Page 14 of Bros Come Before Hordes
"Have you tried turning your subconscious off and then on again?" Tavis deadpanned.
A strange sound wheezed from my chest, like a deflating half laugh. “Nice one.”
Calhoun turned from his squatted position and gave Tavis the evil eye. "Dipshit."
"Hardly the time for jokes, Tavis," Vance warned.
Tavis rolled his eyes. “Léas, poke my eyes out. Lighten up, you two. That joke was for Yara’s benefit, not yours.”
“It did. Benefit me, I mean,” I said, leaning close to him, and that earned me a devastating grin.
I peeled my gaze away from him and concentrated on what it was I’d seen last night, and again just a few seconds ago, that tickled the back of my mind. Tried rebooting my subconscious and failed. I narrowed my eyes at Calhoun’s back as he faced the TV again, his black dragon tattoo rippling along his skin with the movement.
I sucked in a breath. Blinked. I might've just figured it out. "Do all dragon shifters have back tattoos?"
"Yes..." Vance turned back to the TV, his pale eyes lit with exactly what I was seeing. "It's hard to tell because you can only see a glimpse of the back of his neck between his hairline and tux collar, but...that guy doesn't have a dragon tattoo."
"A human?" Tavis asked.
Calhoun rubbed his jaw as he shook his head. "It's possible, but..." He glanced at Asa sitting at the table still out of earshot and then up at Vance and Tavis. "I told you what we found there. No human could do that to a shifter."
I gulped loudly, shoving that image away for now, which meant it would come back later in my nightmares. "So if not a human and not a shifter, then who?"
The three of them shared a look that turned my stomach to stone.
Vance released a breath. "Dragon shifters have...certain enemies."
I never would've guessed that about them.
"Who?" I asked, my voice shaking because I was sure I would hate the answer.
"Fae,” Calhoun growled.
Vance nodded. “The dark, terrible kind. We went to war over land about five hundred years ago and then signed a peace treaty. They live in their territory, we live in ours, and in the middle is a line neither of us crosses."
"And if one side crosses that line?" I asked.
Vance closed his eyes briefly, his jaw tight with tension. "Crossing the line is an act of war."
Oh my fucking god. War? If that guy in the video was fae, then the war had already begun. I touched my fingers to my mouth to keep in all my screams, my curses, my wishes to take Asa and run away. I looked back at my brother, and he was happy as can be, completely oblivious while he painted his rocks. The way it should be.
Tavis crossed his arms, worry lines on his forehead that I’d never seen before on him. "It might not be them. We don't even have proof that this guy killed Oliver. He shot him. Maybe that was it."
"Calhoun said that Oliver...” I started, my voice sounding very far away, “that Oliver's body was a warning.”
“It was... It had to be a warning." Calhoun gazed at me, the corners of his eyes tight with haunted agony.
We'd likely be sharing the same nightmares tonight.
"There was...” I swallowed hard and looked again toward Asa. “There was another murder while I was at the Vivix building today."
Calhoun surged to his feet. "What?" he hissed. “IknewI shouldn’t have left you there.”
"While you got the video footage?" Vance asked.
I nodded, taking Calhoun’s hand as a reminder that I was fine. Physically at least. He was, too, since he’d gotten himself all stitched up. "Someone came into the surveillance area while I was in there. I hid so I didn't get a good look at them, but I think they took the footage from today with them. I think they were looking for last night’s, too, and then...someone else came in. Caught whoever it was in the act."
Tavis shook his head in disbelief while his mouth hung open. Vance rubbed his eyes hard with his palms as if to scrub that info from his brain, and Calhoun stood with his hands balled so tightly into fists that his knuckles turned white. If he’d had his power surge, I would bet curls of steam would be rolling off of him.
