Page 9 of Devil May Hunt (The Devils of Vitality #8)

Brennon wasn’t the greatest at picking his battles.

He knew it, his friends knew it, and his trainers at the Academy knew it as well.

A part of him felt like he should be praised for managing to compromise here, as he sat at the kitchen table and stirred the porridge he’d been served with a literal golden spoon.

“Please tell me you didn’t bring solid gold cutlery all the way from Glyph?” he was mostly joking, and only in an attempt to fill the awkward silence the two of them had slipped into.

This house was nice, but far too small and intimate with just the two of them in it.

At least with the hotel, there’d been a layer of comfort knowing all he had to do was step into the hallway, or at worst, make it to the lobby, to bump into another person.

It was too quiet, with only the low hum of the refrigerator in the corner and the occasional sound of a hover car zooming past.

“Why would I do that?” Gunho asked. He was seated across the small rectangular table, eating from his own bowl with more grace than Brennon would have given someone nicknamed the God of Death credit for.

“I don’t know why you’ve done any of this,” he admitted.

“For you. I’m doing all of this for you. If you don’t like the house, we can put it back on the market and go find another one together.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Because you do like it?”

“Because I won’t be living with you.”

Gunho sighed. “I’m patient. I’ll wait.”

“I won’t change my mind.” Brennon didn’t get why the alpha was being so pushy about this. They’d only just met, and barely. “Just because you know I have Venus dimples, doesn’t mean you know me. Even if I were interested, this would never work long term.”

People didn’t show a lasting interest in Brennon. That was simply a fact, and something he’d thought he’d long since accepted. His brush with Rin forced him to realize a part of him was still clinging to the childish notion of being understood and having a person, but he was better now.

If nothing else, it’d been an eye-opener.

If Rin, the guy he’d spent the most time with, couldn’t accept him, no one was going to. His friends had each other and their love interests. His parents had their work, and now their retirement.

What did he have?

When he’d confronted his parents about the family business and told them he was going to join the Academy instead of attending Vail University, he’d sort of hoped for a little pushback.

He’d wanted them to argue and tell him he couldn’t.

That he needed to take over the family business that had been passed down through generations.

That they wanted him to stay.

He’d set himself up for it. All those times he’d acted out and ignored their instructions to spite them, he’d been leading them to it.

He knew part of their rejection of him was his own fault.

But he didn’t know the way back, wasn’t sure how to open and tell them he’d overheard their conversation, knew they didn’t trust him, and was hurt by that fact.

So every day for two years, he’d stuck to his guns and attended the Academy. He pretended he didn’t care, that it was where he wanted to be. That he saw a future for himself.

The military training facility was where people went to become agents working for the I.P.F., or the Intergalactic Police Force. Brennon had never shown an interest in joining prior to that night he’d confessed his plans, but if they’d noticed that detail, his parents never called him on it.

No one had asked him what he planned to do with his life. It came up in conversation amongst his friends a time or two, and he’d join in on the conversation, but no one had ever posed the question to him directly.

Brennon didn’t have any lofty goals. He didn’t want to become a detective or inspector, positions that would require him to renounce his citizenship and relocate to a planet specifically designed to house agents.

His friend Daylen and he had agreed to work together after graduation.

They were going to form their own special forces division here on Vitality.

Daylen would take care of the groundwork, while Brennon would remain at headquarters and act as the eyes and ears in the sky.

But even that was a dream borne of Daylen’s passion, not Brennon’s. He’d only offered his services in the hopes of growing closer to the other cadet. He’d also wanted some of that excitement to rub off on him.

It had not.

There were only a couple of special forces teams on Vitality, all with ties to either the Imperial family, or in cahoots with the Brumal.

The planet itself hadn’t experienced war in over three centuries, but there was plenty of crime, especially the further out from the capital, where both the Diars and the Voids, the two families in charge of the planet, resided.

Building an organization that helped the people without ties to those in power was…an extravagant dream, to say the least. With Cree funding, it would be doable, but no easy feat, and they hadn’t worked out any of the kinks since they decided to go in on the plan together.

