Hidden Passions (10 page)

This should have reassured him, but his butterflies flapped harder.

"Why don't I show you through to the bar?" the host suggested with a kindness Tony didn't expect. "I'll let the bartender know you're new."

"Thanks," Tony said, falling gratefully into his wake.

"Just take it slow." The host threw the advice over his shoulder. "Nurse your drink. Watch how people interact. Make your decisions with a clear head."

"You're alpha," Tony said, the realization surprising him.

"Werefox," the host replied. "We don't care so much about who's butchest."

They'd reached the packed but not rowdy bar. The flat screen that hung above it had the financial news on instead of sports. The werefox caught the bartender's attention and then pointed at Tony. The tall bald man was polishing a glass with a drying cloth. He nodded at whatever signal the werefox sent. He was part-demon, Tony saw, his all-black eyes giving him away.

Not gay
, Tony decided, and not as kindly as the maitre d'. "I'll have a faerie stout," he said. "On tap, if you've got it."

The bartender pulled one with quick motions. Tony paid, braced his shoulders, and looked around. One of the leather daddies was looking back. He raised his whiskey tumbler in salute.

No, no, no
, Tony thought, not feeling that at all. Hoping it was enough for politeness, he nodded very slightly and looked away. My, how fascinating the foam in his beer glass was. He could stare at it all night.

The man on his other side bumped his elbow, almost triggering his fight response. "And then I told him if that's a genuine Rolex, I'm Brad Effing Goddamned Pitt."

Whoever the stranger spoke to laughed like a hyena.

Fuck
, Tony thought. He couldn't do this. These so were not his people.

"The first visit is the hardest," the bartender said.

Tony hadn't heard him return. He looked up from his beer into black-as-a-black-hole eyes. Maybe he shouldn't have, but he blurted a confession. "I don't think I'll find someone I like in a place like this."

The part-demon's smile was a flicker of broad thin lips. "Don't assume. Corporate a-holes and leather posers are people too."

Tony laughed, because he was right. The bartender moved away, but the burst of shared humor had relaxed his taut spine a notch. He'd stay an hour, he decided, and take it slow like the werefox said.

Every journey, however excruciating, began with a single step.

~

Two and a half hours later, Tony fell into bed alone. More or less sober, he was thankfully tired enough to sleep. Though he'd stuck with it, his exchanges with the bartender and the host turned out to be the highlight of his bar adventure. A couple men had approached him, but he hadn't been tempted to encourage their overtures. That had troubled him a bit. What if he never found a partner he liked as much as Chris? What if the only gay bar he'd found kicked him out for being too picky? Worst of all, what if he settled and was sorry?

Miraculously, he didn't dream of his lost fireman, or not that he remembered.

Morning--or pre-morning, because their squad was on early shift--came way too soon. Tony's big brother lived one floor above him in the historic brownstone they owned together with their alpha. Rick called him at half past three to make sure he was up. He'd done that a lot since Tony's big announcement, as if being gay had erased a decade's worth of birthdays and a few IQ points. Tony was thirty-five, not stupid, and not a baby--even if shifters aged slowly.

"I'll drive you in," Rick said.

Of course you will
, Tony thought grumpily.

To be fair, he didn't totally mind. Not driving that damn early was easier. Too, after the night he'd had, he looked forward to being with his brother. Ass or not, Rick was his comfort zone.

He reminded himself of that as he wolfed down breakfast and dressed for work. He
almost
let the brownstone's street door slam behind him, but stopped at the last minute. Ari was human and could sleep through a lot of noise. Her and Adam's daughter Kelsey had baby shifter ears. Not waking
her
made life easier on the entire pack.

Rick hadn't forgotten. Though they were three floors down and outside, he shut the driver's side door as gently as possible.

"God, I need more coffee," Tony grumbled as Rick rolled out and turned onto Saltpeter.

River Heights--their solidly blue-collar, largely cop neighborhood--was dead at this hour. The shifters and other folks who resided here were safely tucked in bed. Sadly, Rick and Tony had nowhere to make a caffeine stop. The local restaurants and corner groceries were shuttered.

Tony wondered how soundly Chris Savoy was sleeping.

