Demi’s blood iced over and he had trouble catching his breath. “What do you mean a ‘favor’? Like you fucked me to be nice? It was a chore?”
Trey grimaced. “I stated that badly. It was something that I did because your fathers asked me to. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise because you’re too young by my estimation. If Harry hadn’t approached me about doing this, I would have continued to keep my distance. I’ve never intended to lead you on.”
“You don’t love me.” Demi hated how small his voice sounded. How young and pathetic.
Trey swallowed hard enough for his bobbing Adam’s apple to catch Demi’s attention. It led him to the spot over the man’s jugular where he’d taken his first real feeding of blood.
“My feelings for you are complicated.”
“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”
“It means that I have feelings for you and desire you in way that bothers me. It has from the beginning, when you looked at me with those worshipful eyes from behind a teenage face.”
“I’m an old man compared to you!” He flung the fact out as if it could somehow pierce the wall Trey was erecting between them.
“You know it’s more complicated than that.” Trey paced away, snatched up his shirt and shoved his arms in. “When I look at you, I see someone not quite grown. I’ve been really struggling with my attraction to you. A big part of me believes it’s wrong, hates me for what I did last night.”
Demi flung his arms out. “That’s ridiculous. Even by the contrived birth information on my ID, I’m of legal age to have sex with.”
“I don’t give a fuck what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts thinks. I have to live with myself, by my own code of honor. You’ve always been too young to my eyes, and a piddling eight months or so isn’t enough time to change that. I slept with you for your health and because the idea of any other man doing it made my head explode.”
Trey fumbled with his shirt buttons before realizing some had come off the previous night and gave up. That small evidence of how much he’d wanted Demi helped ease the pain of the rejection a little bit. Only a little, though.
“So you do love me?”
“I don’t know. Jealousy isn’t love. I’ve heard plenty of murderers conflate the two to justify their actions. It disgusts me, and I’m not going to go throw around that same illogic to justify my actions. All I can say is that I care for you, enough that I’m not going to set up house and take away what’s left of your childhood.”
“I’m not a kid anymore, Trey.” Demi held his arms out wide. “This is me all grown up. If you don’t believe me, ask Papa.”
“How about you ask your dad?” Trey retorted. “Ask your human father what he thinks of your giving up the choices in front of you to tie yourself to one man.”
Demi dismissed the idea with a toss of his head. “Dad grew up in a different time, had a different experience. It’s not relevant. I know my own mind on this. I want you.”
Grabbing his socks, shoes and jacket, Trey said, “Yeah? You think? Tell me that again in five years. No, ten. Then we’ll see.”
“That’s ridiculous. In ten years you’ll be…”
“Old.” Trey’s lips thinned. “That’s another thing, isn’t it, Demi? I’m human, just that, not a hybrid or changed. I’ve got maybe fifty years left in my life, and everything at this point is all downhill. You like how I fucked you silly? Then what? I popped right off because, at my age, I can’t recover as fast as someone younger—alien or human alike.”
Trey plopped down on the edge of the bed and tugged on his socks. “Pretty soon, you’d be lucky if I want to do it once week. I won’t be able to keep weight off like I do now, no matter the amount I exercise. How does a beer gut sound to you of the perpetually flat stomach?”
Trey slipped on his shoes and tied one with enough force that the lace broke. He cursed and stood again. “Bad teeth, bad hair, sagging skin, liver spots.” He shrugged on his jacket. “Death is both quick and slow for us mere humans.”
Demi sniffed back tears that threatened to leak out. “I don’t care about any of that. I love you, Trey.”
“Maybe.” He tossed his tie around his neck. “If you do, the ten years won’t matter, especially for someone like you. It’s a blip in time.” He headed for the door.
“Don’t you walk out on me!” Panic was setting in. He lashed out. “I’m not waiting that long for sex. I’ll…I’ll fuck other men.”