To say he wasn’t looking forward to any of it would be an understatement, but since it meant so much to Daylen, Brennon would follow through.

Which meant the last thing he was going to do was get involved with someone from another planet. Especially not when that someone clearly wanted to use him to stick it to his family back home.

No matter how good a cook that person happened to be.

“It’s not worth it,” he said on a sigh. “Screwing yourself over just to get back at your grandfather? Take it from someone who’s tried that angle and learned to regret it. You won’t be happy in the long term if you settle for me just to spite some dude on a throne.”

“He would love to hear you call him that,” Gunho drawled sarcastically.

“I don’t know that much about your history, be it Synastry or Glyph.

” Brennon was smart enough to receive average grades in all subjects without having to try too hard, but the downside to that was his lack of interest made it hard to retain information long term.

They’d been taught the differences between the two planets in the Feud galaxy, but it was proving difficult to recall the details.

“Emperor Hangyeol Idris had two sons, both deceased, and three grandsons. The twins who will take control of the throne after him, Arbor and Avi Idris, and you. You’ve always sort of been the black sheep of the family, sent as a Royal Hostage to Synastry to make peace when you were…” He frowned.

“Twelve,” Gunho supplied for him.

“That’s pretty young to leave home.”

“I didn’t leave. I was basically banished. My father didn’t like me much. He blamed me for my mother’s death.”

“How’d she die?”

“Childbirth.”

“I’m sorry.”

Gunho shrugged. “It’s hard to miss someone I never knew.”

“It’s not hard to miss an idea of someone you’ve always known you should have.” Brennon scrunched up his nose as soon as the alpha gave him a surprised look. “That was overstepping. I apologize.”

“Don’t start talking to me like we’re at an official event. I don’t like it.”

“Events, or the way I sound?”

“Both?” The alpha shook his head. “We’ve deviated from what’s important. Drink. I made it especially for you.”

“I thought you worked in the military for the past decade?” Brennon eyed the strawberry colored drink set before him and then noticed the empty space on Gunho’s side. “What is this, and why aren’t you also drinking it?”

“Hangover cure,” the alpha replied. “I’m not hung over.”

Fair enough. If it was even half as good as the porridge, Brennon would drink the whole thing.

“I’ve been a general for the Synastry Elite for the past decade, you are correct. Do you know much about that part of my history?”

“Only what they’ve taught us at the Academy about it so far,” he said, sipping the drink. It had the texture of a smoothie, and was sweet with a slight bitterness at the end he wasn’t entirely fond of, but it wasn’t bad. “Synastry was at war with Hollowyn Array for fifteen years.”

Hollowyn was a planet located in the Feud galaxy and was a neighboring planet to Synastry, where Gunho was said to have grown up, despite being a prince of Glyph. “You’re famous for winning that three-year-long battle in the Mystara Belt.”

“We were stationed on a nearby moon for that time period,” Gunho told him.

“During which, we were surrounded by the enemy and couldn’t leave.

That’s where I learned to cook. We arrived in the hundreds, and left in double digits.

Toward the end, even the cooks had to join in the fighting.

A lot of good people died. Many of them were more than my comrades, they were my friends. ”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“My father and uncle died during the war, in an accident. When I returned to Synastry, it was to find an Imperial edict ordering me back to the planet I hadn’t been on since I was a preteen. I didn’t want to go, but no one can disobey an Imperial order.”

Brennon stilled and set his spoon into his mostly empty bowl. “I’m catching your underlying threat, but you can save it.”

Gunho followed his lead, letting go of his spoon so he could cross his arms and lean back in his chair. “I understand this is unexpected, and you need time to come to terms with it. I imagine you never considered taking a mate who was older and came from such a complex species.”

Brennon was twenty-one, but Gunho was in his mid-thirties, giving them a little over a ten-year difference. He didn’t care so much about that, but the fact he was also a war hero, and an alpha…