Page 63 of Lovesick Gods (Lovesick #1)

Mal chuckled with Danny, and maybe it was a broken sound, but it was still one they shared.

He wrinkled his nose at the clothes though, wondering how he could possibly summon enough energy to change into them.

Danny must have noticed because he stood.

Mal started to stand too, but Danny held him down.

“You’re still wearing your boots, heathen ,” he teased.

Snorting, Mal sank back into the sofa. “Smart-ass. Those I can get myself.” But he cringed as soon as he bent over, putting too much pressure where his middle was bruised from when Danny had crushed him. He hissed and sat back up.

“I got ‘em,” Danny said.

What brave new world had Mal built for himself that his enemy was welcome in his home and willing to get on his knees to remove his boots for him? Danny even brought them to the rug to continue the ongoing joke. Then he returned and urged Mal to his feet.

Slowly, Danny found the zipper at the back of Mal’s sleeveless, high-collared bodysuit, and drew it down, peeling the fabric from his skin. He helped Mal into the sleep pants and shirt, which Mal would have protested with anyone else and demanded to do it himself.

They sat and Danny motioned for Mal to scoot closer as he opened the first aid kit.

Mal assumed Danny was usually the one being treated back at his hideout, but he still knew how to tend to someone else.

He wiped the blood from Mal’s cuts with the warm, wet cloth—across his lip and above an eyebrow—dabbed antiseptic cream on both of them, then bandaged the cut above Mal’s eye.

Danny’s hands were warm as he slid them up beneath Mal’s shirt to feel at his ribs for breaks.

He seemed satisfied with what he found, but Mal couldn’t help wishing the touch would linger, and he shivered when Danny’s fingers pulled away.

Danny left Mal feeling cozy and content just by being near him, like he could curl up right then and go to sleep without a care in the world.

“You shouldn’t sleep yet with a concussion,” Danny said when Mal started to lie back.

“So keep me company.” Mal rested his head on the sofa’s pillow and lifted his legs to stretch across Danny’s lap.

Danny set his hands on Mal’s thighs. Such casual, constant touch.

Mal never allowed that with anyone. Not even Lucy.

She tended to stray from touch as much as he did unless she had control over the situation.

Mal didn’t have control with Danny, he never had, but for once that didn’t leave him feeling weak or scared.

Soon, Danny’s eyes grew distant. Mal hadn’t minded the quiet while Danny tended to him, but now it felt stifling.

Danny should never be this still. Only his thumbs moved, gently grazing over the white and yellow sleep pants that Mal thought clashed horribly with everything about him.

But then Zeus didn’t clash as much with Prometheus as he’d always thought, so maybe he was wrong.

“What happened, Sparky?” he asked. “What did you see? What did he do ? Beat you around, fine, but it was more than that. And don’t tell me you don’t want to talk about it,” he pushed when Danny dropped his head back onto the sofa. “Ludgate’s after both of us.”

“Maybe. But he got inside my head. Got inside my… body and…” Danny shuddered at the memories, keeping his eyes on the ceiling. “There was a maze of mirrors…with Ludgate in every one of them. And me too. My reflection.”

“With black eyes?”

“Like him .”

Thanatos.

“My reflection wore his suit, had his eyes, and I just…”

“Danny, listen to me,” Mal gripped Danny’s hand. “You are nothing like Thanatos.”

“You don’t know what I’m like,” Danny sneered, trying to wrench his hand away.

“I think I do. Better than most.”

When Mal wouldn’t release him, after several more half-hearted tugs, Danny gave up, mouth turning sharply downward, face red and blotchy with imminent tears. He opened his mouth and looked at Mal as if there was something terribly important he had to tell him, but he gave up on that too.

“There’s one thing still bothering me,” Mal said.

“Only one?”

“Ludgate, what he said at the museum—that he owes you. What did he mean?”

“I don’t know,” Danny’s brow furrowed in frustration. “It all seems so personal but I don’t know why. I’ve never met him before. His real name is Cassius Dougal Junior. I don’t know him either. It doesn’t make sense. I’m just so tired ,” he said with a bone-deep heaviness. “Of everything. Of me.”

The defeat in those words shook Mal. There was a time when he wanted nothing more than to see this man brought low. But now he knew him. Even before he did, he never would have wanted this .

Mal knew tired. And beaten down. He knew defeat as though the world would never let him win. He had made his own rules to conquer that a long time ago, but Danny made him break almost all of them.

“Then we’ll rest,” Mal said. “And we’ll sleep. And we’ll figure this out. I do have a diamond to reclaim, after all.”

