“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.

Montrag turned his back to the painting, his head taking the place of the mountain the colonial soldier was on…so that it looked like the little man in the red uniform was trying to climb up his ear.

“The glymera has sustained unparalleled losses from the raids. Not just lives, but property. Houses raided, antiques and art taken, bank accounts disappearing.