Ah, that was the problem. I got it, I did. If I’d found out someone had fucked around with my gray matter, I’d have been second guessing myself, too.
“You heard what Kaidan says—it should just be if you deal with the asshole himself, or think of hurting him directly. If you were able to come here with us, clearly it isn’t that strong a compulsion.”
“You are making a guess there. I can’t even call it an educated guess. For all we know, I might ruin this all, I might be the one to cause us to fail. Because of me, Yun—” He stopped himself, letting out a huff.
And, fuck, I suddenly wished I was better at this sort of shit. Shear was an asshole, but he’d helped me out plenty of times, had gotten me through some dark moments. I wanted to repay the favor, but I had no idea how.
“Look, this doesn’t change shit, okay? I’ve trusted you for fucking years already. You’ve been exactly like this the whole time, and it isn’t like your brain hasn’t been fucked this whole time. Really, what’s different now other than we know?” I shrugged as if it didn’t matter a bit.
“It’s different. You trusted me in battle, but that isn’t the same thing as now.”
“Fuck that. I trusted you with something far more important than my life. I trusted you with my cock.”
He stared back in silence for a moment, as though that little statement had short circuited his brain. “I forget sometimes that you can give Kenyon a run for his money when it comes to stupidity. Still, you’re missing the point. I don’t say this much, might not show it, but you all are important to me. I don’t want something to happen that hurts any of you, including Yun. I’m…afraid.” He whispered that last word, as though it were a filthy secret he hated sharing.
“You want me to say that isn’t gonna happen, right? Fuck, I can’t say that. I have no idea. I don’t know what’ll happen five minutes from now, let alone in the future. Maybe you’ll get us in hot water, maybe you won’t, but that doesn’t matter. We’re all in this together. When Kenyon got scammed by that little girl selling cookies, we got through it together. When Carter misjudged that dungeon as a C-Rank and we all walked in in our fucking swim trunks only to realize it was an S, we got through it together. When I fucked the wife of that biker gang, well, we dealt with that too—together. Anything you dish out, we can deal with, because no matter what else happens, we’re in thistogether.”The words all felt too sappy, too sweet. They curdled in my throat like bad milk. “Besides, finding out you aren’t firing on all cylinders is hardly brand-new information. You’ve been a fucking psycho since we met.”
“You really are a dick, you know that?”
“Well, can you blame me? This whole talking thing ain’t my thing, but you’ve helped me. Course, that was usually just with my cock. If only I could fix this for you as easily.” I sighed, then held my hand out.
Shear stared at it for only a minute before setting his hand in mine, the trust there meaning more than most people would understand.
I moved us from the ground level, through the shadows, through that narrow space between our world and whatever else existed, until the office appeared before us. Kenyon and Carter already stood there.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
Kenyon paused the fork mid-bite, a white take-out container perched in his other hand. “Mini-fridge,” he said.
“And you didn’t stop him?” I asked Carter.
Carter shrugged. “I find it amusing when he grazes like that. Besides, it puts people off their game when they see it.”
I could have said more—there was always more to say, after all—but the door opened and in walked our target.
Regent Marcus, the head of the North American Guild.
Well, that wasn’tentirelytrue. He wasn’t the head on paper, but he pulled all the strings. He kept himself just to the side enough that if anything went wrong, he could oust someone else and keep running things behind the scenes.
He took one look at us and, to his credit, didn’t call for security.
Most people would have, especially because we hadn’t shown up in civilian clothing. Nope, we’d arrived armed to the teeth, wanting to look every bit as dangerous as we were.
He shut the door behind him, then stepped into the room and headed for his desk as though we weren’t there. “I hadn’t known I had a meeting scheduled this morning.”
“You didn’t,” Carter answered as he sat across the desk from Regent’s seat. He leaned back and put his boots up on the desk as Regent sat in his own spot. “But we had some important things to discuss.”
“Oh, really? Things that couldn’t go through the normal channels?” Regent put his hands on the top of the desk.
“Not going to call your guards?” I asked.
“As I am sure you already know, security will take a full minute to arrive, even if I hit the panic button beneath the desk. In that time, you could easily kill me and be gone well before they arrive. All they’d find would be the scent of my leftovers.” With that, Regent cast a scathing look Kenyon’s way.
Kenyon lifted his fork like a salute. “It’s good.”
“I’m sure it is. Now, I do have an actual meeting in another hour, so can we get to the point? I assume if you’re here, it is about your place in the Guild. Have you grown tired of beingat the bottom? Are you trying to claw your way up using new methods?”
“No, the bottom suits me fine. I’m even okay with the Guild trying to get us killed in The Pitt.” When Carter said that, Regent lifted an eyebrow that suggested he didn’t know about that part. Leave it to the Guild to have too many cooks in the kitchen. “No, my issue is currently with a very specific man who is causing us problems. Mr. Yorn.”
