Unhallowed (Rath and Rune #1) - Jordan L. Hawk Page 0,68
but everyone else is up and moving about.”
“Bonnie will have seen I’m not in the boys’ bedroom. She won’t come knocking, trust me.”
That meant everyone would know what they’d done last night. Well, not everyone, but Bonnie and Captain Degas. The thought of facing them this morning, after having spent himself moaning against Sebastian’s cock last night, brought a rush of heat to his face.
“We have work,” he said.
Sebastian sighed. “Oh, very well. I suppose we ought to try and find out who those men last night were working for. If it’s Mortimer…I hate to think it, but we need to know.”
“Oh. Ah, there’s something I forgot to tell you last night. Waite tried to poison me yesterday.”
Sebastian sat bolt upright in the bed. “What?”
Vesper explained what had happened. “Given the timing with Miss Cohen’s experience in the staff room, I assume that was meant as a distraction while Waite came in and poisoned the cup. He and the spirit must be working together. And then I gulped down coffee from an unguarded cup like a fool.”
All of the color had drained from Sebastian’s face. “You might have died,” he said, voice shaking on the final word.
“Oh! Please, don’t worry.” Ves wrapped whatever limbs he could around Sebastian, trying to comfort him. “I’m fine. As I mentioned last night, it takes a great deal to hurt me. I wasn’t injured.”
“But you’d be dead in other circumstances.” Some of the color came back to Sebastian’s cheeks, though not a great deal. “And then we were attacked here last night…my God. We have to warn Mr. Quinn about Mortimer.”
Ves took his hand, curling their fingers together, dark olive and pale cream. “I’ll go to the police station and see if I can talk to the gunman.” The survivor, but he pushed that thought away. “You’re of more use at the library at the moment than I am, so you go ahead in to work. Just stay away from Waite until I get back, all right?”
“I suppose.” Sebastian freed himself to roll over and pick up his silver-rimmed glasses. “Say you’ll come back here with me tonight.”
The question warmed Ves from the inside out. Sebastian knew him, knew he wasn’t entirely human, but still wanted him. It was a gift he’d never imagined being given.
“Gladly,” he said, and hoped he wasn’t lying.
He retracted his tentacles and ordered himself as well as he was able, with vest and shirt ripped down the back. “Your coat was in the yard—it’s probably downstairs,” Sebastian said. “That will at least cover the damage while you go to your apartment after breakfast.”
Apparently, he was staying for breakfast.
Sebastian didn’t seem even slightly embarrassed as he led the way down the stairs. The rest of the Rath clan was crowded around the table in the dining room.
As soon as they stepped in, Helen shouted: “It’s Mr. Rune!” She started to jump up, but her mother said, “Sit down, Helen, and let the man eat.”
“Good morning,” Captain Degas said, saluting Ves with his coffee cup. He looked exhausted; no doubt he’d kept his promise to watch the house all night. “It’s good to see you up and about, Mr. Rune.”
The three-year-old, Tommy, toddled over and promptly attached himself to Ves’s leg.
Miss Rath sighed. “Just bring him over to me, Mr. Rune. Or may I call you Vesper?”
Ves felt his face heat again. “Yes, please do.”
“Bonnie, then.” She smiled at him, and he was struck by the resemblance to her brother. “Sebastian, make yourself useful and refresh the coffee, will you?”
Though he’d enjoyed previous meals with the Raths, they’d always been taken under a shadow. The certainty that they’d be revolted by his presence in their lives, if they knew the truth about his nature, his curse.
Now they knew, and yet still here he sat, eating scrambled eggs and toast, and drinking coffee. It was such an ordinary scene, such a normal moment, that it was in turns disorienting and wonderful.
“They’ll kill you,” Mother had said, when he’d asked why he couldn’t go to school like the children in books did. She’d grabbed one tentacle, yanked on it hard enough to make his eyes water. “That’s why. The first glimpse they got of one of these, or your eyes, they’d beat you to death. How do you think that would feel, Vesper? Having your bones broken while they kicked you. Your scalp peeled back from your skull by one of their boots, your nose smashed in.”