“True enough.”

“As leahdyre of the council, you would be in a position of enormous power. Even if you are not elected as president, the council is going nowhere. And let me reassure you about the Black Dagger Brotherhood. I know your sister is mated to one of them. The Brothers will not be affected by this.”

“You don’t think it’s going to piss them off? Wrath is not just their king. He’s their blood.”

“Protecting our race is their primary mandate. Whither we go they must follow. And you have to know that there are many who feel they have been doing a poor job of late. Methinks perhaps they require better leadership.”

“From you. Right. Of course.”

That would be like an interior decorator trying to command a tank platoon: a shitload of noisy chirping until one of the soldiers offed the lightweight flash in the pan and churned over the body a couple of times.

Perfect plan there. Yup.

And yet…who said Montrag had to be the one elected? Accidents happened to both kings and aristocrats.

“I must say unto you,” Montrag continued, “as my father always said unto me, timing is everything. We need to proceed with haste. May we rely on you, my friend?”

Rehv got to his feet and towered over the other male. With a quick tug on his jacket cuffs, he straightened his Tom Ford, then reached for his cane. He felt nothing in his body, not his clothes or the weight shifting from his ass to his soles or the handle against the palm he’d burned. The numbness was a side effect of the drug he used to keep his bad side from coming out in mixed company, the prison in which he jailed his sociopathic impulses.

All he needed to get back to basics was one missed dose, though. An hour later? The evil in him was alive and kicking and ready to play.

“What say you?” Montrag prompted.

Wasn’t that the question.

Sometimes in life, from out of the myriad of prosaic decisions like what to eat and where to sleep and how to dress, a true crossroads is revealed. In these moments, when the fog of relative irrelevancy lifts and fate rolls out a demand for free will, there is only left or right-no option of four-by-fouring into the underbrush between two paths, no negotiating with the choice that has been presented.