John’s eyes darkened with grief. How must he feel, after what Sean did?
“I don’t remember much of it,” Caleb went on. “Which is probably a good thing, to be honest. I do remember knowing something had me. Held me. And a sense of love I can’t even begin to describe to anyone else. Not romantic, or platonic, or familial. Just…total and unequivocal. And even if we hadn’t been getting along before, even if I hadn’t wished he would have the opportunity to really experience what you and I share…there’s no way I could ever be jealous of someone who cares about me like that.”
John’s fingers squeezed his. “Oh,” he said, his voice soft and a little thoughtful. Like he was really trying to understand what Caleb told him.
“Besides,” Caleb added with a sad smile, “we kind of thought you’d hate us both after I chose to let the possession become permanent. So I, for one, am pretty fucking relieved to find out you’ve got a kink for drakul.”
John swallowed hard. “Sean…” He paused, drew in a deep breath. “Sean thought he was saving me. From myself. From Gray.”
Okay, he’d known Sean didn’t like the whole thing with Gray, but the rest of it? “Saving you from yourself?”
“He thinks I’ve got a death wish.” John tilted his head back, blinking rapidly. Tears spangled his lashes, gleaming in the moonlight. “He said the whole reason I got involved with you, with Gray, is because I want to die. And I don’t believe he’s right, but I have to know what you think, both of you. Because I thought Sean knew me better than anyone, and I admit the succubus brothel messed me up pretty good, and then Will left, and…”
“No,” Caleb said simply.
John stopped. “No?”
“No, you don’t have a death wish.” Caleb squeezed John’s hand. “The first time we had sex, it wasn’t because you got off on the idea of how dangerous it might be, screwing a possessed guy. We had sex because I needed something to remind me I was still human. We…I don’t know, connected, I guess.” Shit, he was no good at saying this kind of thing. “Not as exorcist and possessed dude, but as John and Caleb. I may not be the most sensitive guy around, but I’m pretty sure I would have figured it out if you were just getting off on the thrill I might vamp out and rip you to pieces, you know?”
“I know. Although, I thought I felt Gray sometimes.” John’s cheeks flushed. “Um, paying attention.”
Caleb grinned. “It turned you on?”
Another hard swallow. “Yes.”
His dick roused, pressing against the zipper of his jeans. “Good,” he whispered, leaning over to breathe the words directly into John’s ear. “Because sooner or later, we’ll have the chance to be alone again.”
“Starkweather!” Tiffany yelled. “Get your ass in the van. This isn’t a limo service.”
“But not just yet,” Caleb said, letting go of John’s hand. “Come on, before she leaves without us.”
Chapter 12
A few hours later, the van pulled off onto an unpaved road going back through the woods. The branches of live oaks, festooned with Spanish moss, scraped along the top and sides of the transport. The road eventually ended in front of an enormous old plantation house, which looked in much better shape than John had expected from the rutted, overgrown driveway.
“This is another safe house,” Tiffany said, climbing out of the back of the idling truck. “Come on.”
As soon as they were all out, the van trundled back down the drive, no doubt to be concealed at some other location. Tiffany turned to the house, snapping her fingers at two of the Vigilant. “Hose him down,” she said, pointing at Caleb. Who was, to be fair, utterly covered in blood and gore, and reeked to high heaven. “After, he can get a shower in the downstairs bath if he wants. Jared, please show Kaniyar and Pittman to their rooms. Starkweather, come with me.”
Caleb glanced at John. “See you in a bit?”
“Okay.”
“Come on, Starkweather,” Tiffany repeated, obviously annoyed.
He fell in beside her, crossing the lawn to the house. “Shouldn’t we figure out what to do next? Forsyth isn’t just going to let us get away with this.”
“No, really? Give me some credit.” Her dark eyes flashed in the light coming from the house. “This isn’t the entirety of the Vigilant, not by a long shot. Other things are in motion. Right now, the best we can do is hunker down and take the chance to rest a few hours before things heat up again.”
