by Gayle, Linda
“Okay, okay, buddy,” Dylan said, holding up his hands to cool him down. The clerk kept shouting, so Dylan grabbed Cam’s arm and pulled him back into the alley, and they took off running, still snorting with laughter.
Dylan thought this might end up being one of the best days of his stupid, fucked-up life.
Chapter Eleven
They stopped jogging a few blocks from Cam’s place, and as they caught their breath, they kept sliding each other glances. Cam burst out in a fit of what could only be called nervous giggles, a sound he was sure he’d never made before.
“That was insane,” he said as Dylan slowed to catch his breath. The top of the paper bag had grown crumpled in Cam’s sweaty grip. Just thinking about what was inside made him shiver, then gulp. “Are we really going to do this? Do you have time? What about work? What about Tash?”
He started to look at his watch, but Dylan grabbed his wrist and pulled it down. “Don’t you worry ’bout nothin’.”
Bold as brass, Cam leaned in for a quick kiss as they walked along the sidewalk toward his street. The touch of Dylan’s lips on his triggered a warm electric rush all over his skin. Alive. That’s what he felt, for maybe the first time ever.
But when they rounded the last corner to the house, Cam’s heart sank. “Shit.”
“What’s the matter?” Then Dylan saw it too, the silver Nissan parked in the shade of the sidewalk trees. “Dammit.”
This time he didn’t stop Cam from glancing at his watch. “It’s later than I thought,” Cam said. “Three twenty. And he’s early again.” He wondered if Tash suspected he was up to no good and had come to check up on him.
“Fuck. How did that happen?” Pulling up his T-shirt to wipe his sweaty face, Dylan stopped and stared at their goal, so close and yet so far, then laced his hands on top of his head. “I gotta go anyhow. Gotta get to work.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets. “No worries, man. Time flies when you’re having fun. We can meet up later, yeah?”
“At your apartment?”
“Sure, why not.”
He didn’t want to ask Dylan yet if he could stay with him. It was too soon, but he’d been thinking about what Tash had said, about finding somewhere more crime-ridden where he would explore his calling. He tightened his grip on the bag. “All right. What time?”
“Whenever you can get there. I’m off at six thirty. Just gotta get everyone settled after the clinic closes.”
“I’ll bring dinner. Or pay for it. We can get takeaway.”
“Takeaway.” Dylan shook his head. “You’re so fucking adorable.”
Cam had no idea why saying takeaway was adorable, but he shrugged and tried to hand Dylan the bag. “I’m afraid you’ll have to hold on to this.”
“No way. That’s yours to keep. And bring it with you tonight. Don’t forget it.” He leaned in for another kiss, but Cam put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back around the side of the building.
“Better not so close to the house. Tash might be looking out the window, wondering where I am.”
“I don’t care.” Dylan’s blue eyes snapped.
“I do. I’m sorry.” He ran a hand down Dylan’s arm, wishing he didn’t have to care. “It’ll be better later, when we can be alone.”
“You better make it worth my while, Jackie Chan.”
Cam leaned close. “I’ll do my best.”
Yes, they were sheltered enough here, between two brick townhouses. He met Dylan partway for a hard, rough kiss. Dylan’s hands roaming up under Cam’s T-shirt again made Cam want to squirm against him, skin to skin. Their tongues slid together hungrily.
Dylan pulled back first and dug his fingertips into Cam’s hips. “Nice. That’ll have to hold you over.” His gaze rolled down Cam’s body. “’Less you want a quick hummer.” He tugged at the button on Cam’s jeans. “Looks like you’re ready to shoot. Take a minute.”
Oh God, how could Cam resist that crooked, wicked grin and teasing fingers? But he did, shaking his head and forcing himself step away. “It wouldn’t be wise. I don’t think I could pretend nothing had happened in front of Tash. He’d know something was up.”
“Up, hmm.” With an impatient swipe, Dylan adjusted himself. “Life’s not fair. You know, this Tash is a total buzz kill.”
“Tonight,” Cam said. “I promise.”
