Page 17

Chapter 17

Caspian

Frost in the duelist outfit was literally going to kill me.

They could put it on my tombstone: Killed by the pure unadulterated sexiness of six-and-a-half feet of Frost Moonstriker in a skintight duelist’s costume. Every muscle was highlighted, from the thick thighs of someone who ran for fun or like . . . did squats or something, to the broad expanse of his defined pectorals. How did one even get those? Lifting something?

Please let it be me, lifted off the floor and pushed against the wall , a tiny part of my brain screamed.

Mella made an amused noise. No doubt if you asked, he’d be happy to oblige. He seems like a very obliging boy. And his arms look big enough to lift you .

And they certainly did. Not that I thought of Frost as a boy, but Mella thought of everyone as a child. She was ancient, so why shouldn’t she?

As we left the strange hotel, I felt like I was actually someone else. Not just because of the black monochromatic clothes Kit had brought me—I often wore unrelieved black, from my father’s cast-off old motorcycle jacket to my heavy black work boots, and I rather liked it.

I rarely wore suits, though, and even more important than my clothing was my companions’ transformation. Frost being silent and serious, a sword hanging on his hip, he seemed every inch the duelist he was dressed as. Even stranger, Kit was wearing club clothes, like he was ready to go out for a night of partying. A sheer silver mesh sleeveless shirt and the world’s tightest white jeans, artfully ripped not just at the knees, but up and down the thighs as well. If the rips had gone too much higher, we’d have been in danger of an indecent exposure charge anywhere but Verisa.

In Verisa? Well, it wouldn’t have been the first time someone went around with their cock out. Sunrunners—which was how I thought of all the people who lived in Sunrunner lands—weren’t afraid of exposed body parts like so many others in the Summerlands were. The Moonstrikers especially seemed to go through life covered from the tops of their necks to the tips of their toes, and they were comfortable like that.

Maybe it was just that Sunrunner lands were too hot for that, but we never much bothered with heavy, covering clothes.

Meanwhile, despite all the skin Kit was showing off, the fact that the dueling outfit uncovered Frost’s strong, corded neck felt almost scandalous. Because he was usually so covered in his Moonstriker coats, I couldn’t stop my gaze from straying to the swathe of skin exposed there.

How had I not noticed how thick his neck was? He was a math guy, wasn’t he? How much time did he spend working out?

Well, given that he can pause time , Mella said, probably enough to kick Nausa’s ass .

Wasn’t that a fucking weird thought? As a Sunrunner, I was well trained to think of Nausa as unbeatable. Nausa’s holder could become the biggest dire wolf ever to exist. Bigger than any wolf that had ever been born in the wild, even prehistoric ones.

And yet, Frost could pause time, and what could actually fight against that? It didn’t matter how big you were, you couldn’t bite time.

It never matters how big you are , Mella huffed. Sometimes being small is better anyway .

Given that it was my father—the man with the dire wolf shift, not me—the man with no shift at all, missing and possibly hurt or worse, I couldn’t disagree. Like Kit had said, a dire wolf shift didn’t help if someone sneaked up behind you and slipped a knife between your ribs.

Kit was the one to drive, even though that was a little odd, since we were supposed to be his employees. When I lifted a brow at him as he climbed into the driver’s seat, he shrugged. “I can whine about how useless you are with a broken arm, if anyone sees. But it’s hard to drive wearing a sword, Ember’s busy, and you’re in no shape to do the job, so it’s got to be me.”

All fair points.

Well, not that I knew a thing about driving while wearing a sword. Duels in Sunrunner court had rarely been about swordplay. They were almost invariably using shift forms, and about brutal animal instinct.

Which was why Mella and I had spent our lives avoiding them, and why there was a clear line of demarcation on the power in the family. Large apex predator shifts were what made a person someone important in the Sunrunner family. It was why Blair’s father lived a thousand miles away on the border of Duskbringer lands, in a farmhouse his family had owned for generations instead of at court, where he could cultivate political connections. I had a few cousins with panther and wolf shifts that spent some time in Verisa, but none of the others stuck around for long.

I had always been on the outside of these power struggles, since I didn’t have a shift, but everyone expected me to one day have Nausa and be the wolf my father was.

As inconvenient as it was, not shifting, it had also always been something of a relief to be on the outside of all that political jockeying for power. The upper classes of Verisa, the ones who weren’t literal Sunrunners, were the same as well, so I’d always been little more than an observer of my people.

It had been extremely disheartening sometimes, but also . . . well, some of my peers hadn’t survived to adulthood, they’d been so reckless and arrogant in their shifts.

Always, Mella agreed. Too much power, too young, before you know what you should do with it, results in bad things. This is why we went slow. Learned everything we could .

It was funny, how she always said “we” when she was talking about our education. As though she hadn’t known all the things I needed to learn. As though she didn’t have generations of experience with all of this.

Sure , she agreed. But I didn’t know it with you. It’s different with every person. You handle power differently than them. Better than most.

I snorted aloud at that . Probably because I don’t have any.

Kit turned and raised a brow at me, so I shook my head and affected a serious expression just in time for us to arrive at the first location.

A bar, of course. Half the locations on the list had been bars my father frequented. A few even worse places, like one known for animal blood sports, and at least one less than reputable brothel.

I didn’t understand it, honestly. I’d seen the family books, back when I’d been trying to help. My father was one of the richest men in the world. Why was he frequenting dark smoky bars and cheap seedy brothels?

