by Lisa Oliver
“I’ll contact Detective Summerfield and ask,” Brock said. “Don’t worry, sir, I will take care of all the arrangements.”
“Thank you.” Sy yawned and covered his mouth with his hand. “Clive, you will be staying here tonight. That’s not negotiable. Brock will see to your accommodations. I would advise against snooping. You never know what might happen to you in a magic user’s house. Even the most innocent of objects can contain great powers.”
“Yeah. Right.” Clive stuffed his notepad in his pocket. “I’ll just…I’ll just follow him then.” He pointed at Brock who was heading out the door, still holding the magic infused staff. “I’ll see you guys at breakfast.”
“I thought we’d never be alone,” Sy smiled when they finally left.
Dakar looked down at the body on the floor and then stepped over it, holding out his arms for his mate to fall into. “I had so many romantic plans for this evening,” he grumbled as Sy leaned on his chest.
“I figure that’s why the Fates give us forever,” Sy chuckled. “It will probably take that long to actually get through a whole date without interruptions.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sy moaned as he heard the unsubtle knock on his bedroom door. “I don’t want to get up,” he mumbled, rolling over and curling into the heat of Dakar’s body. “Can’t the most powerful magic user in Pedace get a day off once in a while?”
Dakar huffed in his face. “I’ve got another thrilling day to look forward to watching my brilliant mate work wonders with the misunderstood, while I stand around looking like a muscle-bound pin-up and about as useful.”
“You do that really well.” Sy smiled hesitantly and when Dakar didn’t return it, a shaft of pain ran through his heart. “Are you tired of me already? We’ve barely been claimed a week and four days of that I was unconscious.”
“I love being with you,” Dakar said quickly, and his strong arms wrapped around Sy and pulled him close. “I just wonder, I can’t help it really, but I wonder what my role will be in your life. All I seem to be able to do is stand around and look intimidating.”
“I don’t think we’ve really had a chance to stop and think about it, have we?” Sy didn’t like the anxious feeling he got when he thought his mate was unhappy. “Did you want to get your job back? I’m sure they’d take you if you asked.”
“No, no, no,” Dakar’s arms tightened. “Don’t ever think I don’t want to be with you. I’ve wanted to find my mate from the moment I understood what a gift they were from the Fates. I’m not sorry I met you at all. I’m ecstatic we’re together. I gave up my job because I knew it would pull me away from you. Well, that and I wasn’t about to work for anyone who didn’t believe in you and the work you do. Which reminds me. Brock invited Brad for breakfast, didn’t he?”
“Brad’s going to want a statement and he’s going to smell a lie.” Sy sighed. He should have stayed asleep. But if he was asleep, he couldn’t appreciate Dakar’s heat, the feel of his body, or the simple pleasure that came from being held by someone who cared for him. “I’m happy to tell him the truth, but he’s no more going to believe me now, than he did before. All he’s going to see is that I summoned the Captain for the express purpose of killing him.”
“It was self-defense.” At least Dakar believed in him and that went a long way towards lessening the anxiety in Sy’s heart. “Babe,” Sy looked up. The intensity and possessiveness in Dakar’s eyes never failed to thrill him. “Please don’t doubt my desire to be with you. When you meet my mom, she’ll tell you I insisted on sleeping in a double bed from when I was six years old, just so I would have room for my mate when he came. Of course, at six I had no idea mates didn’t come along until you were an adult, and my six-year old mind never thought we’d do anything more than sleep in that bed. But finding you genuinely is a dream come true for me.”
“I’ve always slept in this bed, from as far back as I can remember,” Sy turned, pressing his back against Dakar’s chest. “I remember when I was little, Brock hung curtains up on huge posts and encouraged me to think of this as my safe place. My fort he used to call it. I used to hide in here whenever my parents were yelling at each other or if Father wanted to present me to his friends. I never realized how much I needed that safe place until my father took the curtains away one day when I was ten.”
“Why’d he do that, babe?”
