Then put his phone down. “You know, I have to be honest. If she was human—”
“Right? If he had had any relationship outside of the species? He would have kept that shit on the DL like you read about. Holy fuck. Our parents would have thrown a fit.”
There was a bing! and Blay checked his phone. “V says to come to the Pit. He’s happy to help.”
“Let’s do it.” Qhuinn put the letters back into the larger envelope and then frowned. “Actually, can you take a picture of this? I don’t want to take this stuff out of our room.”
As he held the piece of paper up, Blay snapped an image on his phone, and then Qhuinn put everything in the second drawer of their bedside table. As the two of them headed for the door, he pulled Blay in and kissed his mate.
“I’m glad you came out to the house. I was so happy to see you.”
Blay’s brows worried up. “I was concerned you’d think we were stalking you.”
“Not at all. I wanted to go in there alone, but it was a relief to see you out on the lawn. You make me feel safe.”
The flush that hit Blay’s face was pretty much the best thing Qhuinn had seen all night, and he squeezed his mate’s hand—then kept ahold of it, especially as they walked down the grand staircase. As much as he loved everyone in the household, he hoped they didn’t run into anybody else. There was too much on his mind, too much sapping his energy.
But meeting with V was different.
Figure out how to cope.
As he and Blay went out through the vestibule, the cold was a slap, and he liked it. It seemed easier for him to breathe.
Glancing over at Blay, he frowned. “Do you want my coat?”
He was in the process of taking his jacket off when Blay put his hand on his arm. “No. I’m good.”
Qhuinn put an arm around the male and pulled him close. “I’ll keep you warm.”
“You always do.”
Together, they descended the stone steps and went around the fountain—and he noted that a replacement tarp had been secured across the sculpture and its basin. On that note, he glanced back at the mansion over his shoulder. The glass that had been broken on the second floor had already been replaced.
Healing. In the bricks-and-mortar sense.
As they came up to the Pit, they didn’t have to knock. Vishous opened things and seemed prepared to go to work: He not only had his muscle-shirt-andleathers uniform on, he was sporting a lit hand-rolled in one hand and a rocks glass of what had to be Goose in the other.
So yeah, Qhuinn thought, the brother was ready for anything.
“How we doing? What do you need?”
They stepped into the Pit’s warm interior, and Qhuinn was aware of a nervousness clutching the front of his throat. Stripping off his jacket, he worried about things he couldn’t control: Names, addresses, people who had moved, people who lied about their identities.
You know, the social equivalent of new owners doing the floors over.
He took yet another deep breath. “We need to search for a woman or female my brother might have had contact with before the raids.”
V went totally still. But only for a split second. Then he nodded once and went over to his Four Toys. Sitting down in front of his computers, he put his drink aside and his hand-rolled between his teeth. “Name.”
Blay held out his phone and Qhuinn took the thing and put it in front of the brother. He should have said the name. But it felt . . . sacred, somehow.
“There’s an address there, too,” he mumbled. Like the brother couldn’t frickin’ read?
V set to typing, his fingers, both the ones in the lead-lined glove and the ones that were not, flying over a keyboard. “Have a seat. This’ll take a minute.”
Qhuinn and Blay parked it on the sofa, the two of them side by side, their knees together, their backs straight. Like they were a couple of schoolkids trying to make a good impression on the teacher.
Like maybe if they behaved themselves, V would find what they needed—
“Got her.”
Qhuinn burst up and tripped over the coffee table on the way back to the desk. And even before he got in range, V leaned to the side in his office chair so there was plenty of room to get close to the monitors.
The central screen was showing the front and back of a current New