Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Adric, Chase, and I pause at the top of the stairs.
Below us, Mr. Griffin and Solenne are staying as Whistler sleeps, hopefully through the night.
From the landing, all I can hear is Whistler’s labored breathing, which probably shouldn’t be reassuring, but it is. Because at least it means he’s alive.
I’d wanted to stay below, but both Solenne and Mr. Griffin had vetoed that plan.
“There’s more that will be coming through the Widow Maker,” Mr. Griffin had said. “And next time it won’t be a friend. Go. Rest. You and Chase check in with our contacts. You know I’ll reach out if anything changes. At the very least, he’ll sleep a long time.”
“Is true,” Solenne had said. “He has much sleep draught in him. Needed for healing. You go. I will hold him safe.”
So we’d gone, trusting that she would keep her vow. Not that I doubted her. She’d kept Chase alive, after all, at least long enough for Adric’s blood to work its magic.
When we’d started up the stairs, it had felt like we had a purpose.
Rest and prepare for what’s coming. Now, though, all I can think about is these two men, both of whom I want.
And neither of whom I can have while the other is around.
And, honestly, this whole big emotional—and, yeah, sexual—tangle is really weighing on me.
At least you weren’t attacked by wolves and left for dead.
That’s me—Perspective Girl.
As Chase makes three lattes for our walk back, Adric drifts among the shelves as if he wants to understand this store that’s such a huge part of my life.
“This is your place?” he asks as Chase passes him a latte.
“The store, no. The training area I’ll claim, though technically it’s all Griff’s property.”
“He was a Hunter,” Adric says. “A nomadic life, and yet he put down such firm roots.”
“He retired,” Chase says coolly, and I remember that Mr. Griffin’s wife, Helen, had been a Hunter, too. For a moment, I try to imagine him and Helen traipsing over the globe, fighting back mares who were more likely than not from Adric’s own realm.
“It is a good collection,” Adric says, still wandering the stacks.
“The private collection is better,” I tell him. “Griffin knows his stuff.”
“You speak as though you know him well, Beloved. Yet it hasn’t even been a year.”
I shrug. “I haven’t spent a year with you either.” I let my gaze trail over him. “But I think I know you pretty well, too.”
To my delight, he laughs. Chase does, too, but he mostly hides it. And when he catches my eye, I see him mouth good one.”
If Adric’s smile is any indication, he noticed that, too.
What I’m mostly noticing is that these two men aren’t currently trying to kill each other. And that, I think, is a very good thing.
“We should go,” I say. “We need to shut off the lights before someone thinks we’re open for business.”
Adric nods from where he’s standing next to a window, looking out at the street beyond. He’s in the outfit the realm provided, his coat of shadows transformed into a black leather jacket that’s pretty damn sexy over the white tee and jeans, giving him a biker vibe.
As for Chase, he’s sitting on the checkout counter, no jacket, and his sleeves rolled up. He holds his blade in one hand and is carving lines in the already marred wooden countertop. Still sexy, but with an undercover cop kinda vibe.
“Griff is going to kick your ass,” I say, nodding to where he’s marred the counter.
Chase chuckles. “He won’t. It was his idea.”
“Idea?”
The Brides,” he says, looking at me. “Bridewell Park is a liminal space, not a permanent reminder of my burden. So he suggested I make a mark for each one. A reminder that all can see, even if they don’t understand.”
“But they’re all dead now,” I point out. “All but one,” I say, remembering the fury that had surged through me when I’d learned the truth—that Chase’s number one job was to hunt and kill the Brides.
And I just happen to be the last of them.
“That is a mark I will never make,” Chase says, his expression as he looks at me so full of love, I feel my cheeks burn.
I nod. “I know.”
Adric turns from the book he’d been studying—or, at least, pretending to study. “You truly love her.”
“I do,” Chase says, smiling at me in that way that melts my heart.
“Then you know how I feel,” Adric says, and I melt a little bit more.
I expect Chase to snap back that Adric doesn’t have a clue, but instead, he nods. “I do,” he says, meeting his brother’s eyes, then mine. “Intimately,” he adds.
I swallow, and the room suddenly feels too warm. He’s talking about the bond, of course, and feeling what his brother feels, something I’ve never experienced even though I’m right there at the center.
