He wouldn’t have admitted it to anybody, but he’d answered each one of them in his diary about Blay—and it had helped. Up to a point. He was still sleeping alone, and though he’d had sex, instead of wiping the slate clean, it had just made him ache even more.

But things were better than they had been. At least he had an operating principle that was halfway normal now: He’d been walking dead for the first couple of nights. Now, though, he had a scab over the wound and he was eating and sleeping. There were still triggers, though—like every time he had to see Blay or Qhuinn.

It was so hard to be happy for the one you loved … when he was with someone else.

Like all of life, however, there were things you could change and things you couldn’t.

On that note …

Closing his eyes, he dematerialized and re-formed on a snow-covered lawn that was easily as big as a city park—and just as carefully maintained. Then again, his father hated anything out of order: plants, grass, objets d’art, furniture … sons. The grand manor house beyond was some fifteen thousand square feet in size, the different wings having been added over time by generations of humans. Staring up at it through the winter night, Saxton was reminded of exactly why his father had purchased the estate when some alumnus had left it to Union College—it was the Old Country in the New World, home away from the motherland.

A traditionalist, his father had relished the return to roots. Not that he’d ever truly left them.

Approaching the front entrance, the gas lanterns on either side of the mile-wide door flickered, casting ancient light on stone carvings that had actually been done in the nineteenth century as part of the Gothic Revival style. As he halted, he thought perhaps he would not ring the bell because the staff would be waiting for him.They, as with his father, were always in a hurry to get him in and out of the house—as if he were a document to be processed or a dinner to be served and cleaned up hastily.

No one opened the door preemptively, however.

Leaning in, he pulled on an iron chain with a velvet cover to generate the bell sound.

There was no answer.

Frowning, he stepped back and looked to the side, but that got him nowhere. There were too many manicured bushes to see into any of the diamond-paned, leaded-glass windows.

Being locked out of the house was such a testimony to their relationship, wasn’t it: The male requests him to come on his birthday and then leaves him out in the cold at the front door.

Actually, Saxton had decided that his existence was now a fuck-you to his father. From what he understood, Tyhm had always wanted a young—a son, specifically. Had prayed to the Scribe Virgin for one. And then he’d been granted his wish.

Unfortunately, there had been a caveat that had turned out to be a deal breaker.

Just as he was debating whether to ring again, the door was opened by the butler. The doggen’s face was frozen as always, but the fact that he did not bow to the firstborn and only begotten son of his master was plenty of commentary on his opinion of who he was about to let in.

It hadn’t always been like this in the household. But his mother had died, and then his little secret had come out so …

“Your father is currently engaged.” That was it. No, May-I-take-your-coat?, How fare thee?, or even, Verily, how cold is this night?

Not even a conversation about the weather would be spared for him.

Which was fine. He had never cared for the guy, anyway.

When the butler stepped aside, and focused on the silk-covered wall opposite him, walking through that fixed gaze was like getting stung by an electric fence—although at least Saxton was used to it. And he knew where to go.

The lady’s parlor was on the left, and as he entered the frilly room, he put his hands into the pockets of his coat. The lavender walls and lemon-yellow rug were bright and cheerful, and the truth was, even though putting him here was intended as an insult, he much preferred it to the wood-paneled gentlemale’s equivalent across the foyer.

His mother had died about three years ago, but this was no shrine to the loss. In fact, he didn’t have the sense that his father had missed the female.

Tyhm had always been most interested in the law—even over matters of the glymera—

Saxton stilled. Pivoted toward the rear of the room.

Distantly, voices mingled—and that was unusual. The house was typically silent as a library, the staff tiptoeing around, the doggen having developed a complex system of hand signals with which to communicate so they did not disturb their master.

Saxton approached a second set of doors. Unlike the ones leading out to the foyer, they were closed.

Cracking a panel, Saxton slipped through into the lofty, octagonal room where his father’s leather-bound volumes of the Old Law were kept. The ceiling was some thirty feet high, the molding of all those shelves dark mahogany, the cornices over the doorways carved into proper Gothic relief—or at least a nineteenth-century reproduction of it.

In the center of the circular space, there was a tremendous round table, the marble top of which was … a bit of a shock.

It was covered with open volumes.

Glancing up at the shelves, he saw slots in the endless lineup of tomes. About twenty of them.

As a warning sounded at the base of his skull, he kept his hands in his pockets and leaned in, tracing the verbiage that was exposed …

“Oh, Jesus…”

Succession.

His father was researching the laws of succession.

Saxton lifted his head toward the voices. They were louder now that he was in this room, although still muffled by another set of closed doors across the way.

Whatever meeting was taking place was in his father’s private study.

Highly unusual. The male never let anyone in there—didn’t even permit clients to come to the house.

This was serious—and Saxton wasn’t stupid. There was a cabal against Wrath in the glymera, and obviously, his father was involved.

No reason for anyone to care about the next generation of King if they weren’t trying to target the current one.

He walked around the table, locking eyes on each open page. The more he saw, the more concerned he became.

“Oh … shit,” he muttered in a rare curse.

This was bad. Very bad—

The sound of a door opening in the study energized him. Jogging on the balls of his loafers, he scooted back into the ladies’ parlor and reclosed the panels silently behind himself.

He was facing the John Singer Sargent over the fireplace when the butler called his name about two minutes later.

“He will see you now.”

No reason to throw a thank-you out. He just followed in the wake of the doggen’s disapproval—and braced himself for more of the same from his father.

Usually, he hated coming here.

But not tonight. No, tonight, he had a far greater purpose than thwarting what was no doubt going to be yet another of his father’s attempts to shame him into going straight.

Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Trez frowned at the sound. Cracking one eye open, he found his brother standing over his bed, Boo the black cat in the male’s arms, an expression of disapproval narrowing those icy eyes.

His brother’s, not the cat’s.

“Are you spending another night on your ass,” iAm bit out.

Not a question, so why bother throwing out an answer.

Groaning as he sat up, Trez had to brace his arms to keep his torso vertical. Apparently, while he’d been out of it, the world had turned into a hula hoop and the planet was going around and around his neck.

Losing the fight, he flopped back down.

As his brother kept standing there, he knew that this was the siren call back to reality. And he wanted to answer it, he really did. His body, however, was out of gas.