“Hey.” Mace raked his fingers through his hair, but it didn’t help.
“Hey.”
“Where’re you off to?”
Blade hefted his catch bag, which he used to haul his tools for making or disarming physical and magical traps. “I have a class today.”
“Ah, yeah. DART’s new recruits. Good luck.”
“Thanks.” He eyed Mace, taking in his rumpled and spent appearance. “Where have you been?”
“Um…” Mace reached up and rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze getting all squirrely. “Ah…Scotty and I…you know. It’s done.”
Pow. Right in the fucking heart. Blade had dreaded hearing those words. But following the blunt force trauma of Mace’s admission came a sense of relief. The lancing of a wound. It was over. They were all cool now.
He swallowed, and when he spoke, his voice was raw with emotionhe couldn’t contain. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”
Mace met his gaze. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Okay.”
No. “Yes.”
“You’re lying,” Mace said quietly, and Blade didn’t deny it. “You love her, don’t you?”
Blade drew in a shuddering breath. “Yeah.”
Mace’s shoulders sagged. “Me, too.”
Figured. And Blade couldn’t blame him. She was extraordinary. She was so much a part of their team and their lives that she might as well be an appendage.
Same with Mace. He was just as important to Blade as Scotty.
“What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to get past this,” Mace insisted. “And we’re going to get back to normal.”
As much as Blade wanted things to go back to the way they’d been, the reality was more complicated than that. “What are we going to do when Scotty gets a boyfriend? I don’t know if I can watch that.”
“Dude, that’s easy.” Mace flashed fangs and a sinister smile. “We kill him.”
And that fast, all residual tension between them fled. Blade laughed, freed from the burden of jealousy and greed. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Cool.” Mace grinned and held out his fist. “Team up.”
“Team up, man. Team up.”
Chapter 26
One of Blade’s favorite tasks at DART was teaching new recruits how to disarm traps. Every second Tuesday of every month, he taught a class, and without fail, he had to use his healing powers to patch people up.
Except today.
For the first time ever, the students listened and were careful. It made class boring, but Blade would take it as a good sign. Especially because, in just under three hours, the Horsemen were going to attempt to bring Harvester back and save Eva.
“Thanks for offering to help,” Logan said as Blade entered his friend’s family castle. Hidden from humans in a remote part of Greenland, the keep had housed Thanatos—and now his family—for centuries.
