Chapter Two #2
CYRIL HEARD THE FRONT door open and knew it was time for him to put his phone down.
It was a good thing since it was almost dead, and Vale didn’t like it when Cyril forgot to charge his phone.
He’d been too busy to do it because he’d been focused on Marcus and on finding anything he could about him, but even though he felt like he should continue trying, he also knew that he couldn’t stay focused for much longer.
He needed to eat, spend a few hours with his boyfriend, and hopefully, sleep without nightmares.
He wasn’t sure what he’d do if he had a nightmare tonight.
Deal with it, like the other two times, but still.
He didn’t want to see someone else die. If he could, he never wanted to see someone die ever again.
He’d learned to deal with death when he was very young, but that had never included being in the body of someone who was being killed.
He doubted that he would ever live the death of someone dying of natural causes, peacefully in their bed.
“Please tell me you’ve moved from the couch since I left,” Vale said as he walked into their tiny living room.
He’d taken his shoes off at the door, and he wiggled his toes a bit.
It shouldn’t be adorable on a man like Vale, but it was, and it made Cyril want to kiss him.
He got to his feet, ready to do just that, but froze when he got closer to his boyfriend.
He cocked his head and frowned, trying to put his finger on what was bothering him.
He didn’t have to think for long. “You had a job today,” he said.
“I did,” Vale answered, looking confused.
He kept mentioning retiring, but Cyril knew him.
Vale would go nuts if he fully retired, and Cyril didn’t want Vale to ever regret being with him or to feel like he was being forced into retiring as a professional assassin.
Cyril was fine with what Vale did. He would never be able to do it himself, but he’d decided that if he wanted to be with Vale, he had to accept all of him, and he had.
But Vale had never come home with death clinging to him like it did now.
“What’s going on?” Vale asked as he stepped closer.
Cyril wrinkled his nose. “The person you had to deal with today wasn’t a necromancer, were they?”
Vale frowned. “No, he was a crooked cop. Why? What’s going on?”
Cyril waved at Vale’s body. “It’s weird. It’s like this person, whoever he was, is clinging to you. I can feel him.”
“Isn’t that part of being a necromancer?”
“Not like this. I’ve never felt anything like this except when I reanimate a body. I shouldn’t be able to feel the man’s presence on you.”
“Do you think it has to do with the way your ability is evolving?”
There was no other explanation. As little as Cyril liked it, so far, he hadn’t found an explanation or a way to stop it. He wished he could because he didn’t like discovering new abilities the way he just had. He just wanted to go back to the way things had been before.
He wouldn’t be able to.
“Probably,” he told Vale with a sigh. “That’s just great. As if this mess wasn’t weird enough before.”
“We don’t know what’s going on,” Vale said.
He seemed hesitant to come closer, which probably had something to do with Cyril telling him that he felt like death. Cyril didn’t want what Vale did to come between them. He knew death. He wasn’t afraid of it, and he wasn’t disgusted by it. He also loved his boyfriend.
He stepped closer, reaching out to wrap his arms around Vale’s waist. He felt Vale relax and knew he’d done the right thing. Vale really had thought that Cyril wouldn’t want him close.
Cyril squeezed Vale’s waist and pressed against him. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, relaxing for what was probably the first time today. “I don’t like that my ability is changing, but it has nothing to do with you. I never want you to stay away.”
Vale finally hugged Cyril back. “I don’t want to stay away, either.”
They’d come very close to breaking up recently, and that wound was still fresh as far as Cyril was concerned. He needed them to talk, to be honest with each other. He didn’t think they would survive another situation like what had happened with Melissa. It had mostly been Cyril’s fault, but still.
His phone vibrated on the coffee table. He’d set up notifications for his emails so that he’d always know when he received one. He wasn’t about to miss something the way he had with Marcus.
“Is it your mom?” Vale asked as he let go of Cyril.
Cyril quickly snatched up his phone and checked the screen. He frowned and unlocked the phone. “No. It’s another email.”
When Vale didn’t answer, Cyril looked up to find him frowning. Cyril hadn’t told him about Marcus’s email yet. “Earlier, I was checking my emails because Robbie ordered me to, and I found one from Marcus.”
“You mean the man who died a few days ago? The one you saw in your dream?”
“Yes. He tried contacting me. In his email, he says that his abilities were changing and that he thought someone was watching him. He sent the email a month ago, but I didn’t see it until now.”
Vale’s expression cleared up. “And you feel guilty.”
“You know I do. I realize there’s probably nothing I could’ve done to stop the killer, but I still feel like I could’ve helped. Even if I couldn’t have, his abilities were changing, just like mine. We could have talked and maybe found a way out of this mess.”
Cyril looked back down at his phone and opened the email. It came from someone named Diana Ortiz, and initially, he didn’t think much of it. As he’d scrolled through his inbox earlier, he’d realized that most of the messages were either taken care of by Robbie or junk.
But not this one. As he quickly read what Diana had written, his eyes widened, and he held his breath.
“Her ability is changing,” he murmured.
Vale swore and stepped closer. “Whose ability? Who did you just get an email from?”
“I don’t know her. The email says her name is Diana and that she’s a necromancer. She’s tried reaching out to other necromancers, but either she didn’t get an answer or they laughed in her face. She’s so scared, Vale.”
Vale wrapped his arms around Cyril and held him close. “That’s all right. We’re going to help her.”
“We are?”
“If helping her means we might find something more about what’s happening to you, definitely. I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart, Cyril. I’m doing it because you’re involved and I can’t allow anything to happen to you.”