“I can finish up here if you need to go.” Santiago had finished the exterior work down to the trim while he was sniping at me. “I promised to call Rixton first thing, and I owe Sherry lunch.” I rubbed the base of my neck. “I need to call Uncle Harold too, let him know I’m better today.” Sensing Miller’s hesitation, I tossed in, “Thom can stay with me if he wants. He seems to be enjoying himself.”
The cat in question was chasing a bumble bee through a patch of wildflowers. Not pouncing or stalking. He flew after the thing as it visited each cluster of white blossoms.
“All right.” He left the trashcan for me. “I’ll come back for the tools later. You can leave them on the porch.”
With cement blocks filling the back-door slot and the bay window in place, I could actually lock the house for a change. “Hold that thought.” I ducked inside and palmed a set of spare keys off the hook and twisted an extra house key free. “There you go.” I pressed it into his hand. “I’ll put the tools inside the front door. I’m still getting looky-loos who want to see where the super gator attacked.” Vultures swooped past on occasion, but those tended to steal moments from my life, not machinery off my porch. “I wouldn’t want them to run off with your equipment.”
Miller closed his fingers around the key like it was solid gold and diamond-crusted. “Here.” He reached in his pocket and returned the favor, removing a key from a black carabiner and offering it to me. “In case you ever want to come home.”
The metal hit my palm, and my heart gave a squeeze as I made a fist around the small token of trust. “Thanks.”
“Luce?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m sorry what I said earlier upset you.” His lips twisted like he was tasting his next words before speaking. “I’m attempting to understand and respect your perspective on the coterie, but could you perhaps do the same?” His fingers traced the ribs of rose gold circling his throat. “Our bonds mean different things to each of us.”
Miller had been born a nameless slave to a laundress in another world, another time. His father was a prince, and his father’s wife had murdered Miller’s mother when she learned of the woman’s existence. Of his existence. Miller had exacted his revenge and lost himself to an unquenchable bloodlust. Conquest had slaked his thirst, called him to heel, and he had sworn fealty to her in thanks. He told me once that knowing Conquest could put him down if he crossed those lines again had saved his sanity, allowed him to heal. He cherished that bond between them, between us.
The core of what made me the person I am rebelled against what Conquest had done in allowing him to serve her, but he wasn’t human, and the longer I applied those ideals and expectations to the members of my coterie, the harder this transition would be on all of us. Miller had told me himself he luxuriated in wearing a collar, but his leash had been slipping through my fingers the past fifteen years. Maybe it was time I picked up the slack. “Installing the window fulfilled that need for you?”
His knuckles whitened around the house key I had given him, and his voice came out raw. “Yes.”
“What you and Santiago did for me with the bay window? That, to me, was an act of friendship.” I struggled to articulate my thoughts. “Friendship is a type of bond too, right? It’s a commitment you willingly make to another person. Friends do favors for one another, like you did today, and it’s all good. There’s no debt on either side. There’s only the joy of offering a person who is important to you a token of your esteem.” I extended my arm and waited for him to clasp hands with me. “This is my promise to you. I will be your friend, and you will be mine. We will protect each other, be honest with each other, and care for one another, and we will do these things of our own free will without obligation. And if one of us steps too close to the ledge, the other will pull them back, whatever it takes.”
A hard breath gusted from his body as I reaffirmed the connection he craved. “Yes.”
“I should make those calls.” I squeezed his fingers one last time, the touch soothing him. I waited for the recoil to hit, for my palms to go sweaty, but the rest of my coterie, one by one, appeared to be wriggling through the crack Cole had smashed in my armor. “See you around?”
“You have my number.” Serenity radiated from his very pores. “Call anytime.”
Miller looked good with a grin crinkling his cheeks and his gray eyes, so often turbulent, softened in contentment. A scorched breeze rustled his usually tidy chestnut hair, and he reached up to brush it back into place with his fingers, mixing sawdust in with the dark strands. The urge to ruffle his bangs surfaced, a first for me, but I curled my fingers into my palm before I acted on the impulse. As the tallest member of the coterie, I would have to half-climb him to reach, and so far, only Mt. Heaton had inspired me to consider picking up that particular hobby.
“Shoo before you’re late for your meeting.” I flicked the broom at his feet. “Do you really want the client’s first impression of White Horse to be Santiago’s scowl?”
“Good point.” He lifted his hand in a wave. “Later.”
While he went to chat with Thom, who was sunning himself on the hood of the remaining truck, I finished balling up the scraps of paper and plastic, discarded the junk pieces of trim, and picked up a few stripped screws and bent nails. Miller was gone by the time I finished sweeping the porch clean, and Thom had moved on to climbing a tree on the opposite side of the yard. I left him mewling on a high limb, pleading with me to fetch him, but I hardened my heart. He would remember he had wings and that he could fly down. Eventually. Shaking my head at his antics, I jogged upstairs to find the second surprise of the day waiting for me.
CHAPTER FOUR
The rotary phone dented my pillow, its weight creasing the note pinned under its wide base. Ignoring the itch in my fingertips to snatch the paper and skim, I did the smart thing and completed a methodical search of my room before locking the door behind me and surrendering to my curiosity.
A rhythmic thudding filled my ears as I sank onto the mattress and tugged out a square of embossed stationery. The paper was heavy, the writing bold, and the message curt.
“This is your new phone,” I read aloud. “Use it.” Puzzled, I lifted the rotary phone and discovered a slim leather bifold case that opened to reveal a black metal cellphone the thickness of a credit card. There was no brand name, and powering it up gave no hints as to its service provider. “Curiouser and curiouser.”
Briiiiiiing.
A shocked gasp parted my lips as the display lit up with an incoming call.
Briiiiiiing.
Cold sweat trickled between my shoulder blades, the bite of hope so hard it drew blood.
Ezra only ever called on my birthday. Today was not my birthday, and plenty of people used that ringtone. Even Cole had for a while after Santiago stole his cell for a prank. And yet…
Briiiiiiing.
“Luce?”
The sudden boom of a masculine voice in the lull between rings startled me so hard the phone slid from my fingers and clattered to the floor. I spun toward the door, the locked door, and found Thom standing on the threshold. “How did you…?”
“I picked the lock when you didn’t answer.” His nostrils flared as he sifted through the scents in the room for hints of what had me panicked. “I knocked several times.”
“I didn’t hear you.” I tapped the note against my palm, and his eyes snapped to the paper. “I found this and that phone when I came upstairs. Someone broke into the house and entered my room while I was on the porch.”
“May I?” Thom extended his hand for the note, and I passed it over for his inspection. He sniffed the edge of the paper then touched his tongue to the corner. “I recognize this scent.” He glanced up at me. “Adam Wu.”