“Fair enough. At the compound, what did you mean when you talked about lightning and storms? About Gray?”
Tiffany shook her head. “Tomorrow we’ll answer whatever questions you have, as best we can. For now, it looks like he’s done zapping things, at least.”
She led the way into the house. He’d expected something utilitarian inside, but instead he found an elegant, tastefully decorated interior, with wood surfaces shined to a soft glow in the light streaming from the chandelier high overhead. He followed her up two flights of stairs, until she stopped in front of a door. “Here’s your room. I assume you’re okay bunking with Caleb?”
“Of course I am.”
“There’s a private bathroom attached to the room. Leave your clothes outside the door and we’ll see if they can be cleaned. There are t-shirts and sweatpants in the dresser so I don’t have to look at your naked ass. And there are condoms and lube in the nightstand.”
“You’re kidding.”
Tiffany rolled her eyes. “This is a safe house. Some people like to get freaky to unwind after a tense situation. It’s going to happen; we might as well make sure everyone stays healthy. We don’t throw people away.”
Did she mean it as a criticism of SPECTR? Or was he hypersensitive at the moment? He opened the door. “Thanks, Tiffany. For saving me.”
She shrugged. “I owed the drakul.”
She looked tired in the soft light of the hall, dark circles around her eyes. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her like this, dressed in clothes not specially tailored for her in Milan or Paris, no trace of makeup, her many braids pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. When had she joined up with the Vigilant? And what pushed her to it? The way she behaved, she must be high up in their organization. It must have been soon after they became agents. Maybe while they were still at the Academy, even.
He’d never guessed. Goddess, had he ever known any of the people he’d thought were his friends?
“Did you know?” he asked. “About Sean working for Forsyth, I mean.”
“No.” Her mouth went hard. “I’m going to catch hell for it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“When la capitaine shows up. I have the feeling she’s not going to like a lot of the decisions I made in the last twenty-four hours. But that’s my problem, not yours.” She turned away. “Take a shower and get some sleep. Somebody will bring your boyfriend up once he’s clean enough to let in the house.”
John went into the room, stripped off his clothes, and tossed them outside the door as instructed. As Tiffany had promised, several shapeless, one-size-fits-all sweatpants and shirts were tucked away inside an antique dresser. As he padded to the bathroom, he heard other voices coming from the rooms below and around him, but the walls muffled them too much to make out any words.
Stepping into the shower, he turned on the water, adjusting it until it was as hot as he could stand. Closing his eyes, he leaned against the tiled wall, letting the scalding flow wash away sweat and dirt and blood.
If only it could take other things with it. Like the memory of hearing the gunshot, of turning and seeing Caleb lying dead at Sean’s feet.
He dragged in a deep breath, steam warm in his nose and lungs. He kept telling himself over and over Caleb was okay, and Gray, and everything was fine. But it was a lie, because everything wasn’t fine, not at all.
He should have killed Sean. Except Sean thought he’d been saving John.
And Forsyth? Who did he think he was saving? Paranormals? The people of the United States? He’d taken SPEC
TR and corrupted everything it stood for, and now John was on the run from the very organization which took him in when his own parents couldn’t stand the sight of him. Who gave him hope, and a job, and who the fuck was he if he didn’t have SPECTR anymore?
A sob wracked his body. How had everything gone so wrong? How?
He remembered a night in another shower. Fifteen years old and stripped raw, nothing left inside but a red wound after months of counselors telling him he had to stop feeling etheric energy, that he was damned. They claimed he’d invited a demon inside and had to repent. And he had repented, and prayed to God, and begged, but nothing had changed. He was sinful and worthless and didn’t deserve to live.
Death seemed like the only way out, by means of a belt tied to a showerhead, the other end looped around his neck. If the cheap fixture hadn’t broken under his weight, he would have died. Never done any of the things he had since: learned to use his ability for good, exorcising those who would have been lost otherwise. Saving people whenever he could, and giving them peace when he couldn’t. And maybe someone else would have stepped up and taken his place. But he would have missed out on so much, up to and including Caleb and Gray, and his chest ached to think about it.
