Chapter One
Darren groaned as hewalked through the apartment door. “Long, damn day.” He passed the kitchen island and collapsed onto the couch.
Behind him, Kavon closed the door. “All we did was paperwork.”
Bennu had taken off, so Darren hadn’t even been able to get a little shamanic energy boost. Most days Bennu was better than coffee, but not today. “Exactly, that's what made it such a long day. Why is it so much harder to file reports than it is to chase down criminals?”
“Because you like one more than the other?” Kavon followed Darren into the living room and tossed the mail onto the coffee table before he doubled back to the refrigerator.
Darren flipped through the stack. “You might have me there. That, and my supervising agent is a real bastard who just insists on having every ‘T’ crossed and every ‘I’ dotted.”
Kavon schooled his face into a stern expression. “Yes, he is.” The corner of his mouth twitched.
Darren laughed. Kavon held up two beers, but Darren shook his head. If he started drinking, he was going to turn into a couch potato for the night, and he had to get some laundry done. And apparently pay bills. Joy. He came to a classy cream envelope and tore it open. “Huh.”
“What?” Kavon settled on the couch with his beer.
“Art and Zach are getting married.” Darren held up the announcement.
“The El Paso cops?” Kavon leaned closer to read the invite. “I guess they’re angling for a gift.”
Darren backhanded him. “I suspect Zach is trying to mend some fences between Bennu and Pochi. I get the feeling that they have a contentious history.” The longer Darren partnered with Bennu, the more he got flashes of emotion that suggested Bennu had been the bad-boy of the ifrit crowd, breaking rules at every turn. That explained why Bennu had never partnered with Kavon.
Before they’d become lovers, Darren suspected Kavon had had an intense and potentially sexual relationship with his FBI rulebook. If mystical guides chose partners with similar personality traits, Kavon and Bennu were a horrible match. Bennu, like Darren, was a little more flexible about working around rules.
After a long silence, Kavon asked, “Do you want to go?” Confusion drifted across their bond.
Darren flashed Kavon a smile for even making the offer. “Nope, but we can buy them a nice card. I’m glad they’re finally tying the knot. They seem to really work as a couple, ya know?” Darren sighed. “Did you ever think about getting married?”
Kavon put his beer down and his emotions grew sharper.
“Like when you were a kid,” Darren clarified. He wasn’t fishing for a proposal. Besides, the bond they shared with their guides would last this lifetime and the next. It didn’t get more permanent than a soul bond.
Kavon’s emotions settled. “I guess I assumed I would get married one day. Almost all the adults I knew were, so I’m not sure I considered any other options. But having Talent changed things.”
“Lots of people with Talent get married.” Hell, the invitation from Zach and Art proved that. “Why did that change anything?”
Kavon rolled his beer bottle between his palms. “It wasn’t easy. Even before I chose to follow the shamanic path, my Talent put distance between me and other people.”
Darren toed off his shoes and tucked his feet under him. Kavon rarely shared stories from his childhood, and Darren tamped down his rabid curiosity out of fear that it would push Kavon into an emotional retreat. He asked, “Why?”
Kavon huffed. “A lot of teens have shamanic markings when they first get their Talent, even if they haven’t chosen to be a shaman. The glow fades later if they choose to take the path of using dead magics.”
“Yeah, that’s how most of them find out they have magic,” Darren said. No matter what television and books for young adults suggested, Talent didn’t give kids unlimited cosmic powers. That took hard work and years of practice.
Kavon grunted. “Those markings are particularly difficult for teenagers. A faint light that highlights every blemish plus adolescent acne...” He tipped his beer up, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.
“That would have sucked.” Darren had been a popular athlete in high school and he still felt as if he’d barely survived. He couldn’t imagine how much worse it could have been.
“Oh yeah.” Kavon untied his shoes and pulled them off before propping his socked feet on his coffee table. “Being black made it worse. Kids were judgmental anyway, but when the Talent marks appeared, they were... cruel.” Given Kavon’s habit of downplaying his pain, the reality would have been much more sadistic than anything Kavon would admit.
Darren asked, “Can we go to your class reunion so I can threaten some people?”
“I’d have to arrest you for intimidating idiots.”
“Oh, it would go beyond intimidation.”
Kavon finished his beer in one long swig. “Do you know that makeup that shamans use to hide their marks?”
