Page 12

S tarting the Jeep, Harlow eyed Foxx while the vampire silently put his seatbelt on. Neither of them said anything as he pulled out of the hospital parking lot. He honestly wasn’t sure what to say.

It wasn’t like Foxx hadn’t had freak outs before. In fact, now that he was thinking back, there probably were a few times when what had happened could have been considered a panic attack. It was just that many of them happened after Foxx woke from a nightmare.

This was, however, the first time it had come on seemingly out of nowhere, and…Harlow had definitely felt close to panicking himself. Like what the fuck was he even supposed to do when shit like that happened? Panic as well? Wait until it was over? Let Foxx pass out from hyperventilating? Yeah, no, that likely would have not been the best option. Why was this shit so motherfucking complicated?!

Harlow cleared his throat. “Do you want to talk about it?” His gaze flicked to Foxx. The vampire took a deep breath and seemed to hold it in for a moment before letting it out.

“Not…really. Not right now, no. I think…if I do, I’ll start crying again. There’s…no point. I just… I want to kill something.” Foxx rolled his eyes and corrected himself. “Well, someone.”

He smirked, reaching over and grabbing the man’s hand. “You know I’m emotionally stunted, to say the least. I don’t feel the things you do. I don’t think I can. So when it comes to saying the right thing, as much as I wish I could…I know I’ll fall short. But what I can sa y is that I do feel something, and fucking hell do I also want to kill right now.”

Foxx giggled softly and squeezed his hand. “Knowing that is enough to make me feel just a little bit better.”

“Good.” He smiled, feeling slightly pleased that he had…marginally succeeded in his efforts to do who the fuck knew what. “Let’s go pick up the annoying gnat and start hunting these bastards.”

Foxx snorted. “Only you would call a dragon a gnat. Speaking of! Really, Old Man, how could you not even think to mention that huge, glaring fact?!”

“It never came up?” he tried.

Harlow looked away when Foxx began to glare.

“You know, you not saying anything, I get, because you consistently will not say shit unless specifically asked. It's annoying, but predictable at this point. What’s Tony’s excuse though?!”

Harlow wasn’t sure if he should be offended by the predictable part, but… No, wait…no he wasn’t. He didn’t really care.

“Look, he and the few dragons that are with him are not registered. When someone isn’t registered, Tony doesn’t tend to bring up what they are, unless he has a reason to.”

“I’m surprised he wouldn’t push for it.”

“While I’ve never gotten the specifics, but who he is, and the group he is a part of, on top of what he does, really doesn’t allow it.”

“Can you tell me what he does, and who he is, even if you can’t tell me the group?”

“He’s a hacker.”

A damn good one, too. But those he worked for… Harlow was pretty much one hundred percent sure that they were a group of assassins, which was why he wanted to set up a hit on those damn priests. He just wasn’t positive about Gavin’s position in the group. The kid always talked as if he was just a cog in the machine, but for some reason, Harlow had a feeling it was a cover. As for who he actually was…

“Who Gavin is…that's not my story to tell. Especially because of the possible dangers for him if it gets out. I can tell you how I met him. Though, considering how talkative he is, he’ll definitely tell you hi mself. So in order to avoid redundancy, due to there not being a chance in hell of getting him to stop talking about it once he starts, I’ll just leave that for him to—” His mouth twisted in disgust, “—gush about it.”

“Fair enough,” Foxx said, before asking with a half-hearted chuckle, “Gush? I'm guessing it has something to do with the hero worship thing?”

“Yes.” He sighed.

Foxx hadn’t known what to really expect when it came to Gavin, but…he wasn’t sure if this was quite what he’d imagined their first meeting would be like.

“Get off!” Harlow growled. The dhampir was shaking his left arm, trying and failing to slip free from the man who had latched onto him as soon as they walked out of the hall.

“Oh, come on!” Gavin whined. “Let me hug you, it’s been over a year! I am deprived!”

His boyfriend practically snarled at that. “Deprived, my ass! And you’re not hugging, you’re fucking clinging! GET OFF!”

Shorter than Harlow, Foxx would say Gavin looked to be about five-ten, but was similar in build to the dhampir, muscle-wise. The dragon had medium to light brown skin, a hairless triangular shaped face that came down to a somewhat boxier chin, high cheekbones, a wider set pointed nose, a plush bottom lip, and amber-brown eyes.