“I accidentally set fire to them.” Sy chuckled. “I was practicing that fancy entrance you saw when you and Brad first came to this house. It took years of scorching furnishings and walls before I got that right.”
“You were using your powers at ten. That’s impressive.”
“Necromancer’s are born with elements of their power.” Sy closed his eyes remembering his childhood. “I was talking to roaming spirits in this house from when I was three. I thought they were alive and talked to them just like I’m talking to you. I remember Brock’s face when I tried to introduce him to my ‘friends’. Apparently, I was a magical prodigy.” Something his father took advantage of and that wasn’t something Sy wanted to talk about.
It seemed Dakar understood because he didn’t press the issue. “My forts involved sheets and branches from the trees in the woods around our pack house. Mom used to yell every time me and my cousins would drag the sheets back home again, never thinking of the mud and twigs we’d be dragging with us. Those were fun times.”
Sy turned his head, intent on asking Dakar if he missed his family. But his lips were claimed before they opened and as he rolled over and welcomed Dakar moving on top of him, anything he wanted to say was swallowed in his moans.
/~/~/~/~/
For Dakar, walking in on Brock in the kitchen, cradling Brad in his arms as though he was a lover was a shock; more because he didn’t think Brock was the type of guy to incite intimacies where food was prepared. Even more of a shock was Brad’s disheveled appearance. Then Brad compounded everything by leaving Brock’s arms and ending up in his.
“I’m so glad you’re all right. I thought you’d died,” Brad blubbered, clinging onto Dakar like a limpet. “I’ve been worried sick; you didn’t call and no one in the house would tell me what happened. Fuck, why didn’t you call?”
“I quit the force, remember?” Dakar carefully disengaged himself and sat down next to Sy who’d stayed silent through Brad’s mini-outburst. “I told you, told you and told you again. Sy’s my mate. He wouldn’t hurt me.”
“I know that now,” Brad sat across from him, wiping his face with his hands. “And that’s not what I meant. Brock told me about the fight with the Captain. You could’ve been killed. Both of you.”
“I could’ve been dragged across the veil never to return,” Sy said, his hand a warm comfort on Dakar’s leg. “But Dakar was never in danger. Neither Brock nor I would’ve allowed that. As it was, Dakar saved me and gave me the strength to do what I had to do. I’d be lost on the other side of the veil if it hadn’t been for him.”
“It was that serious?” Strange, Dakar hadn’t even considered that. On the night in question, he’d spent what felt like hours trying to get out of the guest house he’d found himself in. Something that wasn’t possible with two legs or four given the magic that sealed the windows and fused the door shut. Then, just as suddenly, he was transported into the basement; into a scene that was the stuff of nightmares with Brock’s voice in his head urging him to hold onto Sy and never let go. Which he did. And here they were a week later all having breakfast. “Fuck. You could’ve been trapped? Essentially dead? I’d have lost you!”
Pulling Sy off his chair, Dakar held the smaller man on his lap, inhaling huge doses of Sy’s scent as his body trembled and his wolf howled in outrage and despair. Why hadn’t they known the situation had been so dire? Sy huffed but thankfully allowed it because Dakar didn’t think he’d be letting go anytime soon.
“Now you see why I didn’t want to talk to you about all of this before,” Sy said to Brad. “Dakar wasn’t there for most of i
t. He was safe in the guest suite. Brock only pulled him to us when he knew I needed one final boost to my powers. Brock was injured, I’d used too much power and while Brock gave me all the energies he could, it wasn’t enough for me to fight the lure of the veil, the demon, and the ghouls he’d called from the underworld. But Dakar was always safe because by then Baltoc, your Captain was too far gone to cause him any harm.”
“So, it’s all true then.” Brad accepted a cup of coffee from Brock, giving him a shy smile. “Brock told me the Captain was ultimately behind the murders of those young men and that it was all an elaborate way of doing away with you.”
“A plan that was twenty years in the making, based on a need for revenge that he’d held onto for three hundred years,” Sy said. “Can I have eggs for breakfast please Brock, and I think Dakar would enjoy steak and bacon.”
