by Holley Trent
“If you hadn’t came in when you did, I would have gotten up and played lookout.”
“Right. Lookout. Is that the secret codeword for watching?”
He grinned broadly.
Shit.
That grin always somehow managed to leave Harvey feeling strung out.
Ollie was big and broad, and built something like a sequoia tree. That sly smile should have looked dangerous. It should have made them all take a few big steps backward.
It made Nadia groan and mutter, “Ass.”
It caused Tess to whistle her appreciation.
It made Harvey pull a pillow onto his lap, and not for fear the other man would see the state of his cock, but because he half caused it.
He’d been causing Harvey distress from the moment they’d met, and only some of that was due to their oppositional claims to the queen. They’d agreed to share her because it had been not only by the queen’s request, but also the will of the gods. Questioning the whims of old Norse gods was rarely a good use of energy.
“You know I’m just pulling your chain, Nadia,” Ollie said. “I wouldn’t have let them get too busy.”
“Oh, honey, that’s cruel,” Tess said.
Ollie shrugged. “It’s daylight out, baby. You know people are around. Besides, you probably have a couple of meetings scheduled for this afternoon.”
“Never stopped you before.” She cut a side-eye to Harvey. “Either of you.”
The fact their queen had two men remained a closely guarded secret for the moment. Tess was new on the job and still trying to master her power. She acted as a conduit connecting them all so they could reach out and find each other across long distances. Afótama were only ever lost to each other when there was a hole somewhere in the network—or the psychic web, as they called it. It was the queen’s job to patch it up and keep it whole.
Keep them together.
But, she’d only been found recently herself. Like Harvey, she’d been kidnapped as a young child and was lost to the Afótama for around twenty-five years.
She hadn’t known what she was or what she was capable of until Harvey found her. Found her again, rather. They’d bobbed around in the foster care system in Texas as kids and knew each other as friends. They’d always been drawn to each other, but didn’t know why until Tess’s uncle and brother found Harvey a year ago. They were finding their missing clanspeople one by one through less-than-magical means. The hard way.
It was Harvey who found Tess and drew her in.
It was he who helped her powers bloom under his touch and in her bed. They’d been halfway bound to each other since childhood, so stepping up to be her consort was an obvious next step. He couldn’t possibly have let anyone else have Tess. No one else had deserved her.
But then Ollie showed up and made his claim on her, too.
They’d fought it out only to recognize that there was room for two men on her arms.
Tess was too much woman for any one man.
And Harvey…well. Tess was the only woman he’d ever loved. He couldn’t love another woman. He’d tried for ten years to find a woman worthy of replacing her. He hadn’t managed to, but in the process, discovered that he could, however, love another man.
This time, it was one who wasn’t even his usual type.
Focus. Eyes forward. Don’t look at him.
Harvey drummed his fingers atop the pillow and fixed what he hoped was a blasé gaze on Nadia. “How are we doing with clearing the staff to return to work?”
Their tribe of modern Vikings—the Afótama—lived mostly in a planned community called Norseton situated in the middle of a New Mexican desert. Norseton had its own local government, and as far as the state was concerned, Contessa Dahl was the mayor of their little enclave. Tess, her men, her family—including Nadia—and support staff all lived in the executive mansion. When Ricky Freberg disappeared two months ago, they’d cleaned house under guidance of Tess’s grandmother Muriel. Everyone they couldn’t vouch for was placed on administrative leave until the staff could be re-vetted.
So far, only Tess’s secretary Lora had been cleared, and she wasn’t even Afótama.
Nadia stabbed the air with her finger. “Ah. Actually, I do have some news about that. Jody and my dad have been working overtime to check alibis. Chef’s coming back.” She rolled her eyes.
Harvey knew why, and so did Tess and Ollie as well, probably. Chef liked to experiment. He could turn perfectly good food into plates full of inedible compost with little effort.