Maybe he didn’t know who he was, or what would happen tomorrow. But he still lived, and so did they, and it had to count for something.
The soap left his skin smelling faintly of gardenias. When he finished drying off, he wrapped the towel around his waist, rather than pulling on the sweatpants. He paused at the bathroom door and laid his hand lightly on the wood, closing his eyes and letting himself feel the pulse and churn of etheric energy on the other side.
Gray waited for him.
* * *
Gray stood near one of the tall windows, staring out into the night. His hair roiled and twisted over his bare shoulders, the wind lashing it unfelt now, not manifested as it had been in the compound. He wore only a pair of the sweatpants, which rode low on his narrow hips even with the drawstring pulled tight.
His presence filled the room, vast as a gathering storm on the horizon. He ought to be standing on a mountainside, or in a desert, somewhere wild and powerful. Not a bedroom decorated in antiques, the oak four-poster with its white coverlet looking like the centerpiece of a fussy bed-and-breakfast. Ozone and petrichor saturated the air, underlain with some resinous incense John couldn’t quite identify.
John’s heart beat faster, and his cock stirred under the towel. Gray had turned him on from the first, when John had originally tried to exorcise him. And the kiss…how Gray looked, striding across the compound, lightning flashing all around him and his coat billowing out…John stiffened further at the memories.
Gray didn’t acknowledge his entrance into the room, however, only continued to stare out the window, unnaturally still except for the movement of his hair. John crossed the room and stopped a few feet away, uncertainty taking the edge off arousal. “Gray?”
“Yes.” A quick glance of obsidian eyes. “Caleb says I should speak to you, but if you would prefer him, I will withdraw.”
The hesitation in his deep voice startled John. Up until today—or maybe yesterday, he’d lost track of time—he’d only ever seen Gray face to face during exorcism attempts and fights for their lives. In the former, the drakul seemed annoyed and generally put out with John and in the latter, a creature of pure strength and unhesitating confidence.
“The two of you have to decide,” John said. “It isn’t my place to say who gets to be on top.” He laughed. “Okay, maybe not the best way to phrase it. Um. I’d like to spend some time with you, if you’re okay with it.”
“You would?” Gray turned to face him, head cocked slightly to one side.
“Of course.” John moved closer, until only a few inches of cool air separated them. He wanted to lean in and lick the brown circle of Gray’s nipple, but resisted the urge. “I meant what I said earlier. I love you.”
Gray took a deep breath, as if inhaling John’s words. “It is only I do not know what is expected,” he said in a rush. “How to act. What you want from me.”
He’d never seen this side of Gray before, never imagined it existed. His exorcist’s senses insisted he stood just in front of something huge and powerful, a predator which could tear him to shreds faster than he could blink. All of which was true, but maybe even badass NHEs could feel nervous. Be vulnerable.
“I don’t expect anything,” John said, carefully settling his hands on Gray’s hips, just above the sweatpants. It felt strange, because this was Caleb’s body, a body he’d touched dozens of times before, yet everything seemed new. Gray held himself differently, moved differently: quick and decisive, or utterly still, like a tiger or some other big cat. “We can talk if you’d like. Or just stand here and look out the window. What do you want?”
It should have been hard to tell where Gray directed his gaze, without pupil or iris to interrupt the wet obsidian of his eyes. But John felt Gray’s attention, skimming from his lips to his chest to his cock.
Oh ho. If Gray wanted that, John knew how to work with it.
He let his hands drift up, shaping the lean muscles just under the pale skin, wandering around to trace Gray’s spine as he stepped in closer. Gray’s breath caught, and John’s cock stirred through the layers of cotton between them. Static shivered and crackled in his hair, dancing off the backs of John’s hands.
“I love the way you smell,” John murmured.
“You do?”
“Yes.” He hesitated on the confession, but holding things back hadn’t gotten them anywhere. “The incubus on the lighthouse…you were the scent lure it used…the thing I wanted but couldn’t have…”
Gray growled, pressing up against John, crowding him back against the bed. “We would not have let it take you from us.”
