“When was the last time you fed?” iAm demanded.

He shifted his eyes over and dodged the question. “Since when are you an animal lover?”

“I hate this goddamn cat.”

“I can tell.”

“Answer me.”

The fact that he couldn’t even think of when he’d … nope, total blank.

“I’ll send someone,” iAm muttered. “And then you and I are going to talk.”

“Let’s talk now.”

“Why, so you can pretend you didn’t hear it right later?”

Well, there was a thought. “No.”

“They’re going after our father and mother.”

Trez sat up again, and this time he didn’t need any extra help. Shit. He should have expected this from the s’Hisbe, but …

“How.”

“How do you think?” His brother shifted his gentle scratching from the black cat’s ears to under its chin. “They’re going to start with her.”

He rubbed his face. “Jesus Christ. I didn’t expect the high priest would be so—”

“It wasn’t him. Nah. He was the second person who came to see me last night.”

“What time is it?” Although the fact that he could see out the windows into the night at least partially answered that one. “Why didn’t you wake me up when you got home?”

“I tried. Three times. I was going to send for a crash cart if you didn’t come around on this trip.”

“So what did the high priest say?”

“s’Ex is the one we have to worry about.”

Trez dropped his hands. Staring up at his brother, he knew he must have heard that wrong. “I’m sorry, who?”

“Not the kind of name I need to repeat, is it?”

“Oh, God.” What the hell was the queen’s enforcer doing paying a visit to his brother? Then again … “They’re really upping the ante, aren’t they.”

iAm sat on the edge of the bed, his weight causing the mattress to shift. “We are at the impasse, Trez. No more pretending, no more persuasion. They’ve used the carrot; now they’re going to use the stick.”

As Trez thought of his parents, he could barely picture their faces. The last time he’d seen them had been … well, there was another thing he couldn’t remember. What was crystal clear, though? The quarters they lived in. Marble everything. Gold fixtures. Silk rugs. Servants everywhere. Jewels hanging from lamps to create a sparkle effect.

They hadn’t started out like that—and that was another thing he could picture: He’d been born in a modest two-bedroom flat in the far corner of court—nice enough by normal standards.

Nothing close to what they’d gotten when they’d sold his future.

And after that? While they’d upgraded to the best of the best? He’d been sent to be raised by the queen’s staff, alone in a white room. It hadn’t been until he’d refused to eat or drink for nights upon nights that iAm had been sent to him.

And that was how their dysfunction had started.

Ever since then? Somehow, iAm had become the one responsible for keeping him going.

“Do you remember when we saw them last?” he heard himself say.

“At that party. You know, for the queen.”

“Oh … that’s right.” Their parents had been sitting with the queen’s Primaries, as they were called. Front and center. Smiling.

They hadn’t acknowledged him or iAm when they’d come in, but that was not unusual. Once sold, he had become the queen’s. And once drafted into service to smooth things over, iAm was no longer theirs, either.

“They never looked back, did they,” Trez murmured. “I’m just a commodity to them. And, man, they got a good price.”

iAm stayed silent, as was his way. He just sat there, stroking that cat.

“How much time do I have?” Trez asked.

“You have to go tonight.” Dark eyes shifted over. “Like now.”

“And if I don’t…” There was no reason to answer that, and iAm didn’t bother: If he didn’t get out of bed and turn himself in, his parents were going to be slaughtered. Or worse.

Probably much worse.

“They’re such a part of the system,” he said. “Those two really got what they wanted.”

“So you’re not going.”

Once he set foot back within the Territory, he was never going to see the outside world again. The queen’s guard was going to shut him in that maze of corridors, lock him up so that he was the male equivalent of a harem, separate him even from his brother.

And meanwhile, his parents would live on, uncaring.

“She looked at me,” he muttered. “That night of the party. Her eyes went to mine—and she gave me this secret little smile of superiority. Like she’d made all the right moves, and the added benefit had been that she hadn’t had to deal with me. What the fuck kind of mother does that?”

“So you’re going to let them die.”

“No.”

“So you’re going back.”

“No.”

iAm shook his head. “It’s binary, Trez. I know you’re pissed off at them, at the queen, at a hundred thousand things. But we’ve reached the crossroads, and there are only two options. You’ve really got to understand that—and I’ll go back with you.”

“No, you’ll stay here.” As his muddled head tried to wrap itself around the variables, his brain was all fizzle, no flash. “Besides, I’m not going.”

Shit, he needed to feed before he tried to deal with this.

“Fuck, that human blood is for crap,” he mumbled, rubbing his temples like maybe the friction could jump-start his IQ. “You know what? I really can’t talk about this right now—and I’m not being an asshole. I literally can’t think.”

“I’ll send someone.” iAm got up and went to the door that separated their suites. “And then you need to make your mind up. You’ve got two hours.”

“Will you hate me,” he blurted.

“About them?”

“Yeah.”

It was a long while before he got an answer. And the cat stopped purring, iAm’s hand stilling at that throat.

“I don’t know.”

Trez nodded. “Fair enough.”

The door was shut and his brother well on his way when Trez’s brain coughed up a hey-wait.

“Not Selena,” he called out. “iAm! Yo! Not Selena!”

He did not trust himself with her on a good night—the last thing he needed was to get close to her right now.

As Wrath knocked on the door in front of him, he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. Maybe he’d luck out and there’d be no answer.

He needed more time before doing something like this—

Denied. Things opened up and a deep voice said, “Hey. What’s doing?”

As he tried to think of an answer to that, he closed his eyes behind his wraparounds. “Z…”

“Yeah. Hey.” The brother cleared his throat. Which really drove home the silence thing. “Yeah. So. What’s up?”

Abruptly, like the universe was sending him a shot in the nuts, a young’s cry rippled out. “Ah, listen, I was just getting her up. You mind?”

Wrath dragged a hand through his hair. “No, no, yeah, it’s cool.”

“You want me to come to your office afterward?”

He wondered what the room looked like, and painted the space according to what his Beth had said was in it. Cluttered, he thought. Homey. Cheerful.

Pink.

Nothing that Z would have been caught dead in before he’d met Bella.

“Wrath? What’s going on here?”

“You mind if I come in?”

“Ah … sure. Yeah, I mean, Bella’s working out so we’ve got some privacy. But you’re going to want to—”

Chhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

“—watch where you step.”

Wrath lifted up his shitkicker and whatever toy he’d crushed reinflated with a wheeze. “Fuck, did I break it?”

“I think it’s a dog toy, actually. Yeah, I’m pretty sure she picked it up from George downstairs. You want it back?”

“He’s got plenty. She can have it.”

As he shut the door, he was painfully aware that they were each talking about their young—only Wrath’s had four paws and a tail.

Least he didn’t have to worry about George succeeding him or being blind.

Z’s voice came from deeper in the room. “You can sit on the foot of the bed if you go fifteen feet straight ahead of you.”