under his ear. He fervently hoped it was spilled wine and not vomit.
“Well, I guess we’ll just have to carry him up to his room again. Come on. Give
me a hand.”
This would never do. A Hell-Hound? Being carried through a whorehouse like a
common drunk?
Zalbar gathered himself to surge to his feet and voice his protests …
He sat up in bed with a start, experiencing that crystal clarity of awareness
and thought that sometimes occurs when one wakes between a heavy drunk and the
inevitable hangover.
Sleeping! He had been asleep! After three days of forcing himself to stay awake
he had been stupid enough to start drinking!
Every muscle tense, he hurriedly scanned the room, dreading what he knew he
would find.
Nothing. He was alone in the room … his room … what had become his room at
the Aphrodisia House through Myrtis’s tolerance and generosity. It wasn’t here!
Forcing himself to relax, he let memories wash over him like a polluted wave.
He hadn’t just been drinking. He was drunk! Not for the first time, either, he
realized as his mind brought up numerous repetitions of this scene for his
review. The countless excuses he had hidden behind in the past were swept aside
by the merciless hand of self-contempt. This was becoming a habit … much more
the reality of his existence than the golden self-image he tried to cling to.
Hugging himself in his misery, Zalbar tried to use this temporary clarity of
thought to examine his position.
What had he become?
When he first arrived in Sanctuary as one of Prince Kadakithis’s elite