Page 13

Indy

I wasn’t sure if the hounds slept, but they were both up before me.

The sun was beaming through the trailer windows when I pushed the bedroom curtain aside and pranced into the living area.

Whitney sat on the couch with the furry purple blanket folded beside him, and Loren leaned against the kitchen cabinets, monitoring the Nespresso machine.

He looked delectable in plaid PJ pants and a thermal shirt that hugged his ribs, and I made my way to him, anticipating the feeling of his hands on my bare skin.

He turned to my arrival, and his eyes widened with surprise.

I spun a little circle, giving him a good look at the lace boxer briefs I’d stripped down to in the heat of the night.

Loren didn’t wait for me to get close before he made a beeline for the bathroom.

I watched as he ducked out of sight, then emerged with my robe in his hand.

I grinned. “Am I showing too much ass to your friend?”

Glancing back, I found Whitney turned aside, staring out the window like our neighbor’s front lawn was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.

Loren shot me a scolding look, and I snickered as he stepped behind me and wrapped the satiny fabric around my body.

He may have been bothered by my indecency, but not so concerned he didn’t let his hands linger on my waist as he looped the tie into a bow.

As he pulled back, his fingers grazed my ass and gave a pinch that made me squeal.

I rounded to find him stifling a grin, and it was such a welcome sight.

I caught his arm before he could retreat and pulled him in for a kiss.

“Thank you, baby,” I murmured.

He returned to the coffee in progress, and I faced the fridge with a growing sense of dread.

Since we’d hauled the Airstream back to New York, the trailer had been closed up like a time capsule.

Loren must have done some tidying before I woke up because it had been a mess last night.

Unsecured items were jostled in our cross-country trek; the bathroom and my art desk had seen the worst of it.

But looking over at the wood slab desk across from the living room sofa found it impeccably organized.

My canvases were stacked, brushes sorted, and the trays of watercolors had been carefully arranged.

Smiling to myself, I tugged the refrigerator open.

After weeks without power, everything inside was spoiled, including a bloated gallon jug of milk and a few takeout boxes that likely contained molds unknown to science.

I shut the door and went to the pantry instead.

Nothing spoiled in there, just…

not much of anything.

“We need to go to the store,” I announced.

“Maybe later today, Lore? What do you think?”

The espresso mug he held looked like a dollhouse miniature as his grip tightened around it.

Concern pinched his brow, enough to make me reconsider.

“Or tomorrow,” I said.

“There’s no rush. We can order delivery.”

Whitney hadn’t moved from the couch—he’d barely even blinked—and it felt uncanny having a third person in our close quarters.

But it felt stranger to ignore him, so I called over, “What do you like to eat, Whit?”

He glanced up at my inquiry, less abashed than he had been when I was in my panties, but when his gaze strayed to my bare legs and thighs, he grimaced.

“I bet you’re fancy,” I continued.

“Lore’s kinda fancy. He doesn’t like junk food.”

The other hound looked past me at Loren.

“You eat?”

Before Loren could respond, I countered, “You don’t?”

Whitney stood and fiddled with the folded cuffs of his shirt sleeves.

I got the feeling it was an excuse not to look at me.

“There’s no point,” he replied.

“Dead things don’t need sustenance to survive.”

I rarely thought of Loren as dead, undead, or otherwise.

He was warm to the touch, and his blood flowed, at least enough to get his dick hard when the need arose.

I supposed he was kind of like a vampire defying the laws of nature.

As someone who sprouted from a pile of ash every decade, I had no room to criticize.

“The point is that it tastes good,” I told Whitney, then made another attempt at my initial question.

“What was your favorite food when you were alive ?”

The other man looked aside as though trying to remember.

He must have had to think quite a ways back because it took him a few seconds to come up with an answer.

“Roasted lamb, stewed peas…” His mouth twisted.

“Syllabubs on special occasions.”

“Sylla-whats?”

“It’s a dessert,” he replied.

