Page 32 of The Devil's Mercy

“How brazen of you to confess that, little monster.”

“You promised we were alone in the room.” Calix hesitated. “Did you lie?”

“I am good at that.” Titus loosened his hold in his hair just enough to be noticeable, but not enough for Cal to get the wrong idea. If he tried to pull away again, he’d retighten the reins in an instant. “Do you really want to know why you’re being put through this?”

“Yes.”

“For the exact same reason.” Titus heard rustling at the open door, but that didn’t stop him from biting out in a clipped tone, “You’re being punished for running away from me all those years ago.”

A sharp clapping noise made Cal jolt in his hold, but Titus had been expecting it and merely tipped his head in the direction of the entrance where Aodhan was standing.

“Finally,” Aodhan sounded angry, “we’re all being honest. I knew you’ve wanted him from the start.”

Titus was hoping confessing here, in the room where Aodhan already felt in control of their situation, would be enough to ease the bloodlust. But looking at the way his little killer held himself, as though about to explode out of his skin, or worse, cut someone else out of theirs, he realized he’d miscalculated.

Oopsie.

Chapter 9:

To say things had gone from awful to awkward real fast would be an understatement.

Calix found himself roughly pulled away from Titus and dragged from the room, across a hallway, before being practically tossed into a wooden seat. His nose caught wind of the rich smell of cooked meat and scallions a second later, and all protests over being lugged around like a sack of potatoes died on his tongue almost instantly after that.

He could barely even process the words being flung around him between his two captors, all his attention on that scent and the promise of food.

He hadn’t even realized how starving he’d become, too caught up in the other sensations being forced upon him the past few days.

“Eat.” Aodhan tore the blindfold off Cal’s head roughly, practically tossing the fabric to the side. He hardly noticed the way Calix winced at the sudden bright lights, already turning away from him to address the older man standing by the fridge. “You too.”

Cal blinked against the change, giving himself time to adjust. How long had it been since they’d blindfolded him? It seemed like forever had passed. Their blurred faces took awhile longer to come into focus, the scowl marring the doctor’s gorgeous face one of the first things Cal’s brain was able to process.

Aodhan was standing at the side of the table, arms crossed, glaring at Titus.

“Sit down,” Titus said. “You’re making Calix nervous.”

“He’s fine,” Aodhan disagreed, showing defiance he didn’t usually aim at the director’s way. “We need to talk about this, Mercy.”

“Talk about what?” He grunted and took a sip from a glass cup filled with ice water. “You should drink, Calix. You must be extremely dehydrated.”

“His hands are cuffed together.”

“So uncuff him then.”

Aodhan inhaled slowly as though trying for patience. “We aren’t doing it your way anymore. Not if you chose this method just to get back at him.”

“If the end justifies the means, does it really matter if I have ulterior motives?”

“It does if you keep them from me!”

Titus gave him a sharp look. “Don’t do that. Don’t pull a Cal and pretend not to know exactly what’s going on here. I’ve never kept anything from you, and that won’t change. You knew I wanted him, if you didn’t, you never would have agreed to making him our Third.”

“What?” Calix sputtered, though he went unnoticed as they continued to bicker around him.

They’d been dancing around that possibility for weeks now, and he was just going to put it out there in the midst of an argument with Aodhan? After all the shit they’d put him through to get him to say it first?

If he hadn’t been hungry enough to eat everything on the table and in their fridge, he would be figuring out a way to get tothe knifeboard on the counter by the sink. As it were, Calix was far too drained to bother or put up much of a fight. Especially when the two were already so engrossed in each other.

“That’s not what I’m annoyed about,” Aodhan said.

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