by Lissa Kasey
I didn’t even realize I’d stomped to Gabe and Sei’s room, and I’d pounded on the door until it opened to an alarmed looking Sei, whose clothes were disheveled. Gabe relaxed on the bed, shirt half unbuttoned, soft smile on his face and gold hair glowing in lamp light.
“Everything okay?” Gabe asked quietly as Sei stepped aside to let me in.
I felt the flush burn my cheeks when he buttoned his pants and straightened his shirt. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Nothing we can’t continue later.” Gabe adjusted his shirt, rose from the bed to kiss Sei on the forehead, and motioned me to the chair beside the table. I sat, feeling heavy and oddly betrayed. Was it because Kelly had obviously not trusted me enough to tell me about his asthma? Or was it more?
“What’s wrong?” Sei asked, wringing his hands in that worried fashion he’d only started a few months ago. “Something’s wrong. Jamie doesn’t ever look like that,” he said to Gabe.
How did I look? I tried to steel my emotions to keep Sei from becoming more concerned. He had his own problems to deal with. Gabe’s eyes met mine, and there was a question in his, but now was not the time. “Kelly found a body outside. It might be the missing maintenance guy.”
“A body?” Sei seemed to collapse on the bed. Gabe wrapped his arms around him and stroked his hair.
“He probably got lost in the storm and couldn’t get inside in time. I’m going to go and try to examine him.” And get my mind off Kelly. “As soon as this storm ends I think we all need to get out of here.”
“Water and air are at play,” Gabe said. Both Sei and I looked at him. He shrugged. “There was nothing on the radar before the storm yesterday. I’d been keeping an eye on it on my phone. The storm came out of nowhere. It showed up on the radar just seconds before the link went out.”
Kelly had said the storm had been unnatural. “You don’t think that Kelly might be….”
“No,” Sei said. “I trust Kelly.”
But if he were bitten like Sei had been a few months ago, he could be doing it against his will. That could be why he had been trembling so badly. He had so much power pushed into the storm that it was wearing at him.
Gabe got up from the bed, gripping Sei’s hand. He must have had the same thought as I had since he said, “Let’s go check on the body. I will be able to tell if a vampire is involved in his death.” Gabe and I would work it out. Create a plan. Keeping Sei and Kelly safe were the most important things.
I nodded. Gabe must have been on the same page because he led Sei to Kelly’s room. I opened the door, hoping I wasn’t leaving my little brother alone with a thrall.
“Be back in a while, beautiful,” Gabe whispered to Sei, lips finding his in a soft kiss. I looked away and let them have their moment before assuring myself that Sei was safe inside my room. Once the door was closed and we were headed outside, Gabe asked, “So what else is wrong?”
“All the sleds were sabotaged.” Though the words nearly killed me to say, he had to know. “Water in the lines.”
Kelly WHEN I awoke, it was to the scent of clover honey and the sound of someone humming. Seiran curled himself around me, twisting at the hip to leave a hand free. He balanced his notebook against my side and was drawing something on the pages he was supposed to use to track his medication.
“What are you drawing?”
“Gabe’s tattoo. He won’t tell me what it means. Gets that guarded look on his face when I ask. So I’m going to look it up on the Internet.”
“Gabe has a tattoo?”
Seiran’s smile grew dangerous, naturally seductive. One hand nervously played with his short hair. He always complained he looked too much like a girl, but with the short hair, I just didn’t see it.
“It’s really low on his back.”
“Like butt-crack low?”
“Not quite, but close.” He glanced at me. “Have you been looking at his butt?”
I smiled at his jealous tone. “Never. But it sounds pretty hot. Does Jamie have any tattoos?” I thought of Con’s and how much that had turned me on. Jamie didn’t have anything that jumped out right away, but I hadn’t exactly examined him last night, either.
“I don’t think so. If he had someone’s name across his ass cheeks I don’t think he’d tell me.”
“Would be a shame to change such nice cheeks.”
