Magpie (33 page)

Everet couldn’t fix this. Neither could Raynard and Ori, from the other side of the little seating area. Everet turned to Kane. He still hadn’t shifted his gaze from the point he’d selected on the wall when they first sat down.

“It’s up to you,” Everet said.

Kane took a slow breath. “I’ll stay.”

Everet waited for more, but that really seemed to be it. He didn’t ask Everet to stay with him. All Everet could do was hope that was because it didn’t even occur to Kane that his master would leave him there on his own.

“So glad we have your permission to continue,” Hamilton spat.

“Well, let me see,” Crystal mused, twisting a lock of long, blonde hair around her fingers. “There are so many stories to tell…”

Everet gritted his teeth so hard; he expected his molars to shatter at any moment.

“Kane started young,” Crystal said with obvious relish. “
Really
young. He found his first sugar-daddy well before he completed his first shift.”

“As if I had a choice,” Kane snapped. He finally looked toward his sister, his anger flaring so quickly, Everet had no time to step in and try to check it.

“You will be silent,” Hamilton commanded.

Everet shifted forward in his seat. “Sir!”

“You will
both
be silent. If you can’t keep your peace, Everet, Kane will stay and you will leave. I don’t want to hear another word from you.”

Everything Everet wanted to say to the eagle died on his tongue unsaid. He couldn’t risk being thrown out, couldn’t chance Kane being left there on his own. He realized then that he’d never truly hated another man—not until that moment.

“Mr. Hamilton, if I am permitted to speak.”

Ori!

Everet turned his gaze toward the swan. So did everyone else in the room.

“All I’ve asked for is a true account of Kane’s history, sire,” Hamilton told Ori, his tone suddenly all civility. “It’s a perfectly reasonable request, if he wishes to become part of this nest.”

“Will Kane be allowed to present his version of events, too, sir?” Ori asked.

“Certainly, sire. When his sister has finished, we’ll all hear his side. I have no interest in being unfair.”

Everet glanced at Kane, hoping that Ori’s intervention provided him at least a little relief. Apparently not. He’d gone back to staring at that spot on the wall.

“Crystal, if you’ll continue?” Hamilton requested.

“Of course,” she trilled. “I’ve got plenty of stories about Kane. Do you know he once managed to run five different men at one time, getting each one of them to pay through the nose for him? He took the money and spent it all on drugs.”

She and her companion laughed.

“You should have seen their faces when they found out they’d been played. You should have seen Kane’s face when they’d cut him back down to size, too—I’ve never seen anyone so messed up!”

For some reason they found that funny, too.

Kane would have his chance to tell his side soon. Everet repeated that fact over and over again inside his head as he listened to Crystal prattle on and on, with Hamilton encouraging her every step of the way.

Everet kept his hand on Kane’s knee, hoping his touch somehow helped Kane feel less alone under the onslaught, but she seemed to go on for hours. It was torture for Everet, he could only imagine how much worse it was for Kane.

Kane’s a whore. Kane’s stupid. Kane’s a thief. Kane can’t be trusted.
Not one word she said was in any way complimentary about her brother.

Halfway through it, Everet became convinced that Kane had blocked out the world, and everything she said flew straight over his head. But Everet couldn’t afford to do that himself, not if he wanted to be a good master to Kane. He listened to every word, more than that, he really thought about what they meant when they were all joined together.

Kane’s used to being used. He’s used to being treated like a whore. He’s used to being beaten black and blue and having to steal to survive.
What she described wasn’t a life where a man might receive any hint of kindness and compassion from the men who screwed him—or even a life where he could find some sort of discipline and consistency.

Kane had lived exactly the kind of life he’d been born to expect. Everet’s heart wept for him.

“Thank you, Crystal. I think that give us a very complete impression of Kane’s character,” Hamilton said, smugly.

“May I ask a few questions, sir?” Everet said.

Hamilton frowned over his glasses at him.

“That only seems fair,” Raynard said. “Everet is Kane’s master.”

Hamilton glanced at Raynard, then at Ori. “Very well,” he said, with obvious distaste.

“You said that Kane was involved in prostitution,” Everet said.

“Very involved,” she corrected—as if she hadn’t dug a big enough hole for Kane already.

“Are you involved in it, too?”

She raised one heavily plucked eyebrow at him. “I know better than to give away for free what men will pay good money for, if that’s what you mean.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Everet said. “Your parents, they earned their money likewise?”

“I fail to see your point,” she snapped.

“My point is—”

Suddenly, Kane leapt out of his chair. Twisting away from Everet, he raced across the room and away from the little group of chairs.

Everet had been so focused on working out a way to show everyone what kind of man Kane really was, it took him far too long to react. Kane was out through the door before Everet even realized it.