“Well—shit!” Dylan’s mouth gaped as if he’d been struck.
“Wha—”
“Gertrude! Fucking Gertrude. The dog. She’s still in your house.”
Cam slapped his hand to his head, going instantly cold. “Fuck! Oh shit. Fuck my life.” This was bad, so bad. “Tash must have seen her by now. What do I tell him?”
“Tell him you found a home for her, but the guy couldn’t take her until tonight. Then bring her with you when you come to my place. I’ll have to think of something to do with her.” He put a hand on Cam’s shoulder. “Hey, man, it’s cool. I’ll take care of it.” He cast a glance toward the townhouse. “You don’t think he did nothing to her, right?”
“No.” He hoped not. “Worst he’d do is throw her out the door.”
“Asshole. Sorry you gotta put up with his shit.”
“He’s not that bad, really.” Cam tightened his fingers around the paper bag. “Look, I’d better go. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck. I’d say call me, but I don’t got a cell.” He wrapped a hand around the back of Cam’s neck and pulled him down, forehead to forehead, then kissed him quick. “Later.”
Cam gave a low moan and wished they didn’t have to cut their afternoon short. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
As Dylan walked away, Cam watched him go, then waited a minute or two until his hard-on subsided enough for him to cross the street and face Tash. The thought of his mentor finding him kissing a human took the last starch out of his boner, and then the realization that if they been perhaps a few minutes earlier, Tash might have walked in on them screwing practically made his balls want to retreat inside his body.
Addled by the call and the fight and then Dylan’s hands all over his body, Cam was making stupid, sloppy mistakes. The dog wasn’t the least of them. He truly hoped throwing Gertie out was the worst Tash would do. Pets were as ridiculous a notion to a cockatrice as bicycles were to fish.
He pushed the door to Tash’s place open and stepped in, hoping to hear barking, but only the low voices of Tash and another man in the kitchen reached his ears.
“Cameron? Come in.” Tash, with his sharp hearing, didn’t even let him get two steps inside.
Who else could be here? Letting out a long breath, Cam walked down the hallway into the kitchen to find out. “Hello.”
Cam recognized the other man sitting at the kitchen table, though he was purposely nondescript, with neat brown hair and a clean-shaven, sharp-featured face. He wore jeans and a generic charcoal button-down. But his opaque eyes and the huge, harnessed German shepherd reclining at his feet gave his identity away.
Tash stared at Cam a moment, then said, “Cameron, Brother Arum had his servant drive him all the way down from the monastery in Maine because of what we discussed earlier. I tried to call you so you’d be here, but you didn’t pick up your cell.”
Anyone else might miss the tones of disapproval in his mentor’s voice, but they weren’t lost on Cam, who hung his head and took his cell phone out of his pocket. There had been a missed call, damn it. He hadn’t checked after he’d given it to the girl. “I’m sorry. I turned off the ringer—” He couldn’t very well say in the movie theater. “I must have turned it off by accident.”
“See it doesn’t happen again. There might have been an emergency.” Tash leaned back in his chair, his cold gaze holding Cam’s. He suspected…something. Cam felt like a cave creature, translucent to his master’s eyes, all his innards visible. “Where were you, anyhow?”
“It was a calling,” Cam said. At least that much was true.
; “A calling.” The soft-voiced monk sat up straighter. He was younger than most of the brothers at the basilica, perhaps mid-thirties. Cam was well used to the milky irises of the brothers, necessary for them to be able to interact with such dangerous creatures as he and Tash, but Arum’s eyes slid back and forth as if he retained some sight. Perhaps he could still make out vague shapes, or changes in light and shadow. “Please, tell me. What happened?”
Still standing, feeling awkward and fretting for Gertie, Cam said, “It was a woman and her child. Three men were trying to drag her out of her car.”
“And how far away were you when you felt the call?”
“A mile. Perhaps a little less.”
“And did you fight?”
Arum’s voice was kind and genuinely curious, and Cam found it easier to tell him about it than he ever had Tash. “Yes. The woman and her son went home with her sister, and the men drove off, after it was all done.” He looked at Tash. “No killing.”
