Chapter 4
ARCHIE
My heart is racing, my legs carrying me back to the truck as quickly as I can move. I need lube and a condom. A perfect, round, pale ass wrapped in lace is patiently waiting for me in one of my favorite spots.
The idea of taking him over a gravestone makes my cock hard.
It makes him hard too. I saw it straining against his pants and then against those pretty panties he’s wearing.
The way he’ll feel bent over for me.
Or maybe he’ll run, and I’ll be able to chase my little rabbit.
Mm. The way his cheeks darkened when I called him that.
I liked it very much.
I reach the truck and hear the cat howling from its place in the cage. I move toward it, trying to calm it with my voice. I know it won’t work, but Milo insists I try.
“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I only want to help,” I murmur, but it only screams louder, now clawing at the cage as though it can will the door open. I cock my head, watching it, wondering if I’d feel the same—stolen away and confined to a small place.
I think I wouldn’t like that. When I put myself in a small space like my coffins, I do it willingly. Happily. I do it when I need the pressure of being enveloped by silk and wood to calm me down.
So I don’t blame this little fucker for being angry.
I glance back toward the edge of the tree line where I left my little rabbit. He’s waiting so patiently for me.
I want to return to him, to take him, but the cat has gone suddenly quiet, and when I turn around, I see it on its side, its breathing labored. The cat’s tongue is sticking out, and I hear a faint panting noise, which tells me immediately that the cat is sick.
“Fuck.” If I let this cat die, Milo may have me fight to the death as retribution. Or at least until I’m sufficiently injured. And I don’t mean that as a metaphor. He literally beat the snot out of me when we were younger, when he felt I was in the wrong.
We might have changed over the years. We aren’t as violent as we used to be. But that doesn’t mean the core of who we are is different.
It makes me think of that man who was choking my little rabbit the night I was finally close enough to touch him.
I felt rage inside of me, deep and ugly.
The same rage I felt when someone tried to kill my best friend.
The same rage I felt when someone took Milo—which was the night I earned my scar.
I am the same man I have always been, and I will draw blood willingly and happily if it means protecting the people I love. And the people who I know I will come to love, just like the man currently bent over a tombstone waiting for me.
Denver is perfection in this land of dying things, and I do not want to keep him waiting, but I also know that I have obligations, and I must fulfill them, no matter what.
As I peer back over my shoulder once more, dread fills my stomach as I realize what I must do. Denver won’t wait forever. He’s not the most patient man, which is something we can work on in the future when I have time for him and only him.
I will make it up to him, I think as I slip behind the wheel and start the truck.
Milo will never forgive me if I let a cat die because I want to fuck a man over a headstone. No matter how romantic it is. So I will do this, and then I will find my little rabbit and make it right again.
I will give him time and attention, flowers and gifts. I will spoil him until he’s liquid in my hands.
But for now, I will focus on this.
Thank god there are only two vet offices in town, and the one I’m bound for is run by a guy I’ve seen at the gym where most of Denver’s friends work.
I’ve spent way too much time in that parking lot, staring at the gray building with all the construction work being done after the fire.
And normally, that wouldn’t be my business—and in fact, I don’t really give a shit about a building burning down—but Percy’s certain the fire has something to do with the reason we’re in this town.
This place is meant to be our sanctuary, the escape from the life our father raised us in, but it comes at a price. Percy, as usual, agreed to shoulder most of the burden. One hit—one final job—and then we’re released from our chains.
The only problem is, the man who ordered the hit has no idea who the target is.
Percy was given bare-bones information, the location and the man’s job.
Nothing else. But the fire was unexpected, and it erupted without reason at one of the spots we were meant to be monitoring for Percy’s target, so now we’re trying to find out who’s responsible and why they hit the gym.
I don’t think it’s the vet, of course. His name is Palmer, and he’s a strange, awkward man—something I relate to—and he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d be involved with people in our world.
Milo’s been watching the vet too, but for different reasons. He claims it’s because he’s going to need a vet on our payroll, which means he’ll need to pull Palmer into our confidence. A bit like the doctors under my father’s thumb.
