Francis Calvert had been my ancestor’s older brother. When Francis died, the next oldest, David, had inherited everything. That I remembered from family dinners.
Three letters and a journal held the worst of it all. It boiled down to three main points.
Matthew Calvert had stolen everything from the Adams family. Their home and their freedom.
Deborah Adams had married a man named Solomon Huxley whose descendants still lived here.
And I knew those things because my family knew them too.
My father had always known.
Twenty-Two
Nyx
The thermometer on the porch of my cabin said that it was close to seventy despite the late hour, but the humidity had to put it to almost eighty. After this case, I’d never complain about New York summers again. The city got hot, but this was like walking in soup. I’d pulled my hair up, but strands of it still stuck to the back of my neck.
Why had I thought it was a good idea to do this?
My stomach twisted, and the sweat on my palms had little to do with the heat. Running to Bradyn when I needed someone to push the dark away made sense. Sex with him was amazing, and for reasons I didn’t want to analyze, I felt safe with him.
But this wasn’t me running to him. I’d had that flashback, but I’d worked through it on my own. Sure, I was a little worried that if I tried to sleep, it’d come back, but that wasn’t why I was only a few feet from Bradyn’s front steps. I wasn’t bored, either. Or horny. All my usual reasons for seeking sex weren’t there.
Well, not exactly anyway.
I wanted sex, but I only wanted it with him.
It was a new sensation and one that scared the shit out of me. There were times back home when I’d gone to Club Privé looking specifically for one sub or another because I knew which one would give me what I needed at that particular time. There, it’d been about who would be the best at doing what I needed done. With Bradyn, it was about him. I wanted him.
Fuck my life.
I gritted my teeth and made my way up the stairs to the porch. These last couple feet to the door weren’t the hardest I’d ever had to cross, but they weren’t the easiest either. I was crazy for doing this, but I couldn’t stay away. Whatever it was about Bradyn that drew me to him made it almost impossible to walk away.
Two brisk knocks and my heart thudded as I waited. Maybe I should have called first, but by the time I’d considered that, I’d been out the door, and I’d worried that turning around for my phone would give me an excuse not to follow through. And I wanted to follow through. Just the thought of him inside me again made all those low, tight things inside me twist and turn.
“Nyx.” He looked surprised to see me. “Are you okay?”
I didn’t like that the first thing he thought when he saw me was that something was wrong.
Bradyn seemed to read my mind and frowned. He reached out, his fingers brushing against mine. “What did I say?”
I shook my head. “This was a mistake.”
Bradyn caught my hand before I could do anything more than start to turn. “Don’t go.”
I closed my eyes. “I don’t know what I was thinking, coming here.”
“Hey, it’s okay. Come inside, and we’ll talk. Whatever’s wrong, we’ll figure it out.”
“That’s exactly it.” I opened my eyes and hoped that the tears that had been burning against my eyelids didn’t spill over. “I’m not here because something is wrong.”
“I’m confused.”
My laugh was bitter. “That makes two of us.”
His expression softened, and he stepped out onto the porch, the shadows making his eyes the dark blue of a night sky. “Come inside, Nyx. Please.”
It was the please that did it. “All right.”
The air conditioner cooled my overheated skin, drying the sheen of sweat that had gathered in the short walk between the cabins. Bradyn led me over to his couch, and I sat down, wondering what the point was of me being here now.
“Do you want something to drink?”
I shook my head. “Let’s just get this over with.”
He crouched down in front of me. “Talk to me. You came here for a reason, and then something changed your mind.”
I sighed. “How is this ever supposed to be something with us if the only time I come to you is when there’s something I need you to