LOVER AVENGED
ONE
The king must die.”
Four single-syllable words. One by one they were nothing special. Put together? They called
up all kinds of bad shit: Murder. Betrayal. Treason.
Death.
In the thick moments after they were spoken to him, Rehvenge kept quiet, letting the quartet
hang in the stuffy air of the study, four points of a dark, evil compass he was intimately
familiar with.
“Have you any response?” Montrag, son of Rehm, said.
“Nope.”
Montrag blinked and fiddled with the silk cravat at his neck. Like most members of the
glymera, he had both velvet slippers firmly planted in the dry, rarified sand of his class. Which
meant he was just plain precious, all the way around. In his smoking jacket and his natty pin-
striped slacks and…shit, were those actually spats?…he was right out of the pages of Vanity
Fair. Like, a hundred years ago. And in his myriad condescensions and his bright frickin’
ideas, he was Kissinger without a president when it came to politics: all analysis, no authority.
Which explained this meeting, didn’t it.
“Don’t stop now,” Rehv said. “You’ve already jumped off the building. The landing isn’t
getting any softer.”
Montrag frowned. “I fail to view this with your kind of levity.”
“Who’s laughing.”
A knock on the study’s door brought Montrag’s head to the side, and he had a profile like an
Irish setter: all nose. “Come in.”
The doggen who followed the command struggled under the weight of the silver service she
carried. With an ebony tray the size of a porch in her hands, she humped the load across the
room.
Until her head came up and she saw Rehv.
She froze like a snapshot.
“We take our tea here.” Montrag pointed to the low-slung table between the two silk sofas they
were sitting on. “Here.”
The doggen didn’t move, just stared at Rehv’s face.
“What is the matter?” Montrag demanded as the teacups began to tremble, a chiming noise
rising up from the tray. “Place our tea here, now.”
The doggen bowed her head, mumbled something, and came forward slowly, putting one foot
in front of the other like she was approaching a coiled snake. She stayed as far away from
Rehv as she could, and after she put the service down, her shaking hands were barely able to
get the cups into the saucers.
When she went for the pot of tea, it was clear she was going to spill the shit all over the place.
“Let me do it,” Rehv said, reaching out.
As the doggen jerked away from him, her grip slipped off the pot handle and the tea went into
free fall.
Rehv caught the blistering-hot silver in his palms.
“What have you done!” Montrag said, leaping off of his sofa.
The doggen cringed away, her hands going to her face. “I am sorry, master. Verily, I am—”
“Oh, shut up, and get us some ice—”
“It’s not her fault.” Rehv calmly switched his hold to the handle and poured. “And I’m
perfectly fine.”
They both stared at him like they were waiting for him to hop up and shake his bumper to the
tune of ow-ow-ow.
He put the silver pot down and looked into Montrag’s pale eyes. “One lump. Or two?”
“May I…may I get you something for that burn?”
He smiled, flashing his fangs at his host. “I’m perfectly fine.”
Montrag seemed offended that he couldn’t do anything, and turned his dissatisfaction on his
servant. “You are a total disgrace. Leave us.”
Rehv glanced at the doggen. To him, her emotions were a three-dimensional grid of fear and
shame and panic, the interlocking weave filling out the space around her as surely as her bones
and muscles and skin did.
Be of ease, he thought at her. And know I’ll make this right.
Surprise flared in her face, but the tension left her shoulders and she turned away, looking
much calmer.
When she was gone, Montrag cleared his throat and sat back down. “I don’t think she’s going
to work out. She’s utterly incompetent.”
“Why don’t we start with one lump.” Rehv dropped a sugar cube into the tea. “And see if you
want another.”
He held the cup out, but not too far out, so that Montrag was forced to get up again from his
sofa and bend across the table.
“Thank you.”
Rehv didn’t let go of the saucer as he pushed a change of thought into his host’s brain. “I make
females nervous. It wasn’t her fault.”
He released his hold abruptly and Montrag scrambled to keep hold of the Royal Doulton.
“Oops. Don’t spill.” Rehv settled back onto his sofa. “Shame to get a stain on this fine rug of
yours. Aubusson, is it?”
“Ah…yes.” Montrag parked it again and frowned, like he had no idea why he felt differently
about his maid. “Er…yes, it is. My father bought it many years ago. He had exquisite taste,
didn’t he? We built this room for it because it is so very large, and the color of the walls was
chosen specifically to bring out the peach tones.”
Montrag looked around the study and smiled to himself as he sipped, his pinkie out in the
breeze like a flag.
“How’s your tea?”
“Perfect, but won’t you have some?”
“Not a tea drinker.” Rehv waited until the cup was up to the male’s lips. “So you were talking
about murdering Wrath?”
Montrag sputtered, Earl Grey dappling the front of his bloodred smoking jacket and hitting
Daddy’s peachy-keen rug.
As the male batted at the stains with a limp hand, Rehv held out a napkin. “Here, use this.”
Montrag took the damask square, awkwardly patted at his chest, then swiped the rug with
equal lack of effect. Clearly, he was the kind of male who made messes, not cleaned them up.
“You were saying,” Rehv murmured.
Montrag ditched the napkin on the tray and got to his feet, leaving his tea behind as he paced
around. He stopped in front of a large mountain landscape and seemed to admire the dramatic
scene with its spotlit colonial soldier praying to the heavens.
He spoke to the painting. “You are aware that so many of our blooded brethren have been
taken down in the raids by the lessers.”
“And here I thought I’d been made leahdyre of the council just because of my sparkling
personality.”
Montrag glared over his shoulder, his chin cocked in classic aristocratic fashion. “I lost my
father and my mother and all of my first cousins. I buried each one of them. Think you that is a
joy?”
“My apologies.” Rehv put his right palm over his heart and bowed his head, even though he
didn’t give a shit. He was not going to be manipulated by the recitation of losses. Especially
when the guy’s emotions were all about greed, not grief.