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Or did that fall under nine and seven?

Number four: Lets down parents. Number three: Drug addict. Number two: Falls in love with aforementioned driven-away female—

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

Had he fallen in love with Cormia? How? When?

The wizard popped into his head. To hell with that, mate. Finish the list. C’mon. Fine ... I think we’ll put “Drug Addict ” as number one, shall we?

“Where are you going?” Wrath’s voice came down from above like some kind of conscience, and Phury froze with his hand on the vestibule’s door.

“Where?” the king demanded.

Nowhere special, Phury thought without turning around. Just fucking insane.

“Out for a drive,” he said, and held his car keys up over his head.

At this point, the lie didn’t bother him in the slightest. He just wanted everyone to get out of his way. When he had his red smoke, when he was calm and his head was no longer a pipe bomb waiting to go off, he could go back to interacting.

Wrath’s boots hit the stairs, the beat of his stride a countdown to one fuck of a bitch-slapping. Phury turned to face the king, a low-boil anger lighting off in his chest.

And what do you know, Wrath wasn’t in a Hallmark mood either. His brows were behind his wraparounds, his fangs long, his body tense as hell.

Clearly there had been more bad news.

“What’s happened now?” Phury bit out, wondering when in the hell the current shit storm was going to move on to another group of people’s lives.

“Four families from the glymera got hit tonight, and there were no survivors. I’ve got something awful to tell Qhuinn, but can’t get hold of him or John Matthew at their stakeout at Blaylock’s.”

“You want me to go over there?”

“No, I want you to get your ass to the Sanctuary and do your fucking duty,” Wrath snapped. “We need more Brothers, and you agreed to be the Primale, so stop putting the shit off.”

Phury was itching to bare his fangs, but he stayed tight. “I’ve chosen another First Mate. She’s being prepared, and I’m going there at nightfall tomorrow.”

Wrath’s brows flicked up. Then he nodded once. “Okay. Good. Now, what’s Blaylock’s number? I’m going to send the kid back over to his house. All the Brothers are busy, and I don’t want Qhuinn hearing this over the phone.”

“I can go—”

“The hell you can,” the king shot back. “Even if you were still part of the Brotherhood, with the shit that’s going down right now, I’m not losing the race’s Primale, fuck you very much. Now what the good goddamn is Blaylock’s number?”

Phury gave Wrath the digits, nodded a good-bye, and walked out through the vestibule. He didn’t give a shit that he’d told Wrath he was going for a drive; he left his BMW where it was parked in the courtyard and dematerialized downtown.

Wrath knew he’d been lying anyway. And there was no reason to delay the trip to ZeroSum by taking his car just to live up to a falsity they were both well aware of.

When he came up to the club’s entrance, Phury bypassed the wait line by simply walking up and having the bouncer get out of his way.

In the VIP section, iAm was standing at the door to Rehvenge ’s office. The Moor didn’t seem to be surprised to see him, but, then, it was hard to surprise either one of Rehv’s private guards.

“Boss isn’t here; you want to make a buy?” the guy asked.

Phury nodded, and iAm showed him the way in. Rally, the scale minion, scampered off after Phury flashed his open palm twice.

iAm leaned his hip against Rehvenge’s desk and simply stared across the office, his black eyes impassive, calm. His brother, Trez, was the hothead of the two of them, so Phury had always thought that iAm was the one you needed to watch out for.

Although he supposed it was kind of like choosing between two different guns: a matter of degree.

“Word of advice,” the Moor said.

“I’ll pass.”

“Tough. Don’t jump to the harder stuff, my friend.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit.”

Rally came out from the hidden door in the corner, and as Phury looked at all those leaves in that