“We haven’t yet cleared any of the guards—”
“Super,” Ollie interrupted. He tossed down the screwdriver he’d been using and leaned back in his seat. “I don’t trust any of them anyway. They were all contractors, so why bother bringing them back?”
Nadia leveled a scolding glare at him. “You just don’t like that they flirt with Tess. What do you expect? They think she’s eligible, and you guys haven’t done anything to dispel that notion. Of course they’re going to fucking try to hook up with the queen. What they’re doing is Opportunism 101-level shit.”
Harvey chuckled quietly behind his hand.
Nadia and Tess, being first cousins, resembled each other a great deal aside from their wildly divergent hair. They were both very nice to look at. Nadia simply didn’t push all the right buttons for him. Maybe things would have been different if she’d been the one missing along with him and not Tess.
He doubted it, though.
Tess sighed and pulled her hair over one shoulder. Braiding it, she said, “So, we’re more or less running in gray mode. We have no guards, no admin staff besides Lora, and everyone doing any major business is somehow related to me.”
“Or fucking you.” Nadia grinned.
Ollie chuckled.
Tess sighed again. “Thanks for the candor.”
“Anytime, Queenie.”
“What happened the last time the queen had to clear house?” Tess asked. “Nan said it was right after I was kidnapped. How many of those people did she bring back? There’s a limited number of Afótama who have the requisite clearance to work for us in an official capacity.”
The strongest psychics tended to be closest to the queen. Keeping them around her wasn’t just for security purposes, but also because their proximity made it easier for her to control her powers. As she’d only come into them recently, most of the time she needed the help. The voices in her head got too loud, and Ollie—who acted as something of a psychic bumper by virtue of being from a fringe group with different psychic gifts—was the only one who could help her quiet them.
Nadia sat on the edge of the desk and pulled Ollie’s Beretta in for a closer inspection.
“I talked to Nan a few minutes ago, actually, and that subject came up. She said only about a quarter of the people working here were brought back. The rest were phased out.”
“Wouldn’t that have caused some discord?” Tess asked. “I imagine all those people would be pissed that the queen didn’t trust them.”
Nadia slid the gun back to Ollie. “I thought the same thing. I was about the same age as you when you were kidnapped, so I don’t personally remember what went down. There had to have been some hard feelings.”
“Have any of those people caused problems since then?” Ollie asked. “Things unconnected to the kidnappings?”
Nadia grunted. “Good question. Just like any other group, we have our problems. Most of them, we try to keep out of the purview of local law enforcement, but there have been a few occasions the people working security have transferred rule breakers to the sheriff’s deputies we have on the inside.”
“I should probably talk to them. I haven’t met them yet,” Tess said dejectedly.
Harvey knew the exact cause of her distress. Tess had never been much of a people-person, which made her role somewhat ironic. He suspected she’d inherited that irritability from her father who wasn’t Afótama but from the same splinter group out in Fallon, Nevada that Ollie
came from.
He had a warrior’s bloodline, not a diplomat’s.
“I can arrange it for you,” Ollie said. “I’ll go with you.”
“No hurry,” Tess mumbled. “What can we do in the meantime to shore up security around me if we’re not bringing the contracted guards back?”
“Heath did offer the services of his Sídhe friends,” Nadia said.
Ollie groaned. “And they would do the job quite competently, but as I told you before, if you invite them in, they will make themselves far too comfortable.”
“And you know this from experience?” Harvey asked.
Ollie locked him in his gaze and just stared at him for a moment.
“What?” Harvey projected telepathically.
“Let’s file that subject under Things I don’t Want Tess to Panic About.”
“Why would that induce panic?”
“It’s not the fairies-moving-in part that would make her uncomfortable. It’s their unflinching practicality. She hasn’t lived amongst weirdoes like us long enough to be acclimated to how liberally violent some of us can be.”
“You think they’d harm her?”
“No. Because she’s mine, they’d kill for her even when a simple detainment would do.”