Only there’s a look in Milo’s eyes every time the vet comes up, and I have a feeling it has nothing to do with the health of cats. But he is Milo’s preferred target, so that’s where I’m heading, in the opposite direction from the cemetery, which is where I’d rather be.
With my little rabbit, bent over and begging for me.
I tamp down my frustration as I pull into the parking lot, but my hands are trembling slightly with barely restrained need as I turn the car off and jump out of the truck to grab the cage.
The cat’s breathing is still labored, which pulls my thoughts away from Denver, and I walk through the front doors. There’s a small queue of people, so I push my way past them and set the cage on the counter.
The dark-haired woman at the desk looks appropriately terrified. I probably should have cleaned up the blood from the cat scratches on my face before wandering in here, but I’m so used to it that I forget it freaks other people out.
“Can I…help you?” she says, slow and cautious.
I attempt to speak, but my tongue feels stuck to the roof of my mouth. I’m not doing well with words right now, so I lift my hands and sign, ‘Help.’
ASL is my default for when my brain and mouth refuse to connect, and it has been ever since Nico came into my life and showed me a way to communicate when I went mute. But I quickly learned that Nico and everyone else who uses ASL are not the majority, so it’s always a crapshoot when I sign.
She blinks at me in confusion, and I fight the urge to groan and smack my head on the counter. There is a strong and large Deaf community in this little town, but they have their own bubble, and clearly, this vet office isn’t part of it.
Swallowing heavily, I manage to get in enough breath and loosen my tongue just enough to say, “Cat.”
“What’s wrong with it?” she asks, still looking terrified, which is probably appropriate.
I growl and gesture at the cat. It takes twice as much effort now to say, “Sick.”
She licks her lips, and for a moment, I think she might be about to call the cops, which will be an even bigger problem. Sure, it’s a problem we can fix, but I know it’ll piss my brothers and my father off. The whole point of this job is to get it done—quick and dirty—before anyone notices us.
Our sanctuary means not having to put dirty cops and politicians on our books. It might not be something I handle, but I know Percy doesn’t want the complications, so I do my best to smile in a way that doesn’t make me look like a psychopathic killer.
The receptionist sucks in a breath, and her hand starts to reach for the phone, but before she can do anything, a wooden door behind her slides open, and there he is.
Palmer. He looks taller in here somehow—slender in his white coat that’s hanging open around his scrubs. They’re light blue with dogs on them. He’s wearing frameless glasses perched high on his nose, and his light brown hair is slightly messy, like he’s been running his hands through it.
He looks as tired as I feel most days, but he manages a much friendlier smile than I’m able to, and he walks up, peering at the cage on the counter. “Feral cat?”
I nod my fist, then my head, in case he doesn’t know any ASL.
“Come with me,” he says and beckons me along.
I hear the woman make a noise of protest, but Palmer deliberately ignores her as he leads me into the small corridor.
My head is immediately filled with the sound of a high-pitched puppy barking, and it’s painful.
I want to cover my ears, but I’m holding the cage, so I’m forced to endure it.
It doesn’t help that the hallway also smells like a combination of dog shit and cleaner, and it’s sending me into a sensory overload.
I don’t know how much longer I can endure this.
The lights are fluorescent and too bright, the room he leads me into echoes, and the cat has decided to join the choir, and in spite of breathing heavily and not moving from its side, it begins to yowl.
“Can you tell me where you found this guy?” Palmer asks as he slides the exam room door closed, then takes the cage from me.
Relieved of my burden, I back up against the wall and tip my head down in an attempt to soothe myself.
What I really want to do is pace the room and flick my fingers.
The stimming usually keeps me from having a meltdown when things become too much, but I also know it tends to bother people who aren’t used to me.
And sometimes people who are.
I grunt and swallow heavily. “Cemetery.”
He hums for a beat as he looks over the small, furry creature, then opens the cage door. “Was he sick like this when you found him?”
I lift my hand and sign, ‘No,’ when he looks over at me. ‘Cat fine when I caught it. Sick after.’
He frowns and looks only a little confused. “Sorry, I know some ASL, but I’m not fluent. Are you Deaf?”
I shake my head.