“They mostly keep to themselves nowadays, only coming out when the shit really hits the fan. That means you may meet them sooner rather than later, the way things are going. Anyway, according to Wulfric, he screwed up everything he touched for a hundred years or more.”
“That’s modesty.”
“No, it’s fact. You know why we never do fairy deals?”
“Because fairies have their own agenda?”
“Because Wulfric screwed one over, and the fae have long memories.”
“Ouch.”
“The point is that—according to your own living, breathing ancestor—screw-ups are the only people who ever get anything done because they think differently. They don’t see or don’t count the risks, and everyone underestimates them.”
“Which is a really fucked-up way to pick a teammate.”
Nero chuckled, a tiny bounce in his chest that jostled Josh’s head. “Yeah, well, he didn’t pick you. I did. And I think the best way—the only way—you’ll ever figure out the answer is if we all get out of your way. You included.”
“You get that I just blew up the basement, right?”
Nero exhaled. “Yeah, I know. And it scares the shit out of me. But Josh, you’ve got to understand that we don’t expect you to succeed, and that’s why you will.”
And wasn’t that a clever turn of phrase? Too bad it did jack shit for his self-esteem. He didn’t want to be a screw-up. He wanted to save the day for Nero. Because Nero needed a way to survive a demon fire blast, and Josh wanted to be the one to give it to him. But he couldn’t. Not because he was a screw-up, but because he wasn’t good enough.
“Josh—”
“Do you know why I love being a PhD student?”
“Because you like playing with things that go boom?”
“There’s that, yes, but there’s something else too.” He took a deep breath and finally said the one thing he rarely admitted to himself, much less anyone else. “In a university lab, we fail 99.99 percent of the time. It’s expected. We’re trying new things and guess what’s going to happen next. Most of the time we guess wrong. And even when we get it right, it’s because we did something wacky, then looked backwards to figure out how it happened. Then we write the paper pretending that it was what we planned all along.”
“And you call us screwed-up.”
Josh snorted. “It’s why I’ve never finished my dissertation. The minute I write my paper, I’ll have to go out into the world where they expect me to succeed. Against ridiculous odds.” He twisted to give Nero a dark glare. “And then you step into my perfectly wasted life and turn me into a werewolf where—bam—you want me to guess right against even more ridiculous odds. And you know what else? To make sure I really fuck it up, you put people’s lives on the line. If I screw this up, good people die. Your pack died.” Josh twisted to look at the thinning stream of smoke. “I’m not cut out for this.”
Nero exhaled, his breath hot as it wended around Josh’s ear and ruffled his hair. Then he said one word. “Okay.”
That brought Josh around again so he could look Nero in the face. He even sat up to study the man’s body in detail. Nero’s expression was relaxed, his body hard, and his eyes taking on a slightly lascivious feel, probably because the motion had rubbed hard against his erection. But for the first time, Josh wasn’t in the least bit interested in sex.
“That’s it? ‘Okay’?”
“Do you want me to try to talk you out of how you feel?”
“You can’t. I suck.”
Nero shrugged. “How about I suck you off instead?”
“What? Nero, didn’t you hear me? Ever since that first night, you’ve been telling me that I was recruited to solve your demon blast problem. I’ve seen you hover outside the lab watching me. Hell, I’ve seen you praying—actual on-your-knees praying—that I find an answer yesterday. And now that I tell you I can’t do it, you’re all, ‘let me suck you off’? How much of that smoke did you inhale?”
Nero rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t praying. I was talking to…. There’s this pompous fae prick I talk to sometimes. He likes it when I’m on my knees, begging for more time.”
Josh waited a beat for Nero to explain, but nothing else came out. In the end, Josh had to push him both verbally and with a poke to his ribs. “You are going to explain that, right?”
“No, because there’s nothing to tell. I saved the asshole’s life in a bar fight once, and he owes me. Er, owed me. Past tense. Anyway, the fae honor their debts, but they do like it when you’re on your knees asking them to pay up.”
“There is way more to the story than that.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Nero rubbed his hand over his face. “Josh, what do you think is going to happen when you figure out how to defeat the fire bomb?”
