TENN
Tenn hadn’t slept, and he didn’t feel like lying around waiting for the rest to wake. So he’d left. And wandered. Up and down the abandoned streets, the rain now a faint mist around him, the sky gray and tinged with pink from the rising sun and burning Guild. He kept his eyes open for the fox, though now he wasn’t so certain it wasn’t just a figment of his imagination.
He never saw a trace of it.
Years ago, way before the Resurrection, he’d dreamed of visiting the UK. Doing all the touristy things in London like riding the Eye or getting afternoon tea. Now, here he was, and even though the city had been ruined, it still held on to its old-world charm—the long tenement flats stretching along winding roads, the bitter tang of stone and moss, the dreary sky. His gut twisted at the posters still hanging in shop windows, at seeing pound signs and British verbiage. It wasn’t just Water resonating with the pain of this place, but the hurt of knowing an entire city—no, an entire culture—was lost to him. Forever.
If he’d been fast enough, if he’d come here before the Resurrection, he might have had a chance to know what this city was like. But this was just another future denied to him. Which made him wonder... Aidan’s dialect hinted at Scottish, but he was definitely American. What was he doing here?
Just that thought made a dozen other questions about Aidan’s shrouded past whirl through his mind. Maybe, someday, he’d be able to ask. If Aidan ever trusted him.
If they made it out alive.
After a few hours, Tenn couldn’t delay the inevitable any longer. It was time to face the team. To look Jarrett in the eye. It was time to move out, before the army moved in.
He turned to go and froze.
Tomás lounged on the hood of a car, one leg bent and the other draped over the grille, elbows propping his torso up. Rain slicked across his olive chest, made his tight jeans cling and his hair twine over his chiseled, scruffy jaw.
Despite the cold and the anger and the fear, the sight of him made Tenn’s chest burn.
“What are you doing here? And what have you done to Aidan?”
Tomás grinned.
“And here I thought you were the one following me?”
Tenn blinked, and Tomás was behind him, pressed tight to his back, one hand on Tenn’s neck and the other pressed on his chest. “Do you fear the boy has come between us? Or perhaps you wish to be between me and the boy?” He leaned in, his breath hot against Tenn’s ear. “I know what lies within that throbbing heart of yours, Tenn. I know you want him, just as you wonder if you should destroy him. Just as you wonder if it is right for you to desire, when you already have. Even though that little hungry voice within you tells you to desire everything.”
Tenn struggled, but Tomás’s grip was tight. He couldn’t move even if he wanted to.
And Tomás was right—Tenn didn’t want to. There was something about being in Tomás’s orbit, in his radiant heat, that he found he’d actually...missed.
What the hell did that make him?
He felt Tomás smile against the back of his neck, as if the Kin knew every secret in Tenn’s dark mind.
A moment later, Tomás was once more a few feet in front of him, the barest tinge of Air magic in the ether between them. Tenn struggled not to collapse.
“As for the boy, and what I’ve done to him...” Tomás shook his head and smiled. “Sadly, I have done not near enough. He is willful. As I’m sure you will find out.”
“He’s dying. Because of this.” Tenn pointed to the smoldering horizon. “Because of you.”
“I am honored,” Tomás said, bowing deep. “But I am afraid it was all the boy and his own—to quote the British—cock-up that brought this devastation about.” Tomás’s mocking smile turned serious. “Trust me, I had no hand in this. The boy failed me. Unlike you.”
“What are you talking about?” Tenn asked. “No riddles. I followed you over here and found him instead.”
“I thought he would prove useful. I was wrong.”
“But why? You abandoned me. For him.”
The moment the words left his mouth, he hated himself. Not because it sounded needy, but because it was true.
He hated that Tomás had left him alone the last few weeks. And he hated himself more for wanting the enemy more than he wanted his own partner.
“He is jealous,” Tomás purred. “He thinks I have found another.”
“I’m not...”
But Tomás just shook his head, dismissing the lie before it fell from Tenn’s lips.
“Don’t worry, my prince,” he whispered. “I will always have a dark spot in my heart for you.”
Tenn wondered if Tomás was alluding to the brand he’d placed on his heart, or some deeper desire. He also knew it was a lie—Howls didn’t love. This was all just another incubus ruse, a way to snare his heart and cloud his judgment.
The trouble was, it worked.
“What have you been doing?” Tenn asked, trying to remain on the offensive. “Why did you go after Aidan?”
“I was helping. As I always do. Aidan wanted glory. I told him how to get it. I helped him defeat my brother Calum, just as I directed him to an object of immeasurable power that I demanded in exchange for my assistance. And rather than bring it to me, he used it. He did that.” A gesture to the horizon, a hint of rage in his otherwise-calm features. “The boy betrayed me, and I do not take kindly to betrayal.”
“What was it? What was the object?”
“The shard that completed Calum’s turning. Calum was not like the rest of us. We, who were born of living hosts. My mistress prepared Calum’s body before his death. And when he died, she used special runes and stones to bring him back to life. To the well-trained eye, the shard I sought contained the secrets to his resurrection.”
Tenn swallowed.
He’d heard stories of the Dark Lady’s abilities. But he’d always assumed they were just that—stories. To have Tomás confirm the darkest one to be true, that she had learned how to raise the dead...
“Why did you want it?” Tenn asked. “You can’t use runes. No Howl can. So why did you need it? Who did you want to bring back?”
“You will find out soon enough. If you live until then.”
Another blink, and he was so close, Tenn could see nothing but the copper flecks in the Kin’s hazel eyes. Tenn wanted to burn in the incubus’s heat, to rip off Tomás’s remaining clothes and do to him what he could never do to Jarrett.
“My siblings know the two of you are here. Together. They know what you both have done. They will be here soon. I suggest you leave the boy and flee. Let him burn on his own pyre, or risk dying in his flame.”
“How would they know?” Tenn asked, his breath raspy with want. “How would they know I’m here?”
Tomás smiled.
“You’ve learned, little mouse. They know you are here because I have told them. I cannot pretend to have forgiven you for this.” He reached out and caressed Tenn’s heart with a burning, frozen finger. “And I look forward to seeing the coming game. It will be glorious.”
The way he said the last word made Tenn shiver and swell at the same time.
“Run while you can,” Tomás said, his lips brushing Tenn’s. “I would hate for our game to end so early. You have proven you can read the language of the dead gods. Perhaps you will still be useful to us.”
“Us?”
Tomás leaned in and pressed his lips to Tenn’s. Fire exploded in Tenn’s vision. Fire, and a passion he had never felt before. He could see it, in Tomás’s kiss—the flames of the world, the crowds of screaming fans knelt in homage, and Tomás’s perfect body twined against his. Above it all, with burning red eyes, the shadow of the Dark Lady stretched and devoured.
When Tomás pulled away, Tenn wondered if he would ever feel so warm, so divine, again.
“She still waits,” Tomás whispered. “But she will not wait long, my prince. Her voice grows louder, and soon, it will remake the world.”
Then, with a breath of magic, Tomás was gone.