My cheeks go hot, and I push away from the pillar I’ve been leaning against. “We should go,” I say, hoping neither one can read me well enough to know how enticing I find their bond.
The idea that when one is with me, the other feels it...
it’s compelling, and a serious turn-on. Not that I’ve admitted it, not even to Tia.
That little confession would probably require me to go crawl under a bed and hide for a year.
When we’re finally out the door, Chase uses the keypad to lock it behind us, and we start the cross-campus walk to Chase’s apartment.
“The barriers,” Adric says after a few minutes of silence. “Tell me where they stand.”
“Weakening,” Chase says, “and faster than last week. The collapse is putting a hell of a strain on the keystone. And the dead zone is growing every night.”
“That is consistent with what my sages report. The collapse is slow, as it should be, and there is time yet to prepare for what comes after.”
Chase’s hand goes to the hilt of his blade. “What comes after,” he repeats.
“Yes.”
“You mean after the barriers fall?”
“I do.”
“And you still think that’s the right outcome?”
Adric shrugs. “I think it is the inevitable one. I think we have a window in which to manage it. Slow. Controlled. Better than a sudden tear that gives no one time to brace.”
“You’re missing the bigger picture,” Chase says. “If those barriers go, half the things in your realm will eat half the things in the Real. And that includes Cora. You know that.”
“I do. Though I believe Cora can take care of herself. And she, of course, already has a safe place to go. The fall is quite survivable by those who prepare.”
“You are out of your mind.”
“And you have been telling me that for an age.”
They keep going, walking faster as the debate continues. I hurry to keep up, knowing I should probably be wildly annoyed—it’s not like I haven’t heard all this before—but instead I realize that I’m not thinking about their fight at all.
Instead, I’m thinking about the bond I’ve witnessed between these brothers. Chase tells me it’s there all the time. The invisible thing that runs through them always, though it’s definitely more prominent when emotions are high.
I know they each feel it bodily when they’re apart—I’ve had the privilege of being in the middle of that naughtily delicious meal.
What I wonder now is if they feel it outside of sex, like now, too.
If while one is arguing to light the world on fire, is he also feeling the argument to douse that world in water?
I don’t know. But I have to admit I can’t help but wonder what that must be like. Or even what it would be like to be in the middle of what they feel.
Technically, I guess I have been on more than a few occasions. And while I felt quite a bit—and all quite delicious—my sensations were my own, because that blood bond is something I just can’t share.
And isn’t that a shame?
I’m still thinking about it as we reach Chase’s apartment, even though they’ve both moved on to something about the Realm of Retribution that I’m entirely ignoring.
Instead, I’m lost in a delicious little fantasy as I try to imagine what they experience through the bond. And, more, what it would be like to be in the middle of that.
Not just having Chase while Adric feels it somewhere across a realm—a strange intrusion that, yes, has turned into quite a turn-on for him.
And not just having Adric while Chase paces his apartment, white-knuckled and furious about being a passenger even when he’s rock hard and thoroughly enjoying himself.
No, what I wonder is what it would be like in the moment—to have them both in the same room at the same time.
To be right there in the middle of whatever it is they share.
It’s wild, sure. But it’s an idea I like.
After all, two hot, immortal, god-like guys?
That’s got Sex Fantasy written all over it.
A fantasy my body would be happy to turn into a reality, if the tightening of my nipples and the thrum of need between my legs is any indication.
And that’s all well and fine, but could I ever actually work up the courage to do it? Never mind the courage to ask for it?
I don’t know. But I’ve been awake all night, and I’m stressed to the limit and more than a little intrigued. And, yeah, already a lot turned on. Probably not the best time to suggest such a tryst—especially knowing I might send one or both the men I love scrambling in opposite directions.
Still…
I shove the thought away, and by the time we’re a block away from Chase’s apartment, the sky has climbed past gray into the bright, soft blue of morning.
There are people out now—students with their backpacks, a woman walking her dog, a guy unloading produce in front of the diner across the street.
And none of them know the decadent direction of my thoughts.
The naughty little fantasies I’ve been running in my head and wondering if I dare pursue.
Chase leads the way up the exterior stairs and into his apartment, and I follow, with Adric behind me and my mind still back with the bond and the fantasies I’ve been spinning for most of the morning.