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How curiously cautious, and not at all what Syrus would have expected from someone of his species. He couldn’t help prodding some more. “Either way, why not just drain him dry and be done with it? A snack and a triumph all at once?”
“Seth wouldn’t like it.”
Riley said the words so perfectly flat and even, as if it was as simple as that. Maybe it was.
“You’re his protector,” Syrus mused.
Riley gave him a sideways glance. “It goes both ways.”
Syrus couldn’t imagine the cheery baker viciously defending anyone, even if he did have fangs, but there was no room for doubt in the vampire’s voice. Only certainty. Devotion.
Syrus’s estimation of the whole species was really going up by the moment. He’d assumed the expectation of a fate-given mate might make them…complacent. Unappreciative of their gifts. But that didn’t seem to be the case here. Riley appeared to know exactly the boon the fates had given him.
They were silent after that, and two more songs had played before they arrived at a cul-de-sac. Riley pulled up next to a small house that seemed to be split into two residences. A duplex, the moms had called it, with one of the large trucks Syrus kept seeing everywhere parked in front. It was the left side of the duplex Syrus would be approaching.
“What’s your plan?” Riley asked as he turned off the engine.
“Knock.”
Riley gave him a look, and Syrus expanded. “See if I recognize him, or if he recognizes me. I’ll go from there.”
“You look the same in both forms?”
“Close enough to recognize.”
“Seth wants to see you in the water someday.”
Syrus shrugged. “If Luke agrees.”
He personally never minded putting himself on display, but if someone else wanted to admire him in his finest form, it would be up to his mate to allow it.
Riley only nodded, as if he understood. He might very well.
Syrus eyed the house. It was painted a dull gray, a perfect match to the day’s cloudy sky. There were no plants other than its requisite patch of grass, divided by a cement path that led up to two small, separate porches.
It didn’t seem a likely place for an ambush. But why would it? There was no reason for anyone to know Syrus was coming.
“If I don’t return…,” Syrus began.
“I’ll call the others.”
Riley gave no promise to come in after him, or to avenge his absence. Syrus respected it. They were not pod.
He stepped out of the car and approached the house without a backward glance. His feet ached, and the pants he wore were once again too short, the waistband cutting in at his hip, although Luke had promised a delivery of ordered clothing was coming on the morrow.
Syrus would have given much to be in the water, fluid and fearsome and in his element. But no matter. He was weakened but not weak. And whatever else may happen, Syrus knew this much: he would not be taken from Luke’s side.
He knocked, three firm raps.
It wasn’t long before footsteps approached and a man opened the door. He was short and bespectacled, his clothes as gray as the house surrounding him. He wasn’t one of those who had prodded and torn at Syrus’s flesh, but Syrus was somehow not surprised to recognize his face. A mutual recognition, judging from the knowing look in the man’s mild eyes.
It was him. The stranger from the beach.
21
SYRUS
Syrus charged forward, dimly aware of the front door closing behind him. He pressed the shorter human back, back, back.