With black hair in box braids that went down to his abdomen, and numerous piercings in his almost pointed ears, the man’s nails were painted black, and he was wearing black cargo trousers, a green hoodie with all sorts of zipper pockets, and black boots. On his shoulder was a black messenger bag with electric white lines that reminded him of a circuit board. Gavin also had a pair of headphones around his neck in a similar design.

On the dragon’s face was a wide and very white smile, his amber eyes practically shining as he looked up at Harlow in a way that Foxx could tell wasn’t romantic, but it was definitely…something.

Harlow let out an angry huff and just slumped, seeming to accept that he was stuck. Foxx would have laughed, but holding it back was rather easy at the moment, considering he felt, well…sad.

He smiled hesitantly when Gavin finally looked at him. “Oh, he is so cute! Way cuter than the pictures!”

“Pictures?” Foxx frowned. “What pictures?”

“ Mine ,” Harlow growled, before finally managing to yank free from the dragon’s hold.

Glaring down at Gavin, the dhampir moved over to him, and Foxx found himself tugged against the man’s side as Harlow continued to glare pointedly. “ Mine ,” the dhampir affirmed again.

Making no move to reattach himself, Gavin cocked his head with a frown. “Oh, it’s beyond odd to hear you say that to anyone. Hmm, you did mention you two were dating.” The dragon shook his head, a smile returning to his face as he held out his hand. “Gavin.”

“Foxx Honeywell.” He rolled his eyes when Harlow grabbed his hand and put it back by his side when he tried to shake. “Ignore this idiot. I’m happy to finally meet Harlow’s family.”

Gavin’s smile widened. “Ah, yes, family! As Harlow is my big brother!”

Harlow snorted.

“See, he didn’t even deny it! I'm taking that as a win!” The dragon’s smile remained for a moment longer before dropping. “Ah, right, we aren’t exactly meeting under great circumstances. My condolences for your loss. Losing a handler is never easy, but losing a friend is always worse.”

Foxx’s brow rose in surprise. “How did you know?”

“That’s my thing, knowing all that I shouldn’t when I want to. So, when are we leaving? Best we leave quickly as the fire bird made it clear my ass wasn’t welcome to stay long.” Gavin tsked. “Probably just jealous of my size in my other form.”

Scoffing, Harlow said, “Once we pack.”

“Awesome! Road trip! I already have a direction for you. Need any help packing, you two?” Gavin asked them with a smile .

“Uhh…no?” Foxx rasped slowly. He considered asking about the direction thing, but he’d been up for more than twenty-four hours at this point, so…no…

Gavin held out his hand. “Give me your keys, Harlow. I’m going to go fuck with the GPS tracker on your Jeep and… Are your laptops here or in there?”

“In the duffle bags in the back. Why?” Foxx asked.

“I want to make sure no one can follow us. And as we are about to do some very illegal shit, I’d suggest removing your personal trackers and leaving your non-secure cellphones here.”

“Foxx is not removing his tracker,” Harlow stated stiffly.

Fucking hell, he hated to admit that Harlow was right about them, but he was. And considering it was how he managed to find the man after he’d been kidnapped and changed, he didn’t like the idea of having no way to find him. Also… “A hunter has already been kidnapped, status unknown… Not being able to track each other seems like a bad idea.”

“No worries! I have some you can use. That will be a hell of a lot harder to see and remove than the ones you currently have. Some no one aside from us can turn on.”

He wasn’t going to ask how the man knew any of that. Though, thinking on it, the dragon never answered him about the pictures. As far as he knew, he had yet to actually post himself online. On the two social media platforms he used, he just posted baking and craft stuff, and even those accounts were private. Though the man was a hacker, so he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised.

Harlow sighed. “Fine. Come on, Foxx, let’s pack, and be quick. We are going to have to withdraw some cash and stop by my storage unit so I can grab some old supplies.”

“Supplies?”

“Silencers, bullets that can’t be traced back to the Guild, things like that.” The dhampir glanced at the dragon. “You bring your own shit, Gavin?”

“Yep! Keys?” The man wiggled the fingers of his still outstretched hand.

Eyes narrowing, Harlow pulled his keys out and reluctantly handed them over .

Shaking his head, Foxx headed towards the stairs alone, while Harlow seemed to be more inclined to stare down the smiling Gavin, for some reason.