Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Aidan
It’s after eight by the time Alistair gets back. I’ve run out of food in the stupid bathroom, and I’m hungry. He better have brought dinner.
I don’t smell anything edible.
“Aidan?” he says, still downstairs. “You can come out now.”
I narrow my eyes at the door. He’d better feckin’ have a feast on the way. And maybe greet me naked and on his knees.
Leaving my laptop, the armchair, and the empty coolers where they are—he can put everything away later.
I’m never stepping foot into this damn bathroom again—I unlock the door and make my way out into the rest of the house.
The sense of freedom is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.
Shifters are definitely not meant to be locked up for fourteen hours at a time.
When I get downstairs, Alistair is leaning over his laptop at the island—fully dressed, unfortunately.
Fortunately (for him), the first thing he says is “I ordered dinner about fifteen minutes ago—it should be here soon. And Sam ordered more groceries for us, too—they’ll be delivered between six and nine tomorrow morning.
That’ll tide us over until we know how long we’re staying. ”
Well… I suppose that’s acceptable. But I still had to spend fourteen hours in a bathroom, so I’m not letting go of my grudge.
He straightens and turns, smiling at me with genuine happiness, and it gets a little harder to hold on to that grudge.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t back sooner—was your day too awful? I wish you hadn’t been stuck in the bathroom all day.”
And there goes my grudge. Dammit.
“It’s not an experience I’d like to repeat,” I say dryly, even as I take in the dark smudges under his eyes. He’s spent almost the whole day driving, with few breaks. That couldn’t have been a picnic either. “How about you?”
He shrugs. “I’m hungry, cramped, and dying for a shower. I think I’m going to eat standing up. I’d forgotten how annoying it is to be in a car for a long time.”
Softening even more, I close the distance between us and go up on tiptoe to offer my mouth. He still has to bend his head to kiss me, but I like it. I like that outwardly he’s the bigger one, but that our dynamic is much more equal. And honestly, that kiss is the best part of this day.
“Do you have time to shower before the food gets here?” I murmur against his lips. I feel them curve in a smile before we separate.
“If I hurry. And I think I will. I had the car windows open for hours, and I can smell all sorts of shit on myself now.”
I take a step back. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but yeah.” I inhale and wrinkle my nose. “It’s hard to tell because you stink of farms, exhaust, and other hellhounds, but that weird grassy tang—is that the elves?”
He nods, once again doing that thing where he tries to lift an eyebrow and ends up with both rising lopsidedly. It’s so adorable. “I’m impressed that you can smell it at all, mixed in with everything else and as faint as it was.”
I sniff again. My nose will never be as good as a hellhound’s, and Alistair’s had some pretty specific training on top of that, but the elvish smell stands out. “It’s pretty distinctive.” I shake my head to clear it. “Go shower, or that’s all we’ll be able to smell while we eat.”
He drops another kiss on my mouth—aww—then walks past me, saying, “The team waited at the office to do a full debrief. They’ll be calling in about fifteen minutes.”
“No problem. We can talk while we eat.” I walk a circuit around the living room and island, just so pleased to be out of the bathroom.
He’s halfway up the stairs when he stops and turns around. “Oh—and you should know that you’re my lover now.”
I blink a few times. “Yeah, I know. I was there, remember?” Maybe being stuck in the car all day addled his brain a bit.
He chuckles. “No, silly. I mean it’s our official label. We’re lovers. You can tell people I’m your lover.”
Uh…
He’s nearly to the top of the stairs before I manage to ask, “Alistair, you haven’t called me your lover to anyone, have you?”
“Of course!”
I’m left staring at the top of the stairs. The weirdest part is how enchanting and charming I find this—it’s mixed with horror, but I can’t deny it: Alistair’s foibles are adorable to me.
A wide grin spreads across my face.
Something is drawing me out of sleep, something not right, even before Alistair whispers my name. I open my eyes, blinking away sleep, and it hits me immediately: the faint scent that clung to Alistair when he got home is back.
Elf.
It’s not that close—not in the house—but close enough. The unusualness of its scent really stands out. I sit up slowly as Alistair gets out of bed and—
Someone’s knocking.
We both look toward the open bedroom door, then at each other. Is this a trick of some kind?
The knock comes again. It’s firm enough that even a human would be able to hear it at this distance.