With his hand on the doorknob, Trey turned to look at him. “Good. You should see what it’s like with someone who isn’t me. You won’t truly know if I pleased you until you’ve had more experience.”
Demi felt as if he’d been punched. “You want other men to have me?”
“Christ on a stick, no! But this is about what’s best for you. This is for your own good, Demi, and that’s the end of it.”
With that parting shot that was like both a stab wound and a fervent kiss, Trey left and quietly closed the door behind him. Demi crumpled to the ground, despair washing over him. How had his beautiful ceremony ended like this? He threw back his head and howled.
* * * *
“I’ve got some shitty news, boss.”
Trey turned and snarled at his partner. “Really? ’Cause this morning didn’t start out sufficiently miserable already?” Karl’s eyes went wide, making Trey feel bad. It wasn’t his fault that Trey had made such a hash of things with Demi.
Karl held up his palms. “Whoa, sorry. I take it things didn’t go so well last night?”
“Actually, they went great. It was the best experience of my whole fucking life. It was this morning that stank.” He huffed. “And this isn’t the time or place for my hissy fit. What’s going on?”
“We need to get down to the holding cells. I got a call from the desk sergeant on my way over. She figured she’d start with me because we’re old friends, and I assured her I would be the one to give you the bad news.”
Trey’s heart sank as he changed directions from the squad room to the elevator. “It’s the kid, isn’t it? He’s dead.” He didn’t even bother to frame it as a question because, of course, that was the story. Nothing else of importance could cause Karl to be so grim.
“Yeah.” Karl stood with his hands shoved in his back pockets. “They found him a few hours ago and spent the time since running through the correct protocols while covering their asses.”
The elevator doors opened. “How’d he do it?” Trey entered and pressed the button.
Karl’s expression turned sourer, if that were possible. “He didn’t. It wasn’t suicide, but straight up homicide.”
“What?” For the second time that morning, Trey felt off kilter, as if the world had changed into something unrecognizable since he’d gotten into bed with Demi. Nothing seemed to be making any sense. “How is that even remotely possible?”
“That’s what we’re about to find out. The details are sketchy so far.”
Trey was shaking his head before Karl finished speaking. “Except we don’t really need them, do we? We know how it happened. Unless one of our people was bribed into doing it, the answer to how someone could break into a locked cell and kill a prisoner is obvious.”
“Yup.”
They said nothing more as they rode to the right floor, got out and followed the sounds of a whole bunch of people losing their shit. The relevant cell was surrounded by cops of various ranks. A lot of whispered conversations were taking place. One earnest-looking newbie stood talking to a sergeant with a red face and maybe tears in his eyes. Christ, what a mess. And so predictable. Trey felt ashamed that he hadn’t worried about this eventuality, not that there was any way in particular that he could have stopped it from happening. There was no human-based protocol to prevent the aliens from doing what they were intent on. Still, the guilt ate at him. It made for a nice chaser to the crap already residing in his gut over Demi.
He and Karl pushed forward, everyone parting for them with various degree
s of relief and resentment. As the arresting officers, they’d brought this trouble to their door, but that also made them point men on the problem. With a nod at the presiding officer, Trey stepped up to the doorway of the cell and winced at the sight and smells that greeted him.
Death was never pretty. All kinds of hideous things happened to the human body when it expired. He was glad that the room was cordoned off as a crime scene and he wasn’t kitted up to enter, not that he needed a closer look at the sad remains of the kid who’d sneered at him during the interviews. The poor boy was lying naked and face down on his narrow bed, his head at an angle that was unnatural. His long hair obscured most of his face, and yet it still caused a flash of memory that grabbed Trey by the nuts and had him inhaling a shocked breath.
He saw Demi sprawled on his stomach beside him, breathing deeply in sleep. An almost smile graced his beautiful lips that were puffy from the many kisses they had shared. The slender back tapered down to a narrow waist before flaring out over a high, tight ass…
“Fuck,” he breathed out the word and would have staggered back if not for Karl’s sturdy presence.
