Kit shot him a grateful smile and went into the bedroom. He sat down on the end of the bed, parked next to Quin’s feet. Kit took care with unlacing Quin’s shoes and slipping them off, then began to shimmy his damp jeans off.
One of Quin’s pockets bulged as Kit pulled the trousers down. Thinking that it was Quin’s phone, Kit didn’t question removing it. That was, until he pulled out a tiny velvet-covered box. In his haste, Kit almost dropped it.
“Oh, shit,” he gasped.
Shaun was at the doorway in a second. “Everything all…what’s that?” he asked, gaze homing in on the box.
Kit shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I mean, in a box like that, there’s usually only one thing.”
“Uh-huh.”
Shaun was silent for a few seconds. “Are you going to open it?”
“No! What if it’s not for me?”
Shaun rolled his eyes. “Who else is it going to be for?”
“What if it’s not what we think it is?”
“What else is it gonna be?”
“What if?—”
“Kit, I swear to god, open that box or I’ll do it for you.”
Kit held the box to his chest. “Don’t you dare.”
Shaun smirked. “I’ll leave you to it.”
Kit sat and stared at the box in his hands, unable to think beyond his fear of what it might hold, and what that might mean. If itwaswhat he thought it was, it wasn’t an option he’d ever considered for himself. It hadn’t even been legal to be gay in Scotland until he was a teenager. It was something to be hidden, a dirty secret, a shameful thing.
Kit’s desires had been illegal, and then his existence had been snuffed out. As a vampire, it was an impossibility. And yet, he held the box in his hands. His throat went tight and hot as he flipped the lid open.
The ring was perfect. A silver, slim band with a tiny purple-blue stone in the centre. It appeared delicate, but when he took it out, it felt sturdier than it looked.
It probably wasn’t the done thing to just slip it onto your finger, but Kit didn’t care. He put it on—it was perhaps a size too big—and stared at it for an unknowable length of time.
He whispered one word into the silence of the room.
“Yes.”
THIRTY
Quin
A low humroused Quin from sleep. He cracked one eye open, taking in a blurry Rake sitting next to him. Quin blinked, clearing his vision. Chains were wrapped tightly around his body, keeping his arms pinned to his sides and weighing him down where he sat in back of a car.
“Good morning,” Quin grunted, not capable of proper speech through his grogginess.
“It’s night,” Rake pointed out, then narrowed his eyes. “Do I have to interrogate you to check if you’re Lawrence, or will you come clean?”
At the mention of Lawrence’s name, images flooded Quin’s mind: splashing liquid, flickering flames, the glint of metal.
“Kit?” he asked worriedly. “Baby, are you okay?”
A familiar face turned towards Quin from the driver’s seat. Kit was swamped in an old hoodie of Quin’s, but he didn’t seem hurt in any way. He even managed a half-hearted smile when he spoke. “I’m okay,” he told Quin, then faced the road again.
