Black Dagger Brotherhood 11 - Lover at Last

across. “Whatever. I’m going to go work on these phones. And you need to buy yourself another vehicle—anything as long as it’s not a Prius. Later.”
    When John and he were alone, it was pretty clear the guy was warming up to say something about the showdown at the side of the road.
    “I don’t want to hear it, John. I just don’t have the strength right now.”
    Shit
, John signed.
    “That about covers it, my man. You heading up to the house?”
    Under the strict interpretation of the
ahstrux nohtrum
job, Qhuinn needed to be with John twenty-four/seven. But the king had given them a dispensation if they were within the confines of the compound. Otherwise Qhuinn would have been learning way too much about his buddy and Xhex.
    And John would have had to witness him and Layla…um, yeah.
    When John nodded, Qhuinn opened the door and held it wide. “After you.”
    He refused to look his friend in the face as the fighter passed, just couldn’t do it. Because he knew exactly what was on the guy’s mind—and he had no interest in talking about what had happened on that stretch of road he’d walked down before. Not the crap from tonight. Not the crap from…all those nights ago thanks to the Honor Guard.
    He was finished with chatting it up.
    Shit never helped anyone over nuthin’.

    Saxton, son of Tyhm, closed the final Book of Oral History and could only stare at the fine-grain leather cover with its gold-embossed detailing.
    The last one.
    He couldn’t believe it. How long had this research been going on? Three months? Four months? How could it be over?
    A quick visual survey of the Brotherhood’s library, with its hundreds and hundreds of volumes of law, discourse, and royal decrees…and he thought, yes, indeed, it had taken months and months to go through them all. And now, with the digging complete, the notationsmade, and the legal path for what the king wanted to accomplish carved out, there should have been a sense of accomplishment.
    Instead, he felt dread.
    In his training and practice as a lawyer, he had tackled sticky problems before—especially after he had come here to this vast house and begun to function as the Blind King’s personal solicitor: The Old Laws were very convoluted, archaic not just in their wording, but in their very content—and the ruler of the vampire race was not at all like that. Wrath’s thinking was both straightforward and revolutionary, and when it came to his rule, the past and the future did not often coexist without a good deal of reframing—of the Old Laws, that was.
    This was on a whole different level, however.
    Wrath, as sovereign, could do fairly much what he wanted—provided the appropriate precedents were identified, recast, and recorded. After all, the king was the living, breathing law, a physical manifestation of the order necessary for a civilized society. The problem was, tradition didn’t happen by accident; it was the result of generations upon generations living and making choices based on a certain set of rules that was accepted by the public. Progressive thinkers trying to lead entrenched, conservative societies in new directions tended to run into problems.
    And this…further alteration of the way things were done? In the current political environment, where Wrath’s leadership was already being challenged—
    “You’re deep in thought.”
    At the sound of Blay’s voice, Saxton jumped and nearly lost his Montblanc over his shoulder.
    Immediately, Blay reached forward as if to calm what had been ruffled. “Oh, I’m sorry—”
    “No, it’s all right, I—” Saxton frowned as he regarded the soldier’s wet and bloodied clothing. “Dearest Virgin Scribe…what happened tonight?”
    Evidently in lieu of answering, Blay headed over for the bar on the antique bombé chest in the corner. As he took his time choosing between the sherry and a Dubonnet, it was rather clear he was preparing a sequence of words in his head.
    Which meant it had to do with Qhuinn.
    In fact, Blay cared for neither sherry nor Dubonnet. And sure enough, he helped himself to a port.
    Saxton eased back in his chair and looked upward at the chandelier that hung so far above the floor. The fixture was a stunning specimen from Baccarat, made in the middle nineteenth century, with all of the leaded-glass crystals and careful workmanship one would expect.
    He recalled it swinging from side to side subtly, the rainbow refractions of light twinkling all around the