Danny laughed, a sudden eruption that was sad and broken but grateful. “Whatever you say, Cho.”

Mal didn’t know what to say, but he didn’t think more words would be enough, not now. Coaxing Danny to lean toward him, even though it strained his sore ribs, Mal arched up to meet the kid halfway for a soft kiss. His lip stung, but he didn’t care. “It’s Mal.”

“Right,” Danny puffed a breath. “Mal.”

Their loss tonight didn’t feel like a loss with Danny next to him.

Mal couldn’t have said when they fell asleep after that, right there on the sofa in the same positions they’d started in. He only knew that when he roused, it was to the sound of clattering and vibrations. He’d always been a light sleeper.

Blinking at his phone within reach on the coffee table, Mal quickly snatched it up and glared at the number.

Unknown. Panic seized him as he wondered if it was Ludgate.

His phone’s screen was reflective, wasn’t it?

Did that matter? Did it have to be glass instead of plastic?

Mal grimaced at the swirl of fear in his belly.

The call ended but immediately started up again.

Moving swiftly, Mal lifted his legs out of Danny’s hold. The kid frowned in his sleep and tried to turn toward him, so Mal guided Danny to lie down in his place when he stood.

“Who is this?” Mal answered sharply once he’d walked a safe distance across the room. At least nothing tilted around him, but his head still throbbed.

“Oh thank god ,” came the voice on the other end. It was Vaughn. “Dude, I know it’s the middle of the night, but I was going out of my mind . What took you so long?”

“How did you get this number?”

“Lucy.”

“ Lucy —”

“It’s a long story, okay? She sounded pretty freaked when I told her about what happened. Or as much as I knew anyway.”

“You told her…” If Mal had Ludgate’s powers in that moment, he would have reached through the phone to throttle the CSI. That was going to be a fun fallout, but at least Lucy hadn’t stormed right over to the apartment. “Zeus is safe and fine. Where things concern me, I’d prefer you stay out of it.”

“He’s fine how exactly?”

Mal pinched the bridge of his nose. “Physically fine. Just messed up over Ludgate.”

“What happened?”

“Not my place to say.”

“ Cho .”

“You’ll find I’m not as easily convinced to divulge other people’s secrets as my sister.”

Vaughn huffed. His voice sounded hoarse as if he’d been up all night, but when he spoke again, he was plaintive more than frustrated. “ Please , Cho. Just tell me something. Danny…he hasn’t been himself.”

The rawness of that statement made Mal’s resolve to blow Vaughn off waver. Glancing at Danny asleep on the sofa, all the shields he’d usually throw up to protect himself seemed less important than protecting Danny.

“Ludgate had a plan to kill us,” he said, leaning back against his desk, “get us to kill each other, whatever, but now he wants something else.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. But there are worse things than dying.”

Vaughn went quiet save the sound of his breathing. Finally, he said, “Look, man, I…I hate to ask, and I promise I’ll only ask once, but…did you kill the guard at the museum?”

Mal sat up straighter. “He was gassed. Knocked out.”

“Not when the police found him.”

Vaughn explained how the guard had been discovered with his throat slit by a piece of broken glass. The case wasn’t just a robbery anymore, it was homicide.

“Ludgate…” Mal growled.

“Evidence doesn’t point at anyone yet, but the assumption is it’s him again, given the other robberies, so for now you’re in the clear. Though you were there to rob the place, right?”

“Ludgate got the diamond.”

“Hey, man, I’m not judging.”

Mal rolled his eyes. Team Zeus was an odd bunch.

“Seriously, not judging at all,” Vaughn went on, “especially since I…know you’re how Danny’s been blowing off steam lately.”

“He told you.”

“No. Heard part of one of your rendezvous over the comms. He knows I know.”

Mal didn’t answer.

“Just don’t hit him while he’s low, okay? He’s been having a rough time. Rough even before this mess with Ludgate, and the dead guard isn’t going to help.”

“I know. Ended up a little roughed up myself tonight.”

“You okay?” Vaughn asked without hesitation.

A smile tugged at the edge of Mal’s mouth, reminding him of his still healing lip. He stared down at his lightning bolt sleep pants. Do-gooders. “I’m fine.”

“So, he’s...talked to you about things?”

This was a whole new level of dangerous.

Whatever Mal and Danny were, that was one thing; allowing Vaughn into that confidence opened up Mal’s small circle wider than he was usually comfortable with.

He didn’t even know Vaughn, but for once, he didn’t want to lie or dismiss what was being asked of him.

“Yeah. He has.”