“Same.” Everett stood and smoothed his hands down his jeans. “How about we call it a night? We’ll go back to packing up all those figurines tomorrow, and then tomorrow night, maybe we could watch a movie or something. Take things slow.” He chuckled. “Though slow is honestly the last thing I want with you.”
Dax didn’t know what to say. He wanted to agree, to let his desires spill from his lips, but he couldn’t make the situation more confusing, so he just kept silent.
Everett looked away from him. “Goodnight, Dax,” Everett whispered before he left the room.
Dax stood there for a long time, his hands in fists as he warred with the need to follow. To change his mind and try. He knew that Everett didn’t understand his reticence and was probably a little offended by it. He knew he was doing the man a disservice. But Everett didn’t know what he was. Had no idea that Dax had spent over three hundred years afraid to be with a human. That was a long span of fear to get past.
The thing was, Dax was going to have to. Everything in him screamed that this wonderful man was his true soulmate. No matter what his research showed.
Chapter Eleven
Everett
They were back in the study, and Everett was finding it incredibly hard to keep his hands off Dax as they packed. He’d spent the entire night tossing and turning, and even jacking off had done little to alleviate the deep, aching need in his body. He’d never experienced anything like this before, and he just knew, with everything inside him, that they had something unique—something rarely found in this world. He didn’t even understand how he knew that after such a short time. But he did.
He watched Dax carefully wrapping everything he handed him. He liked the focus Dax used, and he could easily imagine Dax using that sharp intellect to feed more knowledge into his brain. In their off hours, Dax was always reading. He switched between textbooks and Everett’s books, and watching him find joy in his work was one of Everett’s newest pleasures. Like last night after their date, Dax had been reading one of his novels. Little smiles had lifted those lush lips, and he’d occasionally paused to tell Everett about a scene he particularly liked. It was surreal to watch someone in real time reading what had come from his brain, to see their reactions. It might have been a littlenerve-wracking, too. He just wanted Dax to love the stories so much.
Yesterday had been fantastic until Dax had told him about his worry over their size difference. His fear didn’t make sense to Everett, and frankly, he found it a little insulting. He was strong—stronger than he looked—so he had the feeling Dax’s fear had to stem from something else. Maybe something in his past?
Moving to the desk, Everett started packing items in the drawer himself, but when he opened the formerly locked drawer, he let out a loud, startled sound.
“What?” Dax asked as he hurried around the desk.
“With everything that happened, I’d forgotten all about the jade I discovered in my grandfather’s desk, but something is different about it.” He reached in and held up the stone to the light, then gasped, narrowing his eyes. A fluorescent green light lit the center. “It’s glowing. It wasn’t glowing before. Look at this!” He handed it to Dax.
Dax took the stone and stared at it in his palm. His shoulders tensed up, and something passed over his expression as he looked back at Everett. “It wasn’t glowing before?”
Everett shook his head, completely baffled. “No. I found it in the drawer my grandfather always kept locked. It was with this journal written in runes. But why would it be glowing like that? And fucking how?”
Dax curled his hand around the stone and closed his eyes for several long moments, and when he opened them and looked at Everett, a sort of resigned expression tightened his features. He stared at Everett for long moments before he sighed. “Everett, you’re going to want to sit down for what I have to tell you.”
“What do you mean?” Everett demanded as he propped his hands on his hips. “Tell me what?”
“Please, sit.”
Everett sank into the office chair and watched as Dax walked to the other side of the desk. He paced back and forth a few moments, his hand still tight around the hunk of jade.
Impatience tightened every muscle in Everett’s body as he waited. Whatever Dax had to say was obviously hard. He seemed to know why that stone was glowing. And how was that possible? It was an inanimate object!
Dax finally stopped and opened his hand, the stone nestled in his palm. “There’s a part of this world you don’t know about. One that contains magic.” He paused and swallowed heavily. “I’m a part of that world, as is my company, Protective Solutions. You know how you said this room made you uncomfortable? I felt it as well and have been trying to find the source. The whole time, it was because of this.” He extended his hand. “There’s magic attached to this.”
“Is that why it’s glowing?”
Dax blinked at him. “I tell you about the world of magic, and that’s your first question?”
Everett stood and leaned over the desk to look at it more closely. “What question was I supposed to ask? You’re holding a glowing stone that wasn’t doing that before, so magic is certainly not out of the realm of possibilities. I do have other questions, but yeah, that’s the first. What exactly is that stone?”
Dax looked down at it. “I don’t know. I’m concerned there’s a spell on it and that something awakened whatever it is. Triggered it, so to speak. If it’s glowing now when it wasn’t before, that means something. Something possibly bad. I need to take this in to my boss. He’s a sorcerer and will know what it is.”
“Xavier is a sorcerer? Like someone with actual…magical abilities?”
Dax nodded.
Everett’s mind was spinning. “Okay, here are more questions. How could I not know about this? How is it kept secret?”
“Magic. Preternaturals—that’s what we call ourselves—live in this world along with humans, but to keep our secret, we use glamours to camouflage what makes us look and feel different.”
“What do you mean different? Like what? Vampires or werewolves?”
