Qhuinn put his palms back on the sides of his noggin. Like maybe the extra padding would help his brain work. Or something.

“The Sanctuary?” he asked.

“She can travel as a Chosen does and so can they.” Wrath handed V’s cigarette back to the brother. “The Scribe Virgin is not using her quarters anymore, so there’s a place there they can sleep when they need to.”

“I just took some more songbirds up there,” V mused as he took an inhale. “And I betcha those kids would like them. Those chirpy little fuckers are colorful and they sound nice. You know, sensory processing benefits have been shown as a result of—”

The brother recoiled and then looked annoyed as both Qhuinn and Wrath stared at him like he’d changed out of his leathers into a pink dress and bedroom slippers.

“What? I’m just sayin’.” V rolled his eyes. “I don’t care, you know. Not at all.”

“Back to the visitation,” Wrath continued. “I’m assuming your biggest concern about Layla taking them out of here is safety, and there’s no better place for her to be with them—because she can’t be here.”

Qhuinn crossed his arms and stared at the carpet. Then he paced up and down, passing by the marble statuary that had been carved by humans known as Greeks and Romans. The male forms were powerful and positioned in various poses, their empty hands gripping spears that had been lost over the course of centuries—and the accoutrements of conflict weren’t the only things that were missing. A few had limbs that stopped at the elbow or the knee, some accident or another stripping them of that which had been necessary to complete them. One was even headless.

Naturally, he thought of that essential part of him which he had recently lost.

His Blay.

And now … his young?

As Qhuinn turned around and came back slowly, V put out his hand-rolled on the sole of his shitkicker and tucked the half-smoked end into the ass pocket of his leathers. Then the brother surreptitiously slipped his un-gloved palm onto the butt of a forty holstered under his arm.

Good move, Qhuinn thought, ’cuz he was getting angry. In fact, even the hypothetical of that Chosen taking his kids anywhere was making that white rage start to vibrate at the base of his skull.

Except then he heard V’s voice in his head.

You’re gonna be just like your dad.

As the words rebounded around and around his cranial blank space, he felt like he was caught between being where he was … and behaving as he should.

In the end, the memory of those bullet holes tipped the scale.

Looking over at Vishous, he said roughly, “You can keep your weapon where it is.”

“Turning over a new leaf?” V drawled without lowering his hand. “And in such a short time, too. So you’re either exhausted or waiting for a better opportunity.”

Qhuinn focused his eyes on the closed door of his young’s suite, seeing through the panels to the room beyond. He pictured the sweet moments like that night-light, and the bassinets with their ribbons, and the little cursive R above Rhamp’s bed and the L over Lyric’s.

“Neither,” he heard himself say after a while. Although he was tired to the point of zombie.

“So you accept my terms,” Wrath prompted.

“I don’t want to have to see Layla.” Qhuinn shook his head. “Ever again. We’re done, she and I. And I want to speak personally with the Amalya, the Directrix. I want to make absolutely sure they can get up and back okay. Also, if Layla tries to hoard them there—”

“She won’t.”

“How do you know that,” Qhuinn said bitterly.

“She told me how important it is for you to see them.”

“And you believed her?”

Wrath touched the side of his nose. “You think I wouldn’t know if she were lying? And gimme a fucking break. She’s not the source of all evil in the world.”

“That would be the Omega,” V chimed in dryly. “In case you forgot.”

“So it’s done.” Qhuinn didn’t bother voicing his disagreement on the subject of the Chosen with them. “Do we have to sign anything?”

The King shook his head. “Not unless you insist. We all know how it’s going to be.”

“Yeah. Guess we do.”

After Wrath, George, and V went off, Qhuinn stayed where he was, staring at the statues. He was of half a mind to go down to Z’s door and let the brother know that the coast was clear. But in the end, he just went back inside the bedroom.

A quick check of the clock, and he knew that it was going to be bottle time in about an hour. Fritz and the doggen took great pride in delivering the milk promptly on schedule and at the perfect temperature. Feeding two at a time was going to be a thing, but he’d figure it out.

God … Blay loved doing the bottle thing. Loved diapers, even the ones that made your eyes water.

Qhuinn went back over to the bassinets and thought about Layla taking the two infants anywhere. He literally couldn’t imagine it—and every bone in his body, every fatherly instinct he had, screamed for him to stop the madness. He didn’t care that she had birthed them. Didn’t give a shit what the King said. And completely disagreed with the general consensus that that traitor in a white robe had any right to be even in the same zip code as his young.

Much less take them away from him.

Looking down at Lyric, he frowned. There was so much of Layla in the little girl, from the shape of the face, to the hands …

The hands were really freaky. A miniature carbon copy.

As his emotions churned, he turned away from her. And focused on Rhamp.

THIRTY-ONE

As dawn arrived, at least according to the digital clock on the bedside table, Xcor felt a shimmy of residual pain go through his whole body.

To think where he had been a mere twenty-four hours ago.

If some angel had come unto him and told him that, in the mere shift of a single day and night cycle, he would go from being on death’s door to lying beside his love in a safe house owned by the Brotherhood? He would have called impossibility on any such destiny.

Even if it had been uttered by the Scribe Virgin herself.

He glanced at Layla. His female was collapsed on his chest, sprawled upon him like the very best throw blanket anyone had ever had. And part of what he loved so much about this moment? Aside from the fact that he was utterly satiated sexually and so was she?

She slept soundly. The Chosen Layla was complete in her repose, her body loose and languid, her breathing even, her eyelids down hard as if it had been a very, very long time since she had had a proper rest.

Indeed, the quality of her sleep mattered to him for a lot of reasons, most important of which was that she could not possibly have been so at peace if she didn’t have faith that he would take care of her. Keep her safe. Protect her against any and all threats.

As a bonded male, his female’s safety was his ultimate source of purpose, her trust in him his biggest point of pride, her well-being that which was put before anything and everything else.

Serving her was the highest and best use of his life, and it was with great sorrow that he recognized this was a job that he would not enjoy for long.

Wrath was right to get the Band of Bastards to swear upon that black diamond of his before they all were banished by royal decree to the Old Country. Xcor’s fighters were a principled lot of thieves and renegades—and if he, Xcor, commanded them to shift their allegiance unto the Blind King? They would do so, and they would keep to their word, although not because of what they had sworn to Wrath. But because of their loyalty to Xcor.

For him alone would they give their lives.

The Brotherhood, however, would not buy into all of that. No, they would only be persuaded by an oath to their liege—and even then, the brokered peace would be tenuous.

Again, the Band of Bastards had to leave the New World.

But how was he going to find them? Caldwell was a big city if you wanted to cross paths with someone who had no objection to being located. Trying to discover the whereabouts of a group of males who defined their nights and days by being hidden and staying that way?

Next to impossible. And that was assuming they hadn’t already decided to return across the ocean.