Winter's Knight (10 page)

Lucianquicklyoutlined the victims’ information. Out of the corner of his eye, Lucian saw Shea stiffen, sitting forward to follow this conversation far more closely than the others. Lucian liked the interest. “Most of the victims are women for hire who were seen more than once at Haze.”
“That’s what you call a ‘connection’?” Chance scoffed.
“The older injuries on the bodies are dislocated shoulders, long thin scarring, assorted broken bones, and burns,” Clark said. “And the deaths are allmade to look like auto-erotic asphyxiation or drug overdose during bondage play with a client who conveniently leaves no trace, record, or tie.”
“Sounds like bad Scene,” Chance conceded. “But what the hellcan we do? Take a field trip to Haze? We already talked to everybody we knew the first time this came up on His Majesty’s hit list. Might look a little fuckin’ conspicuous if we all traipse in at once, you think?”
“That’s why you send in a spy, moron,” Ryuu said, quiet and fixated onhis iPad.
Chance grunted. “Well. We ain’t done that, it’s true.”
“I’ve got a few people I could talk to at Break, see if they’d be interested in earning a little extra to scope out the competition,” Clark said. “People who owe me and whom I’d trust to watch and not interact, to listen and not speak.”
“Is there anyone in this city who doesn’t owe you a favor, Clark?”Timasked, smiling.
“What can I say?” Clark asked with a shrug of artifice. “I’ma helpfulguy.”
“It’s a new avenue we’ve not explored,” Lucian said slowly. “But the implicit danger is a concern.”
“Would be shitty to lose a good resource, eh, your royal pain in my ass?” Chance said to Lucian, who ignored him.
“There’s a fairly large contingent of ex-military on the member list for Break, sir, as either guests or standing, non-VIP members,” Clark said. “Some of themmatchup to the profile I just described.”
“Get me names and rationale,” Lucian said, and Clark nodded smartly.
“Good. Anything else?” Lucian asked. The men collectively shook their heads, and Lucian stood, signaling that the meeting was finished. “Thank you,” he said.
“Sure, Lucian,” Chance said. “And happy fuckin’ birthday.”
“One can hope there will be fucking,” Ryuu muttered, smirkingat Lucianand tossinga coyglance at Shea.
“I’m sure you’ve done enough to account for all of us,” Lucian said sweetly. He waited until Ryuu’s eyes dropped his, and Lucian touched Shea’s upper arm. “If you wouldn’t mind staying, I’d like some time with you,”he said to Shea, tone far kinder and sincere. “And don’t worry. Any fucking would be entirely at your discretion.”
“Uh... sure,” Shea said, far more guarded than Lucianliked and without a trace ofreturned humor. The muscles of Shea’s jaw and neck were stiff, but he walked a graceful half-step behind Lucian as Lucian escorted everyone else to the front door.
Lucian shook Daniel’s hand, hugged Clark, and endured another of Chance’s embraces. When he finally shut the door on the rest of his company, he fell against it with an explosive sigh. “Thank you,” he said, hesitant but hopeful, and Shea stood with arms crossed and forehead creased. “For being here tonight,” Lucian continued. “It made everythingmuchnicer.”
“Yeah, no problem.” Shea’s eyes went to the floor, and Shea tied himself into a tighter knot, knuckles going white as he gripped his upper arms. “Didn’t figure on the gorydetails ofwhat youdo.”
“I see.” Lucian crossed to Shea, slowly, and cupped one elbow with a light palm. “I wanted you close to me, to see that I view you as an intrinsic, trusted person in my life and... Well. I always have.” Lucian paused to stop babbling. “I’m sorry if the talk distressed youinsome way. I didn’t mean--”
Shea looked up and shook his head abruptly, but his hands loosened their death grip. “You didn’t. But you... Aw, fuck I’m gettin’ off track, and I have to tell you.”
“Tellme what?”Lucianasked.
Shea took a deep breath. “Were some’a the girls -the victims -- called ‘Lily White,’ ‘Rose,’ and ‘Dazzle’?”
The alarmbells that rang in Lucian’s head drowned out sensible thought for a suspended second. “How do youknow those names, Shea?”
“I met ‘emat Haze,”Shea said.

The words sent horrified, glacial, lunatic fear down his spine and into his balls, and Lucian’s train of thought led straight into a No Man’s Land of impossible reality. “Haze,”he repeated.
“Yeah,” Shea answered. “I had ta say something to you ‘cause if Clark’s sending someone, I’ve gotta warn you. Nothin’s what it looks like, and most ofit’s fuckin’ dangerous.”
