Page 37 of Bitter Heat
“Good. I usually start a bit later as well. Breakfast will be served at nine instead of dawn if that’s all right by you.”
Janus could only nod again.
Zeke set about eating this time as though he had something to prove, stopping only to put his hand on Janus’s shoulder to reiterate, “Don’t worry about Kerry. He’s in safe hands.”
But Janus did worry. He didn’t understand why Zeke had let Kerry out of his sight at all, or how he could insist the man was safe when he was nowhere to be seen, or touched, or scented.
The hours wore on, and Kerry’s absence gnawed at Janus. The scent of musk and berry began to fade from the air of the house, and Janus missed it.
At bedtime, he tossed and turned beneath his soft quilts until his eyes finally closed. Sleep finally came and stopped his fretting about Kerry, who was, reasonable or not, becoming part and parcel of Janus’s newly developing concept of Monk’s House as his home.
As Janus drowsedin and out of sleep, the pearly light of dawn peeked in through his windows and bounced around his room. Distantly, as if in the dream he kept falling in and out of, he heard someone singing. It was a low, plaintive song that reached into him and filled his heart with an ache he couldn’t ignore. He allowed the vibrations of the song to rumble through him, tugging at his soul, rousing him from his lulling slumber.
When he finally slid his eyelids open to greet the rising morning light, he felt like he could almost see those low, sad notes shimmering in the air around his head like summer heat. It was as if he might reach out his hands and grasp the rough sound, clutch it like a woolen blanket. He listened longer, making sense of the fact that someone was singing, and based on the delicious return of the berry and musk scent, that someone must be Kerry.
Janus relaxed back in his bed, all feeling right with the world now that the pregnant omega of Monk’s House was back home where he belonged. The resonant melody of Kerry’s song made Janus’s eyelids heavy, and he let it carry him back to a half-sleep where he listened with a small smile on his lips, letting dream images play teasingly behind his closed lids.
A sudden thump came from overhead. Janus jerked fully awake. His bedclothes tangled about his body, and he lay trapped in them as he stared up at the ceiling, pondering the noise. The singing continued reassuringly though, only to cut off mid-melody a few seconds later by an ominous thud.
Janus sat up in bed and listened hard. A peculiar sliding sort of sound began, as though something was lightly dragging in an arc over the same space of flooring. Over and over.
Kerry!
Janus’s heart began to race as he rose from the bed, pulled his robe on over his pajamas, and threw open the door of his bedroom. Down the hall near the stairs, Kerry’s bedroom door stood open, and when Janus darted over the wooden planks separating his room from Kerry’s and poked his head inside, he found it empty. The bed was undisturbed, clearly unslept in. The bird was gone, too.
Janus cocked his head toward the ceiling and listened again. No sound.
It was obvious that Kerry was the one singing up there. What if he’d done something unspeakable? The thud could have been a chair kicked over, the scratching sound on the floor his toes dragging as he swung…
Janus squeezed his eyes shut.
Raking his hands through his hair, he shoved that image away. Turning on his heel, he rushed across the hall to knock on Zeke’s still-shut door. Zeke had been serious about sleeping late on his day of rest. At the last second, though, Janus dropped his hand without knocking. If there was any chance that the worst might have occurred in the attic, well…Zeke didn’t need to see that. No parent did.
Gathering his courage, Janus lifted his chin and decided to investigate on his own. He ran to the far end of the hallway, opened the narrow door that hid the attic stairs, and took them up quickly, one by one, trying to hold back the surge of panic in his chest at the thought of what he might find.
As Janus gained the final step, a green and blue bird swooped past his face. Startled, he nearly fell down the stairs again but gripped the banister just in time. The green and blue vision winged by again.
Kiwi.
Janus looked up to the rafters, heart in his throat, and took in the creamy morning light spilling in from the high windows and lighting up swirling dust motes all around. His eyes searched every inch of the rafters and found nothing but surprisingly clean wooden beams, and not a cobweb in sight.
Then he saw him.
Kerry.
He was sitting perched in yet another windowsill, alive and well, breathing and vibrant. Janus’s heart galloped with relief so strong he bent over to clutch his knees, taking in a sharp breath that almost felt like a sob. He repressed the urge to rush to Kerry, pat him down, and search him over for any sign of hurt or injury. He stood back up, tears in his eyes, as he sucked in that sweet combination of scents he associated only with Kerry.
Finally, gathering his wits again, Janus stepped fully into the attic room and cleared his throat softly.
“I’m sorry, Pater,” Kerry murmured, not turning his head from where he stared out the window and over the back of the house. Judging from his position, and Janus’s knowledge of the property, he probably had an unobscured view of the lake.
Kerry wore another loose, blowsy white shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms. They hung loosely, too, and yet Janus could see the outline of his body beneath the fabric, all strong muscle and lean limbs except for the swelling around his belly.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Kerry went on, still not bothering to turn his head from the view. “I managed to get out of that miserable breakfast and convinced them to let me catch a ride home this morning. I arrived too early to wake you, but I couldn’t sleep, and I felt guilty that Kiwi had been locked up all day and last night, too.” He paused and, still without turning his head, gestured toward an overturned trunk. “I accidentally kicked that over trying to get him down from that rafter over there. He was being stubborn. I’ll be quieter. I know I shouldn’t disturb our good priesty.”
“Your priesty has already been disturbed,” Janus said quietly.
Kerry jerked around. His dark, tired eyes flew wide in his paler-than-normal face. His loosely tied hair was unkempt, and he looked as though, wherever he’d spent his night, he hadn’t slept a wink. Kerry lowered his eyes, apology and embarrassment coming off him in silent waves.
