Nexus (14 page)

“Dylan—”

“I thought it was Jael, you know? I thought he was like the father and you guys all thought of him like that, but no one does but Jacks. Everybody else, he’s like a big brother and a boss rolled into one.”

I stayed quiet because he had a point to make, and it was obviously eating him up, so he had to get it out. Peripherally I was aware that the others were closing in on us, but I was focused on my friend’s hearth more than anything.

“But you, Marcus….” He took a breath, “I didn’t know who you were until you weren’t here anymore.”

A second hand joined the first, and then both hands slid down my sides to my hips, holding on.

“When you were gone, it was like Malic lost his family. I asked him how Ryan was, and he didn’t know. I asked about Leith and got the same answer. We tried to come here and visit Jael, all of us, but no one could talk. Ryan killed that witch, you know? He—”

“I know.” I smiled, turning my head to look back at Ryan. “That was amazing.”

His eyes sparked, and I realized that I was the only one who saw it, because everybody else was looking at me instead of Ryan Dean.

“I was dead if you hadn’t taken her head off, Ry,” I told him. “I knew you were fast, but I had no idea.”

He nodded, and it was obvious that the man was overwhelmed.

“Jael,” I told him. “You would have been amazed.”

“I’m sure I would have.”

“And Malic.” I exhaled. “There was no way Ryan would be alive if you hadn’t taken that blow for him. Jesus, man, you scared me to death.”

He was staring at me so hard, as though he was memorizing my face.

“And you held the line even though you were shredded, Jacks.” I smiled at him. “When you fell… I think my heart stopped.”

His dark eyes were locked on me.

“I just thought, at least Leith is safe, and Jael and Malic. It sustained me, and I think Jacks and Ry too.”

No one said a word, and after a moment I became aware that all eyes were on me.

“Marcus.”

I turned back to Dylan.

“This”—he gestured at all of us—“does not work without you. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand, but I do now.”

“We’re all in this together, all of us, warders and hearths, and we’re a family, yeah?” I asked.

“We are now.” He took a quivering breath. “Because you’re home.”

I took his face in my hands as he broke down into tears.

“Goddammit,” Malic growled as he came toward us. “Why you gotta go all soft and mushy on him?”

I chuckled, grabbing Dylan, crushing him against me, hoping to squeeze all the tears out in one shot.

“You’re suffocating him,” Simon laughed.

“He’s loving it,” Julian sighed, “so it’s okay.”

“Can we drink now?” Leith whined.

I let Dylan go, released him into Malic’s arms, but even as my friend took his small, young hearth close, he put a hand on the back of my neck and squeezed gently.

“I know,” I told him.

“Just fuckin’ stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Don’t leave us,” he muttered under his breath. “Me.”

And I understood, for us, for warders who had lost their whole families, a hearth was all they had. But for a few clutches, a lucky few, there was even more created. There was a family.

“Who’s hungry?” Jael asked.

And since we all were, he started barking out orders. I was thrilled to have the spotlight off me as I sank down beside Joe on the chaise.

He smirked at me. “So what did we learn?”

I groaned.

“Maybe, jackass, you should think a little more of yourself and realize that in the big picture, Marcus Roth, you’re fucking vital.”

I leaned sideways and put my head down in his lap.

“I’m not petting you.”

“Please, Joe,” I whined, closing my eyes.

His hand slid down between my shoulder blades, and he rubbed gently, caressing, finally bending to kiss my temple.

“Say it.”

“I love you, Marcus.”

Always good to hear.

A
S
WE
all scarfed down steaks and corn on the cob and potatoes wrapped in foil, all cooked on the grill, I was filled in on events.

“Raph went and found the doppelganger,” Jackson told me. “You told him that he helped you, so we wanted to see if we could help him.”

I looked at Raphael. “And?”

“He and his wolf are on the road, and I gave him a way to contact me if he needed. I told him that your debt became mine because while I can travel the rings, Marcus, you should not.”

“Why?”

“Your energy, more than any other warder I’ve ever known, is tangible and traceable. You don’t want something to follow you home.”

“No,” I agreed.

“I followed you home,” Joe snapped, and I realized, as I had an hour ago, that he was really drunk. The ratio of food to alcohol in his system was way off. We had missed lunch, and whereas I had waited to drink, Joe had started before anyone even arrived.

