“Jesus, Charley, one of these days you’re going to have to learn whennotto say what’s on your mind, babe.”
Sorley, however, felt better for the kid’s unfiltered honesty. “It’s okay,” he addressed Lucien; he could try to call the wolf by his first name, right? “Charley’s right. I’ve lived for three centuries. My memory was sketchy when I was human. Be unreasonable to expect miracles after this long and this many men.” His memory had always been extraordinarily good, but he could pretend for the sake of extending a twig of friendship. God knew, he needed all the friends he could get right now.
Charley bit his lip. “I didn’t mean to be offensive,” he said plaintively. “Luc’s always saying I need to count to ten first, but to be honest I’d probably forget what I was going to say if I did that.”
“You weren’t offensive, just a little blunt.” Sorley was pleased to see his words take effect. The young hybrid sat back and freed his lip from its toothy abuse. “It’s no secret I’ve been, uh, free with my affections.”
“Until you met Gethin, of course.” Charley brightened again. “Of course, I didn’t know shit about vamps and wolves supposedly hating each other, but I can totes recommend ignoring that as rubbish. Opposites attract, right? It’s so cool that two people I met while I was on the run are now in love.” He sighed. “Just like me and Luc.”
Sorley felt the air leave the room as everyone except Charley sucked in a breath at the child’s blasé declaration. Alec touched his wrist lightly as if to sayDon’t rise to it, let the moment go.But it was too much on top of discovering someone had died.
He got to his feet, looking anywhere but at Gethin. He just…couldn’t. Couldn’t bear to see denial, or pity, or… Well, he just couldn’t.
“Forward me the photo when it arrives please. I need to unpack and rest for a while. The meeting later will no doubt be taxing,” he said stiffly to Dalziel.Please don’t insist I stay here,he silently implored his sire.
Dalziel nodded briefly. “We shall reconvene at dusk. Don’t be late.”
Sorley escaped and took the route to his bedroom as if a demon was after him. Locking the door behind him, he sank to the floor. His tailbone made noisy contact with the protruding skirting board as he slid down the wall, then his arse hit the floorboards rather than the rug in the centre of the room. He barely felt a thing over the deafening clamour in his brain.In love. In love. In love.
He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. Bad enough he’d suspected as much, but dideveryoneknow, or think they knew? It was too humiliating for words.
He kicked off his shoes, because he was still a gentleman, then crawled fully clothed under the bedcovers, pulling all the pillows over his head. He would sleep and maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to get through the Council meeting without the burning desire to take a fast walk into the midday sun.
21
GETHIN
He was half dozingwhen the air in the room shifted minutely. It felt charged, almost as if someone had snuck in and slightly displaced the particles. Gethin didn’t make a sound, swivelling his head to stare at the slight gap under the door. Ahh, a shadow. Not one that would be seen by human eyes, but then, he wasn’t human. He waited, but the figure on the other side of the oak panels was evidently good at waiting too. And at not making a sound.
Gethin gave it a few minutes, then sighed. He rolled off the bed in a fluid motion and crossed to the door, wrenching it open to the evident surprise of the vampire on the other side.
“I…um…”
“Get your arse inside and stop prowling the corridors like a ghost.” He closed and locked the door as Sorley stepped inside, aware it wouldn’t really slow him down if he intended to bolt, but it felt important to give the vampire a sign that he wasn’t going to kick him out. The uncertainty rolling off him made Gethin’s alpha nature yearn to protect and reassure even this certifiably annoying bloodsucker.
Not that he wanted to kick him out anyway. Sorley, stunning in his everyday clothes, was a sensual delight in silky pyjamas. This pair were emerald green, the fabric flowing over the planes and dips of his slender, muscled torso, leaving nothing to the imagination with the way it clung to his groin. The colour contrasted beautifully against his auburn hair and creamy skin. Gethin wasn’t prone to fanciful thoughts or words, but something about Sorley made him want to write sonnets about the play of light over freckled arms and the drape of satin over biceps and glutes. He swallowed.
“What d’you want?”
Sorley raised his eyebrows with a smile, except his scent was again flooded with uncertainty, barely a hint of sexual desire trickling underneath a rich vein of anxiety. “What do you think?”
Gethin flopped back onto the bed. “I’m not in the mood to play games, Sorley. I was sleeping.”
“No you weren’t, I could hear your breathing. You don’t breathe like that when you’re asleep.” The vamp’s nostrils flared as if he was cross with himself for saying such a thing. It implied more than Gethin suspected he was comfortable with admitting.
“Fine, you got me. I wasnearlysleeping. Whatever, I’m not in the mood for bullshit. You might have been horny pretty much twenty-four-seven since I’ve met you, but that’s not what you came here for tonight. So what is it?” It wouldn’t be light for an hour or so, but Gethin knew he should at least try to catch some zeds. Adjusting to being nocturnal didn’t take long if he was sensible about it, but romping with a bloke who was lying to himself wouldn’t be conducive to an easy rest.
Sorley sat down on the very edge of the mattress, his slim, strong fingers caressing the trim on the duvet cover. “I don’t want to sleep alone,” he confessed eventually, a second before Gethin felt his patience about to dissolve. “I, I feel unsettled.”
“Why didn’t you go to Dalziel?”
He felt the vampire tense even though the bed didn’t shift. He said, as if the words had been dragged out of him, “He wouldn’t touch me, not right now. He can…smell us. He’s quite proper, for all he’s old and doesn’t give a fuck about a lot of human niceties. He’d assume he was overstepping on—” He made finger quotes in the air, “—‘whatever’s between you and the wolf’.” His sigh was gloomy.
Gethin pushed up on his elbows and stared at the vampire in the mirror opposite the bed. “Even to comfort you?” He was shocked. Everything he’d learned about vampires included their intensely possessive nature towards their progeny.
Sorley shrugged. “Can’t imagine Dalziel wants to sleep with the stink of shifter in his nostrils. Just because for some weird reason I don’t find your scent repulsive, he probably does.”
Gethin snort-laughed. “You really do have a shitty bedside manner for someone who wants to share my actual bed. Although that does makes sense. I presume that’ll be the same reason you didn’t go knocking on Alexander’s door either.” He really did want to sleep, because he was anxious himself about whether or not he’d be calling his kids the following evening to warn them about his potentially inevitable outing. He’d need to clarify exactly how any outing would happen, but that could wait.
