.

"but if possible," wrath added, "leave as much undisturbed as possible, and xcor aboveground."

"that shouldn't be a problem," xhex said. "i don't have to touch him or any of the others. i can keep it just about the rifle."

"good." as the king smiled and flashed his fangs, the others started talking in a rush. "perfect - "

"wait, i haven't agreed to anything yet," she said, shutting them all up as she looked over at john. "not... yet."