After he banked the fire for the night, Stefan paced the threadbare rug, still restless and unsettled by everything from Luke’s sympathy and drunken passes, to his own inconvenient yearning—undeniable despite his residual anger.

Once upon a time, Luke had been the most important person in Stefan’s life—the person he’d have trusted with his life. But Luke had proven how idiotic Stefan had been to make that leap of faith when he’d disappeared.

In the past, even just yesterday, he’d have found it so simple to give in to Luke’s blandishments, the implicit promise of closeness. But Stefan had changed. He’d learned to live without Luke. He’d had to.

And now, Luke was the fricking art police, however he tried to deny it. Sure, he’d promised to reserve judgment, but what did that really mean? Could Stefan trust him enough to take him to the studio? Tonight, for a minute or two before the scotch kicked in, a genuine heat had shone in Luke’s eyes, a heat that Stefan still craved, no matter how stupid that made him. What if whatever awaited them on Stefan’s easel branded him guilty and doused that heat for good? Stefan shuddered. Not worth it.

Hell, he should never have let him in the door tonight, not after Luke had proved he hadn’t changed by running off again without waiting for an explanation. Not that Stefan had one, but still. He blamed his weakness on too many years of loneliness and the lure of Luke’s cooking.

Sure. Keep telling yourself that.

He stalked to the hall closet for spare bedding, wrinkling his nose at the musty smell. Crap. No extra pillow. He’d have to steal one from the bedroom, not that Luke would notice anything less than a freaking mariachi band given his alcohol-induced coma.

He grabbed a flashlight off the shelf and padded down the short hallway. One of the cabin’s many idiosyncrasies, a trick of its ventilation, concentrated the acrid smell of wood smoke outside the bedroom door and he coughed.

Then from inside the room, Luke cried out, a wordless protest that sent alarm chasing up Stefan’s spine. He hesitated, but a tortured moan from inside the bedroom goosed him into action.

He pushed the door. It didn’t move.

He shoved again, and it shoved back, like the room was full of water, pressing against the door.

Ah, shit. Not this crap. Not now.

Stefan braced his feet and forced it, inch by resisting inch. Halfway in, it gave way, and he staggered inside. He dropped his flashlight, and it rolled in an arc across the floor. Between the flashlight’s flattened cone of amber light and the flickering glow of the solar lamp, the room pulsed orange like the heart of a flame.

Luke lay naked, spread-eagle on the bed amid the shredded remains of his T-shirt and boxers. Standing by the door, Stefan’s breath condensed in a chill deeper than October, but a sheen of sweat shone on Luke’s chest. His legs thrashed in the tangle of quilt and sheet, his hands gripped the edge of the mattress, and his back bowed as if an implacable force was pulling him toward the ceiling.

“Luke!” Stefan’s shout was muffled, hidden behind a crackling roar inside his head. His trip across the room was like swimming through syrup, and the closer he got to the bed, the hotter the air. He reached for the iron bedstead to pull himself the last few feet.

Then snatched his hand away. Shit! The rail felt hot enough to burn, but when he uncurled his palm, it was pale and callused, not reddened and blistered. Frowning, he touched the bed knob with a tentative finger.

Cold? How—

Luke moaned again, straining against invisible bonds, and Stefan dismissed hot and cold as irrelevant. He scrambled onto the bed and threw himself across Luke, wrapped his arms tight around the taut body.

“Luke, it’s me. Wake up.”

Luke’s eyes flew open, and Stefan almost leaped off the bed. What the fuck? Instead of the familiar hazel, they were obsidian. Foreign. Luke whipped his head back and forth on the pillow, and Stefan grabbed his jaw, forced him to meet his gaze.

“Talk to me.”

Luke jolted as if he’d caught himself at the edge of falling. He drew a sharp breath, released it on a groan, let go of the mattress, and grabbed Stefan. Stefan returned the embrace and felt a momentary disorientation, like gravity had shifted from down to up. Seriously. What. The. Fuck?

Luke shouted, hoarse and wordless. He clutched Stefan harder, and Stefan pushed his questions aside. Later. I’ll worry about it later. For now, nothing mattered except Luke.

“Shhh.” Stefan pressed his cheek against Luke’s damp forehead. “It’s over. I’ve got you.”

Luke went boneless and shivered in air that once again felt like Oregon October and not high noon on the streets of hell. He blinked at Stefan, and his eyes faded from ink to coffee to hazel. Thank God for that. At least something was approaching normal. Stefan cradled Luke’s stubbled jaw in his palm.

