Night Huntress 06 - Eternal Kiss of Darkness by Jeaniene Frost Page B

boy.”
     
    Mencheres kept the anger that flickered in him tamped down to undetectable levels. Radjedef could only guess that his derisive treatment of his people angered him; if Mencheres gave him proof, the Law Guardian would increase his insulting behavior. Radjedef knew the protections his status gave him and exploited every one of them when it came to Mencheres.
     
    If he wouldn’t have been the very first suspect in Radjedef’s disappearance, Mencheres would have done away with his old enemy thousands of years ago. But that was the problem. Their history went back so far, everyone knew about it.
     
    And if Radjedef were anything except a Law Guardian, Mencheres would have risked it regardless.
     
    Gorgon came into the garden. Radjedef, as expected, followed after him instead of waiting to be announced.
     
    “Sire, you have a visitor,” Gorgon said.
     
    “Thank you,” Mencheres replied. Gorgon turned around, heading back to the house before the Law Guardian could bark at him to leave. This wasn’t the first time Gorgon had dealt with Radjedef.
     
    “Menkaure,” Radjedef said, calling Mencheres by the name he’d been born with. “I am surprised you didn’t try to hide your location from me.”
     
    “I weary of our games, Radje,” Mencheres said, using the abbreviated name Radjedef had hated as a boy.
     
    His enemy’s lip twitched so subtly, no one else might have caught it. But Mencheres did, and he gave an inward smile. After four and a half millennia, Radjedef still couldn’t quite let go of his childhood insecurities. If he had, they might have met today as friends instead of adversaries.
     
    “No one delights in games as much as you,” Radjedef replied coolly, taking a seat next to Mencheres without invitation. His hand swept in the direction of the house. “Such squalid accommodations. Are you doing some form of penance by staying here?”
     
    Mencheres lifted a bored brow. “Even you would not come merely to mock my current residence.”
     
    Radjedef smiled. “I have been speaking to many sources, my old friend. Such terrible things they say about you. Repeated theft of property. Murder. Imprisonment. Witchcraft. How many laws do you think you’ve broken this year alone?”
     
    “If you had credible sources, you would be asking me this in front of the council of Guardians, not by yourself,” Mencheres replied in an even tone. “You cannot prove any of this. You never could. Find a new pastime, Radje. I hear Wii is extremely entertaining.”
     
    “Everyone knows you killed your wife by raising wraiths through black magic and sending them after her,” Radjedef said sharply.
     
    Mencheres just shrugged. “If everyone says that, then your proof should be easy to obtain.”
     
    “You know that all those who witnessed Patra’s slaying are loyal to you ,” Radje said with a flash of naked bitterness.
     
    As for Mencheres using wraiths to kill his wife… it hadn’t exactly happened that way. But the fact that the most serious charge Radjedef could bring against Mencheres was mostly true, yet it benefited Radjedef nothing, was almost enough to make Mencheres smile.
     
    Almost.
     
    “What will you do, Radje, when I am no longer here for you to center your hatred on?”
     
    A gleam appeared in Radjedef’s black eyes. “I have no intention of killing you, old friend. That would not give me what I seek—and it would be too merciful for you.”
     
    “You might find me gone regardless if it is what you seek,” Mencheres muttered in a rare moment of unguarded honesty.
     
    Radje smiled. “My heart twists in my chest at the thought.”
     
    Not as much as it would if I struck silver through it, Mencheres mused darkly. But such a thought, while tempting, would carry with it too many repercussions. Law Guardians were the highest ruling body among vampires. Mencheres might be able to kill another Master vampire with only the risk of war between himself and that vampire’s