Lucian shook his head and Shea’s arm. “What were you... Wait. How do you know anything about... You don’t even do...” Memories of a certain night on a couch that undermined what Lucian thought he knew about Shea dropped into his center like a ton of lead. Lucian glared at Shea with some mixture of outrage, shock, and terror. “Youplayed at Haze?”
Shea squared offinfront ofLucian. “Yeah. I did.”
“But...” Lucian ran a hand through his hair and tried to calculate a way to pry answers out of defensive posturing, and struggled to rise above the screaming improbabilityofit all. “But why? Youknow me.”
With an exasperated, startled laugh, Shea shook his head. “But no fuckin’ clue you were interested, Luke. You were Lucky Luke, Prince Luke, Luke who fucked a thousand--”
“The hell does that matter?” Lucian yelled, gesticulating wildly. “You’re my best friend, and you knew I played, I opened a goddamned club, remember? You may have heard of it? I only told you every fucking detail in a thousand conversations over years of planning, so... If you wanted to play, why... why in the... why in the hell didn’t you...” Lucian stopped so he wouldn’t stammer. Images of dead bodies in ditches kept flashing over and over in his mind, and it was getting hard to breathe. “Why didn’t youtrust me?”
Stepping forward, Shea wrapped his arms about Lucian, and the tangible comfort temporarily shut down Lucian’s tirade. “Shit,” Shea muttered. “I didn’t trust nothing. I hid everything: went outside the city, made cover stories to hide fromeveryone who knew me.”
“Wait,” Lucian said, pushing at Shea until the man relinquished the hold. There was too much trying to sort itself at once, and Lucian found solace in command. “You’re right. You do need to tell me everything. From the fucking beginning.” Lucian shoved Shea’s immobile bulk. “Familyroom. Go.”
Shea took Lucian’s hand, and Lucian ground his teeth at being so well known. For a second, there was nothing but Shea’s fingers around Lucian’s, and Lucian sighed at himself. They walked past the stairs, through the kitchen, and descended shallow steps into a sunken sittingroomwitholder, less formalfurniture and shelving full of Lucian’s favorite books. A two-story stone fireplace stood cold in one corner next to a bank of windows opening onto the backyard terrace. Lucian slapped a switchonthe walland dimlight and warmfire flared to life. Shea sank into one of the couches, and Lucian dragged a leather chair around to sit and face Shea. He took a seat, spine straight, legs crossed, and fingers drumming on the arm. “You’ll start with when youfigured out youhad aninterest inScene.”
“Fine. Uhm. Grade school?” Shea looked bemused.
“Oh, good,”Luciandroned.
Shea rubbed the back of his neck. “It was kinda strange. I mean, everyone knew I was the smartest kid, but I never wanted to do shit. I amlazy. But then you’d come along and get in my face.” Shea smiled. “You pushed me, hounded the fuck out ofme, but when I did what I had to do to beat you, it always felt amazing.” Shea’s tone turned reverent, and Lucian resisted the urge to fidget.
“You always acknowledged when I won and rubbed it in when I lost. But it wasn’t just you. I liked praise, liked it when people admired what I did. I liked pleasingpeople.”
“Go on,” Lucian said, adjusting his paradigm as Shea spoke.
“But college and graduate school and getting my internship at Arthur Stanton really stepped up the need,” Shea said, matter-of-fact. “I wasn’t always as smart as they wanted me to be, and I was doing shit that Momand Dad couldn’t even understand anymore, so they weren’t giving me what I craved. The stress built, too, and there was no outlet at work. It was driving me crazy, and I remembered you talking about Scene. Remembered what you said it did for you. So I thought... thought I’d try it. And you’d said enough for me to know that I had to be careful.”
“But not, apparently, enough for you to know that you could have come to me with your interest,” Lucian said dryly, and all he could see was Miranda’s dead, bloated face.
Shea looked at Lucian. “It’s not your fault,” he said gently. “None of it. I chose to go my own damned way for once. And there’s only so far I could get with the ‘my best friend turns gay for me’fantasy. Though now I keep wondering if I fuckin’ walked into the Twilight Zone.”
“You’re not the only one,” Lucian grumbled, shaking off the distraction to get back on track. “But you knew about Raquelle, who was a...” Lucian trailed off. “...suicidal, cross-dressing man posing as a... Right. I see your point. Apparently we’re both good at keeping things from the other.” He gnashed his teeth. “How did your involvement with Haze begin? You’d heard me speak of that place, knew I hated it, so you really must tell me how you ended up gracing its unholy grounds.”