“Sort of a sweet cream.”

Dessert was a category I could work with.

I took a mental inventory of the snack aisle, preparing to blow Whitney’s mind with the Little Debbie’s catalog.

“Have you ever had a Twinkie?” I asked.

“They’re stuffed with sweet cream. Ooh, or Ding Dongs?”

He looked so utterly perplexed that I couldn’t help but grin.

“Well, that’s the first thing.” I turned toward the kitchen junk drawer.

“I’m gonna make a list.”

Behind me, Loren coughed into his espresso, sounding gagged enough I spun around.

He covered his mouth with one hand, and his face was flushed, looking simultaneously embarrassed and alarmed.

“You okay?” I asked.

He wiped his mouth, then dumped the remaining coffee into the sink.

I’d almost forgotten about his tongue—or lack thereof—but watching him grimace through a swallow made clear other side effects besides the impact on his French kissing game.

If it was hard to drink, eating would be next to impossible.

Time to change the subject.

“So, how old are you, anyway?” I asked Whitney.

“No offense but roast lamb and peas sounds a bit… medieval.”

The hellhound bucked back with a snort.

“Medieval? It’s not so bad as all that. I was born in 1746.”

“What month?” I asked.

He frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

“November, maybe?” I guessed.

“You give strong Scorpio vibes.”

Whitney looked from me to Loren and back again, growing more befuddled by the moment.

“The fifteenth,” he said.

I smirked. “Called it.”

Remembering my quest for a notepad, I dug into the junk drawer menagerie and found a block of Post-its and a pen.

I was about to begin a grocery list when I noticed Loren standing by the sink, staring out the window.

His playful attitude from earlier was gone, and now he seemed vacant.

I never did ask him about the things he wrote on the note to Sully.

And the things he hadn’t.

Peeling off the topmost note, I offered the rest of the pad and pen to him.

He glanced at it, then shook his head.

“What if there’s something you wanna say?” I asked.

With another shake of his head, Loren bent in and kissed my forehead, then shuffled down the hall toward the bathroom.

The sounds of the door sliding shut and the lock clicking over seemed to resonate.

I stood holding the Post-its and pen and chewing my lip until Whitney piped up.

“He’s a somber sort.”

It sounded less like an observation and more like a criticism, and an unfair one at that.

“He’s going through some stuff right now,” I replied.

“I think he’s allowed to be a little down.”

Whitney harrumphed.

“He’s been ‘going through some stuff’ for a hundred-fifty years, by my estimation.”

Loren had bad days as far back as I could recall.

His missing tongue was a reason for his silence, but not the only one.

He was prone to clamming up, shutting down, and turning off when things got to be too much.

They used to call it melancholia, but Loren shirked that label along with anything that might set him apart as “other.” From what he’d told me, the need to fit into society had been paramount since he was a kid.

But too often blending in looked more like trying to disappear.

“What about you?” I asked in favor of a more spiteful retort.

“You seemed pretty pissed yesterday. About Moira and the angel.”

Pissed at me, thinking I’d masterminded some scheme to get devils into Heaven.

If I’d known I could get rid of Moira, I would have done it decades ago, but this wasn’t that calculated.

While it had yielded ideal results for me, I got the impression Whitney was less than pleased.

He wandered over to my art desk and inspected the contents of my brush cup.

“Trying to make sense of it is all,” he muttered.

Honestly, so was I.

“She didn’t tell you what she was going to do?” I asked.

“It wasn’t my place to know.”

Loren had no fond feelings for his demonic mistress, but Whitney and Moira’s farewell had been bittersweet.

Now, he seemed more on the bitter side.

“Did you love her?” I wondered aloud.

Whitney glanced up, green eyes peeking through straw-blond locks.

He was startlingly handsome.

It chagrined me to think Moira and I had similar taste in men.

“She was all I had,” Whitney replied.

