Sola’s grandmother held her little purse just under her bosom. “My things. I have them.”

Her Portuguese accent was heavy, and he had to sift through the words to translate.

“Good.” He nodded at the cousins and at the command, they went around to the back of the SUV and took out three modest mismatched suitcases. “Your room is ready.”

She nodded curtly. “Proceed.”

As Ehric came around with the luggage, he popped a brow and he was right to be shocked. Assail didn’t take kindly to being ordered around.

Allowances would be made with her, however.

“But of course.” Assail took a step back and bowed again, indicating the door that he’d stepped out of.

Regal as a queen, the little old lady clipped along across the floor toward the three shallow steps that led into the house.

Assail jumped ahead to open things up. “This is our utility room. Onward unto the kitchen.”

He fell in behind her, swallowing his impatience. Yet there was no hurry. He had to make sure that the legitimate face of Benloise’s empire was empty of its art dealers and office workers before he could go there. And that would be a good hour at least.

He continued on his tour. “Beyond, the eating alcove and the entertaining space.” As he walked ahead into the tremendous open space that overlooked the Hudson, he regarded his sparse furnishings with a new eye. “Not that I care for entertaining.”

There was nothing personal in the house. Just the “staging” that had been installed to sell the property, anonymous vases and rugs and set pieces of neutral sofas and love seats. The same was true with the bedrooms, of which there were four down below and one on the second floor.

“My office is over here—”

He stopped. Frowned. Looked about.

Had to backtrack to the kitchen in order to find the various parties.

Sola’s grandmother had her head in the Sub-Zero refrigerator, rather as if she were a gnome looking for a cool place in the summer.

“Madam?” Assail inquired.

She shut the door and moved on to the floor-to-ceiling cabinets. “There is nothing here. Nothing. What do you eat?”

“Ah…” Assail found himself looking at the cousins for aid. “Usually we take our meals in town.”

The scoffing sound certainly appeared like the old-lady equivalent of Fuck that. “I need the staples.”

She pivoted on her little shiny shoes and put her hands on her hips. “Who is taking me to supermarket.”

Not an inquiry.

And as she stared up at the three of them, it appeared as though Ehric and his violent killer of a twin were as nonplussed as Assail was.

The evening had been planned out to the minute—and a trip to the local Hannaford was not on the list.

“You two are too thin,” she announced, flicking her hand in the direction of the twins. “You need to eat.”

Assail cleared his throat. “Madam, you have been brought here for your safety.” He was not going to permit Benloise to up the stakes—and so he’d had to lock down potential collateral damage. “Not to be a cook.”

“You have already refused the money. I no stay here for free. I earn my keep. That is the way it will be.”

Assail exhaled long and slow. Now he knew where Sola got her independent streak.

“Well?” she demanded. “I no drive. Who takes me.”

“Madam, would you not prefer to rest—”

“Your body rest when dead. Who.”

“We do have an hour,” Ehric hedged.

As Assail glared at the other vampire, the little old lady hitched her purse up on her forearm and nodded. “So he will take me.”

Assail met Sola’s grandmother’s gaze directly and dropped his tone a register just so that the line drawn would be respected. “I pay. Are we clear—you are not to spend a cent.”

She opened her mouth as if to argue, but she was headstrong—not foolish. “Then I do the darning.”

“Our clothes are in sufficient shape—”

Ehric cleared his throat. “Actually, I have a couple of loose buttons. And the Velcro strip on his flak jacket is—”

Assail looked over his shoulder and bared his fangs at the idiot—out of eyesight of Sola’s grandmother, of course.

Remarshaling his expression, he turned back around and—

Knew he’d lost. The grandmother had one of those brows cocked, her dark eyes as steady as any foe’s he’d ever faced.

Assail shook his head. “I cannot believe I’m negotiating with you.”

“And you agree to terms.”

“Madam—”

“Then it is settled.”

Assail threw up his hands. “Fine. You have forty-five minutes. That is all.”

“We be back in thirty.”

At that, she turned and headed for the door. In her diminutive wake, the three vampires played ocular Ping-Pong.

“Go,” Assail gritted out. “Both of you.”

The cousins stalked for the garage door—but they didn’t make it. Sola’s grandmother wheeled around and put her hands on her hips.

“Where is your crucifix?”

Assail shook himself. “I beg your pardon?”

“Are you no Catholic?”

My dear sweet woman, we are not human, he thought.

“No, I fear not.”

Laser-beam eyes locked on him. Ehric. Ehric’s brother. “We change this. It is God’s will.”

And out she went, marching through the mudroom, ripping open the door, and disappearing into the garage.

As that heavy steel barrier closed automatically, all Assail could do was blink.

The other two were equally poleaxed. In their world, dominion was established through force and manipulation by individuals of the male persuasion. Position was earned or lost by contests of will that were often bloody and resulted in a body count.

When one came from that orientation, one most certainly did not expect to be castrated in one’s own galley by a woman who didn’t even have a knife. And would likely have to get up on a stepladder to remove said anatomy.

“Don’t just stand there,” he snapped. “She’s liable to drive herself.”

“…Only one of them is a game changer.”

As the running shower continued on like nothing was doing, the pleasant sound of falling water reverberated through the locker room—and Wrath’s head remained locked in its torqued-back position: With a dagger at his jugular, and a heavy hand on the braid that ran down his back, he was going nowhere.

Gritting his teeth, he didn’t know whether to be impressed or to encourage that blade to head home.

But he was not suicidal. “What are they, Payne,” he gritted out.

The female’s voice was a low growl right in his ear. “We both know that you can get out of this if you choose to. In the blink of an eye, you can overpower me—you more than proved it back in the gym.”

“And the second?”

“If I got to you once, I can do it again. And maybe next time I won’t waste my breath trying to prove the fact that I’m your equal.”

“I am the King, you realize.”

“And I’m the daughter of a deity, motherfucker.”

With that, she released him and stepped back.

Covering his genitals with his hands, he turned to face her. He’d never seen what Payne looked like, but he’d been told that she was built along the lines of her brother, tall and powerful. Apparently, she had the same jet-black hair and those pale, icy eyes, too—and the intelligence was something he could judge for himself.

She also, evidently, had the balls.

“I can kill you,” she said, grimly. “Anytime I want. And I don’t need a conventional weapon, either. You are stronger, yes—I give you that. But there are things I am capable of that you can’t imagine.”

“Then why didn’t you use them.”

“Because I don’t want to put you in a grave. You are needed here. You are critical for the race.”

Goddamn throne. “So what you’re saying is that you would have let yourself die back in the gym?”

“You weren’t going to murder me.”

Oh, yes, I was, he thought with self-disgust. “Look, Payne, we can go around in circles about this for the next year and a half and it would get us nowhere. I’m not sparring with you again. Ever.”