Breakfast. Such a mundane thing after so much misery and terror and yet Dakar knew it was his mate’s way of trying to put what happened behind him. The demon was vanquished, they were all safe. The police were able to close the case on the young men’s death and eight potential victims had been saved. But there was one more thing Dakar needed to know.
Lifting his head, he saw Brad was watching him. “Why didn’t you believe in Sy when you knew he was my mate. Why were you so worried about the Captain when all the evidence pointed to him being the one behind the murders and the threats on Sy?”
The skin above Brad’s beard reddened but the bear met Dakar’s eyes without flinching. “I was wrong. I know that. From the moment we met, I’ve considered us friends. Good friends. But I owed the Captain. Ten years ago, when I first joined the force, I was just a cublet really. I’d not been long away from my family; I didn’t know anyone in Pedace and the captain took me under his wing.”
“I’d not been on the force very long when I got a call from my sister. She was in trouble. Nothing major, but she was pregnant, the guy responsible wasn’t her mate. He didn’t even know she was a shifter and when he found out he didn’t take it well. He attacked her with a knife, trying to end her pregnancy. My sister didn’t have insurance; I hadn’t thought to include her on mine when I started work. I didn’t have the money for the medical bills, and my sister would need somewhere to stay….”
“And the Captain helped you with it all.” Dakar nodded.
“He told me at the time he was rewarding my loyalty. Since then…fuck.” Brad rubbed his hands over his face. “I used to see things, you know. Nothing major. Not even criminal, but over the years I used to wonder just how loyal the Captain was to his position and the town he swore to protect. But there was no hard evidence to ever prove he did anything wrong. He never asked for the money back; he didn’t try and take anything out of my wages. When I asked him about it, all he kept saying was that my loyalty was enough. So, I kept quiet. I did my job, kept my head down and rose through the ranks. My sister finally met her true mate and her and my nephew have been happy for years. The captain never asked me to do anything illegal and until this business with the serial killer I never realized how much he hated Sy.”
“The fact that we’d never met, and yet we both came to the police department about the same time, should have been a clue. Most police departments use their consultants on a regular basis.” Sy nodded at Brock as he placed steaming food in front of all of them. Dakar’s stomach rumbled appreciatively as he eyed the three steaks and at least half a pound of bacon piled on his plate.
“Will you still be working with us?” Brad asked Sy, as he tucked into his plate that looked as full as Dakar’s. “The work you did with those cold cases was amazing. There are countless other families that’d appreciate knowing what’s happened to their loved ones over the years.”
Sy didn’t answer immediately, giving Dakar the opportunity to enjoy his meal. It was only after the plates were cleared that Sy reached over and took Dakar’s hand in his. “I definitely want to help the police, but it will have to be around the work I do here. I still see families three days a week for two hours at a time. It’s an important part of being a necromancer, being available to the families during their time of grief. But something my wonderful mate said this morning has had me thinking about what else we could do, going forward.”
“You could have your job back at the department any time, Dakar,” Brad said quickly. “The place is in a bit of an uproar at the moment. The local council has advertised for a new Captain, but they’ve assured us all, the Necromancer will be part of the vetting process. Steve took the detective’s exam and he’s been partnered with me since you’ve been gone, but I know you’d be hired back if that’s what you wanted.”
“And I’d support you, if that’s what you wanted.” Sy turned and Dakar’s heart bloomed. When Sy smiled Dakar knew it was just for him. “But I was wondering how you’d feel if we set up something for ourselves instead. Became private investigators. Between your detective skills and my magic, we could work together to clear the backlog of cold cases at the department and take on other cases the police don’t have the resources for or enough evidence to pursue. What do you say?”
Dakar felt his own smile forming as the idea took hold. “I think it’s a great idea. I was worried I would miss my work, but I couldn’t be a detective working on new cases, and still be with you. This is the perfect solution.”
