Page 51

Jay’s fingers slide over the piano’s keys; he’s not playing anything particular, just letting music soothe him a little, as it always has.

Today was bad. He’ll not fool anyone by saying otherwise.

Not the worst day he’s ever had, and boy, is that saying something.

Seems he’s always setting the bar lower and lower, when last fall, he’d thought it could only get better and better.

He slides into a melancholy version of Lewis Capaldi’s Before You Go , which now that he thinks of it, is maybe a poor choice.

There’s an almost soundless patter of bare feet on the wood floor down the hallway from the nest room, and he knows without looking that it’s Nix. Jay doesn’t stop moving his fingers, though, until he feels his beloved’s hand on his bare shoulder.

“Can’t sleep, Baby Boy?” Jay scoots over on the piano bench so Nix can sit his tiny butt down.

Their babies press up against the edge of the piano gently, and Jay stumbles through the hook at the realization that they’ve been in Florida long enough that he’s grown so much.

And Jay hadn’t noticed.

“Can’t sleep when I can hear you so loudly…”, Nix shakes his head, pretending to bite Jay’s deltoid.

“I’m playing too loudly?” He eases his fingers on the keys, coaxing a new melody into a whisper.

Nimue had followed them home to ensure there were the most modest of protections on the safe house and to be sure Grayson could make it through the beginner exercises to help him manage the flow of The Plain.

Jay had asked if she could quiet the projection of the piano before she’d left. He’d so badly needed to play, but it had been almost midnight and his mates were weaving on their feet. “I can stop.”

“Not too loud out here; in here.” He rubs over his heart, where Nix says Jay has been, even before he was Were.

“Sorry.” He doesn’t know what else to say.

It’s stupid—it feels ridiculous.

All those years and protestations about his parents. About being done. About not needing closure. Being his own man to spite his father, not because of him.

So fucking stupid.

Because now he’s up into the wee hours of the morning playing melancholy songs, like a by-the-hour pianist in a cocktail lounge, because those very same parents are dea—

Fuck .

His fingers slip again, a jangle of discordant notes that seem to echo the jumble of thoughts in his tired, grieving brain.

“You don’t have to be sorry. Not to me, and never for your feelings. I’m the one who should say I’m sorry.”

“What? No.”

“Jamie! They were your parents. Doesn’t matter that they did terrible things, because…well…fuck them for that. No way around it. But your dad taught you to play ball, right? Your mom used to sing that song? The sunshine one?”

“Stop,” Jay begs.

He can’t think about them like that right now. Can’t remember any of the good. Not right now. Maybe never.

The pack’s asses are hanging in the wind, and they have no fucking plan. He’s sinking under guilt and grief, and he can’t handle regret, too.

“Please. ”

“Okay.” Nix nods and kisses his shoulder. “Do you remember that song you taught me when we were kids?”

He uses his pointer fingers to tap out the first few off-key notes of the theme for an old, old movie— Love Story .

Jay had learned it for a recital when he’d been eight to impress his piano teacher, and when Nix had shown interest at school one lunch hour, years later, Jay had shown him how to play the basic right-hand melody while Jay had played the left.

“It was called Love Story , right? Not the popular one now, but the older one?”

“Mmmhmm , ” Jay murmurs, thinking about the hundreds of freckles on his love’s cheeks, just like he used to do back then.

“Like this?” Nix plunks out the beginning, still half an octave too high, and Jay shifts his hands to the right position.

“Oh, that sounds better. Want to try it with me? Like old times?”

Jay smiles. “I’ll try to keep up.”

“You do that.”

They manage to stumble through it horribly the first time, but the second and third times go better; when the final chord plays, Nix throws his arms around Jay’s neck, and he’s transported again, for just a few seconds, back to his senior year.

“We did it,” he whispers into Nix’s cheek.

“We did. Like we always do, right?”

“Like we always do.”

Nix relaxes against his side but pulls Jay’s hand out in front of him so he can see how many keys Jay can span on the keyboard now that he’s grown.

“I like Nimue and Emmy.”

“I do, too. I think Nimue has helped Grayson already.”

“Me too. He’s not pulling so often. The bond feels more like it did in the beginning now. I hadn’t even noticed it had changed until he put a knot in it.”

“That’s what he said,” Jay deadpans.

“Ha. Funny. I think she’s pretty wise.”

Ah. Jay can tell this is going somewhere, and while he’s not shutting it down yet, he knows already that it’s going to be something he’s not going to want to hear.

“Yeah?” he asks, unwilling to make it easy.

