Page 38 of The Hunter

“Which are…?” Dorian had a feeling he shouldn’t have asked.

“To fuck me.”

“Christ,”he whispered, swiping a hand on his forehead.

“Just the once.”

“You have to be joking.”

“She has a son.”

“I don’t want to hear any more.” Dorian put up a hand. “Argent, I do appreciate the information you’ve supplied me about Lord Thurston, and I will, of course, look into it. The contract on Miss LeCour has been reissued, you know.”

Argent’s nostrils flared and his eyes flashed with a blue flame as he leaned over the desk. “I want you to let it be known thatno onetakes that contract.”

Dorian stood as well, placing both fists on the desk. For the first time their eyes clashed. “Do you presume to issue commands tome?”

“Only if you want your men to retain their heads.”

“Be careful, Argent, this is dangerous ground. Making a move like this is bad for business; not only yours, but mine, as well.”

Argent pushed off the desk with a guttural sound and hefted the bronze globe above his head. Smashing it down onto the smooth surface, he cleaved the wood in two.

It should have been physically impossible.

Dorian’s hand moved to the long knife sheathed beneath his suit coat.

“You may rule the underworld, Blackwell, but you were nevermyking,” Argent seethed. Red began to crawl from beneath his white collar and climb into his face, blood rushing beneath the skin with long-suppressed emotion. Dorian watched it with bemused fascination. And more than a bit of understanding.

“I’ve worked, suffered, fought, and killed beside you for many years,” Argent ranted on. “I kept your secrets and I came when you called me to your side. But youneverowned me.” He knocked the large chair over with a fist, as though to punctuate his point. “So when I say to pull the fucking contract, you do it, because Millie LeCour ismine. She’s undermyprotection and may God have mercy on the man who gets in my way, because I don’t know the meaning of the word. So help me, I’ll flay the meat from his bones before I—”

“Christopher, Iknow.” Dorian interrupted his tirade, and the enraged man paused at the use of his given name. “I know,” he repeated, more gently this time. He recognized exactly what drove Argent in this moment. The primal, tight ache of it. The hot, needful possession. “I’ll pull the contract. No one will go near it without answering to one of us. And Thurston—”

“Thurston is also mine, to deal with as I will,” Argent gritted out.

Dorian nodded. “Fair enough.”

As he glanced at the ruptured desk, the overturned chair, and the discarded globe, Argent’s shoulders visibly slumped. “This isn’t—I don’t usually—”

Dorian waved it away with a knowing smile ghosting at his lips. “This is what a woman brings into the lives of men like us.”

“I’ll pay to replace it,” he muttered.

“Don’t bother.” Dorian stepped around the carnage. “I’m sure I owe you for one dead body or another.” Striding to the study door, he opened it and waited for Argent to step through, then followed the assassin to the entry and out into the chilly evening. He was looking forward to catching up with Farah. He loved to see the chill turn her cheeks red beneath the freckles she insisted she didn’t have anymore. He wanted to discuss this most intriguing turn of events.

Their breaths churned the air, all semblance of tension dissipated like the puffs of their exhales.

And they were allies again.

“What’s it like, Blackwell?” Argent squinted across the distance to the nearly empty Hyde Park, where a distant Farah glimmered like a silver fae creature in the rapidly fading sunlight.

Dorian stared in the same direction. Though she was too far to make out the angelic features of her face, he could tell that Farah was smiling. It reached out to him, as always. He puzzled over Argent’s question. It had been many years, and he’d read many books, and still the words to aptly describe his feelings for his wife didn’t appear to exist.

“It’s madness, at first, or maybe always. It’s… possession and fear, passion and joy. It’s indescribably sweet, and utterly terrifying. It’s different for everyone, I imagine.”

Argent made a noise, whether agreement or despondence, Dorian couldn’t be sure. “Watch yourself, Argent,” Blackwell advised. “This is a path you may not be ready to tread.”

Ever,he said silently to himself.