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  “I love you,” he said before he kissed me.

  But I didn’t need to be told.

  V

  It was so nice to see them. As soon as I walked into the living room, Malic levered off the wall he was leaning on and crossed to me. He didn’t hug me—it wasn’t what we did—but his hand went to my shoulder and held me. There was a time not too long ago when even being affectionate with my best friend in front of my hearth was problematic. Joe had mistakenly thought Malic wanted me. It was not the case. Even if they wanted to, warders getting together did not end well. Malic and Ryan had even tried, to no avail.

  Sometimes warders—and it happened to a lot of them, because warders could be women or men—were drawn to one another. They fought together, bled together, and so the camaraderie that came with that sometimes got mistaken for more. The problem was that another warder could not provide a sanctuary. Another warder could not provide a home, a place where you were loved and cared for and welcomed with open arms. If two warders were together, they would fight side by side, go home, and fuck all the adrenaline out of their systems. But afterward, when that was done, when the pulse-pounding rush had dissipated and you needed to be held and kissed and even be something as simple as fed, you were both looking at the other, waiting for them to deliver. A warder, simply put, needed a caretaker, and another warder could never be that.

  Coming home bruised and bloody, carrying the weight of what I’d seen with me—the gore, the horror—I was normally not even capable of speech. But I was met at the door each and every time by a man who gave me a quick kiss before having me step onto a garbage bag to strip off everything from head to toe and then pointing me toward the shower. As I lurched through our living room, I could feel the warmth of our home, smell the food, and hear the soft music. Joe liked a lot of alternative bands, so the sound reminded me of him, which was good. It was all so comforting that sometimes, just for a second, I thought I would fall apart. But he would check my progress, put a hand on the small of my back or give my ass a pat or take my hand, and lead me to the shower. And then he’d leave me under the steaming water, and all of it, the blood, the memory, and the pain, would just roll off me, down the drain.

  Sometimes, if it wasn’t so bad and he could see that it had not been, he would join me in the shower and run his hands all over my skin before dropping to his knees and taking my cock down the back of his throat. Those were the best starts to my homecoming. But other times, when he would touch me and I’d shiver, he’d wait until I finished my shower, dried off, changed, and returned to the living room. There I would find him, normally reading, his fingertips skimming over the page, because he knew I didn’t like the television on when I got home from warding. Any loud noise would make me cringe. So the music was low, and the only other sound in the room was his voice… and that was really all I wanted to hear.

  “Come here,” he would call, and I would move fast, lay down on the couch, and settle my head in his lap.

  Joe always sat on one end so I could stretch out completely and wrap my arm around his knee as he pet me. He would then tell me what he made for dinner, point at the enormous glass of ice water on the coffee table just waiting for me, and tell me that after dinner he was going to have his wicked way with me. At which point I would get up, sit back on the couch, and he would climb into my lap.

  “I bought this new wine today too,” he’d say as he smiled at me. “Gonna get you drunk off your ass.”

  And I knew I was home and loved and safe… and now Malic knew what that was like, too, because he had just found his own hearth. When Joe met Malic’s man and heard them talking, he’d realized that he was jealous, had been jealous for five years, for nothing. Now, when I stepped back from Malic, Joe was there to walk into his arms and hug him.

  “Thank you for coming to protect him,” Joe said adamantly, clutching at my best friend.

  “Of course.” Malic’s voice rumbled low in his chest. “Always, Joe.”

  Looking up, I wondered where the rest of Joe’s family was. Why weren’t they there with me meeting Jackson and Malic and….

  “Where’s Ry?” I asked.

  Leith rolled his eyes and then tipped his head toward the kitchen. I understood at once. Ryan Dean was holding court.

  It wasn’t just that my fellow warder used to be a model and was now a television host. It was more than that. People saw him and just fell under a spell of charm and beauty and warmth. The man was irresistible and surely had Elliot and Deb and Barb completely riveted with whatever he was talking about.

  I looked back at Jackson and Malic. “I’m sorry that I had to pull you guys from chasing Moira, but—”

  “Marcus,” Jackson said, his deep, dark brown eyes soft as he gazed at me. “Your hearth and the family of your hearth takes precedence over everything else. You know that.”

  “In our clutch it does,” I told him.

  “Whaddya mean?” Malic asked, his voice, even after so many years, still carrying a hint of his homeland that had been transported with his parents when they immigrated to the United States from Stockholm. His grandmother, his parents, all had the same accent, he’d told me, and growing up in their house, there was no way for him to miss adopting it as well. I hoped he’d never lose it.

  “You won’t believe what the sentinel here did to one of his warders,” Joe interrupted, moving forward to hug Jackson at the same time.

