Chapter Nine
I wake up smoothly. And I’m feeling sappy enough to attribute it to the person doing their best impression of an octopus around me.
Alexo’s facing me, but I must not have moved much last night because I’m still curled toward him.
He’s got one arm thrown over my waist and his leg wedged between my thighs to hook around my knee, his other hand wrapped across his own stomach to cling to the wrist I have poking out beneath his body.
Sunlight streams through the window’s gauzy curtains, pale light illuminating his rumpled bedhead and slack mouth, breaths puffing on my chest as he twitches in sleep.
The collar of my shirt is twisted around his shoulders and the comforter got kicked down at some point last night.
Probably due to me being a raging space heater; I’m shocked Alexo’s crowded so close and isn’t sweating.
But it lets me trail my eyes down his body, his long dancer’s legs, those pink polished toes, his hips twisted in the tangled position he’s knotted us in.
It pops his ass.
His ass that is currently uncovered by my shirt, showing tight black boxers that highlight his perfect bubble butt.
“Creeper,” he mumbles into my chest.
I flick my gaze to his face, and he’s smirking at me.
“Can you blame me? You’re gorgeous.” I arch down to kiss his jaw. “All soft and sleepy.” Another kiss on one of his dimples. “Laid out in my bed.”
He wiggles up until we’re face-to-face, and morning breath be damned; my focus zeroes in on that look in his eyes, and before I realize what I’ve done, my hand’s up under his shirt, palm flat on the warm, slick skin of his lower back.
I freeze.
He does, too, his fingers arched into my short hair, a hundred questions and hesitations and desires roiling through his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I assure him and carefully peel my hand out from under his shirt, being sure not to touch anything else.
He grabs my wrist.
Those eyes catch fire, darkening with intent as he plants my hand flat on his ass.
“No. I want you to touch me,” he says, and need twists beneath my belly button, pulled by the same need glowing in his eyes. He’s shaking even through that determination, and I rock forward until my forehead rests on his.
“It’s okay, Belle,” I whisper. “We don’t have to.”
“I want to,” he moans. “I want to tell you. Please. I—”
There’s a knock at the main door.
No—a hammering at the door. Thunderous fists beat on the wood and I fly up, one arm automatically going over Alexo’s body, pushing him back behind me.
“The fuck?” The knock goes again, and before it wakes the whole damn floor, I leap out of bed.
Alexo’s sitting up, knees curled to his chest, wide eyes fixed on the open door to the suite’s living room. Another booming knock and he flurries out from under the blankets, scrambling toward the bathroom.
But not before I see the fear on his face. The same fear he showed last night, when news of the Galaxrien attack hit.
I dig through my suitcase, pull on another Hellhounds shirt, chew a few breath mints—they’ll have to do—and march out into the main room.
Whoever it is now punctuates their knocks with a harsh “Open up, Mr. Monroe!”
I look through the peephole.
No way.
A glance behind tells me Alexo’s still in the bathroom. Good.
I square my shoulders and open the suite’s main door.
To face Tem Raussec.
Who followed Alexo to New York.
He’s followed Alexo on other away games, so I shouldn’t be surprised. But tell that to my rage.
Behind him, on either side of the door, are two people I didn’t see in the peephole. They’re dressed in matching light leather armor with spell component belts around their hips. Members of an adventure party?
I glower at Tem. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He ignores me, trying to force his way into the room, but he’s a human and I’m a half-giant defensive tank on a pro rawball team; he ain’t getting in.
He rebounds off my chest with an affronted snarl.
“Alexo!” he calls, eyes on me. “Alexo!”
I flip my glare at the nearest person behind him, a half-elven woman about my mom’s age with umber skin and black hair in a braid. “What’s this about?”
She puts a hand on Tem’s shoulder, tugging him back. “May we come in?”
“May we?” Tem scoffs. “He abducted him!”
“I did not abduct—”
Fingers press to my bicep.
I turn and Alexo’s staring past me, at Tem, with an odd mix of fear and shame. He put last night’s clothes back on but they’re wrinkled now, his hair still a mess, and he smells like peppermint toothpaste—and me. From sleeping in my clothes and all over my body.
I instantly hook my arm around him and try to put as much of myself in front of him as I can.
“What do you want to do?” I ask Alexo. All I want to do is slam the door on Tem’s face, but if he called an adventure party because he thought I abducted Alexo …
Alexo flicks his eyes up to me. “Let them come in. I owe you an explanation.”
Tem chokes. “You sure as hell do not.”
But the woman behind Tem makes a thoughtful noise. “Does he deserve your explanation, Alexo? Even with who his god is?”
