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The smile was stone-cold, though. And the flashing red eyes were shrewd to the point of malevolence.

“Won’t you please come in?”

The snake’s lovely voice blended those words into one another, and Lash found himself liking the sound.

“Yeah,” he said, making his mind up on the spot. “We will.”

As he stepped forward, the king raised his palm.

“One moment, if you will. Please tell your associate to fear not. Nothing will harm you here.” The statements were kind enough on the surface, but the tone was hard—which Lash took to mean that they weren’t welcome in the house if Mr. D’s heat was in his hand.

“Put the gun away,” Lash said softly. “I’ve got us covered.”

Mr. D holstered the .357, his y’sir unspoken, and the symphath moved out of the way of the door.

As they went up the steps, Lash frowned and looked down. Their heavy combat boots made no sound on the wood, and the same happened on the porch slats as they approached the doorway.

“We prefer things quiet.” The symphath smiled, revealing even teeth, which was a surprise. Evidently, the fangs of these creatures, who had once been closely related to vampires, had been bred right out of their mouths. If they did still feed, it couldn’t be very often, not unless they liked knives.

The king swept his arm out to the left. “Shall we adjourn to the sitting room?”

The “sitting room” could more accurately have been described as the “bowling alley with rocking chairs.” The expanse was nothing but glossy floorboards, and walls hung only with white paint. Across the way, four Shaker chairs were clustered in a semicircle around the lit fireplace like they were afraid of all the emptiness and had huddled together for support.

“Won’t you sit down,” the king said as he swept his robing up and out and took a seat in one of the spindly chairs.

“You stay standing,” Lash said to Mr. D, who obligingly took up res behind where Lash parked it.

The flames made no cheery crackle as they ate at the logs that birthed and sustained them. The rockers made no creak as the king and Lash settled their weight. The spiders were silent as each fell into the center of its web, as if they were prepared to be witnesses.

“You and I have a common cause,” Lash said.

“So you seem to believe.”

“I thought your kind would find vengeance attractive.”

As the king smiled, that odd thrill shot down into Lash’s sex. “You would be misinformed. Vengeance is but a crude, emotional defense against a given slight.”

“And you’re telling me that’s beneath you?” Lash leaned back and set his chair in motion, going back and forth. “Hmm…I may have misjudged your kind.”

“We are more sophisticated than that, yes.”

“Or maybe you’re just a bunch of dress-wearing pussies.”

That smile disappeared. “We are far superior to those who believed they imprisoned us. In truth, our preference is for our own company. Do you think we did not engineer this outcome? Foolish of you. Vampires are the crass basis of where we evolved from, chimps to our higher reasoning. Would you care to remain among animals if you could live in civility with your own kind? Of course not. Like finds like. Like requires like. Those of common and superior minds shall be fed only by those of commensurate status.” The king’s lips lifted. “You know this to be true. You have not remained where you began, either, have you.”

“No, I have not.” Lash flashed his fangs, thinking his brand of evil hadn’t fit in among the vampires any better than the sin-eaters’ did. “I am where I need to be now.”

“So you see, had we not desired the very end result we obtained in this colony, we might have taken not vengeance, but corrective action such that our destiny was favorable to our interests.”

Lash stopped rocking. “If you weren’t interested in an alliance, you could have just told me in a fucking e-mail.”

An odd light flashed in the king’s eyes, one that made Lash even hotter, but also disgusted him. He didn’t fly with the homosexual shit, and yet…well, hell, his father liked the males; maybe some of that was in him, too.

And wouldn’t that give Mr.