That train of thought annoyed him. His trip to the stupid bar had been about forgetting the hot tiger. Frowning, he pulled his long legs up between the dash and him. Rick's stodgy gray Buick was used this treatment. Two shiny patches marked the ledge above the glove compartment. Maybe Tony should have been a cat. Sometimes he liked having walls on more than one side of him. Maybe he'd have enjoyed curling up in a cardboard box.

His left ear prickled, warning him his big brother was staring.

"Do I have Faerie O's in my hair?"

"What?" Rick asked, startled by the question.

"You're staring at me."

The prickling stopped, so Rick must have looked away. Good thing, considering he was driving. "I just wondered," he said. "You were out late last night."

Tony did not want to recap his experience. "I went to a bar."

"And?" Rick prompted, ignoring his please-let-this-drop signals. Tony lost his patience.

"And what?" he snapped. "I'm not hung over. It's four in the frick a.m. You want sprightly, you need a sprite for a brother."

Rick laughed and shot another glance at him. "I'm trying to ask if you met someone nice."

Was this what Tony was in for while his brother adjusted to his gayness? Being pestered about his romantic life like Rick was his mother?

"You haven't had a date since you came out," Rick explained.

"That you know of," Tony retorted. His cheeks were a few degrees hotter than he wanted them to be. To compensate, he glared at the dirty rain spots on the windshield.

"Have you been dating?" Rick persisted.

Jesus
, Tony thought but didn't say. Did getting blown in a gardener's shed count as a social life?

"Tony--"

"You know," Tony cut him off. "If you were getting laid yourself, you wouldn't worry so much about my sex life."

This was true but a low blow. His brother's dating record was worse than his lately. Tony would have felt guiltier about the dig if it had actually shut Rick up. His brother's hands shifted on the steering wheel. "You could tell me if you met someone special."

Lord. Rick
was
turning into their mother.

"I wouldn't be rude to them," Rick swore.

Okay. Maybe Rick's attempt at being open-minded was sort of sweet. Tony tried to answer less snippily. "Just give me a chance to get my sea legs."

The radio between their seats crackled, causing Tony to snap upright. Please God, let whatever call was coming in put an end to this heart to heart.

"RTA requests assistance," said an unfamiliar dispatcher's voice, referring to the Resurrection Transit Authority. "10-34 M at the Elm and Fifth north station. Witness describes two perps going at it with long swords."

The subway stop the dispatcher named wasn't far from their location. As detectives, Tony and Rick weren't obliged to take the call. Breaking up fights was a job for uniforms. On the other hand, 10-34 M was code for an altercation involving magic. Plus, the long sword thing could be cool.

"Not unheard of," Rick said in response to his raised eyebrows. "But intriguing."

The advantage of being brothers was that they often thought alike. Certain they were on the same page, Tony grabbed the radio. "Car 65 responding. We're two minutes out, no more."

"10-4," the central dispatcher said. "Be advised suspects are fae."

Now that really was intriguing. Fae had created the half-magic Pocket that enabled Resurrection to straddle realities. More often than not, they remained aloof from its citizens. Most fae stilled lived in Faerie, only visiting the Pocket when they felt like slumming. If they had beefs with each other, they didn't settle them in front of inferiors. They certainly didn't have knockdown drag-outs at subway stops.

Tony saw Rick grin right before he floored the accelerator. The Buick shimmied and then took off, forcing Tony to brace himself. Though the streets were practically empty, roaring down them was fun. The public might not want to know, but most cops loved this stuff. Tony had a feeling his and Rick's inner tails were wagging.

Because there was more to think about than fun, he grabbed one of the padded vests that lay on the back seat. The straps that fastened it were Velcro, the black material spelled to block magical and mundane projectiles. Rick stuck his arm out for his even as Tony readied it.

They ran down their checklist of protections.

"You packing electrum loads?"

"Yup. You got your depowering charms?"

Familiar as it was, the ritual heightened their confidence. They were an experienced team, and they were ready to rock and roll.