  Malic and Jackson listened to the story, and they were both frowning by the end.

  “They let this fake warder bed his hearth.” Jackson swallowed hard. “That’s as much of a betrayal as what the warder did to his sentinel and his clutch.”

  “I agree,” Leith said, his voice icy. “And I think when we’re done here, we go see her and tell her the truth. She deserves that.”

  “How long have you guys been here?”

  “Couple minutes before you came down,” Malic answered me. “Jacks and I came together, and Ryan before that.”

  Which explained why my fellow warder had begun entertaining Joe’s family.

  “Where’s Raph?”

  “He’s home watching Jules and Simon and Dylan.”

  “And Jael is okay there alone?”

  “He has Deidre and her warders visiting, remember?”

  “Then who’s watching their territory?”

  “Apparently there’s a lot of small towns there, and some have warders and some don’t, but there’s a lot of crossover between the territories that do have warders, so it’s all covered for the time they’re gone.”

  I smiled at Malic. “Lucky.”

  “Fortuitous,” he agreed. “Now what’s your plan here? Once we get through the front door, we just start hacking our way in there until we reach this Breka and then send him to the pit as well?”

  “Yes, they all die tonight.”

  Malic squinted at me. “I talked to you before you got on the plane last night. Have you slept yet?”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh for crissakes, Marcus,” he groaned. “This can—”

  “It can’t,” I told him. “You guys need to get back to hunting Moira, and I need to get home and help you. So this needs to be taken care of right now.”

  He nodded as we all heard voices and turned.

  Ryan was leading Joe’s family back into the living room. “Hey.” He greeted me with the megawatt smile and kaleidoscope gaze. His hazel eyes changed all the time, sometimes green, sometimes brown, sometimes a mixture. They switched with his mood, and at that moment I was swallowed in a clear olive that was something to see.

  “Thanks for coming, Ry,” I said.

  “Of course,” he said, like, where else would he be?

  “Did you feel that?” Jackson asked suddenly.

  “Feel wh…?” I asked even as I heard feet on the stairs.

  “Who else is in the house?” Malic asked, drawing the spatha from behind his back, startling Joe’s family even as he stepped in front of them.

 
“Hey,” Raphael said as he charged into the room.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Malic growled. “Yell, asshole. I could’ve taken your head off.”

  “Yeah, right,” Raphael scoffed, crossing the room fast to reach Jackson.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Jackson snapped at the man—creature—he loved.

  Raphael Caliva was a kyrie, a demonic bounty hunter born in purgatory. He was not a demon, but he wasn’t human either. He still scared me just a little. I was wary, but Joe found him fascinating and never missed an opportunity to ask him a million questions. Watching Raphael when he sat with the man I loved, smiling lazily and talking to him, had gone a long way to helping me accept him.

  “Nice to see you too.” He grinned evilly and leaned in to brush a kiss across Jackson’s mouth before he turned to look at me. “I’m going right back to guard your hearths, but Moira is here somewhere, so Jael said to get here and warn you.”

  “What’re you talking about?” Leith asked.

  “I just told you.”

  “How the hell do you know who’s here or not?” Malic barked.

  “Ask him nicely,” Jackson ordered the bigger man. “That’s my mate you’re talking to.”

  At which point Raphael almost glowed. He lived to hear Jackson be possessive of him.

  “Tell us what’s going on, please, Raph,” I interceded.

  He shrugged. “Okay, so, to me, the planes of hell are like a giant spider web. Each ring has its own pulse, and everything that crosses a ring leaves a footprint. So she came this way toward Jackson as soon as she felt him move.”

  I turned to look at my friend. “She’s after you.”

  “Because of me,” Raphael said. “She’s going to kill my mate because I killed hers.”

  My eyes returned to the kyrie.

  “So.” Raphael took a breath. “I’m going home, and I’m taking Joe and his family with me, and you guys find her, kill her, and find this demon and kill him, and then I’ll bring them all back.”

  Everyone started speaking at once, but I raised my hands and called for quiet. I had no idea why they all responded, but as normally happened, the room fell silent.

  “That is the best idea I’ve heard all day,” I told Joe and his parents and his sister. “And you have to understand: he’s trusting me to protect Jackson, who is all he has in the world, and I’m trusting him to do the same. So… that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

  “Marcus,” Elliot began. “I—”

  “You guys better call Henry and tell him you’re not coming to the dance tonight,” I told them. “I don’t want him to worry, but you’re all leaving with Raph.”

  “I’m not going,” Joe assured me.

  I grabbed his bicep and dragged him into a far corner of the room before whirling him around to face me.

  “No!”