The one Kit had chosen to start at, at least, wasn’t the worst. It was a place I’d been to once before, with a dance club, that was frequented by a lot of rich people. Assholes mostly, but not all. I lowered my head as we went in, trying to keep people from seeing my face, just in case they recognized me.

It wasn’t like it was hard for me to keep my eyes on Frost’s incredible pert round ass in order to follow them.

Such a trial.

Kit ordered a ridiculous huge fruity drink at the bar, sliding onto a stool and letting us stand behind him. He spoke to the bartender for only a moment, and didn’t ask him about my father.

Before I had a chance to say anything, though, he turned and shook his head. “Not here. But we’ll stay long enough to find out when they last saw him.”

I didn’t know how he’d found that out in less than fifty words, but hells, maybe he’d just asked outright in some code I hadn’t recognized.

Three hours and five bars later, I was starting to get disheartened. Not only had my father not been in any of the places we’d visited, he hadn’t been to any of them in over a week if the people there were to be believed.

And why wouldn’t they? What reason did they have to lie?

“This is good news,” Kit said, poking my uninjured side with his pointy elbow. “It means that even if you’d stayed in town and looked yourself, you wouldn’t have found shit. You did the right thing coming for help.”

And that . . . was fair. Except it wasn’t likely I’d have even come up with Kit’s list if I’d decided to look on my own. I’d have tried a few of the places on it, sure, but I’d never even heard of most of them. So I supposed even more than Kit realized, I’d done the right thing. I never could have arranged the search Kit had. I hadn’t just needed help; I’d needed his help.

My whole education had been economics and the running of Sunrunner lands, and while I still had no idea how I’d do at that, I sure as hell was never going to be a private investigator.

In the sixth bar, we almost turned right back around. The place was . . . fuck me, seedy didn’t even cover it. I was pretty sure we heard someone fucking in a nearby alley as we approached the entrance. Worse, I saw a few people I’d always considered my peers among the flashing multicolored lights on the dance floor, and if I recognized them, there was always a chance they’d recognize me in return.

When the son of one of my father’s advisers sauntered up next to Kit at the bar, though, he didn’t even glance my way. He looked Kit up and down and back again, a creepy smile on his face. “Well, well, if it isn’t fresh meat.”

Kit turned from his drink, glancing the guy over and quirking one stark white brow. All he said was, “no.”

I could feel the blow to the guy’s ego all the way on the other side of him, like a physical thing.

Clearly, he’d felt it too, since he reacted with anger. “Oh, sorry, are you too special for the people who actually belong here, princess?”

And then the most remarkable thing happened. Sweet, soft Frost, who was always interested in flower facts and numbers and technical things, cleared his throat and stepped forward, putting his body slightly between the two of them. He was standing straighter than he ever did, using his height as an intimidating thing instead of seeming inconvenienced by it like usual. His silver-gray eyes were ice cold, and his pursed lips made him look . . . fuck me.

A shiver went down my spine, and I wished I were alone with him. How was anyone in the world that fucking sexy?

“Oh, what, you even need a bodyguard?” the bratty asshole demanded. “That’s fucking pitiful.”

Coyote, I remembered. This asshole had a coyote shift. It wasn’t the most dangerous thing out there, but when inspired to be so, they could be positively vicious, and I had no doubt he was.

But the sword Frost was wearing? It wasn’t part of the costume. It had been in his own bag. It was his, and he’d buckled it on as though the action was one long-practiced and comfortable. Frost and the little rich fuck were mismatched like a Rottweiler and a Chihuahua, and if Frost were really a duelist, he’d take the guy down easily in a fight.

The problems were that Frost didn’t know how obnoxious this guy was . . . and Frost wasn’t actually a professional duelist, even if he knew what he was doing with that sword. He hadn’t earned those studs on his coat. I doubted very much that Frost had ever even considered killing someone, let alone done it.

He was . . . Frost.

“Oh please,” the guy sneered at him. “What are you, the muscle?”

Was he drunk? Did he have a concussion? Anyone with functioning eyes could see that Frost was dressed as a duelist, and he’d already pegged him as a bodyguard, out loud. Why question it now?

No, I was the one with the concussion, and even I wouldn’t have the balls to challenge Frost like that. Hells, I even knew he wasn’t a duelist, and if he’d looked at me like that, all cold and hard, I’d have . . . okay, so I’d have melted to my knees and offered him a blowie right there in the middle of the bar, but that was different.

I kinda wanted to do it anyway, despite not being part of the conversation at all. But no, I couldn’t do that. I was playing Kit’s personal assistant, not “duelist’s plaything.” Plus if I jumped in, the guy would doubtless recognize me, and that would ruin Kit’s plans to keep me on the down low.

“Look, little boy,” Kit told the guy, and instead of looking at him, he ignored the fact that Frost was halfway between them and just leaned forward and accepted a new drink from the bartender with a coy smile. “If I were here looking for someone, it would be an adult. I don’t know what it is you’re looking for, but I don’t babysit.”

Holy fuck. Was he trying to get in a fight? He’d seemed more annoyed at this bar than any of the others, but that was colder than a fucking Moonstriker winter. I didn’t think I’d ever heard a colder insult. No wonder Delta had named him Winter. How prescient of her.

I managed to hold myself back from choking on laughter, even when Kit turned up his nose, scrunching it up as though he smelled something foul and then turning his whole body away.

“Now you look here, you arrogant little bitch?—”

Frost stepped fully between them, leaning his neck one way and the other, cracking it, and then turned back to look at Kit. “Do you want me to kill him or just hurt him?”

Was the bar suddenly very hot, or was it just me?