Everet jumped up. He chased after Kane as fast as his legs could carry him, but the magpie already had a good head start. Paying no heed to Hamilton’s commands to stop, Everet worked on closing the gap between himself and Kane as quickly as was physically possible.

The magpie could be bloody quick when he wanted to be. This time there wasn’t the shock of an alarm connected to a door to slow him down. As Everet turned the corner at the end of the hallway leading away from the nest’s best reception room, he found the corridor ahead of him empty.

Letting out a curse, he slammed his hand against the expensive wallpaper that stretched all the way up to the richly decorated ceilings above. There were far too many corridors leading off this one, and no way of knowing which to race along.

Which direction would Kane have taken?

Kane didn’t know this part of the building. If it came down to that, Everet didn’t know it that well, either. This wasn’t the part of the nest they lived in. It wasn’t even a part of the nest where they often worked.

Everet’s eyes quickly darted toward the various passageways, considering Kane’s options as he tried to remember where each one led.

Where would he go?

Everet pushed a hand through his hair and rubbed at the back of his neck.

The apartment? The silver room? Somewhere else? Maybe he’d fallen off the wagon and headed down to the busiest part of the nest in an attempt to find someone who would help him get high. It was possible—even understandable after his sister threw him to the birds of prey that way.

Everet cursed. Standing there wouldn’t do anyone any good. Two places seemed like more probable destinations than anywhere else. Everet flipped a mental coin and headed up toward their apartment.

Every man in the nest seemed to crowd the corridors, determined to get in the way. Everet pushed his way roughly through the mob, desperate to get to his flat.

Kane would be there, he told himself. It was the obvious place for him to go. Everet would open the door, and Kane would be right there, as defiant and as in need of guidance as ever. Or maybe Kane would have hidden himself away in the bedroom, seeking solace and reassurance in sex.

That would be even better. They could cheer each other up straight away. That would prove to Kane that nothing had changed between them faster than any words could.

Everet pushed open the door leading into his flat. “Kane?”

His gaze darted into every corner of the living room. Nothing. He rushed to the bathroom door and pushed it open, praying for angry words that demanded the right to take a leak in private. No one stood in the small tiled space.

Everet raced across the living room and jerked the bedroom door back. Empty.

Cursing himself, sure now that it should have been obvious to him that Kane would head straight for the safety and reassurance of the silver room, Everet raced out of his apartment and along the corridors leading down to the vault-like room hidden away in the servants’ quarters, where no bird of prey ever ventured. Yes. That silver room. That’s where Kane would be.

Stairs rushed beneath Everet, taken three or four at a time. If he fell, he didn’t care—that would only get him to the bottom of the flight even more quickly, but his balance held out. He made it all the way to the corridor leading past the silver room without tripping once.

As Everet threw himself around the corner and hurtled toward him, the guard stationed at the silver room’s door dropped the magazine he’d been idly flicking through.

The guy’s eyes opened very wide. “I only glanced at—”

Everet grabbed him by his shirt and pushed him back against the wall alongside the door.

“Is Kane in there?”

“I swear, I’ve been—”

“I don’t care!” Everet shouted. “Read whatever the hell you like. Jack off to porn right here in the corridor for all I care.” He pulled the guy away from the wall and slammed him against it again. “Is Kane in there?”

The guard shook his head.

Everet’s heartrate doubled. It wasn’t as if Kane could have snuck in, no matter how interested in his magazine the guard might have been, but Everet was way past the point of caring about that kind of logic.

“Open the door.”

His hands shaking with so much fear he dropped the keys twice, the guard eventually obeyed. Everet strode into the middle of the silver room turned through a complete three-hundred and sixty degrees. It was hardly as if Kane could have hidden in one of the vases or goblets that filled so many of the glass cases, but Everet had no idea where else to look.

He closed his eyes for a moment, deep in thought. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he bowed his head, desperate to do the right thing.

He could order all the other men in the security flock to search the nest for Kane. That would let him look in dozens of different places at once.

No. As tempting as it was, Everet shook his head. That would make it seem like Kane was a criminal who had to be hunted down. He wasn’t.

Everet wasn’t a security guard right then, he wasn’t in charge of anything in the nest, he was just a man who wanted to find his lover, wrap his arms around him and tell him that everything would be fine.

Everet pushed his hand through his hair and turned around again, as if Kane might suddenly pop into existence behind him. No such luck.

There was no sign of Kane, there were no thoughts in Everet’s head now, either. It was all just a complete blank. Everet squared his shoulders and walked out of the silver room as calmly as he could, well aware that the security guy, whose name he couldn’t remember, watched his every move and would no doubt report back to the others at the first opportunity. Bloody gossips the lot of them.