“Easy, boss,” his partner murmured.
“Sorry. He looks so much like—”
“I know. It’s not though, yeah? And look… It’s Paz.”
That helped. Trey focused on the doctor examining the body. It was a stroke of luck that it was someone they could trust with the truth. He swept his gaze over the cell, and, seeing nothing out of place, looked down at the door’s handle. It had been crushed. No surprise there. Although how their quarry managed to gain entrance to a cop shop and leave undetected remained a mystery for the moment. It would have taken nothing to break into the cell.
Paz rose from where he’d been squatting beside the body and came over. “His neck has been broken,” he said without preamble. “I’d say during sex.”
“I guess that explains why he’s nude,” Trey remarked.
Paz’s gaze dropped. “Yes. Whoever did it at least made it quick, and coming from behind probably means the boy died without even knowing what was happening.”
“Hard to believe it was intended to be merciful,” Karl observed.
Paz’s eyes turned flinty. “No, I expect it was merely a way to ensure it was quiet. I’ll know more once we’ve done the post-mortem.”
Trey raised his eyebrows. “They have you doing those on your own?”
“No, but I’m sure the coroner will be happy to have me do the scut work of informing the lead officer of the case.” He quirked his lips. “I’ll call you.”
“Thanks.” Trey backed away and turning, found himself face-to-face with the custody officer. “How the hell did this happen?” He kept his tone light because making enemies never helped, and he knew that no one had done anything wrong. All the cops were trained to deal with humans, not aliens with super strengths and a millennium of advanced tech.
The woman’s expression gave nothing away, although she had to be pissed. “That’s something we are still trying to ascertain.” She pointed up at one corner of the hallway. “All the video feed has been compromised. From about zero three hundred to zero three thirty, every manned monitoring station showed an empty corridor, just like it’s supposed to. A wellness check was performed every hour on the hour, or thereabouts,” she amended.
“No one heard or saw anything. The tech guys are on it, but I think the answer has to be somehow the feed was put on a loop to hide whoever broke in here.” She flicked her hand toward the door. “How they managed to do that is a real mystery, too. But,” she added with a frown, “it was someone from the outside. No way one of my people did this. I’ll stake my career on it.”
Trey nodded. “I agree. Nothing in my report is going to suggest otherwise. I mean, look at the state the prisoner is in. He obviously knew his killer or he would have screamed the house down.”
The women smiled grimly. “That’s my take, too.”
Of course, he didn’t point out that a gun would have kept the kid quiet, as well. There was no use in raising that obvious point. He knew once the tech guys did their thing that they would confirm the tampering angle. No sense is stressing anyone else out more than necessary. He was doing a sufficient amount of freaking out for all of them.
And just when he thought his morning was as shitty as possible, he caught sight of someone striding down the hall who tweaked his misery up another notch.
“Duncan, I heard about what happened.” Craig was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved T, obviously having a day off.
Before he could respond, they all had to step away farther to give the morgue people access to the room and body. It gave Trey a few extra seconds to marshal his response. His first thought was to hand Craig a polite ‘fuck off’. On reflection, he decided that wasn’t a great idea.
He strove to hide his emotions—all of them, from his guilt and misery over how he’d made a complete hash of things with Demi, to his guilt and frustration over how he’d failed to get the dead kid to talk. His fuck-ups were going to hurt a lot of people, including a good chunk of the humans who had no idea what their world was dealing with.
“Yeah,” he finally said, “it sucks. And it looks like someone breached our security, which is going to bring the brass down on everyone’s head.” It needed to be said because while that aspect of things didn’t rate high on his lists of worries, he had to at least act like a regular cop in this situation.
Craig’s eyes popped. “Wait! So this wasn’t a suicide?” He whistled. “Damn, I thought it was bad, but this is shit-your-pants kind of bad. I suppose that’s better than one of our own going rogue.”