Luke flicked his lower lip with his tongue. “Stef?” The uncertain note in his voice squeezed Stefan’s heart.

Spooky demon eyes be damned. Atmospheric phenomena be damned. And old, pointless anger be double-freaking-damned. He kissed Luke once, gentle, meant to soothe, to comfort. He drew back and met Luke’s gaze. “You okay?”

“Am I— Did you just—” Luke touched his lips, fingers trembling.

“Yeah. Sorry. Kind of an impulse.”

“Thank God for impulses.” Luke tangled his hands in Stefan’s hair and dragged his head down to a kiss nowhere close to gentle, soothing, or comforting. Luke’s lips demanded, his tongue invaded, and Stefan didn’t surrender so much as join the assault, the last of his caution reduced to ash by the heat of Luke’s mouth.

Stefan’s nerves thrummed, his body vibrating like a bass string when Luke yanked up his shirt. Luke’s hand, fever-hot against his skin, swept from his waist to the top of his rib cage. No point in pretending Stefan wasn’t eager for this. The evidence was right there, his cock hard and straining in his sweatpants, rubbing against Luke’s thigh.

There was something . . . something he should remember. Some reason this was a bad idea. But it faded like the dying light of the solar lamp.

Luke registered several important facts because he was one hell of an investigator, wasn’t he? Stefan’s body was stretched on top of his. Luke was naked—how the hell had that happened? Stefan wasn’t, but his erection was pressed against Luke’s dick, long and hard under the meager cushion of his sweatpants.

Hell yes. He flipped them so Stefan was under him, but that felt . . . wrong. He rolled back partway, until they were on their sides, face-to-face. Equal.

He flexed his hips, so their dicks rubbed together, the sensation making him gasp and earning a broken chuckle from Stefan.

“Oh,” Stefan murmured. “A bump in the night.”

The tiger’s-eye on its cord escaped from Stefan’s shirt, and Luke clasped it in his fist, pulling Stefan in for another kiss.

When Stefan’s fingers wrapped around Luke’s naked cock, heat shot through him, from the soles of his feet to the roots of his hair. His hips bucked once, twice against the cage of Stefan’s fist, and he came with a shout, shuddering and panting against Stefan’s shoulder as if his orgasm had been building forever, as if he hadn’t come in decades.

Stefan stroked his chest and arms until his tremors eased, mouth warm against Luke’s throat. God, had Stefan come? The front of his sweatpants was soaked but that could’ve been Luke’s fault. “Next time,” he gasped, “I’ll do better by you. Swear.”

“Uh-huh.” Stefan still sounded uncertain, like he didn’t believe in next time, but his hands moved on Luke’s back, pulling him close. He chuckled. “Since when can you come over your shoulder? Your back is wetter than your belly.”

“Ricochet?”

“Off my sweatpants? I don’t think so. I—”

Stefan launched himself off the bed, holding one hand away from his body. He grabbed the flashlight off the floor and even in the weak light from the fading bulb, Stefan’s palm glistened red.

“You’re bleeding.” Stefan rolled him onto his stomach. “Above your right hip. I thought your injury had healed.”

Luke touched his lower back and hissed at the bright spike of pain. “Shit. That was two years ago, and it was the other hip.”

Stefan helped Luke off the bed with a steady hand under his elbow and led him to the tiny bathroom. In the flickering light of the oil lantern on the vanity, Luke washed his own chest and belly while Stefan sponged his back. Luke flinched when water hit the wound.

“Sorry,” Stefan murmured, resting his hand on Luke’s hip to hold him still. Firm but gentle—not desperate and feverish like their lovemaking. Not furtive like the hidden touches in darkened parlors and empty hallways, and the stolen moments under the servants’ stairs.

What?

Luke pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until spots of light burst behind his eyelids. He opened them wide, then squinted to try to bring them into focus, but it didn’t work. Between the shadows and the blurriness, his own eyes seemed black in the mirror and Stefan’s appeared brown, not blue.

Stefan was peering at Luke’s back now, his eyebrows bunched over his nose. “It looks like you got jabbed with something sharp but rough. Not a blade. More like a—”

“Splintered tree stump,” Luke blurted.

“You fell? When?” Stefan glanced up and met Luke’s reflected gaze. He blinked and drew a sudden breath. “Christ, Luke. Your eyes.”

The grip on Luke’s hip tightened but it couldn’t hold him, couldn’t ground him.

I drive. For hours. Because time means nothing. My work means nothing. My life means nothing. Nothing without him.