“Hellhounds belong on the lower plane with their masters or mistresses. We’re bound in that way. My soul was tethered to her. Lorenzo is—somehow, I think he’s always been—cut loose.”

I sputtered a laugh.

“Nothing about Loren is loose .”

“What I mean is,” Whitney continued, “I found my place there. With her. I was content.”

“But were you happy?”

Considering we’d begun this conversation on the topic of my boyfriend’s depression, that was a loaded question.

“I’m not sure happiness is always deserved,” Whitney replied.

I couldn’t help but point out the obvious.

“So, you’ve been going through some stuff, too.”

The hellhound rounded on me and crossed his arms. “I made my choice. I was resigned to it and, again, content . I drew a better lot than many other hounds. Infinite lost souls suffer eternal torment. I was spared that.”

There was pain behind his words.

He was bitter, yes. And confused.

I recognized the hurt and the unsettled way he glanced about like he wasn’t sure whether he was coming or going.

“Loren’s all I have, too,” I confessed.

“I’m lost without him.”

Whitney nodded, then returned to the couch with a sigh.

I looked toward the locked bathroom door, then I sighed, too.

“You want some coffee?” I called over to Whitney.

“It’s not as good as a Twinkie, but some people like it.”

He raised a shoulder in what I interpreted as an unspoken “sure,” and I loaded the machine to brew a cup.

My stomach growled. Since the hellhounds were content to do without, I would be fending for myself when it came to the morning meal.

Carrying the coffee to the sofa, I handed the drink over.

Whitney answered my courtesy “Be right back,” with a grunt, and I returned to the bedroom.

I scooped my cellphone off the bedside table and opened the contacts.

It was too early to order pizza, or Chinese, or from most of my usual places.

I scrolled, frowning, until the list seemed to stop on Chaz’s number.

My thumb hovered over the screen.

Chaz didn’t have food, and that was what I wanted.

That was all I wanted.

And he didn’t deliver, besides.

I set my phone face down on the table and went back into the living area.

Whitney held the coffee mug, sniffing more than sipping it as I perched on the stool in front of my art table.

I got the impression he wouldn’t appreciate me crowding onto the couch beside him, at least not until I put on some more clothes.

My gut gurgled, and I picked at the hem of my robe.

I needed a distraction.

Something to do besides think about getting my keys and taking the Pontiac out on the town.

For breakfast and nothing else.

Gripping the sides of my stool, I looked at Whitney and asked the first question that came to mind.

“What was your deal for?”

“I beg your pardon?”

He balked, and I realized I may have misstepped.

Loren never liked to discuss the details of his Faustian bargain, any of the numerous times I’d asked.

I assumed it was because he thought I would be jealous of his ex.

I had plenty of thoughts and feelings about the man Loren sold his soul for, despite knowing little about him.

But it didn’t make me jealous so much as sad.

Loren wrestled with a lot of shame even now, and I could draw a direct line of correlation to him being treated like a secret, kept out of sight and out of mind unless his married lover wanted to get his dick wet.

Of course, Loren never explained it so crudely.

He was an apologist for the bastard, forever making excuses.

“It was a different time.”

“He gave me a good life.”

“I loved him.”

That one stung.

“Your deal,” I repeated to Whitney.

“With Moira. What was it for?”

Curving his palms around the coffee mug, the hellhound shifted back on the couch.

“I was a soldier. The captain of a cavalry unit with nearly fifty men under my command. We came to war, to retain the king’s command of his colonies.” He flashed a derisive smirk.

“I’m sure you’re aware how that went.”

I nodded.

Big win for the home team; not so much for our neighbors from across the pond.

Whitney continued, “I had taken a scouting party to a wooded area outside of Boston.” His jaw flexed, and he cast his gaze aside.

“We were ambushed. My men were dying all around me, crying to God or their mothers. But no god came. Instead, a devil in the guise of a battlefield nurse.”

“Moira,” I confirmed.

Whitney’s shoulders slumped.

It was the first time I’d seen him with anything less than perfect posture.