“I know.” The hell? Was Gray…jealous? “I just wanted you, so bad.”
Gray kissed him, hard and demanding. He tasted like mint toothpaste and Caleb, which startled John a bit, although it really shouldn’t have. John kissed back eagerly, arching against Gray, rubbing his cock against the drakul’s narrow hip. “Almost as bad as I want you now,” he whispered when the kiss ended.
Gray pushed him back on the bed, looming over him, all hair and bared fangs. One hand pinned John’s wrists over his head, firmly but not painfully.
John’s heart pounded and his cock poked out of the gap in the towel, pressing against skin-warmed sweatpants. Apparently he had some kinks he’d never realized he possessed, because he could barely keep from rubbing himself against Gray’s thigh.
Gray kissed him again, exploring John’s mouth thoroughly with his tongue, clearly having pushed past his uncertainty. John tipped his head back when Gray’s lips trailed along his jaw and down his throat. Fangs scraped against his vulnerable skin, and he gasped, hips bucking involuntarily.
“You like this?” Gray asked, and this close the drakul’s deep voice vibrated in his bones.
“Oh, fuck, yes.” John twisted, tugging against the hand pinning his wrists to the bed. Not to escape, but just to feel himself restrained. Gray was far stronger than any human; John had no hope of breaking free. “I promise, I’ll say something if it gets too intense, but right now, I’m ready to beg you to keep going.”
Gray pulled back to look at him with a surprised expression which eased into something like wonder…followed by a slow smile. John had never even imagined Gray smiling; like everything else about him, it was sexy, oddly sweet, and, given the flash of fang, borderline disturbing.
“Beg, then,” he said.
John barely suppressed a groan, body arching to rub against Gray. “Touch me, please. Kiss me, suck me, do everything to me, before I go crazy. I want everything, I want you, I—”
Then he couldn’t think straight enough to talk anymore, because Gray went right for the sensitive spot between neck and shoulder, sucking hard at the tender flesh, fangs scraping, teasing. John loved having the spot sucked on anywa
y—Gray must have known it, had indeed been paying attention when he and Caleb were having sex.
“Is Caleb watching? Is that how this works?” he asked through a haze of lust.
Gray licked John’s throat, traced the line of his clavicles, before replying. “Watching. Experiencing. Feeling.”
“Good.” He didn’t have to worry about feeling like he cheated on Caleb somehow, even though Caleb had pretty obviously endorsed the whole idea earlier.
“Caleb thinks so.”
Chapter 13
Gray kept him pinned with one hand, but the other slid through the gap in the towel to cup the inside of one thigh, the claws just barely extending so John felt the lightest prick. Not enough to break the skin, just enough to stimulate the nerves. He let out an involuntary gasp, and the claws retracted.
“Forgive me,” Gray said, releasing him and pulling back hastily.
“No! I mean, no, I liked it. It was just a little unexpected.” John laid his hand against the drakul’s cheek, tracing the edge of Gray’s lips with his thumb. Damn, Gray looked magnificent, his hair billowing around his shoulders like something alive, lightning-sparked black eyes heavy-lidded with pleasure, lips swollen from kisses, parted just enough to expose the tips of fangs. Beautiful and scary and sexy as hell.
Gray turned his head, sucking the tip of John’s thumb into his mouth. John carefully ran the pad across Gray’s teeth, over normal human incisors suddenly interrupted by long, curving canines. They weren’t particularly sharp, made for violence not subtlety.
“Kiss me,” he said, and Gray did, long and sensual, lowering his body to press against John’s. Etheric energy shivered across John’s skin like a static charge, his paranormal senses saturated with smell and touch. Goddess, what would it feel like to thrust his dick into Gray, feel all the fully manifested power around him?
The thought drew a moan from him. He ran his hands over Gray’s shoulders, their geography familiar from all the times he’d touched Caleb. Silken hair writhed over his fingers, sparks of static licking his skin.
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