“A murder board!” Black clapped his hands, jumping up from his seat.
“You need to not be here anymore.” Cyrus pointed to the door.
“But I can totally help,” Black said. “I have the good push pins and all the, like…murder board paraphernalia.”
“Bring the paraphernalia,” Cyrus said, scowling when Black skipped to the door in unconcealed glee. “And then leave.”
Black froze in place before pouting so hard Wren was pretty sure his bottom lip would get tangled in his untied shoelaces.
“This is abuse,” Black stated, pointing a finger at Cyrus.
“Go write a report about it. And finish the ones you’ve been slacking on while you’re at it.”
“Fine. I’ll go write my reports. Get your own murder board goodies. See if I care.”
He stuck his tongue out for good measure and stomped out of the office, slamming the door behind him.
Wren watched him go and shrank into himself as he realized he had no support on his side anymore. He was used to being alone, and it was a rare occasion when he minded it, but he’d have liked Midas there right then. Or Fix. Just someone who’d stand between them and stop him falling apart under those dark eyes.
He dug his fingers into Sable’s fur and felt his low growl under his touch. It grounded him, but only slightly.
“Okay,” Cyrus said. “Let’s see what we have here and where to go from there. Guests first?”
“Sure,” Saint said, clapping his hands a bit, and Wren scowled as he watched him dig through a backpack, pull out several case files, and spread them on top of the table too. He was tall, Wren noticed. Lanky and slim, with long limbs and large hands. He had pale skin, flushed cheeks, and dark, almost black hair, messy on top of his head. His eyes were dark too and his cursemark was nowhere to be seen.
Lucky.
He got to hide it.
He got to walk around without an ad glowing from his face announcing the one thing he wished he could hide about himself.
He was lucky for other reasons too.
His hand brushing Teddy’s as they sat next to each other. Being close enough to smell him, that warm, soothing scent of dark chocolate and home. Waking up every morning in their house knowing Teddy would be there. Wearing that sweater…
“Like we said, we got our first case about five months ago,” Saint said, and Wren pulled in a sharp breath through his teeth, descending back into reality. “An influential Arcstead family whose daughter started behaving erratically and they suspected a curse. Damir went to run diagnostics. Found nothing on his end and suggested some counseling.”
Wren forced himself not to flinch at the use of that name. He wasn’t Damir. It didn’t fit. It said nothing about Teddy. Nothing about who he was to…to Wren. And maybe that was the point. Because he was nobody to him anymore, the name was gone too. Despite what the letters said…he wasn’t Teddy anymore.
“People like to blame curses for everything that doesn’t go smoothly in their lives,” Teddy said, and even though he felt his eyes on him, Wren refused to meet them.
“They kept insisting though, so each of us went and ran our own diagnostic tests, and weirdly enough, mine was the one that pinged something,” Saint said.
“Is their daughter a Pomeranian?” Cyrus asked. “Are they those posh fucking rich assholes who claim their dogs are their children?”
“Dogs are family,” Wren said shortly.
Cyrus rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
“Not a Pomeranian,” Saint said. “Would have been cuter. Just a grown-ass woman acting insane. So we started to dig in, and the more questions we asked, the more defensive and closed off they became. Until they shut us down completely. Said she went back to normal once the stress of the exam season was over and there was no need to act on their call any further.”
“So you just left?” Wren asked.
Saint shrugged. “They withdrew consent. And they have enough money to make the cursebreaker rule book irrelevant even if we did act upon it. Add to that the lack of any imminent danger to anyone and we had zero grounds to continue…”
Wren scoffed and Saint tilted his head, eyeing him curiously before looking away without a word. Wren felt his hackles rise at being dismissed like that. Rule books over well-being. Nexus over the world. And he sat there in that stupid sweater next to Teddy and acted like he’d done the right thing.
Wren was angry, but he was also intrigued. It had never occurred to him to test the people for his brand of curses. Then again, he’d never had the need to.
