And the scariest part? This in-between when you had one foot in reality and the other in your own personal, living-breathing purgatory—and you could feel the former slip, slip, slippin’ away—

From out of nowhere, Wrath’s equilibrium went haywire, the whole world tilting on its axis to the point where he wasn’t sure whether he’d fallen back or not.

But then he felt a sharp blade right under his chin, and realized that someone had grabbed hold of his hair.

“At this moment in time,” came the hiss in his ear, “we know two things. But only one of them is a game changer.”

This was a bad migraine.

As iAm cracked the door to his brother’s room, the poor bastard’s suffering stained the very air, making it hard to breathe—and even see properly.

Then again, everything was dark by design.

“Trez?”

The moaned answer was nothing good, a combination of wounded animal and sore throat from throwing up. iAm lifted his wrist into the light streaming in from behind and cursed at his Piaget. By this time, the SOB should have been solidly in recovery, his body digging itself out of the headache hole that had swallowed him.

Not the case.

“You want something for your stomach?”

Mumble, mumble, groan, mumble?

“Okay, I’m sure they’ve got some.”

Mumble, moan, moan. Mutter, mutter.

“Yeah, that, too. You want some Milanos?”

Mmmmmmmmmoan.

“Roger that.”

iAm shut the door and walked back to the stairs that took him down to the juncture between the hall of statues and the second-story foyer. Like the rest of the house, everything was silent as a tomb, but as he hit the grand staircase, his chef’s nose picked up the subtle scents of First Meal being cooked in the kitchen wing.

The closer he got to the hub of doggen, the more his own stomach got to talking. Logical. After he’d finished making the Bolognese, he’d checked on his brother and then gone to the gym for hours.

Where he’d seen a hell of a lot more than just the inside of the weight room.

The last thing he’d bargained for was trying to pull the King off of that female fighter. He’d been coming to the end of his workout when he’d heard someone yelling and gone to check it out—whereupon he’d found, hello, the King pythoning that female.

Needless to say he had a newfound respect for that blind vampire. There were very few things iAm hadn’t been able to move in his adult life. He’d changed a tire while acting as his own tire iron. Had been known to walk vats of sauce big as washing machines around a kitchen. Hell, he’d even actually relocated a washer and dryer without thinking much about it.

And then he’d had to lift that truck off his brother about two years ago.

Another example of Trez’s love life getting out of control.

But down in the training center with Wrath? There’d been no budging that fucker. The King had been bulldog-locked on—and the expression on his face? No emotion, not even a grimace of effort. And that body—viciously strong.

iAm shook his head as he crossed that apple tree in full bloom.

Trying to budge Wrath had been like pulling on a boulder. Nothing moved; nothing gave.

That canine had gotten through, though. Thank God.

Now, ordinarily, iAm didn’t like animals in the house—and he definitely wasn’t a dog person. They were too big, too dependent, the shedding—too much. But he respected that golden whatever it was now—

Meeeeeeeeeeeerowwwwwwwwwwwwww.

“Fuck!”

Speak of the devil. As the queen’s black cat wound its way around his feet, he was forced to Michael Jackson it over the damn thing so he didn’t step on it.

“Damn it, cat!”

The feline followed him all the way into the kitchen, always with the in-and-out around the ankles—almost like it knew he’d been thinking benes about the dog and was establishing dominance.

Except cats couldn’t read minds, of course.

He stopped and glared at the thing. “What the hell do you want.”

Not really a question, as he didn’t care to give the feline an opening.

One black paw lifted and then …

Next thing he knew, the goddamn cat was leaping into his arms, rolling over onto its back … and purring like a Ferrari.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” he muttered. “I don’t like you. Goddamn it.”

“Master, what may I get for you?”

As Fritz, the ancient doggen butler, got up in his face big as a billboard, iAm took a moment to dial back to his happy place. Which, unfortunately, looked a lot like a Saw movie—the body parts of others all over everywhere.

But that was just a stress-induced fantasy. Like, he could remember once, a loooooong time ago, he hadn’t been bitched about everything and everybody. Really. It was true.

Paw, paw, paw. On his shirt.

“Fucking hell.” He gave in and rubbed that black belly. “And no, I don’t need anything.”

The purring got so loud, he had to lean in to the butler. “What did you say?”

“I’m happy to oblige whatever you require.”

“Yeah. I know. But I’m going to take care of my brother. No one else. Are we clear.”

The cat was now rubbing its head into his pec. Then stretching up into the itching.

Oh, God, this was awful—especially as the butler’s already droopy face sagged down to what were no doubt knobby knees.

“Ah, shit, Fritz—”

“Is he ill?”

iAm closed his eyes briefly as the female voice registered. Fantastic. Another party heard from.

“He’s fine,” iAm said without looking at the Chosen Selena.

Leaving the kibitzers in the dust, he went into the pantry with the freeloading cat and …

Right. How was he going to get the load of post-migraine recovery rations down from the shelves with his arms full of—

What was its name?

Fine. It was Goddamn Cat, then.

Looking down into those wide, contented eyes, iAm thinned his lips as he rubbed under its chin. Behind an ear.

“Okay, enough with this.” He played with one of the paws. “I gotta put you down now.”

Assuming control, he took the cat out of its recline and went to put it down on the—

Somehow the thing managed to claw its way into the very fibers of his fleece and hang off the front of him like a tie.

“Are you kidding me.”

More purring. A blink of those luminous eyes. An expression of self-possession that iAm took to mean this interaction was going to go the cat’s way—and no one else’s.

“Mayhap I shall help?” Selena asked softly.

iAm bit out a curse and glared at the cat. Then at the Chosen. But short of taking off his pullover? Goddamn Cat was sticking with him.

“I need some of those Milanos up there?” The Chosen reached up and took a bag from the Pepperidge Farm munchie department. “And he’s going to need some of those tortilla chips.”

“Plain or the lime flavor?”

“Plain.” iAm gave up the ghost and resumed servicing Goddamn—and the cat immediately went into full La-Z-Boy again. “He’s going to want one of the Entenmann’s pound cakes. And we’re going to bring him three ice-cold Cokes, two big Poland Springs, room temperature, and a partridge in a pear tree.”

After one of his headaches, Trez wanted hydration, glucose, and caffeine. Made sense. Twelve hours of no food was bad news. And then there was the heaving he got to party down with.

Five minutes later, he and the Chosen and Goddamn Cat were heading for the third floor. And at least iAm managed to help with things by tucking the long water bottles under his pits. Fritz had also provided one of those handled Whole Foods bags for the rest of it.

Christ, he would have infinitely preferred to make this trip by himself.

“He likes you very much,” the female commented as they ascended.

“He’s my brother. He’d better.”

“Oh, no—I meant the cat. Boo adores you.”