Ket made the hook disappear again. He frowned as he glanced over his shoulder at Somerset. “Ithought,” he said pointedly, “we’d agreed that we were going to keep our distance from him until this was over.”
Dylan scowled. “Agreed” was a strong word. He would have said he was “told,” but he’d already discussed that with Somerset. It hadn’t gotten him anywhere.
Somerset put the knife down. He pushed his chair back from the desk and reached down to pick up his phone. Frost-blue eyes stayed focused on Dylan as Somerset lifted the phone to his ear.
“Call off the dogs,” he said to whoever was on the other end, without giving them a chance to ask anything. “He’s here.”
There was a pause as Somerset listened. Then he shifted the phone back from his mouth and looked expectantly at Dylan.
“How did you get here?” he asked.
It felt like a trap, but Dylan didn’t think it was for him. He thought about it briefly and then answered, “Uber.”
Somerset grimaced and repeated the word into the phone. The next bit of the conversation was loud enough that Dylan could hear the other end of the call. He didn’t really understand most of it, it was Icelandic, but from the few swear words he caught he figured he could guess the gist of it.
“Because it wasyourjob to keep track of him,” Somerset told whoever it was shortly. He hung up and tossed the phone down on the desk. It landed on the thick layer of neglected invoices and order forms that covered it. Somerset left it there as he got up out of the chair, fastidiously adjusted the cuffs of his shirt, and pointedly didn’t look at Ket. “Do you have somewhere to be, brother?”
There was a hint of winter ice in Somerset’s voice. It rolled off Ket’s leather-clad shoulders like water off a duck’s back. He shrugged crookedly, visibly disinterested in the topic already.
“Not really,” he said.
Somerset’s nostrils flared as he took a deep, visibly annoyed breath.
“You need to spend less time with Stúfur,” Somerset said. “You used to be the smart one.”
Dylan looked at Ket
“I think he means–”
“What I mean,” Somerset cut in, his voice a low, rough growl that made the hair on the back of Dylan’s neck stand on end, “is go and do something fucking useful.”
“Oh,” Ket said. He unlocked the door and pushed himself up out of his slouch against the wall. “You should have just said that. Stúfur is already on Demre, so I’ll see what the word on the street is about Wolves.”
The dark man sketched a quick sort-of bow to Dylan and then let himself out. The door clicked shut behind him and…Dylan was alone with Somerset. The thought made Dylan take a quick, ragged breath as he shifted in place.
Guilt poked at him at how easy he was to distract. It wasn’t the time. There were wolves on the streets, and his friend was missing.
But…it had been weeks since Somerset managed to find time to come to Dylan’s bed. Long enough that for a second all Dylan wanted to do was crawl over the desk—bar paperwork and North Pole parchment crumpled under his knees—and kiss the stern off the Yule Lad’s mouth.
“You should have stayed at the hospital,” Somerset said, his voice starchy with disapproval.
Dylan supposed that he wasn’t even really surprised. Bodyguards weren’t keen on you going places without them, even if it was just going for pizza instead of catching a lift with a random stranger. It was the difference in their first impulses on finding themselves alone. Dylan saw an opportunity for sex, and Somerset for a dressing-down. It left Dylan a bit off balance.
Maybe absence only made the heart grow fonder if you were human?
Dylan cleared his throat and tried to think of a response as he scraped the dregs of his self-confidence together.
“I feel OK,” he said. It was true—more than it had been when he left the hospital, at least—and Dylan glanced down at his arm. He tightened his hand into a fist and watched the tendons in his wrist stand out against the dark strap of his watch. “Surprisingly so.”
“You’re welcome,” Somerset said.
He had a point. If he’d not gotten there when he did…
Dylan might not be 100 percent sold on being Santa…and apparently Yule had its reservations too. He wasn’t quite ready to trade a hand for his out. That didn’t mean he was going to be gracious about it.
“Yule appreciates your service,” Dylan said, his hurt feelings making the words snide…not that he’d really wanted them to be anything else.
The jab at what Dylanknewwas a sore spot made Somerset’s expression darken and his eyes narrow. He stalked forward.