Seiran grinned and laid his head on my pillow. “I know, right? If he weren’t so crazy muscleman, he’d be way hot.” He flushed. “Is it bad to think my brother is hot?”
“Not when it’s true. You’re not doing him. So all is well.”
“I’d rather do Gabe. Or him do me. Maybe I should get a tattoo.”
His logic always bounced around like a ping-pong ball. “Where did the duo head off to?” The clock’s blue numbers said it was after seven. At least I’d gotten a nice nap.
“They were trying to figure out what to do with the body.”
“Crap! I totally forgot about that. It was pretty gross.”
“It was the maintenance guy. Jamie thinks he froze to death in the storm.” Sei’s bright blue eyes pinned me with a heavy and too-serious-for-him stare. “There was water in all the snowmobiles, so we can’t leave. You don’t know anything about that, do you?”
“Nope. Why would I get us stuck here?”
He shrugged. “Maybe you want us to have more vacation time or whatever. I dunno.”
The past few months made him this way. Suspicious of everyone. “I’d rather be at home where I can get to a heated pool quickly.”
He didn’t look at me, but I knew him better.
“You wouldn’t be all cozy with me if you really thought I had something to do with this.”
He pretended to nibble on my arm, like the critters in some of his favorite anime did. “I trust you. I told Jamie that.”
Jamie didn’t trust me?
“Besides, I like you. You’re my best friend, other than Gabe. You don’t look at me like you’re waiting for me to explode.”
“But you don’t like,like me.”
He shot me a wary look. “Do you want to have sex with me?”
“No. I’d rather have sex with Jamie.” It was the first time I’d acknowledged the desire out loud. Apparently he didn’t trust me, and that stung. “That’s like, the taboo of taboos. Wanting to have sex with my best friend’s brother.”
“Why?”
“’Cause if something goes sour on either side of the relationship it’s hard to keep seeing them around.”
“Oh. But you’ll stay friends with me, right?”
“You’d have to find wild dogs to drag me away. Or maybe a slew of naked football players.”
“Fantasy football?” The hopeful tone of his voice made me laugh. Maybe he could pick a winning team by attraction alone.
“If we get out of here I’ll show you how it works.”
He sighed and went back to drawing, body snug against mine. “I’d like Jamie to have someone. You’d be good for him. That girl has been all over Jamie. I don’t know if he does boys. But he could pick a better girl. That one’s so fake she’s plastic.”
“Which girl?” Did Jamie have a girlfriend I didn’t know about?
“Cat. The one with the tall, brooding gay guy, Connie. He’s hot with all those tattoos. But he’s got something dark in him that reminds me of Matthew.” Sei’s eyes darted away, as if the memory caught him unaware. Matthew had abused Sei as a child, then came back to haunt him a month ago.
“Constantine told you he’s gay?”
Sei gave me his famous “duh” stare. “He came on to me the moment Gabe went to bed this morning.”
And here Con had been talking about how he’d changed. “Really? Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
“Last name Opal, like the gem. They’re Dominion. Not first wave like me, but still high enough to matter.”
“They? Is Cat related to him?”
“They’re brother and sister. Sort of look alike,
don’t you think?”
Hmm. What was Con doing up here on vacation with his sister? He’d never spoken of having a sister, though to be honest, we hadn’t talked about anything not related to sex or sports. Teenage boys and hormones. I was happy I’d mostly outgrown that stage.
“Jamie said you needed to tell me something.”
“Yeah. About the storm. It wasn’t normal. I felt a lot of malice in it. Panic too. It’s starting again, the pressure building. Though deep inside the lodge it doesn’t feel as bad as it did at the cabin.”
“But you’re the water witch. Why tell me?”
“I don’t know. Something in my head just kept saying you had to know. Do you ever feel stuff like that? An element with pure malice in it?” He’d been studying magic longer than I had. Set a new bar for all male witches to reach. I hoped he had some answers.
“At the witch levels exam, Bernie made the river rise that way. By forcing her element to do something it didn’t normally do.” He turned away, keeping his eyes down. “There wasn’t malice in it, but it wasn’t natural. Anyone higher than a level one would have felt it.”