“Yeah. Like what she said about Finn? A Scholar. I mean, he could have been a healer instead, right? He’s obviously caring and knows medical stuff…he’s a Doctor now. But…I think it’s just that he’s always using his knowledge for good. Always learning more, so he can care more.”

It’s true. The core of who Finn has always been lies in acquiring knowledge so that he can care for them in ways that matter: learning about Omegan healthcare, learning about the legal ramifications of Nix’s court case, or figuring out how the backyard grill works so no one loses an eyebrow (Rowan).

So whether a doctor or a lawyer, or a code-breaker during some war, Finn loves through knowledge.

Of course, Finn is more than the things he knows; Jay understands that. His intelligent mate is so, so much more.

“That’s a cool observation, for sure.”

“And Gideon as a King.”

“I thought he was the Architect of Pleasure,” Jay jokes, attempting to divert this runaway train from the path leading straight to Jay’s door.

“That is for fucking sure. But also, kings are about leading. I mean, you are our pack leader, but…”

“But he keeps us all moving.”

Where Jay is arguably more about equality, Gideon runs a tight ship. Jay has said it more than once. How they managed before Gideon deigned to mate them is something Jay doesn’t want to think too much about—ever.

“We are lucky he does. He’s more of a My Way or Over My Knee Way, and you’re more: Don’t Push My Buttons or Daddy will be mad.” Nix waggles his eyebrows.

“Sounds the same to me…”

Nix scoffs. “It is so, so, so not the same at all.”

“I guess not.”

“You’re our Guardian. You show us time and time again,” Nix says, turning a bit on the bench so he can capture Jay’s gaze—it’s surprisingly difficult to look away.

“Nix.”

Nix frowns. “I’m serious. I know you think you’re to blame for the lost years .”

“Lost years?” Jay knows what he means; it’s just that it’s a new label—and not a welcome one.

“Yeah. Nimue says there are some missing spots in her Temporal Overlay of me. Not so weird when you know what Hayes did to us.”

The amulet.

“It was magic,” Jay murmurs.

“Terrible soul magic.”

Grayson and Nix had driven back to the safe house with Emmy and Nimue. There must have been some further talk Jay hadn’t been privy to.

“Magic users channel magic through their soul, right? It’s like breathing. But Hayes wasn’t magic. He had to have bargained his soul to a bad magic-user. Nimue calls them Arcanas. They can pull on The Plain through someone else’s soul.”

A surge of alarm rises through Jay’s chest at the phrasing—for Nix and Grayson.

Nix seems to realize the problem immediately as his eyes widen, and he waves his hands.

“Oh no! Not like Gray and me. He uses my soul because it’s also his soul. We share it. It’s weird, I know. But Arcanas do this terrible blood ritual, and there’s a trade for services. Like a deal with the devil.” He shivers.

“So Arcanas offer a trade, and the person gives them access to their soul?”

“Yes. Nimue says it damages them both because, as I said, regular souls aren’t designed to handle The Plain, and adding it to the fact that the magic is imbued with the often-bad intent of the Arcanas…it’s bad for them both.”

“Dark and twisted.”

“Exactly. Arcanas even smell bad to humans, and the person whose soul is being used like a battery to power a spell—well, they rot from the inside. Nimue says they are often tainted to begin with, because who sells their freaking soul? But then, the more the spell draws, the worse they get until they go insane.”

“The amulet. It used Hayes’ soul to hide you from me, and it made him crazier and crazier.”

“That it did,” Nix whispers, his eyes far away for a second, and Jay regrets it instantly.

“Nix—”

He shakes his head and forces a small smile. “It’s okay. I’m good. But I think I feel better, knowing more about it.”

“How? He was still terrible. The effect was still the same; still horrible.”

“Yeah, no, that’s not what makes me feel better at all. Because yeah, that sucked. Still sucks, some days. But you know what does make me feel better? Knowing he was worse because his soul was being eaten alive. He suffered.

“If Nimue is to be believed, he will always suffer. There will be no new life for Dawson Ulysses Haversham Hayes—not ever.”

Put like that? It makes Jay feel slightly better, too.

“So, as I was saying, you are my guardian. You protect us. In every aspect of our lives, you do the best for me. In the same way Finnie uses his knowledge to care for us, you use yours to show us all the ways you love us.”

“Of course I love you all. It’s my entire reason to live.”

“Exactly.” He punctuates his emphatic statements with a slap to Jay’s thigh.

“I’m confused.”

“Nuh-uh! I worked so hard on this metaphor when I was in there, listening to Leo snore. By the way, let’s get him some nose strips tomorrow—today. Every time he snores, Ro growls. It’s distracting.”

Alas, Jay knows this from experience.