One of Gael’s guards enters the kitchen with two catering racks of food he picked up at a local restaurant. I should probably eat, but the knots in my stomach have developed knots. I suspect that if I tried to take even one bite, I would throw up.
“I hate that you brought her,” I tell Dorian as we pop the lids off containers and set them out on the enormous kitchen island.
My brother rolls his lips.
“I don’t even care if she came to keep Gael in check… I told you I never wanted to see her, yet you brought her.”
Another roll of his lips. And then, without looking up from the feast we’re laying out, he says, “I heard you’re getting along well with Alexander.”
Something gentle flows through my chest. Although it doesn’t rid me of the knots, it does loosen a few. I walk up to Dorian and tie my arms around his waist and lay my cheek between his shoulder blades. “Remember that mug I made you when Dad forced my thirteen-year-old ass to take a pottery class with him? The misshapen one?”
“You mean, my favorite mug?”
I smile against his giant back. “Remember what I inscribed on it?”
“I use it every day, so yes.”
“You’re irreplaceable,My #1 Brother.”
One of his large palms lands on my linked fingers. “You know, when you gave me that mug, I freaked out. I was sure it was your way of telling me that you’d learned about Alexander.”
“It was my way of telling you that I loved you, because I was still incapable of saying it with words.”
Dorian’s presence appeases me in a way no one else’s presence ever could.
I soak up his calmness until it loosens more snarls. “I feel so stupid. I hate feeling stupid.”
His fingers spasm. “You’re anything but, Elle,” he growls.
“Have you ever been conned?”
“I have. By Symeon.”
“I meantyouspecifically. Not the lot of us. Did you ever fall for someone’s lies?”
“My first boyfriend. He told me he was dating me for me, but he was only dating me to get dirt on the Hadezes.”
I pick my head off his taut spine. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not just creating this parallel to make me feel less dumb?”
“He was thirteen years older than me and a reporter for theBoston Globe.”
The level of detail combined with the tension hardening his broad shape tells me that this isn’t some kind lie.
“First boyfriends suck,” I murmur, releasing Dorian.
“Agreed,” he replies gruffly. “One day, you’ll find someone incredible. And maybe he’ll even be a mortal—like Callie was.”
If he isn’t, then my pool of candidates is minuscule.
As I dump spoons into containers, Dorian says, “I interrogated him.”
“And?”
“And he really did leave the Holy Hunters six years back. Lived in Maine for most of that time and worked in a restaurant. He’d just been promoted to sous-chef when Quinn asked Trenton Caruso for a divorce and the…” My brother’s cheek tics like he’s holding back the crude word Trenton deserves.
