Page 74 of The Death God
Gregory watched Thanatos from the doorway to the living room. He’d been sitting glued to the TV for the last two days. “Anything new?”
The news channel played the same clip Gregory had already seen twenty times, and he hadn’t been there nearly as much as Thanatos had.
“No.”
According to the news, the police had gotten a tip about a trafficking ring, and they’d swarmed five different locations. In each, they’d found groups of five to ten individuals all dressed in black scrubs. No one made any connection to the murder of a middle-aged woman a week ago. And why would they? People were murdered all the time.
Alaric had let them know when it had been done and had told them they’d given the police information about where to find the psychics. Thanatos had been upset. He’d wanted to be there, had wanted to talk to all the psychics released, wanted to bring them to the castle and let them live there.
Gregory would never admit it out loud, but he was relieved Alaric had handled it the way he had. Kratos, Himeros, and Arawn had stayed, and he was still uneasy about having three more psychics in the house. Though he hardly ever saw them. For the most part, they stayed in their rooms, and while he knew he should make an effort to make them feel…welcome or something, he didn’t have it in him right now.
Aletheia and Penthus had left but had said they might come back. He hoped not. He didn’t want crippling sadness and forced truth in his house, but if it was what Thanatos wanted, he’d allow it. He was considerate like that.
“It’ll be all right, right?”
“Of course. They haven’t lived the lives you have. They can easily fit into society.”
Thanatos nodded without taking his eyes off the screen. “Yeah. It’s for the best.” Then he blew out a breath. “One branch of the whole selling psychics organization is done, right? The black wing is taken care of.”
“Yeah, the black wing is taken care of.”
“Only the blue, pink, and green, left. That we know of.”
Gregory nodded. Alaric hadn’t learned anything about the rest of the organization. No lead on where Thanatos’ house of horrors was located or had been located.
“We’ll keep looking.”
Gregory grunted without conviction.
“We will keep looking.” Thanatos turned to give him a hard look.
“Yes, love. We will keep looking.” Or at least keep their ears to the ground for information. They had enough on their plate as it was.
“This is why I love you.”
The breath stuttered in Gregory’s chest. “You love me?”
“Because you don’t want to. You don’t want to keep looking, you don’t want them in your castle, but you’ll do it anyway. For me.”
Gregory grunted again, which made Thanatos laugh. He turned off the TV and walked to Gregory, slid his arms around his neck, and pulled him in for a kiss. “It’ll be all right. They’ll die in forty to eighty years, and then we can do anything you want to do.”
Pulling him close, Gregory kissed him again. “I don’t care what we do as long as I get to do it with you. If you want to fill the castle with psychics, we’ll fill the castle with psychics, but we need more money. Feeding a secret supernatural society is expensive.”
Thanatos nipped at his lower lip. “We should use our skills, set up a business of some sort.”
His hold tightened on Thanatos. He didn’t want people to know what he could do. What if they attracted the wrong attention? “We’ll think of something.”
“Mmm.” Thanatos kissed him again, and Gregory steered him toward their room. He had his mate, everything else would fall into place.
THE END
