Page 28

It was still raining, and we were both going to be soaked by the time we made it down the hill. I was still slightly damp from my earlier walk out to the Sheriff’s Department, but Hart grimaced up at the rain before he followed me out into the wet.

It was slow going, mud, roots, and stones making the partially-overgrown path treacherous. Broken legs were not something either of us needed.

What I needed was to see Elliot. To touch him, smell the distinctive scent of his skin, feel the warmth of his body. To be absolutely certain that he was, in fact, alive. I’d heard his voice, but that wasn’t enough. I needed all of him.

But I was also acutely conscious that Hart probably needed the same confirmation—maybe in a different way, but he loved Elliot, too.

One foot skidded on a root, and I slipped, dropping down to a hand and a knee—the bad one, of course—to stop myself from tumbling down the steep embankment covered in rocks and brambles.

“Shit!” I hissed, pain stabbing upward through my kneecap, up my thigh, and into my hip.

I hissed out a breath, trying to control my reaction to the pain.

“You okay, Seth?” Hart’s feet skidded a little, but he didn’t fall, and he offered me a hand to help me back up.

“I—Give me a minute.” I breathed through the pain, uncertain whether or not my knee was going to be able to hold me up.

When I thought I might be able to manage, I took Hart’s offered hand, and the elf hauled me up, gripping my elbow with his other hand when my knee didn’t quite hold me.

I’d forgotten how strong Hart is. I blew out a breath. “Thanks.”

“You gonna make it?” he asked.

“Well, I’m not gonna sit down and give up,” I retorted. I took a tentative step, then grimaced, wobbling. Hart kept hold of my arm, the pressure helping me to keep my balance.

“You sure about that?” It was only half-teasing.

“I’m not staying out here,” I informed him. “Not alone.”

Hart nodded once. “Probably a good call. You need me to help you walk?”

I carefully tested putting weight on my leg again, suppressing the wince. “I think I’ll be okay on flat ground, but I… might actually need some assistance getting the rest of the way down this fucking mountain.”

I don’t know if you’ve ever sprained anything and then tried to get down a mountain with only the assistance of an extremely irritable and foul-mouthed elf, but it isn’t an experience I would recommend. We got through it. Somehow. And I only pulled him down once.

But, finally, the path opened into a field of wild grasses, dotted with the yellows of black-eyed susans and prairie dock, the purple-blues of vervain, the lavender of coneflowers, and the brilliant red of cardinal flowers mixed in with the brownish green of the grasses.

The rain and mist from the storm smudged the colors, turning the field into an impressionistic painting.

It was beautiful.

I was in absolutely no mood to appreciate it.

I did appreciate the fact that Hart kept his arm under my shoulder, taking a lot of my weight, even though we were down the steep part of the hillside. “Are we heading for the house or the barn?” the elf asked, adjusting his grip.

“No idea,” I grumbled back. “Let’s just go for in between.”

As we made our way through the grasses—and I mentally reminded myself to do a thorough tick-check once we got back to the hotel—a sharp whistle drew our attention.

“Please tell me you know who the fuck that is,” Hart grumbled into my ear.

“Ray Hill,” I replied.

“He’s putting Elliot up right now?”

“He and his wife, Helen, yeah.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Hart guided us toward where the ghoul was leaning on the fence to the alpacas’ enclosure—where there was a gate, I saw as we got closer.

“Don’t tell me those assholes ran y’all off the road, too?” Ray said when we got close enough that he didn’t have to yell.

“No,” I replied with a grimace. “I tripped on a goddamn root and pretty sure I sprained my knee.”

Ray pushed the gate open for us, and Hart maneuvered me through it. “We’ll get some ice on that and get it wrapped up. And get you off it for a bit.” Ray looked at Hart. “I’m assuming we can send you to get a car so he’s not walking back up there?”

“Definitely,” Hart replied. “Val Hart, by the way.”

Ray grinned, showing his ghoul teeth, sharpened rows on both the top and the bottom. “I figured,” he replied cheerfully. “Given Elliot said Seth would be showing up with an elf. You grew up with him, he said?”

“I did, yeah,” Hart replied.

“And you live in Richmond now? Work for the FBI?”

“Yep.”

“So are the feds looking into Sarah’s murder, now?”

“Trying to,” came Hart’s reply. “Why, you know something?”

