Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(87)

Which he supposed it was—

The back door swung open and Fritz leaned out, the butler’s old face falling forward like a basset hound looking over the lip of a step.

“Sire? Would you care for me to wash your automobile?”

V shook his head. It went without saying that when this doggen offered something like that, there was no royal “we.” The ancient male would get a bucket and a clean cloth and some appropriate soap, and he would stand out here in the forty-five-degree weather playing Mr. Miyagi until the R8 gleamed like onyx.

“I’m good, but thanks.”

Fritz stepped aside as V entered. “A Grey Goose for you then, Sire?”

“On duty.”

The butler bowed low. “But of course. May I mention that the others have already arrived? I do believe they’re waiting for you and Master Lassiter.”

“Great,” V murmured.

Man, he wished he could have yes sir’d that vodka offer.

As he walked through the kitchen, with its cooking staff in uniforms and its homey smells that he’d never grown up with and only knew as a grown-up because Fritz was in his life, the sense that there was something on his heels dogged him.

That paranoia was the real reason he’d taken the car instead of just dematerializing here. He’d been hoping to lose the nagging awareness somewhere along the winding roads around the mountain, or on the Northway going a hundred miles an hour, or maybe even in the suburban sprawl of strip malls and apartment complexes and nebbish neighborhoods that eventually thinned out to this wealthy zip code.

Nope.

Stopping in the tall hall that connected the servant part of the house with the public rooms, he stared out to the front entrance where the civilians came in to meet with their King, and receive blessings, and advice, and rulings on disputes.

V glanced behind himself.

Then he closed his eyes. Sending his instincts on a recon mission, he searched the house without moving from where he stood, tracking the sounds of the brothers talking in the converted dining room where Wrath took his audiences… hearing the receptionist accept an appointment in the waiting room across the foyer… noting the genial pitter-pat of chat from the doggen in the kitchen. Up above, the second floor was silent, and for some reason he thought of the first time he’d ever slept next to Butch in that guest room there, those twin beds regressing them back to being kids.

Re-leveling his head, he narrowed his eyes. No vision had come to him during the day, and that should have made him feel better. When a person only saw previews of the future that were of the maim, flame, and war game variety, you were kind of relieved to have a blank screen in that part of your brain.

The problem was… he never saw things that directly affected himself. And that was what was worrying him. With all the shit swirling around, he had a feeling another shoe was dropping. He just couldn’t see the where. Yet.

Taking out his phone, he put through a call. And after things were answered on the second ring, his heart rate quadrupled—

“Well, hello there,” his shellan, Jane, said.

Thank fuck, he thought.

Immediately, her voice got tense. “Wait, you’re on rotation. What’s wrong—”

“I want you to do something for me.”

“Anything. What do you need.”

Goddamn, he loved her. “I want you to stay in at the training center for the rest of tonight.”

“Oh.” Pause. “Well, I was going to go to Havers’s and see about Nate. Manny’s been updating me, but I just want to check the kid out for myself.”

“You’re at your clinic now though, right?”

“Yes. Ehlena and I are catching up on medical charts.”

“Jane, you gotta stay there. You can teleconference for Nate, okay? And I don’t want you to go to the Pit, either. Stay inside the compound.”

“Vishous. What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know, and that’s what scares the piss out of me. But as long as you’re safe, I can concentrate on everything else.”

There was the briefest of hesitations. “All right. Should I tell Ehlena and the others to stay in?”

“Yes, all of them. All the shellans, all the young.”

“Okay. I’ll make sure of it.”

He closed his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Be careful,” she said.

“Always.”

As they ended the call with ILYs, he started walking again. The dining room was on the left and its double doors were closed. Before he went inside, he leaned into the waiting area and hi-how’re-ya’d the receptionist. She gave him a little wave with her pen and didn’t break stride with her rescheduling.

Made sense. She had at least eight appointments to cancel. Maybe more depending on whether the rest of the night was in the shit show or the floor show category.

One was just drama that took care of itself. The other required intervention to get right.

Over at those floor-to-ceiling doors, he grabbed the matching brass knobs and gave a pull. Instantly, the conversation on the far side dried up—and then when the group saw it was just him, the volume boomeranged to prior decibels. He re-shut things not because the real discussion was going down, but to spare the staff the noise.

At least the Brotherhood, the Bastards, and the fighters could fit in the cavernous space. With the long mahogany table moved out, and the chair contingency cut to two padded ones in front of the fireplace and only a couple by Saxton’s desk over in the corner, there was plenty of room. Searching through the bodies, V spotted his roommate over by the sideboard and he shouldered his way through the congestion to Butch.