“She told me I could ease their suffering,” he said.

“Save their lives. The ones who weren’t already lost…”

His forehead creased as he delved deeper into thought, remembering vividly enough it appeared to pain him.

Then the strain left his face, and he was placid once more.

Resigned, as he’d said before.

Content?

He met my gaze.

“Surely my one soul wasn’t worth more than so many others.”

It was sad but also noble.

It made him a good leader, a good man, willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

And his reward for being so good was eternity on the end of a demoness’s leash.

My lip curled at the thought.

“I guess she got less generous over time,” I muttered.

“You saved a bunch of innocent soldiers. Loren gave some emotional terrorist an extra twenty years of life.”

That seemed to lighten the mood, and Whitney chuckled.

“I thought him quite foolish for that,” he said, pondering until he tipped his head toward me.

“But you… trading your tears to a demon for the sake of a damned soul? That was foolish, too.”

Putting it that way, it seemed I’d made my own kind of deal.

And I’d gotten what I wanted out of it.

I supposed Whitney and Loren got what they wanted, too.

Across from me, Whitney considered his coffee again but didn’t drink any.

It was like he’d forgotten how.

“What about you?” he asked.

“How did you become what you are?”

I shrugged.

“Maybe I was born this way.”

That information didn’t come with my recent influx of memories.

Thinking back, I wasn’t sure I’d ever known.

Loren had told me about myself a dozen times over the decades, but my origin had never been a topic of discussion.

Sully might have had answers in her vast library, but I had no interest in pursuing them.

In my experience, the past was usually better left there.

That didn’t stop me from using drugs to steal glimpses of my own history, or from thinking again about my next fix a phone call away.

I scrubbed my fingernails up my arm, scratching at something that wasn’t quite an itch.

“It’s good that you were a soldier, though,” I said, trying to corral my runaway thoughts.

“We might need that.”

Whitney arched a skeptical brow.

“How so?”

“You know strategy. If we have to fight Nero, or the witch, or the bad hellhounds, that’s kind of like a war.”

He scoffed.

“Or kind of like an ambush.”

The image of Loren buried and bleeding under the pile of hounds in the automotive store in Ohio flashed through my mind, and I cringed.

Lifting the mug to his lips, Whitney gave the coffee a timid taste.

I wasn’t sure he consumed it so much as licked the flavor off his lips.

The resulting expression was a sort of scrunch-nosed surprise.

He leaned forward to set the cup on the table, then stood.

“Thank you for the drink,” he said.

“And the talk. I think I’ll excuse myself for a bit. Feels like I’m imposing.” His eyes skated over my body, giving meaningful emphasis to my bare legs.

I had half a mind to hike the robe and flash my lacy panties, just to see his reaction.

But I didn’t want to scare him off, especially since he didn’t have anywhere else to go.

He made his way out of the trailer and pushed the door shut in his wake.

Loren had yet to emerge from the bathroom.

He could have been cleaning up in there, arranging my beauty products the way he had my art desk.

Or he could have been hiding from me.

Standing from my stool, I walked to the back end of the trailer and stopped outside the bathroom.

If he wanted to be left alone, I should let him.

A lot had happened in the past few weeks.

He probably needed time to settle in, acclimate, adjust.

While I thought those things, my fist seemed to rise of its own accord and rap against the door.

“Lore?” I squeaked, mentally kicking myself for pushing when I knew Loren’s emotional gates only opened outward, and only when he was ready.

Shoving and railing against them never got me anything but frustrated.

Still, I stood, bumping my toes into each other and staring at the door, hoping it would open.

When it didn’t, I put my ear against the it and listened harder.

“Baby?” I gave the handle a tug.

Locked.

I wanted to believe it wasn’t about me.

It wasn’t because I’d ruined his life.

Or because I was temporary.

Not because I led him into danger and that people hurt him—tortured him—because of me.

Today was just a bad day.

Tomorrow would be better.