The fuck does that have to do with anything? I swear, if Urzoth somehow interferes with helping Alexo right now, I’ll renounce his ass so hard—
But wait a second.
Does Alexo know this woman?
Without looking away from me, Alexo nods. “He’s not his god,” he says to her. To me. “He’s stronger.”
My chest concaves. I’m not entirely sure what’s happening, but I stay alert and back up, keeping Alexo against me as I make room for Tem and the two other people to get inside.
I shut the door, my fingers probably digging bruises into Alexo’s side.
“This wasn’t an abduction,” I say to the elven woman.
The other guy surveys the living room, checking behind the curtains, the couch. He pulls a vial out and does a spell that flutters over the whole room in a wash of shimmering arcane blue before it fades.
“Secure,” he says.
Secure? What the hell is happening?
The elven woman nods. “We know it wasn’t an abduction, Mr. Monroe. My apologies for the abruptness of—”
“It was an abduction. He got taken,” Tem growls, hands fisted. He faces Alexo. “I’ve been out searching for you all night. I called and called, only to discover you left your phone in the room?”
Tem yanks that phone out of his pocket and chucks it at Alexo.
Alexo swings his hands up, but I grab it before it can get anywhere close to him. With that trajectory, it would have hit him in the face.
My glare could shatter rock. I hope it does. I hope Tem feels a tremor in his bones. “Throw something else at him again, and you’ll find that same object shoved down your throat.”
Tem looks ready to blow, waiting, hoping for me to make the first move.
Normally, that anticipatory look in his eyes would have me dropping into a peaceful resolution. Don’t be what people expect of me; don’t use my size, my Urzoth legacy, in ways that harm or intimidate.
But he threatened Alexo.
And that’s my line, apparently. The gloves-off line, the expectations-be-damned line.
It should scare me. Unsettle me, at the very least; I’m usually so in control.
But I will fuck Tem up if he tries to hurt Alexo again.
Alexo calmly, too calmly, takes his phone out of my hands and pockets it. “Don’t, please,” he whispers.
I’m instantly reaching for his face, brushing my thumb across his cheekbone. “Belle, what’s going—”
Tem screeches. “You told him your name?”
The room goes quiet. Fatalistically.
Tem’s huffing with fury. The guy who did the secure spell has one hand on his component belt. The elven woman looks almost bored.
And Alexo stares up at me, beseeching.
His eyes tear and he rolls them shut in a wince that trembles down to his very roots.
You told him your name.
He looks at the elven woman. His hands drop to his sides, his chin thrusting forward in part defiance, part holding back tears.
“I’m going to tell him,” he says to her. “I was going to tell him before you came because we’re leaving anyway, aren’t we? So what does it matter. Just let me have this. Just once.”
His last word comes with a sob, and he’d buckle in half if I weren’t still hanging on to his hips. I pull him into me but he shakes his head like he can’t let himself collapse, not yet.
“You’re not telling him shit,” Tem snarls. “Let’s go. Now. You’ve fucked this up enough.”
“What is going on?” I demand, looking at Alexo, but my words are for the room, for anyone to start talking now.
The elven woman straightens, hands behind her back. “My name is Ilbryen,” she says coolly. “This is my partner, Gulus.”
The other guy still has his hand near his potions where he hangs back by the window.
“And you already know Tem,” Ilbryen says, but I refuse to look at him.
Tem, however, spins on her. “What are you doing? We need to get him out of here.”
Ilbryen continues, unaffected, “And you are Orok Monroe. Son of Ghorza Monroe, a former Arcane Forces soldier, and Dave Monroe, an accountant. Defensive tank for the Hellhounds, previously the Chimeras. Graduate of Lesiara University with a Mageus in Theological Evocation and an undergrad in Theology. And, for the past few weeks, one half of a PR relationship with a cheerleader to bring positive associations to your god, Urzoth Shieldsworn.”
My head cocks. Most of that information is easy enough to find; hell, one quick Google would dump all that out on any rawball tabloid site.
Except the last thing. “How do you know the relationship is for PR?”
Ilbryen smiles. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “It’s our job to know. We are members of a larger union of adventure parties responsible for the concealment and protection of victims of prophecy, sacrifice, and curses. Victims such as—”
She looks at Alexo. And smiles, truer this time.
Despite his earlier boldness, his eyes widen. “You’ll—you’ll let me?”
“You said you were going to. Do you really trust him? Even with his patron god?”
He gives a frantic nod. “I told you. He isn’t—” He glances at me, and I realize it’s him asking permission to talk about me and Urzoth.