I was so fucking over this shit. My brother wasn't even old enough to grow a proper mustache. Not that it stopped him from trying.

Spinning around, I stalked up to my father. The suit might have made him look like a respectable businessman, but he was a Crowther—a death-dealer like the rest of us. He met me halfway across the living room. I took after him. I had great height and was broad and muscular. We were toe to toe, eye to eye.

"Sander is sixteen," I ground out.

His violet eyes, light as heather, bored into mine. His voice was icy-calm when he replied, "Your brother needs to get his hands bloodied."

My jaw clenched, as well as both hands. "Not by walking into a nest of Yakuza." Besides the seasoned foot soldiers on guard, the room was rife with shateigashira and wakagashira-hosa, for fucks sake. They didn't get to the upper ranks by providing godsdamned manicures.

Behind me came the sound of groaning leather as Sander pushed up from the couch. He rounded both of us so he was in my side view. "I can handle myself," he said, slapping a hand across his chest. "You know I can. I train every day, just like you."

I half-twisted around to face my brother. "I don't need you covering my back. I did just fine by myself."

His top lip, with the baby fuzz he was trying to grow into a mustache, curled back from his teeth in a snarl. Rather than the typical Crowther features that ran in our family line, he had our mother's soft gray eyes and light brown hair, and her gentle disposition as well—no matter how hard our father tried to break it from him.

"You're my heir now," my father said. There was a slight pause before he said, heir. Our gazes clashed and locked as I swung back to face him. Heir to Lower House Crowther, a title I'd earned in the most heinous way. I didn't want it, especially not the way it had been handed to me.

"I don't want it."

"Tough. You don't get to decide. I do." He scrutinized my face like he was reading a battle report, but I gave him jack-shit. I just glared right back. "Valarie can't string a sentence together. Sander's too much like his mother. No offense," he said with a swift glance at my younger brother over his shoulder.

"None taken, Dad," my brother gritted out, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling and shaking his head.

"And Addison..."

My kid sister hadn't spoken a word since Gratian died. Her eyes, though, spoke plenty. They were as empty as this hollow thing I'd carried inside my chest ever since my brother died, but when she looked at me there was anger banked like coal embers, ready to ignite with the barest of breaths blown against it.

She hated me.

I couldn't blame her. I felt the same way too.

"Next time, your brother has your back," my father rumbled out as he stepped back and turned around to stride toward the wet bar to pick up the second bag he'd brought with him. He hurled it across the space and I caught it. "Go get ready," he ordered.

The Deniauds. Fuck.

I braced a hand on my hip, the other hand curled tightly around the bag's carry handles, pissed off with what I had to do, and where I was being sent for the weekend. "It's a fucking glorified girls' slumber party, Dad."

Sander muffled his crowing laugh behind a fist, his eyes sparkling with glee. "Yeah, it totally is. So fucking rad," he snorted, his laugh growing more hearty. "Hope you remembered to pack your Barbie Doll, big brother," and he clapped me on the shoulder with a hand.

My eyes slit. I was going to fucking kill him.

Jeroen tapped his meaty forefinger on the wet bar, his mouth opened to reply, then he hesitated before finally saying, "Yes, it would seem so." His eyes gleamed ruthlessly, focusing on me, sharp as a blade. "You're there to look after your sister. And if Byron wants to spend time with her, you make sure that happens."

This wasn't just about me this weekend, it was also about my quiet, shy twin. My shadow. Byron, the heir to Great House Wychthorn, was interested in my sister. We'd learned that Marissa Deniaud had invited Valarie to her weekend at Byron's urging. Valarie was uncomfortable in social situations. Her stuttering embarrassed her, so at House Gatherings, I spoke for her.

No one made fun of her to her face. I made sure of that. But I knew what they whispered behind her back when they thought I was too far away to hear. We, Crowthers, were blessed with heightened senses, strength, and unnatural speed. It had been bred into our family-line millennia ago when we hunted for the Horned Gods.

Hoisting the bag that contained my suit and shoes over my shoulder, I headed toward the bathroom.

Sander turned in a slow circle. A long, low whistle. "Gods, it's like a B-Grade slasher film in here."

Yes. It was.

Great swathes of red were arced across the walls, splashed across photo prints, and splattered upon oil paintings. Blood dripped in long lines downward, crept over the skirting boards, and stained the carpet fibers crimson. Bodies were slumped where they'd fallen. Limbs hewn through with my blades. Necks snapped after meeting my fist.

"There's shifts within the Houses," my father said, and the words slowed down my pace, making me turn his way. He leaned a hip against the wet bar, one hand curled around the lip of stone. "A new directive from Sirro. The Horned Gods are looking for more Hunters." I cocked a brow. My family hunted as well as being thieves, enforcers, and death-dealers. "There's every chance new Houses will be formed and it will be to our advantage if we had a marriage alliance with the Szarvas." The Szarvas hunted lesser creatures for Upper House Förstner, and as much as I hated to admit it, a marriage to Irma would be beneficial to our House. "I'm sure the Head will be whoever Irma marries. That would be you."

No, it sure as fuck wasn't going to be.

I guess my defiance showed on my face because when I stalked off to the bathroom he pushed off, rapidly gaining on me.

"I don't know what's gotten into you. What happened between you and Irma?"

Irma did. That's what.

She'd stupidly assumed that our family was set up like most of the other Houses, that the heir would be the first male born. A rare few, like the Văduvas, Estlores, and Qillisans, the position went to the firstborn child, whether they were male or female.

Not our House.

Lower House Crowther chose its heir on merit. Earlier this year, it hadn't been me my father had appointed as heir, but my younger brother Gratian—to Irma's utter shock. Not mine.