Shea’s hand closed over Lucian’s, stayed there as he continued, but Lucian resolutely watched Shea’s face. “Met Mike -- Mike Sandias,”Shea added quickly when Lucian took a breath to demand a last name. Shea smiled at their fingers. “Met him at a bar. Talked with him, liked how he spoke about Scene shit. When we got to doin’ things, he told me he worked at Haze, and we could use shit there. A public venue seemed safer. Your cautions did a lot to make me careful.”
“Oh, yes,” Lucian said. “You obviously got out completelyunscathed bythe experience.”
Shea’s hand tightened on Lucian’s. “No. I didn’t. But, I am outta there and alive. Thing is, I saw lotsa those girls at Haze, but I didn’t know, ‘til tonight, how far everything went. And I...” Shea’s voice cracked. “I knew ‘em. I wanna get the fuckers that killed ‘em.”
“I’ll ensure that happens, never you worry, and will heed your warnings about the club and our plan,” Lucian murmured, the tactile memory of raised scars beneath new tattoo ink rattling his insides. He clasped Shea’s wrist, petted the bone with a thumb. “Now that I know how it started, tell me how and why it ended, your servitude at Haze.”
Wincing, Shea turned his hand under Lucian’s touch. “Mike got realbusy. Didn’t have the time for me, and the others...” Shea shrugged. “No asshole Doms for me, thanks. Couldn’t get what I needed anymore, so I left.”
Lucian put two and six hundred-forty six together and came up with an answer that required himto divide by zero. “Such an amicable parting of ways, and yet your response to going under with me was violence and pain.” Lucian stroked Shea’s cheek with a light swipe of his fingertips, and Shea flinched and froze. Lucian had no desire to force Shea to walk through a fight or bad breakup. Lucian knew all too well how awful the division between Dom and sub could be, how many emotions could spray the walls of memory like bloodstains that no amount of industrial scrubbing could clean.
Intuition nagged at Lucian, told himthere was much more beneath Shea’s explanation, but Shea had never lied to Lucian, and he knew how wretched the denialof self could be. Knew how it could plague and fester. “Our experience speaks to deeper and more dangerous wounds, Shea.”
“Yes.” The word was more sigh than English, and Lucian stroked Shea’s wrist until Shea could continue. “It sucked. Bad. Tried stuff with someone else, and when I tried to call it all off...” He shrugged. “Stupid and scary shit happened, not just to me. Enough that I made a clean slate of it. Ran and wiped every last track clean.” Shea sliced a hand through the air in a familiar gesture of finality. “But still,” Shea’s voice dropped and shook with undiluted honesty. “Still, sometimes, I dream.”
“I’m familiar with the dreams of things you loved and lost and still desire,” Lucian said, soft and slow. “Such occurrences can twist to nightmares that leave you... wantingand afraid for it.”
“Yeah.” Shea lifted his wrist so that he could touch the back ofLucian’s hand with his lips. Acareful, warm press that lingered. “Yeah.”
“Would you consider staying?” Lucian asked, blood surging with the simple contact and warring with care, control, and counterbalance.
“Yeah,” Shea said. “On one condition. You now know why I kicked you out the other night. So I need youto sayifyou’re okaywithme after that.”
Lucianmet the ironbars inShea’s eyes and saw the damage they guarded. He leaned closer. “I’m more than ‘okay’ with you. I would have never sought you out and invited you here were I conflicted over how much I... care for you.” Lucian swallowed other expressions of the emotions he held in check. “And I wouldn’t ask you to stay if I thought I would be unable to respect your boundaries. After all this, I’d just like you near me, Shea. That’s all. In my home and, if you’re amenable, inmybed, but for comfort alone.”
“Sure.” Muscles relaxed under Lucian’s hand, and Shea’s shoulders drooped. “I’d like that.”
Lucian couldn’t help but think his relief outdid even Shea’s, and he was damned sure his libido was outsprinting the other man’s, but he tried to keep himself together as he stood. “Thank you. Shall we?” He offered a hand to Shea, who took it and rose, expression masked. The tension Shea’d held all night, though, was still diffusing, and Lucian focused on that observation as they made their way through the house and up the stairs to the master suite.
“I have some pants that willfit you, should you wish to change,” Lucian said, leaving Shea at the doorway to flick ona lamp bythe bed and to head for the dresser in one of the large closets to retrieve the clothing. The shades were drawn on their timer, the covers turned down by Rosemary’s hands earlier that day when she swept throughthe roomto clean.
