Page 61 of Bourbon & Blood

“Alina! Where have you been?” Dorian barked on the other end of the line.

“I amsosorry,” I rushed out. “I was out, and I didn’t expect it but I found myself out overnight where there wasn’t any cell service. I’m at home right now.”

“She’s home?” I heard Marcus ask anxiously in the background.

“Yeah,” Dorian answered him.

“Tell her we’re on our way,” Marcus said and Dorian came back on the line.

“Stay put,” he said. “We’re coming over.”

“Okay,” I said, and I sighed as the line went dead. They sounded so mad.

“Oooo, I fucked up,” I muttered into my empty apartment and I sucked in a breath between my teeth.

It took ten to fifteen minutes to make it from their place to mine and Maya’s, but they made it in a little less than eight, my door buzzing incessantly and repeatedly until I crossed the apartment and hit the button.

They made it up to my door breathless and sweating. Dorian immediately wrapped me in a tight hug. I’d never seen Marcus look so anxious in all my life.

“I’m so sorry!” I repeated. “I didn’t think.”

“Wherewere you?” Marcus demanded. He looked downright distraught. I waved them inside and shut the door.

“Out in a swamp,” I told them. “But I really need to start from the beginning.”

“Yes, please, by all means!” Dorian said, throwing up his hands and bringing them back down with a crack against the tops of his denim-clad thighs. I don’t think I’d ever heard him so mad and so exasperated with me at the same time. It made my heart ache to know he was only likely to get angrier by the time I got done telling them the whole story, which I did.

“Was the sex at least good?” Marcus asked, sitting there wide-eyed and clearly at a loss. The first thing that came to his mind during situations that were stressful was to cope with dry humor and I seized on the opportunity to somehow make this all sound less awful than it kind of was.

“Oh my God, out of this world,” I said with a grateful smile at his attempt to lighten things up. I was even more pleased to say, “And that’s the God’s honest truth. No bullshit.”

Dorian was standing off to one side of where Marcus and I sat on the couch, his arms crossed over his chest, one hand pinching his nose bridge like he had theworstheadache ever. He didn’t laugh or join in with mine and his boyfriend’s banter at all. The moment of levity was gone, just like that, snatched out of the air and all the way to the Mississippi River.

“I can’t believe you,” he said through gritted teeth. “The fuckingVoodoo Bastards?Are you fucking kidding me?” His voice rose an octave on each question. I could tell he was beyond mad and was careening right into a level of upset that may be permanently damaging to our friendship.

“Did you honestly have a better idea?” I demanded, knowing I was being defensive but unable to stop myself.

He shook his head and looked at the ceiling. I knew when the tears gathered at the corners of his eyes that he wasn’tmadmad, he wasscaredmad. Scared for me… like out of his mind terrified for me, but he didn’t need to be… I didn’t know how to explain it in such a way that he might understand right now.

I think Marcus picked up on that before his boyfriend had – the whole not needing to be afraid for me. I think he was working it out some more, the way he was looking at me with empathy in his eyes. He just didn’t know how to explain that to his irate boyfriend without putting himself in the line of fire of that ire.

“And you,” Dorian said rounding on Marcus, anyway. “You’re seriously going to sit there and crack jokes and encourage this madness? Those guys are no joke! They’re bad news! Theykillpeople!”

Marcus got up, went to Dorian, and hugged him tight.

“The police weren’t listening. No one else was looking, and La Croix said he could do it,” I argued, getting teary myself with fear and frustration. “He’s already done way more than the cops.”

“Yeah, like what?” Dorian demanded and I could tell he fully expected I would be grasping at straws here, just to keep him from being mad.

Instead of arguing or fighting, or letting the high emotions get the best of me, I just tried to remain calm and told them what I knew – the theories that Hex had put forward that morning, and how the club was out there running those theories down as we spoke.

Thankfully, my friendlistened,and the more he listened, the more he thought about it, the more he started to calm down.

“You work tonight,” Dorian said after almost a full minute of silence. It wasn’t a question but I was confused anyway.

“You don’t?” I asked. This was supposed to be our night on together.

He shook his head. “I took the night off, worried about findingyou,” he said. “Called in about an hour before you called me, fixin’ to start up a fuckin’ search party if I had to.”

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