I'd never wanted the position. Ever. I was good for everything else—scaring the ever-living fuck out of someone, splintering bones, slaying—but I wasn't a leader. I didn't have the knack or inclination for the politics that came with being Head, the undercurrents that played out between Houses.

My boots left the carpet and thumped on polished marble tiles. I grabbed hold of the edge of the bathroom door, and twisted around—

My father frowned at me. "Whatever little lover's spat you two have had, you fix it, this—"

I slammed the door in my father's face.

Childish, yes.

But at that moment it felt glorious.

A moment later, that good feeling melted away. The marbled bathroom and its overhead lighting were too bright for my bloodied, battle-black armor. I looked wrong standing in there. Felt wrong too. I shucked off my heavy boots and stripped free from my armor and t-shirt. Turning on the gold-plated faucet, I wet a face cloth and cleaned my face, the back of my neck and chest, and my blood-speckled hands. I unwound the strip of fabric from my hand, inspecting the wounds. The shallow cuts had stopped bleeding, and I tossed the bloodied fabric into the wastebasket in the corner of the soft-beige-colored room.

I changed into the shirt and suit my father had brought with him, fixing the gold cufflinks, and bent over to slide my feet into the Italian loafers. Sucking in a deep breath, I steeled myself and looked at my reflection in the gold-trimmed mirror. The polished shoes and custom-cut Gucci suit couldn't hide the fact that I looked like I'd gone feral and lived up in the mountains like a hermit for the past few years.

Turning away, I brushed my fingers through the long, knotty locks, pulling half of it back and tying it with a leather strap I had around my wrist.

"You could have at least cleaned yourself up, and shaved," Jeroen said, glowering at me as I stepped out of the bathroom.

"I did," I replied, sparing him a narrowed glance.

The prickle of coarse hair raked across my palms and fingers as I ran a hand over the bushy cheeks that offended my father. I'd intended to shave my beard off when he'd ordered me to last week. Then, after my shower, my long wet hair slicked back as I stared at myself in the mirror... I didn't like what I saw—me. I didn't cut my long hair like I'd intended, nor shaved. I left it there to hide behind, and it had fucked him the right the hells off.

That bit I quite enjoyed.

I plucked a clay vial from the pocket of my bandoleer in the weapons bag, flicked the cork free with my thumb, and tossed it at an oil painting on the wall. Snatching the Zippo, I ignited a flame and sent it soaring at the liquid oozing down the painting. Blue flames exploded. I watched the fire rapidly spread and devour the wall. It would eat everything in the room, work its way down, and chew through the hotel leaving nothing behind but the metal structure, and eventually, it would eat that too. But we just needed the top floor burned down.

Sander pulled out a small flat gray disc from his jacket pocket, jumped, and slapped it on the ceiling above him. A surge of magic, much like netting, crackled outward, building like a spiderweb to encase the entire suite. It would trap the wildfyre and prevent it from spreading anywhere else. And any evidence we'd been here would be burned with the flames.

Following behind my brother and father, I elbowed the fire alarm just inside the room. The glass smashed inward and rained downward like icicles. I slammed the alarm on. An ear-splitting shrieking noise blared.

Sander headed down the hallway toward the elevator and stairwell. In my brother's hands were Molotov cocktails he'd made from sake bottles and gasoline he'd brought with him. The next floor down, he'd set it alight with plain, everyday fire.

My father lingered beside me. He turned to me, fixing those shrewd, chilling eyes on me that made me feel as if I were standing in the middle of a Siberian snowstorm. "Announce your betrothal to Irma this weekend." It wasn't a request. It was a curt demand. An order that allowed no disobedience.

As far as everyone knew, Irma and I were still together—a lie Irma perpetuated and I hadn't dissuaded it. I'd been acting out for sure, hardly speaking or seeing her, but I'd told no one, not even my twin sister, what had gone on between us. That would mean dragging out that gods awful mess all over again.

My father turned away, and I watched his massive figure, which seemed to swallow all the light in the hallway, stride toward my brother.

That feeling of being trapped squeezed the air from my lungs.

My father was a cold-hearted bastard of the highest caliber, but he was loyal to my mother. Despite their differences in temperament, they were a united front in their marriage. Now that I was heir, my father wanted me on a short leash and to bend me to his will. He was going to box me in with marriage, and no doubt children shortly after. He wanted a union with the Szarvas to advance our own House.

The funny thing was, I had asked Irma a few years back to marry me but she wanted to wait until her elder sister had been married off. At least that was the lie she had spun me, and like a fucking fool I'd believed her.

What should have been blindingly obvious to me hadn't been at the time. Irma was from a Lower House, one of many sisters, and she wanted to marry an heir.

Which at the time, I wasn't.

And then everything happened.

I'd woken up to what she was really about. At first, I'd gone out on a revenge tour of fucking. I'd hopped on that bus and punched holes in that godsdamned ticket until it was a riddled mess. I fucked daughters of Houses, wives of Heads, mortal girls, and anyone that smiled and fluttered flirty eyes at me.

And then, I just couldn't anymore.

I'd blearily awoken in a room I didn't recognize, with a girl whose name I couldn't remember, and I felt both jaded and numb. Just fucking numb.

No amount of fucking was going to make that emptiness and guilt go away. No girl was going to spark me back to life. I couldn't even fucking stand to look at myself in the mirror.

With my brother's death, my father had chosen me to take the mantle. I was pincered in it—a noose tightening around my neck—and there was no way free.

I remained standing just inside the suite, the open doorway behind me. Blazing blue flames licked up the walls right ahead of me, eating through carpet and furniture, devouring dead Yakuza. Sweltering heat and smoke billowed in rolling waves, blustering around me, teasing the loose locks of hair and scalding my bare skin.

And I didn't feel a thing.