  “Oh yes,” I said flatly. “You need to go home and keep your family calm while we sort this out, Joseph. I need you safe, and thank God for Raph and his displacement wave. He can move all of you, and there’s no way any of the rest of us could. Jael will be there, too, I’m sure, but I need you to go and ease them through it. Think about them, how scared they must all be, how freaked out they must be, and—”

  “I have to stay with you!”

  “Not this time,” I said. “It’s gonna be bad, Joe, really bad.”

  He sucked in his breath. “Even more reason for me to—”

  “I forbid it,” I insisted and bent and kissed him.

  He fought and pushed and dug his hands into my T-shirt to try to get me off him, but I had a hand on the back of his head, fisted in his hair, and my mouth was sealed over his. I pressed against his lips until he opened them, and my tongue snaked over his, and when he moaned deeply, I knew I had him. I kissed him until he went limp in my grip, hands now holding on for dear life, wanting me closer.

  “You,” I said, parting our lips, both of us softly heaving for breath, “will go with Raphael and keep him calm. Do you understand? Imagine what this is doing to him. Leaving Jackson? He just got Jackson, and now this? C’mon, Joe, I need you now. I need you to show him that he has to have faith.”

  He growled. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place, you stupid ass?”

  I hugged him tight and he wrapped his arms around my neck and squeezed back just as hard.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Marcus Roth. Come get me as soon as you can.”

  “You know I could never stay away.”

  “Good.”

  The hug went on until Malic cleared his throat, and I let go. Walking over to join the others, holding Joe’s hand in mine, I was faced with Deborah Locke.

  “You’ll be safe with Raphael,” I said.

  She nodded before lifting her hands to my face. “You be safe, Marcus. You’re my son too, you know.”

  I turned my head to kiss her palm, and I saw her eyes suddenly fill.

  “Jesus, Marcus, way to make my mother cry,” Barbara said, sniffling.

  “Your family is nice, Marcus.” Malic smiled. “I hope mine will be too.” He was going with Dylan for the first time to Atlanta for Christmas.

  “It will be.”

  “Families are good,” Leith sighed, thinking, I was sure, about the one he shared with his hearth, Simon Kim. They had, by all accounts, welcomed the man with open arms.

  “Let’s go,” Raphael said, moving forward, taking Joe’s other hand.

  Joe squeezed mine tight before he dropped it, trailing after Raphael toward the foyer.

  Elliot hugged me and thanked me, turned and thanked my friends, and then led his wife after Joe and Raphael. Barbara was the last to leave, wanting to kiss Ryan goodbye.

  Leith cleared his throat.

  “What?” Ryan asked.

  “She knows I’m gay. What about you?”

  He frowned at Leith. “I’m sure she knows, but watch, she’ll meet Julian and forget all about me.”

  Leith shrugged and Ryan scowled.

  “Jesus, we’re all so fuckin’ lucky,” Jackson said suddenly.

  All eyes were on him.

  “I mean, I feel lucky,” he sighed. “Don’t you guys?”

  We all agreed that we were.

  “Okay so, since we’re all blessed and all”—I smiled gently—“let’s make sure none of the guys we go home to ever have to live without us.”

  “Absolutely,” Ryan agreed first. “I don’t plan to let anyone else have Julian Nash, ever.”

  “So let’s be careful,” I said as the doorbell rang.

  It was Shane and Kyle, and I really wasn’t all that surprised that they were the only ones who had come. The other two had not struck me as fighters.

  “I suspect,” Jackson told the two men, “that your sentinel will be in the market for more than one new warder.”

  Malic made the tsk sound in the back of his throat and eyed them coolly.

  “They’re good men,” Shane assured us. “They just think this is a suicide mission.”

  “You disagree?” I asked.

  “No, but we won’t let you go in there alone, either.”

  And I appreciated that, even though with my team with me, I really wasn’t worried.

  “Where are Joe and his family?” Shane asked.

  “They were taken back to my house,” Jackson told him. “Or your place, Marcus.” He looked at me. “I’m not totally sure where.”

  “How?”

  “His mate is a kyrie,” Ryan said, tipping his head back at Jackson. “So he can use a displacement wave just like your sentinel.”

  “Your mate is a demon?” Kyle was aghast.

  “A kyrie is not a demon,” Leith spoke up before Jackson could get a word out. “Everyone knows that.”

  “Fine, whatever,” Shane growled. “Have any of you given any thought to how we’re going to get into the demon’s home?”

  They all looked at me for some unfathomable reason.

  “W
e need a diversion,” Leith offered. “In the form of someone ‘hot’, you said. The sacrifice, right?”

  “Exactly,” Kyle told us. “Every night is like some big party out there. Daniel and me, we go out there a lot to check that the number of people going in is the same number that walked out in the light of day.”