And since both Sei and I were level five witches, all that stuff set off our radar. “We saved the day, you and I.” I rubbed his soft hair and pulled him into my arms like I could save him from the memories. “I thought I could hold the water back, but I’m just human. There’s no way to stop nature in all its glory. You’d think years of competitive swimming would have beaten some sense into me.”
“I never got to see you swim. But you’re an amazing runner. I loved watching you pace yourself and shoot ahead in the last few seconds.”
“The days of competitive sports are behind me.” Ever since enrolling in the magic studies program at the U, I’d had nothing but trouble. Guys I used to run with every day wanted nothing to do with me. People I’d never met shouted profanities at me or stuffed mean notes in my locker. Just because I’d been accepted into the program by the college didn’t mean that the student body had accepted that the world was changing. Male witches were becoming part of the Dominion. Maybe someday the world at large would realize it. “It’s easier to focus on my studies now.”
Sei’s expression said he knew the truth but didn’t call me on it. I smoothed the wrinkles out of my pants, got up from the bed, and offered him my hand. The tremble had started again. “We should get food.”
“Jamie won’t let me in the kitchen. It wasn’t clean, so I started to clean it. But he wouldn’t let me. The chef had a fit ’cause I said his kitchen was dirty. He probably won’t cook for me.” He shook his head like he’d been horrified. “But you should have seen it. There were piles of crumbs on the counter and stains in the sink. It was awful.”
“Okay. Let’s go down and sit by the fire. I’ll bring you food.” Maybe some tea or cocoa if I could find it. Gabe would need to take Sei in hand. Obviously the seclusion and the storm were getting to him.
Chapter Nine
GETTING Seiran into a chair by the fire with food had been harder than I originally thought. Neither Jamie nor Gabe was in the lodge. Mrs. Gossner said they’d gone to the garage and were putting Ron, the dead maintenance guy, in there until help could come. The second storm was blowing in like another snow twister on a warpath.
Hans had already fixed the front door, shaking his head as to why it had been locked to begin with. Mrs. Gossner expressed apologies about it. The whole thing made me wonder just who wanted to ensure we wouldn’t get back inside before the storm. I gripped Sei’s hand and was determined to keep him close to me.
Sei had tried to follow me into the kitchen, twice. He didn’t want others staring at him, and Cat had already asked him where Jamie was. Con glared from across the room like he already knew Seiran intimately. Every time I got between them, his eyes lit up, and he smiled an invitation my way. I wasn’t going there.
The tension in Sei vibrated like a cord about to snap. And with no other option, I became the buffer that separated him from the world. By the time the two older men returned to the lodge, Sei was in my lap reading a romance novel, sipping cocoa, and wrapped in a borrowed blanket. The wind slashed around the outside of the lodge, whipping up so much snow the windows appeared covered in fog. I shivered from the pressure and clung to Sei like he had clung to me so many times before.
“Everything okay?” Gabe asked as he leaned in close and kissed Sei lightly.
“We’re good,” I said.
Sei glanced back at me then up at Gabe, his eyes narrowed with that observant nature of his. Sei stretched and whispered to me, “Come to me if you need to.”
I nodded and let Gabe lead him toward the stairs. Jamie dropped into the chair next to me.
“So was it the maintenance guy?”
“Yeah.” He slid the rubber band out of his hair, which
he must have put up again while he’d been working on the sleds, letting the blond length flow through his fingers. It reminded me of the dreams I’d been having. He looked really tired. “Appears to have frozen to death, but until we can get out of here, no one will know for sure.”
“Do you think it might be something else?”
Jamie just shrugged. His lack of trust stung. “Seiran already asked if I’d put water in the sleds to try
to extend our vacation.”
“Yet he was curled up in your lap.”
“He has to suspect me. Sei is my best friend, and if I
were going to extend our vacation anywhere, it would be a place filled with sunshine and warm blue ocean.” I tugged the blanket up around my shoulders and flipped through Sei’s abandoned romance. It was the only one he’d brought that wasn’t on his reader. “Besides, you were with me the whole time. When exactly would I have done it?”