“Did you want to kill?” Arum asked, as if he asked if Cam would like cream with his tea.
How could he answer? Honestly. He tightened his hands into loose fists. “I wanted to fight.” Even now, his pulse began to speed with adrenaline as he remembered the undeniable pull. “To punish.”
“And the woman and her child?” Tash asked. “Did you feel the same toward them?”
“No,” Cam said quickly. “I had only an urge to protect them. I don’t know why.” He swallowed hard. “People I’d never met before.”
Tash drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “What do you make of it, Arum? This has been coming on more and more frequently.”
The monk was silent a moment, rubbing his guide dog between its ears. “It seems clear Cameron has a special affinity for humans. It’s not unheard of, although it has been many generations since we’ve seen such a manifestation.” He turned his head in Tash’s direction as if seeking his opinion.
“Maybe in the old legends. Not since the first trices walked with men.”
“But I do wonder,” the monk mused, “if those impulses were bred out of your kind long ago. If they hadn’t been, they might prove more powerful than the treasure-seeking instinct that’s more common in your kind.”
A chill ran through Cam. “You mean we were bred like…like dogs?” He flicked a gaze toward Tash, who’d gone still.
A vague smile drifted over Arum’s mouth. “I won’t say there hasn’t been experimentation, but it’s largely been fruitless. Our knowledge is stymied by the fact that when you’re man, your genes are nearly human, and when you are animal, your composition is unlike that of any other creature on earth.”
The highly trained shepherd laid its head on its master’s shiny black shoe as Arum sat back. “Mostly, we wait. We watch. When a trice is born with unique gifts, we study them. Nurture them. This is to both our benefits. Your kind has done the church a great service over the millennia. Without the talents of your species, the mother church might have long ago gone bankrupt. Think of all the charity that has been fueled by your efforts. The souls that have been saved.”
Tash leaned an elbow on the table. “And in return, the church protects us. It’s a bargain that has served us both well.”
Arum’s smile grew more confident. “Exactly.”
“But what of Cam? What good’s his talent? He can’t find gold for shit, and this calling business is a nuisance.”
Cam winced under his mentor’s criticism. He’d never heard Tash speak so harshly of his shortcomings. It cut surprisingly deep.
Arum said, “He finds conflict. And he deals with it, very well, from what I’ve heard. His skills could have enormous potential, to protect important people, to rescue those who have been abducted. It just needs fine tuning so the urges he feels aren’t so random or difficult to control.”
“But why’s he like this?” The way Tash waved his hand toward him made Cam feel like a sideshow freak. “What sort of mating produced such an odd talent?”
Cam heard his own heartbeat in his ears before Arum said, “I won’t say we always know exactly what matings will produce. Careful study of certain bloodlines, the blending of various attributes… We hope, but we can never be sure.”
Cam snapped, “Are you saying you tried to make me be like this?”
Tash started at the heat in Cam’s tone. “Cameron,” he warned.
But he wouldn’t be silenced. Caught between being a man or a beast, he’d suffered long enough. “Bred like a service animal? Is that what you’re saying?” He pointed to the guide dog, even though Arum probably couldn’t see.
Arum tipped his head. “You’re what we would call a sport. However, a sport that did arise from what we’d hoped would produce something special.”
The monk stood and gave evidence that he could at least see something when he reached out and touched Cam’s collar of Spanish gold. “You, so far, have shown great promise.”
Cam trembled under the touch of his impersonal fingers, shuddered with anger and humiliation, and yet years of conditioning made him drop his head in submission. Though Arum was too young to have been present at Cam’s hatching, Cam had been imprinted on the monks nonetheless, and it was nearly instinctual to submit.
Arum patted Cam’s shoulder, not unkindly, which was perhaps worst of all. “It’s best if you remember that you belong to the church, and that you are not human, despite outward appearances. I know you’ve spent much time with them.” His voice slid away as if he knew Cam’s secrets, and suddenly Cam remembered he held the incriminating bag with the condoms and lube. And where was Gertie?