Alistair inhales deeply, and a peculiar look crosses his face. He turns to meet my gaze, then points toward the bathroom.
He’s got to be feckin’ kidding me. I shake my head vehemently. He crosses his arms and nods.
The knock sounds for the third time. If we want to maintain any kind of advantage, we need to act.
I flip Alistair the bird and go into the bathroom, buck naked, and ease the door closed. But I don’t lock it or open the window, instead concentrating on listening.
There’s a rustle—Alistair putting on pants?—then footsteps so light that no other species could hear them as Alistair leaves the room. By the time he gets to the stairs, I can’t even hear them, and I’m not certain if he’s even still moving or has stopped.
Then I hear the locks on the front door click open, and I brace.
If it’s a trick, this would be the perfect time to spring it—shove the door open, throwing Alistair off-balance, and overwhelm him with…
I don’t know what. I can still only smell elf, and I’m pretty sure it’s just one.
There’s no variation in scent that would indicate more.
Why didn’t Alistair go out the back door and circle around? Or even out a window?
The door opens, a hinge squeaking slightly.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” Alistair asks, a lot of growl in his voice. I can just picture him looming in the doorway, half-naked, looking all intimidating.
Focus.
Whatever the elf says in response is so low, I can’t hear the individual words.
“Are you alone?” Alistair demands.
There’s another low murmur of sound.
“Do you intend us any harm? I can smell it if you lie,” he warns.
The tone of the murmur changes—surprise? Maybe Tish and the CCA have been keeping secrets from their allies.
“Aidan!”
I guess that’s my cue. I pause in the bedroom only long enough to put on my pants and make it down the stairs in record time.
Alistair’s got the elf inside and the door closed by the time I get there, but he still hasn’t turned the lights on.
We don’t know much about the elves, but shifters are the only high-intelligence species on Earth with the ability to see perfectly in the dark, so presumably he wants to use any advantage we might have.
“Who’s this?” I ask, and based on the way the elf startles, they don’t have shifter-level sight or hearing. I was quiet coming downstairs, but not that quiet.
To my surprise, the elf answers. “My name is Caolan of Ebenkreis, and I believe we have a mutual enemy.” Their voice is even, slightly accented, and really very pleasant to listen to.
I glance over at Alistair, who hasn’t taken his eyes off our visitor.
I smirk a little when I notice he didn’t put on pants, just his boxer briefs—the ones with bright yellow smiley faces all over them.
“Keel-an?” I confirm, a little surprised they have an Irish name.
Or perhaps we Irish adopted it from their species?
They nod. “And who is this mutual enemy?”
They blink and widen their eyes, presumably trying to see better in the darkness, but otherwise don’t move. “éibhear of Kesmegan.”
“Don’t know ’em, sorry,” I say lightly. Alistair seems content to let me handle this for now. He’s braced on the balls of his feet, slightly crouched, which I recognize as being a defensive position, and he’s breathing evenly, taking in as much scent as he can.
“He has allied himself with one of your people,” the elf says. “Francis Tish.”
I swallow my excitement. This could be the source of information we’ve been looking for.
Or it could be a trap.
“You know we can smell lies?” I ask. It’s not strictly true.
Alistair can because he’s been trained to do so.
I—and most other shifters—can smell biochemical changes that indicate stress and certain other emotions, but that doesn’t mean I can tell whether that’s due to a lie or just that aforementioned stress.
And in this case, without knowing the biochemical baseline for elves, even Alistair would only know that the scent had changed, not what that meant.
But we need every advantage we can scrape together. If this elf turns out to be on our side—or at the very least an enemy of our enemy—we can apologize for misleading them later.
“Yes. Your companion told me.” They still seem composed—a little tense, maybe, but given they’re in a dark room with two beings who are treating them like an enemy, that’s to be expected.
“Are you an enemy of Tish?” It’s not the question I most want to ask, but how the elf answers will tell us a lot.
They hesitate. “I don’t know Tish,” they say at last. “I am reluctant to declare enmity without knowing his purpose and goals. But I am an enemy to his ally, éibhear, and for so long as Tish works with éibhear, I could not ally myself with him.”
“So you don’t share the purpose and goals of éibhear?” Whoever that is. Another Irish name, although the place names they mentioned don’t have Gaelic language roots.
“I do not.” There’s a definite shift in tone this time—the disgust is clear.
“What are éibhear’s purposes and goals?”