“That was a good thing,” I teased him, leaning sideways, kissing his cheek. “Now be a good boy and eat your potatoes.”

He grunted. “Did you all know that Marcus is criss-crossed with new marks from fighting those racer demons?”

Dead silence at the table. It was guilt that no one needed.

“So,” I said brightly. “You sure do track quickly, Raph. How do you do that?”

All eyes on the kyrie.

He glared at me.

I smiled back.

He growled. “You promised.”

“I didn’t mean to promise.”

He was disgusted with me; that was clear.

“What’s going on?” Jackson asked us.

I leaned forward to deliver the news.

Raphael took Jackson’s hand instead. The solemn look on his face, the trepidation in his eyes—both, I knew, were so unnecessary.

“I have wings when I’m in other dimensions.”

“What?”

“He has these huge black feather wings,” I told Jackson who turned to look at me. “They’re beautiful, you should see them.”

He looked back at Raphael. “You have wings?”

The kyrie nodded slowly.

“That’s so cool.”

Instant surprise.

“What?”

“I thought you would think it made me more demon than human and—”

“No,” Jackson cut him off, leaning over to press a kiss to the side of Raphael’s neck. “I can’t wait to see them, and you should never be afraid to tell me anything.”

“That’s how you found the edge of that dimension I was in,” Simon said excitedly. “You had a lot of ground to cover in every direction, and you did it so fast…. I wish you would have let me see them while we were there.”

“We were inside,” Raphael said softly, and I realized that he was more than a little touched by the reception over this latest development. “No need to fly in there.”

“Yeah, but still.” Simon smiled warmly. “I bet they’re amazing.”

“They are,” I assured him, looking over at Jackson. “Raphael saved my life.”

Jackson nodded.

“And you saved Jackson’s,” Raphael told me. “We’re even.”

Another looming silence seemed inevitable.

“So Shane’s not dead,” Ryan chimed in. “We found him walking down the side of the road the next day. The witch had wiped his mind, but otherwise he’s well.”

“The spell didn’t lift when she died?”

“It did after a month.” Ryan smiled, so obviously happy just to be looking at me. “He’s with Kyle and the other two warders and their sentinel in Rome being… what?” His head turned to Jael. “Educated? Tortured? What?”

Jael sighed deeply. “Tortured? Really? This is what you think of the labarum?”

Ryan shrugged. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“The council is not in the habit of hurting their own warders,” Jael told him. “They are all being retrained in their duties. The sentinel has been stripped of his rank and is now a warder again. He will be assigned to a new city.”

“That sucks,” Dylan said. “I bet he has his whole life in Lexington, and now he’s gotta move because he was stupid.”

“Very stupid,” Leith agreed. “But you don’t let an incarnation sleep with the hearth of a warder. If you ask me, reassigned isn’t enough.”

“So what happened to the real Tanner and his wife?”

“They were reunited in Rome,” Jackson said. “And he’s been stripped of his warder status and his power.”

“How?”

“The sentinel,” Jael answered.

All eyes went to him; we were all interested in this part.

“A sentinel calls for a warder and a man or woman answers that summons. At the same time, the power within the warder is awakened by the sentinel. The presence of the sentinel speaks to the dormant power in the individual. The sentinel sparks the gift, and a warder is created.”

Malic squinted at him. “I don’t remember it being that romantic.”

Dylan found that statement hysterical. Julian pushed his face down into the table, which just made Dylan laugh louder.

“But the sentinel can remove their ‘recognition’, I guess you’d call it, and it’s as though the warder was never
seen
in the first place, never discovered, never made.”

“Okay,” I nodded. “So Tanner and his wife are free to be regular people.”

“Yes.”

“But after being a warder, won’t that drive him nuts?” Julian asked. “Once you’ve been something extraordinary, it would be hard to go back to being a normal person.”

“Which is why Lexington’s new sentinel will keep an eye on Tanner and his wife,” Jael instructed us all. “And the labarum council is very pleased with all of you for uncovering corruption in another territory. You’re to be commended.”

“Lucky everyone lived, then, to be commended,” Joe said sarcastically.

“I’m glad Tanner and his wife are back together,” I told Jael.