I find a spot next to a river, under a tree that’s the twin of where he— Where I— Oh God.

I pull the paintings out of the back. Fling them into a pile on the bank. These were for him. For us. Now they’re his funeral pyre.

I use the solvent from the car. Douse the canvases. Light them with a cigarette and the flames begin to leap, dancing for him. High, higher. All the way to the trees.

But then a tree catches fire. And the next, and the next, until Edward’s pyre threatens to become my own.

My car won’t start. I run, try to race the flames, but I can’t. There’s a ravine and I fall.

God, the pain! My back, my leg. Can’t breathe. Fire rushing toward me, over me, until—

Luke jerked at the icy splash on his face. His throat ached, and water dripped off his eyelashes and chin, trickling down his chest. No ravine. No fire. No crippling guilt. Only the receding pain and—thank God—Stefan, gazing at him somberly, holding an empty glass.

“Um . . .” Luke licked a drop of water off his upper lip. “I’m wet.”

“Sorry.” Stefan set down the glass and cupped Luke’s face, blotting the water off with a towel. Then he took Luke’s elbow and led him to the edge of the bathtub. “Here. Put these on.” He helped Luke into a faded pair of sweats and eased a sweatshirt over the bandages on his back. His own clothes were still wet and clammy and smelled of sex. Maybe not the best time for that. “Won’t be a minute.”

He hurried into the bedroom and changed into something dry and only marginally threadbare. When he returned to the bathroom, Luke was hunched on the closed toilet, his hands dangling between his knees.

Stefan squatted on the floor in front of him, wrapping his fingers around Luke’s bare ankle. “Luke. It’s okay.”

“Is it? What just happened, Stef? The details are fading now, but I could swear I was burning up. I could feel the flames, choked on the smoke. Hell, my throat is still raw.”

“Well, that could be from the screaming.”

Luke scrunched his face, peeking at Stefan out of one eye. “Screaming?”

“Afraid so.”

He buried his head in his hands. “God, I am certifiable.”

“Hey hey hey.” Stefan stroked Luke’s hair. “It’s all right. You’re all right.”

Luke jerked his head up. “How can you say that? I mean I’ve had bad dreams before, especially after overindulging, but never like that. Never this visceral. Never when I thought I was . . . I was . . .” Luke’s eyes were wide and if this weren’t Luke, Stefan would say he was terrified.

Stefan cradled Luke’s face in his hands. “You were what, love?”

“Dying,” Luke whispered.

Stefan’s gut clenched for an instant, then the damned writhing began, low and nauseating. No. Not Luke. I won’t let it happen.

“Come here.” He stood, holding out his arms, and Luke came into them, so they were chest to chest, hip to hip, Stefan’s cheek pressed against Luke’s damp hair, Luke’s collarbone nestled beneath his. Interlocked. No—whole. Whole in the way they’d been before. Whole in the way Stefan hadn’t been since the day Luke walked out.

He turned his head and pressed a kiss to Luke’s temple and was rewarded with a sigh, Luke’s breath a warm tickle against Stefan’s neck. Stefan shivered at the sensation and chuckled.

“Well, if you’re certifiable, then so am I, because your eyes were—” Stefan swallowed, not wanting to remember that inky darkness. “And I could swear the bedroom was sweltering when I walked in. I didn’t think much of it because the ventilation in the cabin is so weird that sometimes it feels hot where it should be cold, or freezing right next to the stove.”

Luke leaned out of their embrace, fixing Stefan with a what-the-hell-dude raised eyebrow glare. “And you weren’t—I don’t know—a little fucking curious about that?”

Smiling wryly, Stefan smoothed the wrinkles on Luke’s forehead until he lost the scowl. “What’s a little weirdness? I’m just happy to be off the street.”

“But why aren’t you more freaked out about this?” Luke gestured to himself. “About me? I can’t understand how— Hell, even back at the conservatory, when Rainbow Unicorn, or whatever she was calling herself that week, swore she was receiving inspiration from outer space, you never called bullshit.”

“Why should I? Who can say what the source of artistic inspiration is? I think people perceive the world in different ways. Isn’t that what being an artist is all about? To interpret the world, its beauty, its wonder, with others?”

Luke poked Stefan’s shoulder with stiff fingers. “Beauty and wonder is one thing. Okay, maybe two. But how do you interpret dreams that draw blood, and blackout jags that result in forgeries of paintings that nobody’s seen for half a century?”

Or someone else’s eyes in Luke’s face. Gooseflesh crawled up Stefan’s back. “I don’t know.”

