“My mistake.” Takashi shed his coat and laid it over the armrest. “Is there something bothering you?”
“What could possibly bother me on such a wonderful night?” Anton said smoothly.
Takashi relaxed against the couch. He sought Anton’s psychic impression but found a blank wall. If he couldn’t cheat his way to more information, perhaps he could poke some out of him. “You’re guarding your emotions extremely well for someone who acts like he has no care in the world.”
“I have cares.” Anton stood, and his platinum blond hair fell in a perfect curtain to obscure his features.
“I am certain you do.”
“I know what you’re attempting to do.”
“What would that be?” Takashi asked lightly.
Suddenly, Anton whirled toward him. He moved with a greater speed, but Takashi didn’t try to move. Instead, he let Anton grab him by the throat and push him back against the couch, his head at a painful angle. Anton’s red eyes flared brighter, and he snarled, baring his fangs, as he loomed over Takashi. He had one knee between Takashi’s legs, and he was dangerously close to grinding Takashi’s balls. His hair became a halo with a touch of light illuminating it.
He was stunning. And deadly.
“You should be terrified of me,” Anton growled.
“I am,” Takashi said.
“Doesn’t feel like it.” Anton tightened his grip on Takashi’s throat.
Air was needed for speaking. Takashi could only drag in enough for whispers. “Doesn’t seem as if nothing is bothering you either.”
“Why do you care?” Anton demanded. “You have no interest in being, as you said, the plaything while I wait for my lover to pay attention to me.”
“It is remarkable how little we comment upon asyours,” Takashi replied. “The mansion, the collection, the coven—it’s allhis.”
Anton squeezed tighter, and Takashi felt bones break. He would heal, but not while Anton had a hand on him like this. “I am not insignificant.”
“Never said you were,” Takashi managed with his last breath.
For a long, terrible moment, Anton continued to apply pressure, and Takashi thought he might lose his head. Then he huffed and walked away, heading for the door to the hallway. “You and Zack should stop attempting to point out my lover’s faults.”
“What faults?” Takashi dared to croak. “We have only spoken truths. Why is that so terrifying to an immortal as powerful as you?”
Anton paused, a fraction of a half step of a moment that would have been missed by mortals and by most supernaturals less keenly observant than Takashi, but the hesitation was there. The moment where the gears in Anton’s mind must have halted, reversed direction, before they ground back into forward motion and continued onward.
Anton opened the door.
“You know what a monster he is,” Takashi whispered gently. “We all do. But what would you be without him?”
With a cold glare over his shoulder, Anton declared, “I never want to know.”
Then he snapped the door shut behind him.
Takashi collapsed back against the couch and carefully probed his neck. The bones were healing; he would be fine in a matter of seconds, perhaps a minute.Maybe I rattled him enough to shake him loose from his agony. He doubted that hope, though. Love was the universe’s greatest creation, and too many lies donned a facsimile of its allure.
CHAPTER 35
The only reason waiting around for Takashi didn’t suck was because Zack was truly in a slice of heaven. This library must have taken centuries to curate, and yet, as far as Zack could tell, there wasn’t any system to its organization. Had Anton put it together? Seamus? Grimsby? Knowing who might give him some inkling as to why books on the history of European witches sat beside volumes that questioned the nature of reality itself.
Were there books about his kind? Demons? Dragons? He couldn’t wait to find out.
He’d discovered a fascinating book from the late eighteen hundreds about the difference between cursed werewolves and spelled werewolves, which were entirely different from those who had been born with lycanthropy. The theories in the book weren’t unfamiliar to him, but this was like reading the seed of what his family taught. Of course, the Wrights taught that “spelled” meant cursed. That wasn’t what this author proposed at all.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t disturb you,” Takashi said quietly.