“They’re getting a divorce.” Joe cackled evilly. “She doesn’t want a
regular
man; she only wants a warder. She’s like the blonde bitch in
An Officer and a Gentleman.
She wants to marry a pilot, she doesn’t want an enlisted man, she just wants to see the world…. The guy working at the grocery store ain’t cuttin’ it, you know?”

Everyone was looking at me.

I turned to look at Joe. “Baby, maybe you should eat something, huh?”

“I’m not hungry, Marcus. Thank you.”

“At least,” Malic began, picking the conversation back up, “when the new sentinel takes over, he doesn’t have to worry about Arcan or Emir or any of those other demons. All of them are dead, and the portal between Breka’s club and the hell dimension is closed.”

“And we burned the house down for good measure,” Ryan said.

“There’s nothing left,” Leith added. “We razed it.”

“You enjoyed saying that,” Simon teased. “Very barbarian of you, the pillaging.”

“I do have that in me,” Leith said playfully. “Right, baby?”

Simon leaned forward and kissed him lightly, then sat back and looked at me. “Joe told us that his family is well.”

“Yeah.” I smiled. “Joe told me that, too, and I got to talk to all of them on the phone this morning. It was good.”

“Hey, Jael, could you strip Marcus’s power from him? I’d love him to be just a partner at a law firm and nothing else.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t patronize me, Marcus,” Joe snapped, draining his third mojito, jiggling the ice in the glass, and then loudly slurping the last of it. 

“So I guess tomorrow I gotta go see my boss and see if she’ll take me back.” I tried to ignore Joe. “You gotta tell me exactly what you told her, Mal.”

“I need another one of these,” Joe said. “Or maybe just a gin and tonic. Whatever.”

“Start from the beginning,” I told Malic, prodding him as I reached for Joe.

My hearth tried to pull free when I took gentle hold of his wrist, but I was insistent, and so when I eased him sideways, into my lap, he moved of his own volition.

“Nobody cares that you could’ve died,” he whispered under his breath. “So Dylan’s upset because you hurt Malic’s feelings, so the fuck what? I give a shit.”

When he finished, his voice had risen and again, there was a silence.

“Why’re you mad?” I asked, stroking his hair, kissing one of his beautifully arched brows.

“You could have died,” he repeated.

“But I didn’t, and I’m right here.”

I felt his deep breath move through his whole body and calm him. When I looked over at Malic, he smiled at me.

“Your boss, Helene, I really like her.”

“Yeah, me too,” I agreed, appreciating the fact that he had simply changed the subject without making Joe own up to how he was feeling in front of everyone.

“I know your assistant and the associates that work for you will be thrilled to get you back too. It’s Lolita, right?”

I sighed. “Yeah, Lolita. I miss her.”

“Well, she misses you too. I saw her at the park not too long ago, and she grilled me about you. They have her working with—” He thought a second. “Douche-man?”

“Dutchman,” I chuckled. “She just calls him Douche-man.”

“Well, apparently the second you get back, she gets released, and I quote, ‘from the idiot box’, and will be allowed to return to sitting where she belongs at the desk outside your office.”

I smiled wide. “Okay, I better get my ass over there first thing tomorrow morning then.”

“No,” Joe barked loudly. “Tomorrow you’re gonna spend the day home with me, just the two of us. That’s what I want.”

“Okay.” I hugged him tight, loving the way he turned in my lap, arms around my neck, holding on tight. “Whatever you want.”

He sighed loudly as I nuzzled my face into his hair, and I felt everyone around me take a breath and calm.

“What are you doing?” I heard Malic say.

“Joe’s in Marcus’s lap. I wanna sit in yours,” Dylan replied matter-of-factly. “Just ’cause he’s drunk off his ass doesn’t count.”

At which point Joe snorted out an indignant hiccupping laugh, hugged me tight, and turned around to face the others.

“Sorry,” he sighed.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Ryan said.

And it was the truth.

IX

I
WASN
’
T
sure what to do—call or simply show up—so a day later, as Joe had requested, I went with just showing up at my office because I had always been the guy who dove into the deep end. It was really the only way to be. So, swaddled up in Armani, I rode the elevator up to the twenty-fifth floor but could get no further than the double glass doors. A woman I had never met before leaned out ten minutes later.