He shook his head.
“Didn’t think so.”
The castle was once the seat of the Lingdon Dynasty, precisely because flying was the only way in—after that, the real challenges to entry began.Originally named an unimaginative yet accurate Abysmal Fortress, it hunkered on a floating island that was encircled by a sheer drop that had no end he’d ever seen.
Despite its many rooms, the castle didn’t accept guests.
It only begrudgingly tolerated Alobaz and his friends.
“The whole damn point of drinking from feeders and fucking whores is to keep things simple.Scratch that itch so we stay sharp but with no problems.”
“Right on.”
“You know it’s no good to be strung tight.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Things are supposed to be simple now.Noentanglements.”
“Yup.”
“So why does it feel like the complicated’s only just getting started?”
Night looked at him.
Alobaz scratched the slight beard that had grown in over the previous week, padded quietly along hard-packed dirt.The night was pleasantly cool after the hot day.“Yeah, yeah, I know.If it feels like it, may as well prepare for it, ’cause if I feel it, then sure as dragonshit it’s coming.”
“Yup.”
“What could possibly be coming on the wind that’s more complicated than sixteen hookers and a pair of kids I bought us?”
For that, neither Alobaz nor Night had an answer.
Chapter15
Are You Calling Me a Cold-Hearted Bitch, Darling?and Other Warnings
“Alobaz Hawxley,” I drew out, allowing myself to linger on the name of the man who robbed me of my twin brother.To savor the upcoming kill in a way I’d never savored killing before.
If not forAlobaz Hawxley, I would have gotten to share thousands of years more with Teo—I would have never been left alone.
Rafaela snarled at Alonso like a feral beast who’d slipped her leash, slamming her bare feet to the rug between our settees with a force that suggested she weighed ten times more than she did.She leaned into the open space, making the distancenot enoughwhen she bared her lengthened fangs.
Alonso flinched backward before becoming aware of his actions.He straightened, sat with a rigid spine, shoulders hard.Accusation brimmed in his eyes.
“Do you have something you wish to say to me,Rafi?”
Oh.This was new.
The Alonso I’d known three-hundred-thirty-threefuckingyears ago—how unbelievably long I’d been gone was still sinking in—let Rafaela walk all over him.Sure, he pretended she didn’t, and behaved as if a doting husband should cater to his wife’s every whim, but the result had been the same.
Perhaps she wasn’t the neck that turned his head any which way she wanted anymore…
Rafaela’s snarl morphed into a curl of disgust—at her husband, the man who was supposed to be her king.
“You get off on defying me,” she said.“Think you know better than I do.But you just made a grave error and you’re too arrogant to see it.”
The air in the room chilled by several degrees.Alonso slid forward so that he sat on the edge of the seat he shared with me.The power that rolled off him was familiar, the same I’d always felt from him, but it electrified the room in a way I’d never experienced before.His power arced invisibly in the rapidly cooling air.