Jamie nodded, his body sagging deeper into the chair like he was just tired of it all. Cat nearly leapt into his lap. She was all soft and feminine with a flowing dress, hair bound atop her head, and smelling of flowers. Plastic indeed.
“Have you eaten? I saved some soup for you,” she said to Jamie as she perched on the arm of his chair.
“You hungry?” Jamie asked me. Cat looked momentarily panicked at the thought of me joining them.
“Nah. I’m good.” I waved the book at him. “Just going to sit here a little longer and read about some great warrior’s throbbing rod.”
Jamie’s lips twitched, hiding a smile. He got up and followed Cat out of the room. He even let her put her hand in the crook of his arm. I shook my head at the whole scene and wondered if I ever tried that hard.
I actually lost some time reading Sei’s novel. The struggles of the characters’ world seemed a simple escape, and suddenly I knew why my best friend had a library full of this stuff. Maybe he’d let me borrow more.
The sound of laughter floated to me from the kitchen. The few other guests that had been strewn about the lounge earlier were all gone, and I was alone. But I’d been so absorbed I hadn’t noticed any of them leaving. Marking my page with a fresh tissue, I rose and headed for the kitchen. Jamie had one of the keys, but we hadn’t spoken about the sleeping arrangements yet.
Jamie and Cat sat at the counter looking like an old married couple. She leaned over him, flirting, touching, and making jokes that had him grinning ear to ear. Her rail-thin body and tiny breasts were nearly plastered to his side. I had to fight to keep from growling at her to stop touching him. Damn.
I had no reason to be jealous. He wasn’t mine. Had made no indication that he was even interested. But I’d never felt the green-eyed monster so strongly. Not even when I thought I had a thing for Sei and found out he and Gabe were an item. My throat felt tight, and instead of speaking to them, I turned and headed to my room, taking the stairs two at a time.
Constantine leaned against my door.
“Go away,” I told him.
“Do you really want to go to bed alone? Your beefcake friend has his own company.” He gripped my shirt and yanked me close enough to breathe in his soapy
scent. My heart pounded, and the heat of him made my cock swell. Stupid body. “We were so good together.”
“Until you fucked me over.”
Con sighed. “Remember that summer camping trip? It rained for four days, but we still snuck out of our parents’ tents to jerk off together.”
“That’s just it, Con. It was always about the sex. I’m done with that. I didn’t even know you had a sister. How much of a relationship is that?” Done with being used, I pushed him away and put my key in the lock. Con’s hand fell over mine, not letting me open the door. He pressed his front into my back, his erection hard against me. He was no body builder, but he had half a foot on me. Though, unlike Seiran, martial arts gave me an added edge.
Sweeping a quick turn and twist of his wrist, I slammed Con into the wall beside the door, pinning his arm behind his back at an awkward angle. He yelped in surprise.
“I’m really not kidding.”
“Fine. Whatever. Let me go.”
I kicked my door open, shoved him away, then stepped into the room and shut it firmly. Watching from the peephole, I waited until Con wandered away, shaking his head and grumbling something I couldn’t understand.
The night had already been a wash. And since I had the room to myself I figured I’d enjoy it. I cranked up the heat, stripped out of everything, and sank into bed with the romance novel. Sadly, the bed didn’t smell like Jamie, but I hugged a pillow to my chest and pretended it was him I cuddled as I read. For some reason the warrior kissing the girl in the novel made me remember one terrible day in school with Con.
We spent the weekend together. Had sex often enough that I didn’t need much for prep anymore. We’d even bought a book that illustrated different positions for us to try. Con wasn’t agile enough for a lot of them, and no matter how much I asked he had yet to bottom.
I sighed and tucked my books away in my locker. Practice had been canceled today due to rain. Stupid Minnesota weather. Searching for Con had proved useless, as his car seemed to have vanished from its usual spot in the lot. Study hour would drag without him.
