Page 72 of Misbehaving With Minotaurs
His comm watch rings just as he tugs my tee down and closes his mouth over my peaked nipple.
Manorin growls and rights us, staring at the blue leather band around his sizable wrist. His brother’s name hovers above it, flashing incessantly as he groans and wipes a big hand over his face.
“We aren’t catching a break today, Sunshine.”
When he directs the comm watch to answer, his brother launches right into a story about his nephew, Alarion, and some trouble with the gargoyle sheriff. I don’t follow the entire thing because his brother speaks in shrieking, run-on sentences that don’t make any sense to me. But Manorin seems to follow, his expression darkening by the minute.
By the end of the call, he’s tense and tight in my arms.
“I’ll be there in a bit, brother. Calm down.”
“Just get home!” his brother shouts. “Before Rygold kills Alarion!”
“He’s not gonna kill Alarion,” Manorin rumbles, “but I’m on my way.”
The brother hangs up without saying goodbye, and Manorin sighs. “Gonna have to rain-check that dinner, Cath. I’m so sorry.”
I tickle my fingers along his jawline, admiring the strength of it. “Crazy as Alarion’s antics seem to be, he’s family. I’ll be here when you get back.”
He smiles, even though there’s tension in it. “Because you love me?”
That pulls a smile to my face. “Because I love you.”
I have to find a way to fix things for him. I want to keep him, and I don’t want him to give up a single thing for our happiness.
Even as I think that, an idea starts to form in my mind, bits and pieces of info swirling into a slowly forming picture. When I get home, I’m calling Betmal. He might be just the monster for what I need.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MANORIN
“Thanks, Uncle Nor,” Alarion says quietly as we cross the Grand Portal Station from the Pine Gulch portal.
I sling an arm around my nephew’s shoulders, crushing him to me as I focus on just getting home. What an absolute shit show of a morning.
“Ever’s a great little spot, kid. And I think it’ll do you good to be away from the Sidewinders crew for a bit.”
He sighs as the Ever portal comes into view at the far end of the station. “I thought those dudes were my friends, Uncle Nor. They’ve been like family to me since Mama died, and I needed that. But they were just using me, it turns out. I was just a pawn to them, something to use to,”—he lets out an angry growl, shaking his head as he runs a big hand along his right horn—“it doesn’t matter.”
I didn’t expect to have to bust into the Sidewinders clubhouse this morning and practically trash the whole thing to get Alarion out. I also didn’t expect Bishop Rygold to swoop in after me and drag half the ophiotaurii out by the horns to toss ‘em in the PG jailhouse.
But that’s what we did, and I’d do it again if I had to.
“I’m surprised Rygold let you take me,” he says, halting in front of the final portal.
I turn to him and level him with a serious look. “He knew you were on the verge of makin’ the type of mistakes a male can’t come back from, Alarion. There reaches a point of no return, and you were there, kid.”
His chocolate brows furrow, then the frustrated expression falls, and he looks pained. I wait to see if he wants to expand on his thoughts—we’ve been talking all morning—but he falls silent.
“We got a lot of conversations ahead of us, kid, but things are gonna be fine. I’m here for you, okay?”
He nods as we head for the portal.
As I step out into Ever’s portal station on the other side, I wipe a hand over my face. At my side, Alarion’s golden eyes are wide as he takes in the Ever portal station. He’s never left Pine Gulch, and it took me the better part of the morning to convince him to come back to Ever with me.
My brother, Walter, declined to join us, but I know Alarion’s relieved to be out of PG and the crowd he’d gotten into there. Of course, I’ll have to make sure he doesn’t bring any of that bullshit with him to Ever. Thank the gods there aren’t cattle heretorustle.
I drop him at Hel Motel with an Ever welcome book and a promise to take him to breakfast in the morning. Jezbelah, the wraith manager, offers to take Alarion to his room.
