Took straightened the dog-eared corner of the file. “She’s not bad,” he admitted stiffly, the requisite faint praise before damnation. “But just because she still has a heartbeat doesn’t mean she understands Hunters. It doesn’t mean she understands people. She grew up with VINE bodyguards, had family with fangs. End of the day, she’s more Anakim than me.”
The irritation took root in tight bands around the inside of his throat. “Maybe that was in her favor,” Madoc said coldly.
“Yeah, well, it shouldn’t be,” Took fired back. “She missed stuff. Right from the start, no one could understand why people would answer the door to Waring. Lawrence dismissed it, said that the Anakim just saw a distressed young man and anyone would answer the door. We both know that’s not what you’d see.”
The fact he was right—no Anakim, not even ones with only a decade fanged under their belt, would see a stranger unannounced at their door as anything but a threat—didn’t settle Madoc’s hackles at all. Took was the one who’d left, who’d walled himself off behind red tape and a refusal to speak to anyone on the team. He didn’t get to sneer at Lawrence, who never wanted to be anywhere else.
“And you?” Madoc asked. “What would you see?”
Took’s laugh was harsh and as full of mockery as a guard dog’s bark. “Monsters,” he said as he pulled a piece of paper out of the folder and slapped it against Madoc’s chest. “What else is there that knocks on your door at night. If you’re right about Annabelle, though, you better prepare your protege for worse criticism than a file in the garbage.”
“Why”
“Becauseshe’snot the only body they never found,” Took said. “If she’s still alive, then the missing children could be too. The minute the Hazarealize that, the case is open again, and she’ll be first in line to be gutted by the press.”
By the end of the statement, some of the sharp glee had gone from Took’s voice. They had all been on the end of bad press from one side or another over the years. The satisfaction remained. This was what, after all, he’d wanted. The case reopened, of course, but mostly the satisfaction that Took had been right and everyone else had been wrong.
“Waring is still guilty in this theory of yours,” Madoc said grimly. “At the end, when the children turn up dead or in pieces, he’ll still be executed. All this does is give people a handful of false hope, solve your puzzle, and maybe ruin Lawrence’s career.”
The flash of guilt over Took’s face was enough to confirm he had no real hope that his investigation would exonerate Waring. It was just enough to paper a good cause over his obsession with the puzzle and soothe his conscience.
And the worst of it was that Madoc’s frustrated anger made no difference to the sweet ache in his heart when he looked at Took. He’d always known that Took could be a self-interested, self-righteous fool, that he’d pull everything down for his own satisfaction. That just didn’t matter as much as his loyalty and ready humor and the easy charm that lit his face when he smiled.
“It looks like your flirting isn’t the only thing that got rusty,” Madoc said. He glanced at the sheet of paper that Took had handed him. The names of the missing children marched down the page, from Anatoly to Yvette. He knew that Took was right. The smallest chance to bring these children—alive, undead, or just at rest—home to their families, and Madoc had to take it. “Your morals need freshening up too. But at least if VINE reopens this case, we won’t need any help from an independent contractor.”
That last point caught Took on the raw where the morals jab had only made him wince. He scowled. “I’m better than Lawrence,” he said. “We both know it.”
Madoc grabbed Took by the T-shirt, hand twisted in the worn cotton, and yanked him close enough that he could smell the fresh-scrubbed skin and the lemon of his soap.
“You understand monsters,” he said through fully extended fangs. The pulse of blood in his ears made the smoke curl hot and dry in the cavity of his heart and hang heavy in the air. He’d put upstart boyars on their knees with his power before, made them show throat so he could shred his master’s tithe from their veins. Part of him knew he would regret this later, when the anger faded and the edges of that broken trust cut deep. The scars on Took’s skin drew the eye, but Madoc had lived long enough to know that the deepest scars were the ones you didn’t see. Regrettably, his temper had never cared for foresight, and his voice snarled out of his throat. “That doesn’t make you better than her. It makes you broken.”
Took barked out a harsh laugh. “Do you think I don’t know that?”
Despite the bluster, his gaze flickered nervously across Madoc’s face, to his eyes and then nervously down again. Madoc waited with a quietly grim satisfaction for Took to backtrack.
Instead Took kissed him.
Madoc wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised. It was rough and eager, with Took’s hand cupped at the back of Madoc’s neck and his compact body pressed against Madoc’s.
Heshouldpull away. It was too sudden and too caught up in the ever-more-divisive Waring case to be anything but ill-considered. If he didn’t, there would be no way to back down from it, no more patience with Took’s slow recovery or sly reserve. If they did this and Took withdrew again—turned Madoc away at the door like an unwanted bastard with a hungry belly—there would be no kindness left in Madoc for either of them.
So he should close his mouth, step back, and push Took’s lean, soap-fresh body away. The excuse would ring flat—Madoc already knew that—but they’d live with it. They had before. All you needed to do was emphasize theunexpectedin “that was unexpected” or downplay the hot awkwardness of a kiss in New Orleans on drinks, blood, and relief that a bad case had wrapped up. It just took commitment.
Instead Madoc growled into the sweetness of the kiss and dragged Took closer. He had been good. He’d played by the rules he’d set himself and tried to keep his distance. And it had gotten him nothing but frustration and lonely nights, an ache in his balls, a hole in his heart, and everyone’s careful, well-meaning advice about how “fragile” Took was.
It was enough. He either wanted Took back or he wanted to let this thing between them burn out completely. No matter who it took with them.
As one last sop to his conscience as he leaned back, his throat parched with hunger for one more breath of Took, he asked, “Are you sure you want this?”
He supposed that, technically, Took’s snort as he pulled him back into a kiss wasn’t an answer. But it would have to do.
Chapter Nine
TWICE. INthe months—years now, he supposed—since he crawled out of that box, he’d gotten this far with someone twice. Eager mouths and rough hands over clothes, shoulder blades pressed against a wall and fingers twisted in his hair.
Then he’d find his mouth on their neck, taste the bloom of hot blood under the skin as he worried at the tender flesh, and he’d recoil. his hand on the back of their neck, thumb against the base of their spine, and right there at the front of his brain, the dark, poisoned knowledge of how easy those delicate, human bones would be tosnap.
That was usually enough to throw cold water over the evening, as whatever was left of him that was human shriveled at the slide toward monster. He hadn’t been celibate this long since he was fifteen and decided he didn’t give a damn what his family thought of him.