“It wouldn’t just be us two,” Sy warned. “Brock would be a crucial part of our team, of course, and I imagine Clive and Connor would want to be involved once they hear about this.”
“Where are the little miscreants?” Dakar looked around, finally remembering their existence. “Has Clive been dissuaded from writing his expose?”
“I offered him a job this morning, Sir,” Brock replied. “Clive is now the Necromancer’s official biographer. He gets to work with and learn about the paranormal world and best of all, everything he learns is tied up in an air-tight confidentiality agreement. He’s ecstatic. He gets a healthy salary; he and Connor are already redesigning the guest wing, because they will both live on site and best of all, he can quench his insatiable quest for truthful answers without causing us any problems.”
“And if we require any help from law enforcement, we have a very good friend on the police department. Isn’t that right?” Dakar winked at Brad who reached over and shook Dakar’s hand.
“You all have a best friend in the police department. Of course, if that means I get invited over for meals more often, then I’ll be all the happier.”
Laughter rang around the table; even Brock joining in and when Dakar caught his eye, the formidable man nodded slightly in his direction. Dakar got the impression Brock was pleased there was finally going to be some life around the mansion again and as Sy leaned over and pecked him on the cheek, he basked in the warm glow that came with that feeling that everything was going to be all right.
Epilogue
Three weeks later
“I’m genuinely not a party person,” Sy tugged at the ends of his bow tie and attempted to tie it in some facsimile of a bow.
“Our in-house writer made a valid argument, sir,” Brock said firmly, plucking the tie ends out of Sy’s fingers and creating a perfect bow. “One of the reasons so much misinformation exists about you and Necromancers in general is because they don’t get a chance to meet and interact with you unless they need your services. Hosting a party in your own house, inviting people from all walks of life to attend is a creative way of correcting misinformation.”
“I’m not going downstairs until Dakar gets here,” Sy said stubbornly. “I might not get hives anymore with people around, but….” He looked up to see Brock watching him closely. “Don’t you ever wish things were back the way they were?”
Brock offered one of his rare smiles. “You mean the days when you used to spend six days out of seven trying to work out ways of circumventing our social agreement?”
Sy chuckled. “And researching for hours on historical topics which have no real basis in today’s world.
Every day seems so busy now. I do miss those quiet times.”
“That detective does make you happy, doesn’t he?” No matter how much Dakar pleaded, Brock only ever referred to him as the detective or sir. “I assumed he did. I’ve longed for ear plugs on more than one occasion walking down the hallway past your bedroom door.”
“Yeah.” Sy nodded. “I didn’t think it was possible to care for anyone apart from you. You’ve been my family for so long. But Dakar’s amazing. Attentive, annoying, possessive, and so damn curious about everything I do. My heart would be empty without him. And my two C’s.” He smiled as he thought of Connor and Clive. They were like a pair of mischievous cats most of the time. “We’ve come a long way in a short time.”
“That we have, sir,” Brock patted him on the shoulder. “And before you ask, yes I am happy too. I see you grow more and more settled in your role every day. I’d have to be blind to miss the feelings between you and your mate. The patience you show Connor and Clive astounds me. I’m proud of you.”
Sy gave in and hugged Brock quickly before the man could object. “Are you sure it’s got nothing to do with our friendly bear shifter?” He asked as he stepped back and smoothed down his jacket. “I’m sure I’ve seen your detective’s car still in the driveway many a morning.”
“Detective Summerfield is interesting and surprisingly creative when you get him alone,” Brock said stiffly. “Besides, I am sure he only stays because of the range of honey’s I procure for his breakfast.”
“Don’t put yourself down, Brock,” Sy said quietly. “You have a lot to offer the right man.” Checking himself in the mirror, Sy held out his arms. “Will I do?”
“Your detective will be suitably impressed,” Brock nodded approvingly. “Many of the guests have started to arrive and people will be wondering where you are.”
“I do wish Dakar hadn’t chosen this evening to go for a run with that new detective Steve. Wolves can’t tell the time. I just knew he’d be late.”