Or…she could help V with his job.

She thought of all the secret meetings he went to, all those closed doors, those rooms she wasn’t welcome in, that information he never shared.

“It’s fine,” he muttered. “I know you’re busy—”

“You sure you want me to know anything about this?”

As she spoke, there was bitterness in her voice—and she had to admit she had been hurt for quite a while now. She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge this, of course, because, come on—she had her own life, and it wasn’t like she could share patient details with even him. But she had felt left out of so much of how he spent his hours, how he purposed his life, how he committed himself. He and the Brotherhood were so close, they were essentially one entity, between their working relationships and their off-rotation, inside-joke, male macho stuff.

Which she didn’t mind at all—as long as she felt like she and V had a connection.

“I have no problem with you knowing anything,” he said.

“You sure about that?”

“What’s that supposed to mean—”

She put her hand up. “I don’t want to fight.”

He took a deep breath, that star scar on his chest expanding out of shape and resettling. “I don’t, either. And I do mean that. Hell, you’ll probably be the one who makes sense of it all. You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever known.”

Jane looked away and tried to hide the little bit of sunshine that had bloomed, unexpected and unfamiliar, on her face.

She wasn’t going to tell him this…but that compliment meant more to her than any throwaway line about her being pretty or attractive would have.

Coming from someone like him? It was the highest form of praise she could get.

“Okay.” Her voice was rough so she cleared her throat and squared her shoulders. “I’ll go with you.”

* * *

—

Even though there was a lot of night to spare, Throe settled into his bed, reclining back against pillows soft as clouds.

In retiring to his private quarters, he was following—after too long a hiatus—the traditions of his class. Back before he had been conscripted into the Band of Bastards and forced to learn to fight or die, a mansion such as this one that he had taken over, and servants such as the ones he had created, and moments like this, where one reclined when feeling not well, were part of the normal course of life.

In truth, he was already recovered from the previous night’s strange chest pain. So this was out of an abundance of caution and a love of luxury.

There was also quality time to be had with his female.

Extending a hand, he put his palm on the cover of the ancient tome that had proven to be the means to his ends.

“My love,” he murmured as he closed his eyes.

The Book warmed under his touch, communicating with him as it did, filling him out in ways he’d been previously unaware of being deflated, restoring his energy after the pain and depletion he’d experienced back in that alley.

Yes, he thought, as he fully returned unto himself, strong once more. He needed more time with his love and then all would be well—even if a loss of one of his soldiers had compromised him, it would be only temporary. He would make more.

As Throe lay in quiet in a bedroom properly appointed for a member of the glymera, his thoughts embarked on an idyll through the recent past, as if he were going on a museum tour and the docents were stopping him from time to time before certain paintings.

He recalled going into that psychic’s in a bad part of town and being called unto the Book surely as if the thing were saying his name. He had been in search of dark magic, it was true—although he wouldn’t have stated such at the moment. All he had been presently aware of, as he had mounted those steps to the second floor of that walk-up and found himself transported to another dimension without his body changing positions, was that he had ambitions unto the throne that were struggling to find success.

Without the muscle of Xcor and the Band of Bastards, and with the aristocracy completely castrated with the dismantling of the Council, he had seen no way forward.

“But then I met you,” he murmured.

The Book had shown him how to create the shadows, the incantation requiring but a small sacrifice of his blood and some minor pain. It had been so easy, with the only fault being that each spell was a one-at-a-time.

If only there were Amazon Prime for the damn things.

As it stood, he had five—well, now four—shadow entities under his command. In order to defeat the Brotherhood, he would need so many more. A proper army.

The idea of doing that spell over and over and over again filled him with restless frustration. But what choice did he have? And they were a weapon that needed better defenses. If they could be eliminated with only bullets?

Under his palm, the Book grew cold as an ice cube, as if it were in disagreement—and he turned his head upon the pillow toward the tome.

“How can you disagree? My soldier was felled readily—ouch!” He jerked his hand off the cover and frowned. “Really? Must you.”

In the back of his mind, as he sent a glare at an inanimate object, he was aware that this was all off. Everything about what he was doing felt…as if he were subject to the will of another. These events, these choices, this…path…was only his own on the surface—

The Book threw its cover open; its pages, no longer dusty due to use, began to flip with growing speed. And then it settled on a folio.

Leaning to the side, he looked at the ink on the page. As usual, it was nonsensical to him, but he had been through this before. He had to wait until it translated itself for his eyes, for his language…

He smiled, a warm glow in his chest. “I have my faith,” he murmured. “And my faith has me…”

Across the page, the same sentence, written in the characters of the Old Language, was in all manner of sizes, the wording fitting in and around itself, forming a beautiful pattern.

“Let us not fight, my love,” he whispered as he dipped his head and pressed his lips to the page. “I have my faith, and my faith has me.” He caressed the page, feeling a velvet softness that was like the skin of a female. “I have my faith, and my faith has me. Ihavemyfaithandmyfaithhasme…”

An erection sprang forth at his hips and he ducked a hand beneath the sheets. Pushing his palm under the waistband of his silk pajamas, he gripped himself and felt a stab of lust go through him. A pumping action, strong and sure, was all he needed to find bliss as he said the words on the page over and over again—

A knock at the door lifted his head. It would be his tea. Earl Grey on a silver tray with sugar cubes and a lemon slice on the side.

The shadow he had sent to get it would wait out there until the earth ceased to exist, subject to Throe’s will and not its own, for though it moved, it had not a brain of its own.

The opposite of his Book.

“My love,” he said as he extended his tongue and licked up the page’s ink.

The taste was like the glorious, aroused sex of a female, and as he began to ejaculate, all was right in his world…

And he even had good help finally. Which was so hard to find.

TWENTY

Rehvenge’s Great Camp, on the shores of Lake George, was typical of the summer houses built in the Adirondacks in the 1870s. Cedar-shingled, multi-porched, and so close to the water you could spit a watermelon seed or toss your empty G-n-T’s ice into the lake with ease, the estate was a gracious nod to earlier times. Especially in winter. With the steep, snow-covered mountains framing its acreage, and threads of smoke rising from its five brick chimneys, it was the kind of place you wanted to curl up in with a good book and not come out until spring.

As Jane crunched through the snow to the rear door, she had her hands in her pockets and her head down. It was so cold her ears burned at the tips and her cheeks tightened up, but she didn’t want to solve the “problem” by fading out.

It felt good to be in the elements and not distracted by an emergency, and she stopped and looked up. Overhead, the sky was full of stars that shone so clearly, they were like pinpricks in a theater curtain, and the high, almost-full moon provided illumination that the winter landscape turned shades of blue.