“Do you believe in . . .” Luke swallowed audibly, his gaze focused on Stefan’s collarbone. “Possession?”

The hair on Stefan’s neck lifted, joining the gooseflesh. Christ, what would it take to make Luke consider such a question? He denied the uncanny at every turn. Hell, he didn’t even read fiction. But maybe the evidence of the last hours had changed his mind. It had certainly raised more than a few questions for Stefan.

He ran his hands down Luke’s arms to steal some needed warmth. “It’s never come up. But I wouldn’t reject it out of hand. Is that what you think happened?”

Luke’s gaze slid to the side. “Maybe.”

That could explain the eyes. “Well, to anyone who’s studied Bosch, that would hardly be a shocker.”

“Don’t joke.”

“I’m not.” Although from the way Luke vibrated under Stefan’s hands, he was in dire need of a safety valve. “But just look at ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ and tell me he wasn’t channeling a fuck-ton of weird shit. Sometimes . . . things can’t be easily explained. Like you.”

“Me?” Luke drew his head back. “I’m as ordinary as they come.”

“But you’ve always been a freakishly accurate guesser. Remember when you told that idiot first-year he’d regret sleeping with the life-drawing professor for the sake of a grade?”

“That didn’t take a genius to figure out.”

“Maybe not, but nobody knew about the professor’s lingerie kink. But you knew what color—”

Shifting uneasily, Luke pulled away from Stefan until their bodies weren’t touching. “What, you think I saw it in a dream or some shit? Lucky guesses. That’s all.”

“And what about—”

“God, this was years ago. I wish I’d never said anything if you’re going to fixate on it like this.” Luke flung up his hands and turned away. “What can I say? Maybe mediocre artists have intuition too. I’m sure you pick up on stuff about people all the time.”

“Not me.” Stefan shuddered, backing up until he ran into the door frame. “Not like that.”

“Stef.” Even raw and rough, Luke’s voice was still tender as he faced Stefan again. “Tell me.”

Stefan drew a breath, let it out. Drew another. “Sometimes . . . sometimes I get a feeling.”

Luke grinned half-heartedly. “I get feelings too. Mostly around you.”

“That’s not what I mean. I get this . . . I don’t know . . . dread, I guess. Like there’s an approaching shitstorm and Auntie Em’s already locked the cellar door.” Stefan swallowed. “It happened before Marius got on the plane to Vegas. I was supposed to go with him, you know.” Luke reached out, gripping his shoulders, and Stefan covered his hands with his own, craving the touch, the reassurance. “But I couldn’t make myself get on the plane. It was like a force field or something that I couldn’t push through.” He closed his eyes, trying to shove the memory away. “Marius laughed when I told him. Claimed I was being a drama queen because I didn’t want to take the commission. So when I tried to keep him from going . . .”

“He didn’t listen.”

Stefan shook his head. “It pissed me off, to tell you the truth. Maybe that’s why I didn’t insist more . . . insistently. If I’d tried harder, he wouldn’t have—”

“Oh, he so would. Marius never listened to a damn thing you said, didn’t you ever realize that?” Luke’s hands tightened, and he gave Stefan a tiny shake. “He was so sure he knew best, that any time you suggested anything about anything, sometimes even your own painting, he waved it away. That’s a big part of what drove me so crazy about him.”

“Why?” Stefan managed a tremulous smile. “You did it too. We argued all the time.”

“No. We discussed. Often with great enthusiasm.”

“With anger you mean?”

“No. I mean with caring. Passion. But, Stef, at the end of those discussions, half the time—hell, more than half—you won.” Luke cupped the back of Stefan’s neck. “When did you ever win with Marius?”

“Never. Including the last one, my big exit, my grand gesture. When he told me he’d taken the commission and had gone so far as to cash the check on my behalf, it was the last freaking straw. I told him it was over. I was leaving for good. But he still managed to win that one by leaving first. Permanently.” Stefan’s laugh caught on a sob. “Which was what I’d been afraid of, to begin with.”

“So that means . . . what?” Luke leaned his forehead against Stefan’s. “You can see the future?”

“Possibly. Sometimes. Sort of.”

“And we’ve possibly been possessed, and you’ve implied I can sort of see the past. Tell me, Stef. Why the fuck can’t we figure out how to deal with the present?”

Stefan’s breath sped up, his heart skittering in his chest. I want to trust him. I have to trust him. Now. “Maybe we can.” He lifted Luke’s hands from his shoulders and laced their fingers together. “Come on. I want to show you something.”