An hour ago Took would have been confident he could give her at least an outline of an answer. Now he ignored her.
“I missed something,” he said. Unsaid, pinched between the teeth that he still couldn’t push back down, was that he wouldn’t have before. He waited for Madoc to realize it, to finally see that Took was just the taped-together bits of who he’d been, able to function for a while, but then the sharp edges would start to cut through the tape that held him in.
“Good,” Madoc said. “Now we’re even.”
The strung-wire tension in Took’s spine loosened at the dry jibe. They’d never beenniceto each either. Once Madoc was kind to him, Took would know he’d seen the shabby joins. Not yet, apparently.
“They set fire to a house,” Lawrence said. “We all missed something. Obviously.”
Took wasn’t sure if he appreciated the fact that she could see that too, or resented thewefrom someone wearing his tag on her vest. It was stupid to be jealous that she’d taken his place, someone would have had to, but it didn’t stop him. The fire truck finally got the pumps to work, and the crew sprayed the Aron house with water that stank of shit and old grease.
“Come on,” Madoc said. He grabbed Took’s wrist and pulled him to his feet. “Let’s get this over with. Then I can get you home and you can show me this evidence we missed.”
Took supposed that answered the question of whether Madoc knew where he lived. He’d worry about that later.
Chapter Eight
THE STAKEwas a thing of murderous intent and well-crafted beauty—blood-cured cherry wood carved and smoothed in a tapered spear the length of his forearm, shod with steel at one end and a barbed electrum tip at the other. Tally lines were burned into the side, a charred baker’s dozen of deaths someone had doled out with this.
Madoc picked it up as he waited for Took to finish his shower, and turned it between his fingers. He’d grabbed a spare uniform from the back of Lawrence’s car before she left last night. It was just cotton and Kevlar instead of his preferred tailored, reinforced leather, but at least it didn’t stink of his own shredded guts. There was a pair of gloves tucked into the belt, but he ignored them and ran his bare fingers along the wood. It made his fingertips itch with a sharp sting that worked its way down into the meat, so it had been soaked in holy oil at some point.
It was the sort of thing passed down in Hunter families like an heirloom or purchased by breathing politicians to mount behind glass—a mute reminder of what the alternative to their reasonable bigotry was. Took used it as a letter weight in his kitchen.
The stairs creaked.
“A trophy?” Madoc asked as he carefully set it back down on a letter from VINE’s human resources department.
“A gift,” Took said as he padded down the stairs. The rasp of the fire was still etched into his throat. “From my mother.”
“That would have gone over well in the office,” Madoc said dryly. “Sometimes I forget you’re from Cali, land of sun, salt, and stakes.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Sometimes he wondered if all that old prickly wariness toward the Anakim was still there, and that Took had just gotten better at his mask.
He brushed his hands together to shed the itch of cherry poison and the cobwebby question he didn’t have an answer to as he turned around to give Took a quick once-over. His eyes wanted to linger on damp, shower-dark curls and the way the threadbare academy T-shirt clung to broad shoulders and lean waist. It was tight enough that Madoc could pick out the web of old scars through it, but he focused on the fresh injuries. The smoke-cracked skin around Took’s mouth had softened and pinched back together into thin scars, and the raw blisters on his hands had dried up and faded down to pink. “Did you feed?”
“You didn’t need to stay,” Took said as he slung a damp towel around his neck and leaned back against the door jamb. “I can still put myself to bed.”
Madoc had tried, but there was only so far good intentions could take you. He let dark heat slide into his voice as he looked Took over.
“If I’d put you to bed—” His scorched throat had healed hours ago, the rough note in his voice was for something else entirely. “—we’d still be there.”
Took looked away uncomfortably. He rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat, a faded flush pink around his temples.
“Don’t, ah,” he said awkwardly. Madoc cursed himself and tried to lock the old, cold shell back into place. It had never stopped any injury to his heart, but no one else got to see they’d drawn blood. Took glanced up at him and twitched the corner of his mouth up in a short-lived smile. “Don’t write checks that your, um, ass can’t cash.”
Madoc blinked. If a judge had sworn him in right then, he couldn’t have testified to what the expression on his face was. Whatever it was made Took laugh harshly, from more than a scalded throat and push himself off the door. His cat slunk in from behind him, rubbed against his ankles, and then jumped up onto the counter in one smooth leap. It sat down on the stove and stared at Madoc with watery blue eyes while it licked its paws.
“Sorry,” Took said as he went to the sink and flicked the tap on. Water spat out. That was apparently what the cat wanted. It abandoned the oven to stick its freshly cleaned paw into the stream and then lick the droplets off its toes—all the while with those watery, pink-blue eyes trained on Madoc. Took rubbed his finger along its head in a brief pet that made it twitch its pointed ears in irritation. “I guess I’m rusty. It’s been a while.”
The hot ache of temptation settled in Madoc’s cock, heavy as a stone. He was tired of this careful dance. In the beginning he just wanted to press the newcomer, to test whether he’d brought more from the West Coast than a tan. He’d baited a trap—flirt and retreat, be sexual without any sex, provoke with no promises—and then fallen into it himself.
He wanted to bend Took over the counter, bury his fingers in those damp-dark curls, and give him a refresher course on fucking. Except there was two years’ worth of silence behind them, and maybe—maybe—that moment of absolute confidence last night when he’d known Took had his back was all Madoc would ever get.
It wasn’t everything he wanted—because he wanted everything—but it would be enough.
His cock disagreed with a spiteful throb that clenched back to his ass, but it didn’t appreciate anything but broad shoulders and nice thighs. Madoc knew it was harder to find a good friend than a good fuck. Maybe one day he’d risk it and see if Took would be both, but not yet.
“You rusty on debriefings as well?” he asked. “How did you connect Waring to Annabelle Franklin, and Annabelle Franklin to the Aron house?”