“Not specifically,” came the response. “But I’ll tell you what I do know once you’ve got free hands and have seen for yourself that your badger is still in one piece.”

“Great,” came Hart’s relieved response.

“He’s in the barn, but you’ll both be wanting a shower and some food—so I’ll bring him in.”

“He’s staying in the barn?” I asked, surprised. Helen and Ray had both seemed totally comfortable having us in their home.

“That way if the cops show up, he’s not in the house, and they won’t be able to smell him having recently been there for a length of time.”

I frowned. “Smell him?”

“At least one of the deputies is a shifter,” Hart replied.

Ray snorted, but didn’t say anything.

I turned my head sharply to look at Hart. “Seriously?”

“You didn’t notice? Didn’t smell him ?” Hart asked.

“I must not have met that one,” I replied, trying to think back. “But they knew I was a shifter, so they might have deliberately kept him away from me.”

“Possible,” Hart agreed. “There’s something seriously fucked up about this whole case.”

“Do tell,” I grumbled.

“Oh, believe me, I have things to tell,” the elf muttered darkly. “And the people who are going to hear them are going to include Internal Affairs, a federal board, and at least one judge and jury.”

Helen had fussed over me audibly, then herded both Hart and I into separate bathrooms—Hart to a bathroom upstairs, me to the one adjacent to the master bedroom on the ground floor in back so nobody had to try to help me up the stairs.

When I’d first fallen, I’d thought the injury wasn’t that bad—that it was a strain, maybe a mild sprain. That with Hart’s help, I’d be able to walk it out. I’d been wrong. Peeling my muddy and wet jeans off my leg, I could see that my knee was swelling and starting to bruise.

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I left the muddy clothes in the plastic laundry basket Helen had given me with the promise that she’d wash both my clothes and Hart’s.

She’d also left me a pair of Roy’s sweatpants and a t-shirt.

Both would be too small, but it was better than waiting naked for her to finish doing the laundry.

I very, very carefully climbed over the edge of the tub, then pushed myself to my one working leg to shower, wincing as the hot water hit the scrapes on my knee and hand.

I washed out the injuries, hissing, then tried to towel myself off quickly, swearing again at the pain in my knee as I struggled to pull on the too-small sweatpants.

I got myself dressed, then started trying to plan my path out of the bathroom, trying to figure out how much damage I would do to both myself and the bathroom if I tried to hop my way to the door.

I was just about to push myself up to try when my plans were interrupted by a knock.

“Yeah?”

“Can I help, baby?”

I wanted to sound nonchalant. Or at least like I wasn’t a complete emotional wreck. Given how much my voice cracked when I answered him, I don’t think I succeeded. “Yes.”

He opened the door slowly, maybe to make sure I was dressed so that he didn’t accidentally cause me to flash anyone who might be outside, I don’t know.

I did manage to stand up by the time he crossed the bathroom so that I could pull him into my arms before I lost any more precious half-seconds not holding him.

I didn’t say anything, but I had seen the bruising on one side of his face, felt the weaker grip of his left arm in comparison to the right, noticed the way he leaned his weight a little more on the right side of his body. I tried not to squeeze him too tightly, although I desperately wanted to.

I knew I was crying—again—but at least I kept the tears mostly under control, managing not to sob hysterically.

I did have to swallow a couple times before I could manage to speak.

“I love you,” I whispered roughly into his hair.

He smelled dusty, like alfalfa hay and oats and the alpaca pellets I’d fed the goats not long ago.

The soap he’d last used to shower wasn’t his, either, the scent faintly floral, but not unpleasant.

But under all that, I could still smell Elliot . Earthy and musky. Familiar. Home .

His right arm tightened a little. “I love you,” he repeated, stressing the last word.

I rested my cheek on his head. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Bruised up,” he answered without letting go. “Some scrapes and scratches from scrambling through the brush.” He pulled back slightly, then brushed some tears from my cheeks. “I can still walk better than you can, though,” he teased.

I snorted. “That would have been true even before I tried to take a header down the mountain.”

He barked out a laugh. “I wasn’t going to say it…”

“You thought it, though,” I told him.

He gave me a little crooked smile. “You’ll never know.”

“I know.”

He stood on his toes and kissed me softly. “I know you do, baby. Now, how about I help you out to the kitchen so we can ice your knee and feed you?”