Because she’s his… he’d said. That didn’t seem to be an accidental choice of phrasing. Harvey spread on a broad grin at the revelation. “Well, well. Keeping secrets, are you? Do you have some fairy in you, twinkle toes?”
Ollie winked. In the bedroom, that always signaled to Tess that she was going to get exactly what she deserved. Harvey had never seen him wink outside of the bedroom…or at him specifically.
Ollie put his elbows on the desk, tented his fingers, and stared at Harvey over them. His gaze tracked down Harvey’s chest to the pillow on his lap. “I might.”
Harvey folded his hands over the brocade cushion. “I…bet that explains some things about you.”
Ollie met his gaze again. “Possibly. If you insist on discussing it, though, let’s do it later. Alone.”
Alone. “Fine.”
So rarely were they ever in a room alone except on clan business, and there was so much of it that distractions couldn’t come into play.
He was eager to know what made the other man tick, though. What made him so fucking compelling besides his mature alpha bearing and his looks?
Ollie had claimed he wasn’t much of a psychic compared to the others in Tess’s entourage, but he had frighteningly fast reflexes. Harvey had seen him spar with one of the Sídhe—Thom—and even with an ax being swung within an inch of his nose, he didn’t flinch. Just parried and dealt a cringe-inducing swing of his own.
The smooth, practiced movements of Ollie body had been amongst the sexiest things Harvey had ever witnessed. Ollie’s calm strength was what made him such a good a consort for Tess, who tended to be more anxious. Maybe that strength would make Ollie good for Harvey, too.
Not that he could go there.
Tess grabbed the pillow from Harvey’s lap and slugged him with it. “What are you two talking about? Having long, private telepathic conversations is rude.”
“Shit.” Harvey rubbed his sore nose.
Ollie chuckled. “The usual stuff, baby. He threatened me. I threatened back. We’ll fight it out later when you’re not watching.”
“Bullshit. You say I’m a terrible liar, but you two are just as bad.”
“Distract her,” Ollie projected. “Or she’s going to put anxiety in the web.”
Obviously, he’d directed it to everyone except Tess, because Nadia slid off the desk’s edge and looked at Ollie, and not her queen. “Know what? We can deal with a few Sídhe lodgers on a temporary basis, just until we shake out our little problem. Got any specific names I should reference?”
Ollie leaned back and grimaced. “It’s been a while since I’ve fought with the gang. Call Heath and see whom he’d suggest. If you can get a couple of the girls, they’d probably make the best additions to Tess’s entourage. They won’t look like guards, and that’s the best kind to have close.”
“And I’ll find out if they managed to root out any information about those kidnappings while I’m at it.”
Sharp raps drew their attention to the door.
“It’s Matt,” Ollie said. “I felt him before he even knocked. No idea what he wants.”
That was one distinct advantage of psychic genetics. They could all either hear each other or feel each other’s proximity to some extent, but the psychic tie between blood relatives was strongest. Matt, by virtue of being Ollie’s son, would have been like a bright flashing light on the radar screen for him.
Nadia opened the door.
Matt, a younger, smaller clone of his father, stepped across the threshold and jammed his hands into his sweatshirt pockets. Screen-printed on the front was the tiger mascot of the college he should have been attending, but had deferred for a year.
His life, like his father’s, had recently changed with the move to Norseton. Whether it was for the better as it was with Ollie, Harvey couldn’t speculate. He and Matt weren’t what he’d call friends.
Matt scanned the room, his gaze lingering on Tess, then Harvey, before landing on his father.
Harvey couldn’t read anything off him, but there was a coolness to his assessment. Matt knew his father was Tess’s consort. He also knew that Harvey had the same job. What he felt beyond that, Harvey couldn’t say for sure, but he suspected the kid wasn’t thrilled with the arrangement. That’d been one of the reasons Harvey hadn’t projected cues of his attraction to Ollie yet. Matt was growing into his own and entitled to his own opinions, but the last thing they needed at the moment was discord in their ranks.
