Page 106 of Slow Heat
“Go,” Father echoed, his voice hollow and empty.
Pater mustered a reassuring smile, but it was bullshit, like everything else since dinner had started.
Jason shut the door on his parents and hovered in the hallway within calling range, but after a few minutes pacing, he didn’t hear anything from behind the door. He pressed his ear to the wood and listened, making out only murmurs.
After a long time, he headed to his bedroom, but the scent of Vale and their come on the shirt stuffed under his pillow assaulted his nose like a surreal spike of joy in the midst of a funeral.
He backed out quickly and headed downstairs, turning toward Pater’s conservatory. He tore off his tie and suit coat, throwing them on Pater’s sofa. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, thinking he would practice guitar, but even with the instrument in his hands he couldn’t rest. He paced the room, again and again. Finally, he took out a piece of paper from the desk to write a fast note. He left it on a table in the front hall, before exiting out the door into the night.
Jason didn’t normally walk the streets after dark. It was a different world with the streetlamps glowing and the houses dark. The electric lights on inside most shone like melted butter. A few of the less wealthy houses flickered with candles, and Jason wondered what it would be like to have so little.
There were crowds on the street, surprisingly. Alphas, omegas, alone and together, and wads of betas who were dressed up for the clubs and parties. Those without strong family ties went out on the night of Feast of the Expectant Wolf, apparently. Funny, he’d never thought of what they might do to celebrate before.
He kept his mind focused on the goings on around him, like the fantastic outfits and the street performers with their songs and poetry readings. If he forced his attention on the moment, then he didn’t have to think about his parents. He couldn’t. If he did, then his heart thundered and threatened to explode. He felt lightheaded like his lungs had stopped working, and the world tipped around him crazily. He just kept walking, kept watching, and tried not to feel anything at all.
Into the city, down the familiar streets turned strange in the darkness, ignoring the questioning stares that came his way, he walked without ever looking back. His feet knew where to go. Before long, he stood outside Vale’s fenced front yard, gazing up at it from beneath the big oak tree.
He opened the gate, walked up the path, and stood on the front porch. Music came from deep in the house, and he considered walking around to peer in the windows to make sure Vale was alone. If he wasn’t…if Urho had returned to check on him? He felt sick deep inside at the thought of them together, but he squashed it down. Looking through the long, narrow side window by the front door, he saw Vale heading down the hallway toward his study.
Jason’s breath caught in his throat. Vale was so handsome in a silver, satin robe, matching pajama bottoms, and fuzzy, gold-colored slippers. Zephyr followed at his heels, prancing with her tail up and her head high. Save for the cat, he seemed to be alone.
Jason knocked.
Vale startled but turned to the door, wrapping his robe more tightly as he approached. Cautiously, the door opened a crack, and Vale peeked out, one green eye checking who was disturbing him so late. Then the door flung open wide. “Jason? What in wolf’s name…? Did you forget something?”
Jason lifted his head and said nothing, but Vale’s eyes widened in his pale face.
“Oh, darling. What’s wrong? Come in.” He tugged Jason inside, shutting the door on the cold night. The sound of violin overlaying piano drifted from the direction of Vale’s study and then a deep baritone voice spoke in the soothing beat of a radio announcer.
Vale’s head tilted and peered questioningly at Jason. “What’s the matter? You look pale as death.”
Jason noticed the red mark on Vale’s neck. The one he’d left there earlier when the world had been beautiful and full of possibilities. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
Vale tugged him deeper into the house, pulling him close. It was only when Vale whispered, “You’re so cold,” that Jason realized he’d left home without a coat.
“Talk to me. What’s happened?” Vale’s voice was tight in his ear. He leaned back enough to take in Jason’s face again. “Is it your parents? Are they angry with you? With us? About earlier?”
Jason shook his head, but his throat was too clogged for words to come. He squeezed Vale closer, tucking his face against his neck, and held on.
Vale clucked in his ear, holding him hard. “Oh darling,” he said soothingly.
Jason valiantly tried not to cry, but hot tears ran down his cheeks and wretched little sobs hiccupped out of him uncontrollably.
Vale rocked him back and forth as Zephyr wound around and around their legs. Vale hushed him and made promises Jason knew he couldn’t keep. After all, Pater was pregnant and determined to have the baby. So no.
Everything wasnotgoing to be all right.
Jason cried harder, his throat aching as his childhood broke away.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Vale tried toparse all that had tumbled out of Jason as he pushed him into the leather wingback chair in his study, and then knelt at his feet. He pressed a mug of hot tea into Jason’s hands and murmured, “He’s a stubborn man, isn’t he?”
Jason had shared the bare bones of his parents’ situation between attempts to quiet his tears in the hallway and then again in the kitchen as Vale had boiled the water for the tea. He’d obviously swallowed back the truly incriminating details about his pater’s habitual use of abortifacients, but Vale knew enough from his discussion with Rosen and his talk with Jason earlier to put the pieces together.
“Yes, he is,” Jason said, wiping at his eyes with his thumb and trying to manfully sniff away the evidence of his tears. “They’re going to be upset when they realize I’m gone.”
“You left a note?”
