Lover Mine

“I need you to get me an address.”

Those icy silver eyes narrowed, the tattoo on his left temple flexing. “What kind of addy you looking for.”

“Off a civilian’s cell phone number.” Blay recited the digits he’d just dialed.

V rolled his eyes and stepped back. “Child’s play.”

And it was. Couple of keystrokes at the Brother’s Four Toys and V looked up from his computers. “Twenty- one oh five Sienna Court—Where the fuck are you going?”

Blay spoke over his shoulder as he strode past the leather couches and the wide-screen television. “Out your front door.”

V dematerialized and blocked the exit. “Sun’s coming up in twenty-five minutes, true?”

“Then don’t keep me here a second longer.” Blay slid his eyes to the Brother’s. “Let me go.”

The whole lot of nonnegotiable he was feeling must have shown in his face because V cursed low. “Make it quick or you aren’t coming back.”

As the Brother opened the door, Blay thin-aired it right out... and took form on Sienna Court, a tree-lined street with Victorians of various colorful extractions. He flashed down to 2105, a perfectly conditioned clapboard number painted in dark green with gray-and-black trim. The front ginger-bread porch and the side door were lit with lanterns, but inside everything was dark.

Which made sense. Going by the way the glass panes double-reflected, there were internal shutters down in place.

No getting in through them.

Without a lot of options for infiltration, given that those window shields undoubtedly had steel in them, he went up to the front door and rang the bell.

The weak sunlight coming from the east heated his back even though the rays were barely strong enough to throw shadows. Damn it, where was the camera? Assuming V got the house right—and come on, he was always right—there would be a closed-circuit monitoring system...

Ah, yes, in the eyes of the lion door knocker.

Leaning forward, he met the brass face and pounded with his fists.

“Let me in, Saxton.” As his shoulders and spine heated even further, he reached behind himself and fluffed out the top of the scrubs he’d put on.

The clicking shift of the lock and turn of the knob had him brushing quickly through his damp hair.

The door opened only a crack and the house beyond was shrouded in dense shadows. “What are you doing”—cough—“here.”

Blay went cold as he smelled blood.

Slamming his shoulder into the heavy panels, he pushed inside. “What the hell—”

Saxton’s voice receded. “Go home, Blaylock. As much as I adore you, I’m not in a position to receive at the moment.”

Yeah, big whatever on that. With a quick shift, Blay shut them in together to keep the sun out.

“What happened.” Even though he knew. On an instinctual level, he knew. “Who beat you?”

“I was about to take a shower. Perhaps you’ll join me?” As Blay swallowed hard, Saxton laughed a little. “All right. I’ll take one and you have a coffee. Because it seems as though you are my guest for the day.”

There was the sound of the lock turning on the door, and then the male shuffled away—which suggested he might have a limp.

Although it wasn’t possible to see Saxton in the dense black, the sounds of him walking headed over to the right. Blay hesitated. No sense in checking his watch again. He knew that the chance to get back had likely passed.

He was indeed staying the day.

The other male opened the way into a cellar, revealing a set of dimly lit steps that descended below. In the soft glow of illumination, Saxton’s beautiful blond hair was matted with a rusty stain.

Blay marched forward and snatched hold of the guy’s arm. “Who did this to you?”

Saxton refused to glance over, but his deep shudder said plenty about what his voice had already revealed: he was tired and in pain. “Let us say... that I shan’t be going for more cigars anytime soon.”

That alley by the bar... shit, Blay had taken off first, but he’d assumed Saxton had done the same. “What happened after I left?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“The fuck it doesn’t.”

“If you’d be so kind, permit me”—more of that damned cough—“to go back to bed. Especially if you’re going to get testy. I’m not feeling particularly well.”

With that, he looked over his shoulder.

Blay’s breath shot out of his lungs.

“Oh... my God,” he whispered.

FORTY-SIX

T he sun was just about to pierce the veil of forest when Darius and Tohrment took form in front of a small, thatch-roofed cottage miles and miles and miles away from the site of the abduction and the mansion beside it... and the reptilian thing who had greeted them in that dank underground hallway.

“Are you sure about this?” Tohrment asked, switching his satchel to his opposite shoulder.

At the present, Darius felt sure about nothing. For truth, he was surprised that he and the boy had managed to get free of that symphath’s house without a fight. In point of fact, however, they had been escorted out as though they had been invited guests.

Then again, sin-eaters always kept their own best advantage in sight, and verily, Darius and Tohrment were of far greater use to the head of that household alive as opposed to dead.

“Are you sure?” Tohrment prompted again. “You hesitate to go therein.”

“Alas, my tarrying has naught to do with you.” Darius walked forward, picking up the beaten path that led to the front door, said groundway having been created by the repeated passing of his own boots. “I shall not have you sleeping on the cold stone floor of the Tomb. My home is rough, but has a roof and walls sufficient to shelter not one, but two.”

For a brief moment, he entertained a fantasy that he lived as he had once done, in a castle full of rooms and doggen and lovely appointments, in a luxurious place where he could open his doors to friends and family and have those whom he loved safe and secure and tended to.

Perhaps he would find a way to have that again.

Although given that he had no family and no friends, it was hardly something to pursue with alacrity.

Popping the cast-iron latch free, he put his torso to the oak door—which, considering its size and heft, was more of a movable wall. After he and Tohr went inside, he lit the oil lamp that hung by the entrance and closed them in, laying a broad beam thick as a tree trunk across the panel.

So modest. Only one chair before the hearth and a single pallet across the way. And there was not much more to be had down below the earth, just some precious supplies and a hidden tunnel that terminated well into the bounds of the forest.

“Shall we have a repast?” Darius said as he began to disarm.

“Yes, sire.”

The boy removed his own weapons and went to the hearth, settling down onto his haunches and lighting the peat that was always set when there wasn’t a fire burning. As the scent of the smoking moss wafted over, Darius pulled up the trapdoor in the dirt floor and went underground to his food and ale and his parchments. He returned with cheeses and breads and smoked venison.

The fire cast a glow over Tohr’s face as he warmed his hands and asked, “What dost thou make