“Ezra,” Raum came to him where he sat hyperventilating on the couch. A warm hand rubbed his shoulders and squeezed the back of his neck, and Ezra focused on the heat of the man touching him, hoping for some calm.
“I’m not in any danger, not at the moment,” Raum assured him in a warm tone that sounded like a hug. He needed more of that feeling.
Ezra needed to get his head out of this anxiety spiral.
Raum sat beside him and pulled Ezra into his arms, and Ezra unabashedly crawled into his lap and wrapped his arms around Raum’s neck, holding on for dear life.
A soft kiss went to his hair and Raum squeezed him tight for a long moment before relaxing. Big, warm hands stroked up and down his shoulders and back.
“You knew I was panicking,” Ezra murmured.
“Yup,” Raum replied easily. “Saw it clear as day.”
“You calmed me down.”
“Mmhmm.” A hum in agreement, accompanied by more stroking and hair kisses.
“I love that so much.”
“I’m really glad you do.”
Raum
Ezra almost fellasleep in his lap, and while Raum wanted nothing more than to let that happen, Lilith and Ezra’s belongings were still at the library.
With a thought, his office shimmied in space and time, and with nary a hiccup, slid back into place in Special Collections at the library.
Everyone thought he was renting the space in the library for storing his books and research materials, and no one aside from the MERS officers knew he had a more entrenched office spacein the restricted section. The guards never went back there on their rounds—they were meant to monitor access to the section, not patrol the inner reaches, so no one had yet to notice his storage cubicle was a bit more complicated than it should be—but then he was also being a bit reckless with his secret.
Ezra grumbled and pressed a kiss to the side of his neck, making Raum shiver and tighten his hands on Ezra’s hips. Ezra was a delightful armful of lean muscle, smooth skin, soft hair, and a bit of chaos. All of which appealed to Raum very much.
Ezra got up and stretched, arms over his head. “Are we back?”
“We are,” Raum replied. He admired the strip of flesh he could see around a trim waist as Ezra flexed before dropping his arms.
A cranky yowl sounded through the door, and Ezra hurried to open it, revealing a very put-out cat sitting at the threshold, black tail flicking in annoyance.
“I am so sorry we left you,” Ezra said, kneeling down and petting Lilith as she began to purr. “We’re back now. I’m gonna get you some treats as an apology.”
Raum followed Ezra out of the office and he opened his senses up wide, including his empathy. His range for emotions was line of sight, but he was able to sense living beings and the ambient magic fields within a few hundred feet if he opened himself up wide to the world. There was no one around but him, Ezra, and Lilith. Merely a guard and a staff person at the desk outside the access door, and they never came in unless they were escorting someone without a badge or bringing him a delivery.
People rarely came into the Special Collections room during the summer session, but he’d been playing fast and loose with his secret lately, and being cautious now was only wise.
It was a secret he’d had his whole life, or damn near. He’d always had the underhill, though when he was a little kid, it hadbeen no bigger than a small closet. As Raum grew, so too did the underhill. Neither of his parents, nor his grandfather, could command it, the underhill answering only to Raum. That had been an exciting experience as a child, and it took Saemund and Nórr and their ability to teleport to rein in some of Raum’s truly wild youthful adventures.
Ezra was feeding some treats to Lilith from his bag when Ezra’s phone chirped. He pulled back his awareness and waited as Ezra checked his phone, thumbs flying over the screen. He paused, reading whatever was on the screen. A moment later, Ezra looked up, eyes bright.
“Simmons knows who the skull belongs to.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
EZRA
Ezra hit the call button and put the phone on speaker. It rang once, then Major Grendel answered.
“Did you get what you need?” She sounded smug, as she deserved to be. “You should, as I sent you everything he told us.”
“Is he sure about the skull’s identity?”
