The King (Black Dagger Brotherhood #12)(71)

Obviously, she’d been torn about staying in town or going back home.

Man, he felt for her. What a mess.

And it was funny, as much as he hated getting in the middle of things, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. Nothing.

God, what had he been mouthing during that seizure …?

About twenty minutes later, Fritz brought them safely to the Brotherhood’s secret compound. Circling the fountain in the center of the courtyard, he pulled into a space between Rhage’s purple GTO and V’s brand-new black-on-black R8.

The Brother still had the Escalade, of course. Just the newest version of it.

Getting out, John walked with the butler to the grand entrance. Unlike his father’s other place in town, this mansion was more fortress than home, its great stone walls rising up from the earth, as indestructible as the mountain they were built on.

If the eastern seaboard was carpet bombed for some reason? This place, Twinkies, and cockroaches. That was all that was going to be left.

John tapped the butler on the arm just as Fritz reached for the massive door’s bronze handle. You’ll get her things?

“But of course.” The doggen looked worried. “Just as she asked.”

The implications of the queen crashing somewhere other than in her own bedroom with her mate had not been lost on Fritz—but he was far too discreet to ask questions or make a fuss. Instead, he just radiated anxiety—to the point where if you’d had marshmallows and a stick, you probably could have made s’mores from the doggen’s aura.

Entering the vestibule, John put his face into the security camera and waited for a response. Ever since the First Family had moved in, there were no keys to the house, no way of gaining access unless you were let in by someone already in the interior.

And a moment later, the lock was sprung, and they were allowed to step through into the majestic front foyer. So much gold leaf, so many crystals, and those colored marble columns? It was a czar’s palace relocated to the mountains outside of Caldwell.

How had his father pulled it off? John wondered. In, like, 1914?

No clue. And even more impressive? For nearly a century, Darius had somehow been able to keep humans from prying into the private property, the lessers locked out of it … and the symphaths clueless as to its coordinates: This location, and its underground training center, had not been compromised in all its history. Even during the raids.

Quite an accomplishment. Quite a legacy.

God, he wish he’d known his father. Wished the Brother was still around—because he could sure as hell have used some advice on how to tell Wrath what was going on.

Pausing in the middle of the depiction of an apple tree in full bloom, John let Fritz go right ahead, the butler mounting the Buckingham Palace–worthy staircase at a spry jog.

Wrath was undoubtedly upstairs in his study—but first, he needed to get a translator.

Fuck.

Who the hell could he ask to—

“Where is she?”

John closed his eyes at the demand … and it was a minute before he could turn to the billiards room: Sure enough, standing right under the arch, the King was dressed in black leather, his hands locked on his hips, his jaw jutting forward.

Even though he was blind, and his eyes were hidden behind those wraparounds, John felt like the male was staring right. Fucking. At. Him.

All at once, the ambient noise John had been unaware of hearing went dead quiet: The Brothers who were playing pool behind Wrath suspended all movement, all talk, until only tracks from Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP 2 were left thumping in the background.

“John. Where is my mate.”

In the face of that glare, John walked forward. Yup, nearly all of the Brothers were in there with Wrath—no doubt they’d tweaked to his mood and had circled the wagons.

Sifting through the big bodies, he locked eyes with V and signed, I need you.

Vishous nodded and handed his cue off to Butch. Crushing his cigarette out in a crystal ashtray, he came over.

Wrath bared his fangs. “John, as God is my f*cking witness, I will cut you if you don’t—”

“Easy, there, big guy,” V gritted out. “I’m going to translate. You want to hit the library where we can—”

“No, I want to f*cking know where my shellan is!” Wrath boomed.

John started signing, and whereas most of the time people translated half sentences sequentially, V waited until he’d finished the whole report.

A couple of the Brothers muttered in the background as they shook their heads.

“In the library,” V ordered the King in a way John never could have. “You’re gonna wanna do this in the library.”

Wrong thing to say.

Wrath wheeled on the Brother and went for him with such speed and accuracy no one was prepared: One minute V was standing next to the King; the next he was defending himself against an attack that was as unprovoked as it was … well, vicious.

And then things went shit-wild.

Like Wrath knew he was on the thin edge of a bad ledge, he broke off from V, and went total wrecking ball on the billiards room. The first thing he ran into was the pool table Butch was chilling next to—and there was barely any time for the cop to get that ashtray up off the side rails: Wrath grabbed the gunnels and flipped the thing like it was nothing but a card table, the mahogany and slate-topped behemoth flying up so high, it wiped out the hanging light fixture above, its weight so great it splintered the marble floor beneath on landing.