Page 115 of Alpha Heat

The photos of them as young men burned into Xan’s eyes. There were several of a baby-faced young Riki with a pipe in his mouth. He touched the picture with his index finger, smudging a subtle layer of dust.

“So that’s where the lingering tobacco scent comes from,” he muttered to himself.

Even all these years later? Did it truly linger so long, or was Riki’s ghost present in the house, here for Urho in death as he’d been in life?

Xan shuddered. He didn’t belong in this room. It wasn’t his. This was a part of Urho that he didn’t have permission to know about, and could never, ever fully share. He backed out of the chamber of grief—the shrine to two lives cut short, a joy that was never to be—and into Riki’s bedroom again.

Xan couldn’t think of it as Urho’s bedroom at all.

He turned around, taking in the evidence that Urho had never moved on, and he girded himself against the rising tide of feelings. He didn’t have time for them. He didn’t want them. They were useless and ugly, and he wasn’t going to give into them.

Hustling out of the room and down the stairs, he called to Mako over his shoulder as he grabbed his own coat from the closet. “Thank you, Mako. I have to go. I have what I need.” Then, belatedly, “Please contact me at…” he didn’t know where to say. “Please contact my house in Virona if you need anything. Urho will make sure you have it.”

Mako stepped from the gloom behind the stairs and smiled at him. “Thank you, Mr. Heelies. You’re always welcome here.” Then he pressed a bag into his hand. “Food, sir. You look hungry.”

“Thank you. I am.”

“Anything for Dr. Chase’s friends.”

Xan smiled but didn’t wait for Mako to open the front door for him. With the bag in hand, he dashed out, the frosty wind of lingering winter stinging his eyes, and he climbed into his father’s silver new Sabel-made car. He quickly stuffed some of the sandwich Mako had given him into his mouth as he started the engine.

He drove back to his parents’ home with the keys to the garage—and thus the house—hanging from the keychain. Whether his father liked it or not, Xan would not be denied.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Ray was asleepwhen Xan let himself carefully back into his brother’s room. No one had seen him enter from the garage, and when he crept past his parents’ wing, he’d heard only coughing and the light sounds of his pater’s favorite music drifting down the hall. It’d touched him to imagine his father bringing the record player up and playing the soft, lyrical songs hisÉrosgápeloved best.

But as he stood by Ray’s bedside, a glass of cold water in one hand and the pill from Urho’s tin in the other, he frowned at the fear that kept him from simply stalking down the hall and demanding to see his pater immediately.

He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and determined that he was going to see his pater that night. It was only a matter of when and how bad it was all going to be. In the meantime, he had Ray to help.

“Ray,” he whispered, trying not to startle his brother. “Wake up. I have medicine for you.”

Ray stirred and stared at Xan, brow furrowed. Confusion marred his usually perceptive gaze. “I thought you were a dream.”

“No. I just had to get a prescription filled for you.” Filled from Urho’s private stock, but that seemed too complicated to explain. “Some new medicine. For the fever.”

Ray was too weak to sit up by himself, so Xan helped him. The pill went down easily and Ray drank most of the water as Xan encouraged him. “That’s it. You’re doing so well.”

“I miss Vince,” Ray whispered when he was done, collapsing back and staring at the ceiling.

“Who?” Xan asked.

Ray shook his head. “No one. Never mind.”

Xan sat with his brother, cooling him with a bowl of cold water and cloth, dosing him again, and waiting through the morning and afternoon for the medicine to take effect. He knew the moment it really started to work because Ray’s eyes grew less hazy, and he narrowed his focus on Xan curiously.

“Did Father let you come home, then? Is Pater…?” He swallowed hard and looked away, but then back again, searching Xan’s face for the truth before he might speak it.

“Pater is very sick,” Xan admitted. “But I haven’t seen him yet. Joon told me Father is with him night and day, every second, though he comes to visit you in the mornings.”

Ray looked toward the open curtains, taking in the setting sun. “Father doesn’t know you’re here.”

“No,” Xan said, standing up and taking the bowl of water and cloth into the bathroom. “But he will. Soon. I just needed to see you on the mend. This medication Urho…” He stopped himself just in time. “This medication my friend Dr. Chase sent seems to be doing the job.”

Ray coughed as Xan returned to the room. “You’re taking a risk. You might get sick and then everything will be left to Janus.” His lips twisted half-heartedly into a sickly smile. “You don’t want to leave me and the company to Janus’s not-so-tender mercy do you?”

Xan smiled, so relieved to hear Ray teasing him again. He left the topic of Janus aside, not wanting to say too much until he had more information on how his cousin was faring. “Let’s get you in the shower. You smell disgusting and you’ll feel a lot better.”