“We appreciate the moral support and all that, Jefferson,” Karl added, “but this isn’t your worry.”
“Isn’t it?” They watched the body bag being wheeled out. Craig pointed at it. “That was one of mine, even if I never had a chance to help him. This is vice related, so I want in.”
Trey scrubbed at his face, realizing for the first time that he hadn’t had a chance to shave. That thought led to Demi, however, so he quickly dropped both his hand and that line of thinking. “Like Karl said, we appreciate it, but how can you help?”
“Assuming this was done on the orders of my Dark Knight, I can start tracking down his boys, rattle them to maybe get more information about who and where he is.”
Trey nodded. “That might help. Do you know a boy named Mateo?”
Craig nodded. “Yup. I know who you mean.”
“We were chasing him down as a lead when this dead kid popped up riding Father Ted’s bike. We dropped Mateo because this was obviously a better line to tug. If you can corral Mateo, it would free us to pursue what happened here.”
While he hated asking Craig for a favor, neutralizing the current alien threat mattered too much for his hurt feelings to get in the way.
“I can do that. I’ll get on it right now.”
“Thanks. Sorry about ruining your day off.”
Craig shrugged. “It’s the job, right? Not like I had any big plans anyway.” For a moment, he looked kind of sad, wistful even, which was ridiculous. Craig had never needed anyone to make his life meaningful. “I’ll get back to you.”
“Thanks,” Trey said again and watched Craig walk away. He tried not to stare at the perfect bubble butt the man’s jeans accented. Then when he failed, was surprised by how much that muscular ass didn’t matter to him. He only wanted one type now, and it was attached to a smaller, more winsome body.
He shook at the force of that desire. “Christ, I need coffee—and maybe a lobotomy.” He took off with Karl at his side.
“Okay, maybe now would be a good time for you to explain how a spectacular night turned into a crappy morning. Did he, ah, not appreciate your performance, or something?”
He couldn’t look his partner in the eye. “Actually, he loved it far too much and wanted a lifetime of encores. That’s the problem.”
“I’m not following.”
; “Forget it. I’m sure as hell trying to. We’ve got work to do.”
Even as he said the words, he knew he was lying to Karl and fooling himself. He wasn’t making any real effort to put thoughts of Demi out his mind. The boy was firmly lodged in all parts of his brain, the thinking ones and the emotional ones. His body ached with the memory of what they’d done together. His worn-out dick was trying to rally at the mere mention of the boy. No matter what he’d insisted that morning as he’d eviscerated Demi’s hopes and dreams, Trey knew that this whole thing would end with his heart broken far more than the half-alien’s could ever be.
Because he was in love with Demetrius Stelalux.
* * * *
Whatever the other boys saw on Demi’s face when he entered the dance floor, they immediately shut up and asked no uncomfortable questions. He’d successfully avoided both his fathers all morning, letting them believe that he’d crept into his bed to sleep in after his busy night. Undoubtedly, they were feeling conflicted about seeing him too, knowing what they did. How many parents could say they knew the exact night when their kid lost their virginity? So yeah, that human squeamishness was keeping both Dad and Papa at bay. Fine by him.
He wasn’t prepared to talk about anything at the moment. The idea of relaying his horrible dumping by Trey was more terrible than he could bear. What he needed was to work off some of his anger and misery. Although it was a Saturday afternoon, and not normally a busy time for the club, the many months of closure had led to a surge in interest, apparently. As he sauntered through the main room, many pairs of eyes followed him.
Good. At least some men understood his worth. He would gladly capitalize on that. By the laws of Papa’s people, he was now fully grown. While his fathers might not agree with that assessment, he wasn’t above appealing to Alex, if necessary, to gain some freedom. He wasn’t looking to leave, of course. He valued his family and, frankly, the money at his disposal. It was simply a matter of wanting more autonomy, including the right to hook up with club members if he so chose.
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