“Where’s the dog?” he blurted, looking at Tash because he couldn’t stand the knowing in Arum’s milky gaze.
“Upstairs, in the spare bathroom. She ran up there when I got home.”
“You didn’t…”
Tash knitted his brows. “What?”
“You didn’t hurt her?”
“Don’t be daft. She’s fine. But I told you she better be gone, and I meant it.” He glanced at Arum as if expecting the monk to chastise him for not having better control over his charge. Seeing his mentor cowed by the monk only fuelled Cam’s frustration. There was no one on his side in this fight.
“Thank you,” Cam said quietly.
“You have a dog?” Arum asked.
“A mutt Cameron dragged in off the street.”
“She belonged to a man I’d found, a man fighting to defend her. I couldn’t just leave her.”
“Compassion?” Arum remarked. The note of approval only made Cam feel worse, as if he’d performed a trick. “Interesting. And excellent. Your kind isn’t known for compassion, you know. Understandable, of course, being more closely related to birds and snakes.”
This talk of animals weighed on Cam’s heart. He couldn’t help but think back to just a few minutes ago, when he’d been with Dylan, full of hope and excitement. Human emotions he had no claim to. And yet they’d felt as natural as breathing.
“What’s in the bag?” Tash asked abruptly, and Cam barely stopped himself from tucking it behind his back.
“Food,” he said, thinking fast. “For the dog. I better go check on her.”
He started to turn, then remembered his manners and pivoted to face the monk. He bowed his head low in submission and touched the cross that hung around the monk’s neck, and Arum placed his palm gently on top of Cam’s head. “We’ll talk more later. I sense this discussion has upset you. I assure you, you’ve done nothing wrong, and we’re very interested in your further progress.”
Done nothing wrong. If only they knew what he’d done already, and what he damn well was going to do later. Lie beneath a human lover, if he had to die for the privilege.
Tash said, “Arum has suggested you return with him to the monastery in Maine.”
“When?” Cam straightened, his heart jolting.
“I’m nearly ready to leave for the basilica and the mating in a week. It would be better than leaving you here alone, and there’s
not much point in you following me to the basilica if the brothers don’t think you’re ready to breed.”
“But…” He swung his gaze between his mentor and the monk. “I thought you said I had more time. I needed to…to use this time to explore the calling.”
“When Tash leaves for the basilica, you can come to us then,” Arum said thoughtfully, returning to his seat. “Tell me, Cameron, how long has it been since you’ve been unbound?” A moot question, since the brothers kept meticulous records on every trice. “Wouldn’t you like to be in your true form for a while? We’d be interested to see how it affects your abilities. Perhaps they’d be even stronger without your guise to mute it.”
Cam stared at his human fingers and scuffed knuckles, at his human feet encased in mud-splotched sneakers, and his arms dusted with dark human hair. In fact, it had been ten years, nearly half his life, since the brothers had last removed his collar, and he’d hated the experience even then. “I don’t want to,” he said.
“Don’t be absurd,” Tash growled. Disputing anything a brother said was a terrible breach of protocol. His mentor must be seething.
“No.” Arum held up a hand. “Tell me why. Most trices yearn for their true form. I’m curious.”
“This is my true form now.” Cam held out his free hand, palm up, and curled his fingers into a fist. “I don’t want to be a beast again.”
Arum tipped his head. “But you are a beast. An unholy creature made pure by your service to the one true church. Without the collar and our protection, you know the cost. You’d be hunted, destroyed by your own kind to protect your species. I’m sorry. I truly am. But in this, you have no choice.”
As if he had a choice in anything. Before either Tash or Arum could question his stony silence, or worse, the bag again, Cam turned and fled upstairs to find the frightened dog.
Cam would come. He’d definitely come. He’d promised.
Dylan sat on the fire escape of his building, his legs hanging over the side of the rusty railings, his chin resting on his arms folded over the edge. It was nearly nine, the sun had set, but he wouldn’t give up on Cam. Not yet. Cam had promised.