“Sure.” Shea sat down on the edge of the bed and watched Lucian with the inward gaze that always concerned Lucian. It meant he was thinking.
Lucian found one of the sets of pajama pants in Shea’s new size, ripped off the tags, and crossed to toss them to Shea, who caught them. Shea didn’t ask what Lucianwas doingbeingthus prepared, and Lucian didn’t offer. Instead, he put his back to Shea and made swift, short work ofthe transition fromclothed to nearly nude to clad in silk that covered his lower half. He heard rustlingbehind him, tried not to think about it, and attempted not to feel foolish for the precaution his healingbruises told himwas smart and not stupid.
When Lucian looked again, Shea was dressed in nothing but the black pajama pants and the wide band of the Cartier watch. The red of the armored heart stood out against dark skin, and yards of broad shoulder rippled when Shea grinned sheepishly at Lucian, raking his fingers through shaggy curls to get the hair out of his eyes. “Don’t happen to have a toothbrush, too? Kinda new to this. Overnights were at my house, and I usually passed out on the floor in your apartment at school.”
“Of course,” Lucian said, ignoring his husky inflection. He led Shea into the master suite’s bathroom with the imported Grecian tile, soaking tub, stone shower, and dual marble sinks. Lucian showed Shea where he kept extra provisions, and discovered that standing in his bathroom brushing his teeth in sync with Shea was one ofthe more surrealmoments ofhis life.
Lucian grabbed his brush and began running bristles through his hair, and he smiled at Shea, trying to be encouraging since the man looked entirely at a loss. Shea looked away and retreated from the bathroom, and Lucian heaved a sigh. He breathed deeply and counted the number of strokes to his hair to calm himselfdown.
Were it anyone else, Lucian would be all over his bedmate. They wouldn’t have made it out of the family room, much less up the stairs. Lucian didn’t take many people to his actual bedroom. Had Shea not just told Lucian a fractured story full of loss and heartache, Lucian would probably be pondering how to manage a kiss, a caress, something more. Lucian knew, however, that tonight had been above proving he trusted Shea and proving that he was, in turn, trustworthy. If Lucian went back on his word to keep things platonic or tried to hurry things along when Shea had cried out for caution since the very beginning, even before the information that tainted Lucian’s understanding, then Lucian knew he would lose ground with the man he truly...
Lucian’s chest got tight, and the brush smacked the counter with a clatter. Lucian curled a lip at the mirror and swept out of the bathroom. Shea was in bed lying on the far side of the mattress, the side Lucian didn’t favor. The low light threw Shea’s contours into patches of glow and shadow, and Lucian’s fingers itched to touch, his tongue longed to taste, his cock wanted to plunge. Lucian’s gait, however, neither slowed nor faltered as he shut offthe lamp and climbed into bed.
“Thank you again for staying,” Lucian said graciously, punching a pillow with his fist and settling on his side, back to Shea. “Love having you here, and I hope yousleep well.”
“You’re welcome,” Shea said in the darkness, and Lucian tightened into a ball when he couldn’t make head or tails ofthe inflection.
With an exhale Lucian hoped was quieter than it sounded in his head, Lucian forced himself to relax against the feather mattress. It didn’t matter that lying like this instead of curling around Shea was harder than taking the bar exam blindfolded, it was what he’d promised Shea. Lucian ignored the indignant pieces of himself that wondered when it was, exactly, that Lucian had grown such a monstrous conscience and tenuous nature about sex. The rest of himunderstood that Shea was sharing his bed. The rules were different. The needs were different.
Evenifthe want was overpowering.
The digital clock counted exactly seven minutes before Lucian forced his eyes shut. He tried with everything he had not to listen to Shea’s breathing, to the hiss of Shea’s body moving under covers, or to any other sound that Lucian hoped was telling and had to deny such craving. He felt himself winding tighter and tighter, sleep so far away as to be laughable, and when the mattress shifted and the faintest touch danced along his spine, Luciannearlylevitated offthe bed.
“Oh... sorry,”Shea whispered.
“It’s...”Luciancouldn’t formthe words for “fine”or “all right” without stammering, and he turned to look at Shea over one shoulder. “Mm?” he asked, slightly ill withadrenaline.
Shea was on his side, head propped in one hand, the other fallen to the sheets between them. “Just wanted to touch you, since you looked so knotted up. Does holdingyoucount for comfort?”
“Always.” Lucian stopped himself from speaking two words of endearment, not knowing if they were welcome. “But if you do, I’m not sure I could continue to give you... space.”