The Elm and Fifth subway stop appeared. Its circular aboveground plaza hosted a mini-park. Rick spun the steering wheel one-handed and hopped the heavy Buick over the curb. The car was still rolling slightly when they leaped out. Slamming the doors in tandem, they ran across the grass side by side, toward the clearly marked subway stairs. Lamplight sparkled on concrete, the special city glitter they could only admire at night. Tony sent his wolf senses questing through their surroundings. He didn't hear a swordfight, but he scented a whiff of blood.

The scent came from underground. It had mingled with the stale tunnel air. Rick must have caught it too. He put his arm out to signal Tony to take a beat.

"Be careful," he said in a deeper than normal voice.

His words acted like a trigger to the city's mystical underpinnings. Tony could have sworn the night around them drew in and held a breath. His adrenaline went crazy, his pulse filling up his throat.

A man-shaped star burst up the RTA entrance steps.

The star was a faerie, a pureblood to go by the blinding dazzle his skin shot off. Tony's lungs stopped working as an inappropriate buzz of interest awakened between his legs. Tony had never seen a pureblood this close before. When faeries were in the Pocket, they usually dimmed their looks with glamour. This dude was letting all his gorgeousness hang out. The leather boys at P.J.'s would have drooled over his gladiator-style getup, the briefness of which showed off his tall body. His frame was slenderer than Tony favored, but so fabulously proportioned in its ratio of shoulder to hip to leg that he couldn't have said how to improve it. If that weren't theatrical enough, the faerie's waist-length hair was silver--like a zillion floaty strands had been spun from pure sterling.

Tony had an insane urge to bury his face in it.

The faerie stopped, as surprised to see them as they were to encounter him. His eyes were electric blue, like they'd been plugged into a battery. When his gaze locked onto Tony's, his feet would no longer move.

He cursed silently. Faeries were top dogs on the magic heap. They could out-charm gargoyles and demons and any flavor of shifter imaginable. This faerie's power felt like it was trying to crawl inside Tony. His hands, which were lovely and white as snow, wrapped the hilt of a medieval-looking sword.
Long
didn't cover how big it was. Pointing up at the moment, the blade was nearly as tall as the shining male. Thick streams of blood dripped down it, coating his exquisite pale fingers.

Tony wanted to lick those fingers for more than one reason.

The faerie's glowing blue eyes widened.

Tony had a strong impression the faerie knew what he was thinking.

He's going to kill us
, he thought, realizing Rick wasn't any less faerie-struck than him. The faerie's literally stunning looks had paralyzed them both.

Feeling disloyal to Chris for letting that happen was ridiculous.

"Fuck," he choked aloud.

The faerie's face flickered, no expression in it that Tony recognized. Time had seemed to stop while they gawked at each other. Tony's curse kick-started it again.

Wolf
, he heard very clearly inside his head.
Move out of my way or die
.

Tony wore an enchanted Saint Michael medal around his neck. Though the thing was designed to protect him against compulsions, it didn't help him then. Like a puppet, he stepped out of the faerie's path. The male zoomed by and then cut left across Elm Street. The air he displaced blew Tony's hair like storm wind.

As soon as he was out of reach, Tony's anger recovered. The faerie--who'd probably just murdered someone--had passed close enough to grab. Tony wasn't a puppy, he was a wolf. And an officer of the law. He didn't care how much juice this fae bastard could draw on. Tony's city wasn't his personal playground.

"I got this," he barked to Rick, sprinting after the fleeing male.

"Call for backup," Rick shouted.

"Will," Tony promised over his shoulder.

Tony wasn't stupid. He notified Dispatch through his shoulder comm before he'd finished bounding across the empty lanes.

After that, he needed all his breath for running. Sheesh, the faerie was fast. Tony had heard some fae could fly or levitate. Sword Guy didn't do either but was moving at better than average shifter speed--with no sign of slowing down. Buildings rushed by as Tony strove to keep up. The fae was still glowing, which made him hard to lose. Tony wondered if the male not hiding his light with glamour was a good sign. Had the fight in the subway sapped the fae's energy?

If this was Sword Guy tired, Tony didn't want to see him daisy fresh. He pushed himself to his limits, a stitch beginning to grab his ribs. It was too bad he couldn't change at will. Four wolf legs would have been an improvement on two flagging human ones.