“I can’t believe you’re going to do a favour for them after they tried to kill me,” Conroy said. “Twice!”
“We have no beef with them,” Xavier said. Kit didn’t even realise he’d snorted loudly into Quin’s shirt until Xavier asked, “What?”
Kit turned his head just enough so that his voice would be clear. “There’s just something funny about hearing you use the word ‘beef’ considering you’re about two hundred and fifty years old.”
“I like to keep up with the lingo,” Xavier said. Kit could hear a subtle note of self-consciousness under his outward nonchalance.
“Ahh,” DJ said. “Did you learn that one on the streets, bruv?” His inability to get through the sentence without laughing undermined his sarcasm.
“When did I ever say we were going to do it for free, anyway?” Roxy said.
“What’s the cost?” Quin asked. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”
Kit prodded him hard in the side. “Don’t just offeranything,” he hissed. “What if they want your firstborn child?”
“Kit, you know I’m not planning on having any children.” Quin paused, then added, “Unless you have something to inform me about vampire anatomy that I didn’t already know?”
Kit gawped at him.
“Lucky for you, I have little interest in raising other people’s children,” Roxy said drolly.
“Then what’s it going to take?” Kit asked.
“I consider money an appropriate way to compensate me for the service,” she said, before flicking her gaze pointedly to Xavier.
He held his hand up in front of him, inspecting his own fingers. “I can also give you something that’ll hold your ghostly visitor off,” he said. “It won’t stop him completely. The more he tries to take you over, the more it’ll burn through the magic, but it should buy you enough time to get what you need.”
Tension visibly slid from Quin’s shoulders. “Thank you,” he said, his voice soft, but sincere.
Xavier nodded curtly, sliding a chunky ring that had been sitting on his thumb off as he strode over to them. “Here. Wear this.”
Quin took the ring. It was shiny silver, made up of three bands that interlinked. Quin’s fingers were thicker than Xavier’s, so it ended up on his pinky.
“Hmm,” Quin said. “Doesn’t feel any different.”
“It won’t activate until the ghost tries to possess you,” Xavier said, one corner of his lips turning up in a wry smile. “You’ll notice it then. Now”—he addressed Kit—“give me your details. I’ll invoice you.”
“I should be the one to pay,” Quin grumbled, but Kit didn’t pay him any mind. It was, after all, Lawrence’s own money that would pay for the service.
Xavier held his phone far closer to his face than required when typing in Kit’s number, one jab at a time. “Would you like the tethering added to the invoice?” he asked.
“What?” Kit said, not understanding.
Xavier gazed meaningfully at Kit and Quin. “The tether between you. You know, the one to tie your lives together for the rest of eternity so that the werewolf doesn’t die a mortal death in half a century?”
Kit and Quin both stayed silent, looking at Xavier like he’d grown an extra head. An outraged gasp sounded from behind them. “Did you just propose the supernatural equivalent of marriagefor them?” Shaun asked.
“I assumed you were here for that in the first place,” Xavier said conversationally, and not as if he’d just solved one of Kit’s biggest worries with one simple sentence.
“I can live…forever with Kit?” Quin said carefully, as if testing how the words felt in his mouth.
“We’ll do it!” Kit blurted, in case Xavier rescinded the offer as fast as he’d made it.
Quin blinked, his brows halfway to his hairline. “You’d want that?”
“I mean, if you do?” Kit had a sudden sick feeling in the pit of his stomach at the notion of Quin refusing the tether, and the reality of facing the rest of his existence alone once more.
“Of course I do,” Quin said quickly, allaying his fears. “I can’t imagine anything that I’d want more.”