“Happy birthday, Matt,” Tess said. “Got any plans for the big one-eight?”
A lump traveled down Matt’s throat. “Uh…”
He was never openly derisive toward Tess, but no one could debate that he wasn’t comfortable around her.
He rocked back onto his heels, and shook his head, not meeting her gaze. “No. Not really. There’s really nothing out here to do. Dad, can I…uh, talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure.” Ollie holstered his gun and folded his arms over his chest.
“In private?”
Ollie gave him the long stare he only ever used on his sons. The best Harvey could tell, it usually meant I need some more words from you.
Matt rarely seemed willing to give them, as if explaining himself would cause some sort of self-harm. “If you have a minute.”
“I’ll meet you in your room. I’ll be there when we’re done.”
Matt left without further ado.
Ollie looked to the chaise. “I trust that you three will fill me in on anything important I miss.”
“Between the three of us, I’m sure we’ll be able to cover everything for you,” Tess said.
Ollie bestowed her with the same wink he’d given Harvey—it certainly wasn’t chaste this time—and followed his son’s footsteps through the door.
A wink doesn’t mean anything.
Harvey couldn’t afford to think otherwise.
Tess squeezed Harvey’s thigh. “I guess this meeting is adjourned for the moment. Just as well, I’ve got a screaming headache.”
“Web stress?” Nadia asked.
Tess rubbed her eyes and nodded. “Yeah. It’s a loud day. There’s a little more anxiety than usual. I need to go sort through it all and figure out what the source of it is. See what we can do to put people at ease. They’ve probably been watching too much cable news again. We should see about cutting the service for a while as an experiment.”
“That’s my evil girl. You’ll be in your suite?” Harvey asked.
“Yeah. Just give me a little while, okay?”
“Sure.”
Weeks ago, he might have felt snubbed, but being queen, Tess sometimes needed space to decompress. At the moment, she was a live wire and he knew better than to get too close.
She padded out the room, leaving him with Nadia.
Nadia was at the desk flipping through the pages of the contractor directory.
“What were you and Ollie really chatting about?” she asked without looking up.
Harvey tuned into the psychic web and sought out Tess. He could sometimes tell how far she was by measuring how loud her thoughts were. If he had to guess, she was on the other end of the building. Definitely out of earshot.
He put up a discreet psychic wall to keep her from tuning in and hoped she wouldn’t notice. “We were talking about the Sídhe.”
Nadia looked up from the book. “What about them?”
“Apparently, Ollie is more intimately familiar with them than he previously let on.”
“How so? We already know he worked with them for a while.”
“He didn’t confirm it in so many words, but I suspect he may be part Sídhe.”
“Like…how big a part?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Could be just a drop. It’s not like the Sídhe are particularly easy to distinguish from humankind if it weren’t for their odd spectrum of eye colors. He said that the Sídhe tend to be more ruthless on average. I don’t believe he’d hurt Tess, but he did suggest that his brethren might be overly protective of her. That’s why he doesn’t particularly want them here.”
“Overly protective is a good thing when it comes to Tess, isn’t it?”
“Depends on whether that protection is defensive or inherently offensive. The way Ollie made it sound, they’d spill blood first and ask questions later.”
“For some reason, that doesn’t bother me.”
“I didn’t think it would.”
If they’d been alive a thousand years ago, her name might have been Nadia the Bloodthirsty.
“Tess might not agree with that operational strategy,” he said.
“Tenderhearted, that cousin of mine.” Nadia pointed to the book. “I was going to call them. You and Ollie are in charge of security here, so, what should I do?”
He tuned back into the web and tried to find Ollie on it. That had always been a hit or miss venture due to the other man not being Afótama. His psychic shielding was wired differently and Harvey often couldn’t breach it. But, there he was. Harvey didn’t sense him so much as hear him. Ollie was mulling something over. Harvey hated to intrude, but he wasn’t prepared to make this decision on his own.