“We’re going to livestream it,” Abigail said.
Cash rubbed his head. Of course they were.
“Two days, Mr. Davies,” Harry said, his voice intent. “That’s all you have to give us. Two days and your faith that the Good Lord won’t let any infernal creature rest in peace on his creation. Do we have it?”
Cash clenched his teeth on a bark of laughter. At the moment he’d buy that God had come back from that long sabbatical and the angels were desperate to look busy—specifically by screwing with his life.
“I’ll give you that,” he said. “But if you’re wrong, your credibility is going to be down the drain. What the viewing public leaves of you, the Abascals will drag through court until all that’s left is money and regret.”
“You’re already sayingif,” Harry said. “This is real, and it’s a game changer. Once we reveal that there are still monsters out there—real ones, not half-starved inbreds and mangy Sasquatches? Forget Hunters. The Vatican will empower the Witch Finders with temporal authority again.”
That was something new to worry about. Cash filed it behind the question of who in Roanoke was powerful enough to pull this off… and keep that power a secret from Donna.
“I guess we’ll see,” he said.
Chapter Nine
“IF Ineeded someone to get the staff drunk and fuck them, I could have hired a maenad,” Arkady said in a tight, controlled voice. His “too pissed off to let the monster out” voice. Cash supposed he was flattered that he could still make someone jealous. He guessed hewasstill pretty. “Don’t make me regret trusting you, Casper. Notagain.”
Cash rubbed grit and sand from his eyes and propped himself up on the narrow mattress. After his near tumble with Arkady the other day, he hadn’t expected his bedroom to be where he woke up today. But the best laid plans of mice and monsters….
The inside of his head felt light and loose, and his skin was too tight. Last night had burned through a layer of humanity, rubbed it down closer toward the grain of the monster. Luckily he had enough of it to spare.
“You married someone else,” he said.
Arkady stared down at him. The grip he had on his monster had dimmed the see-through amber of his eyes down to a dark, almost brown honey. That was the color he had when they first met. It surprised Cash how strange it looked on Arkady now. The arrogant tilt of his eyebrow hadn’t changed.
“So?” he said.
Heknewwhat thesowas. Arkady was a monster, but he wasn’t that much of a monster. Only the elders, locked in their luxurious prisons, could be that truly inhuman. The rest of them got humanity by immersion, even the ones who hadn’t been born with it, whether they liked it or not….
So it hurt. So Cash realized he’dalwaysbe the charity boy from the South Shore. So neither of them had a choice, and that sucked the most.
“So get over it.”
Arkady gave him a bleak, bitter look. Neither of them ever seemed to say what the other wanted to hear.
You could, the monster pointed out. It was loud against the tender seams of Cash’s skull.I could.
Could, but wouldn’t. It was impossible not to see the irritation that ruffled Arkady’s aura or taste his emotions on the air. That was just another sense, like Cash’s ears or nose. The hook was different. It might not even work—Arkady was a much bigger fish—but Cash wasn’t going to try just in case it did.
“I’ll get over you banging my sister when you get over the chip on your shoulder you’ve had since camp,” Arkady snapped. He leaned down and grabbed Cash’s chin between his fingers to tilt his face toward the window. “What the hell happened to your face?”
Good question. Cash pushed Arkady away and staggered out of the bed. He padded over to the mirror and peered at his reflection. The black eye and the bruise on his forehead had already started to fade, but while his skin hadn’t blistered last night, it had reacted. Under the smooth layer of human skin, pale and flecked with freckles, flat grayish blotches of scarred monster showed through.
His hands were the same, peppered with dry gunmetal-gray flecks.
“You know how it is,” Cash said. “You pick someone up and they turn out to be kinkier than expected.”
“No.” Arkady walked up behind him and pushed Cash’s head forward so he could examine the knot on the back. He made an irritated sound, still not ready to let go of his temper as he wrapped his hand around the nape of Cash’s neck. His grip pinched, hard enough to make Cash squirm. They both stared into the mirror as if their posed reflection might reveal something. “People are going to think I beat you. Maybe I should.”
Cash snorted and tried, halfheartedly, to pull away. “They would think it was about time.”
“I’ve never cared what they think,” Arkady said as he tugged Cash back. The tension in his voice was cut with lust, like rotgut served with a whiskey chaser. “But if someone is going to bruise you, it better be me. What happened?”
Cash leaned back against Arkady’s chest. Buttons scratched against his bare back, and the itch of pleasure prickled in his gut and down the backs of his thighs.
He groaned and pulled away, with more determination this time. Arkady growled, a scrape of stones in the back of his throat, but he let go.
