I cried for a long time and slept longer. Max woke me to shower before we landed, and I stood there, dazed as he rubbed shampoo in my fur, rinsed it out and dried me. I didn’t know why he bothered. There was no point in any of this. Even if the elder somehow agreed, Damian would be ten steps ahead of us. He’d played me, and was probably still playing me.
I realized I was dressed when I tried to loosen the shirt’s collar. I was back in that suit Max had tricked me in owning and after almost two years it still felt as constraining as the first time I had to wear it.
These guys could do family altering negotiations whiles having sex, so why the insistence on suits? How long were we going to stay in them, anyway? We should just leave the jet naked and save time.
Max shook me awake. Daylight poured in from the open door. It was just him, me and Tom left inside. I didn’t want to leave the safety of the jet. I didn’t want to stand. I didn’t want to be awake to the nightmare that was my life.
Max guided me outside and down the stairs. I walked blind; the sun being far too bright, by the time my eyes adjusted we’d reached the building and I was blind again while we walked through a crowd.
We left the main causeway through a door and finally quiet surrounded me, we only the distant murmur of people and machines.
Through another door we went up stairs and the next corridor was even more quiet. By the time Max led me to the open door, I could hear the quiet conversation, but none of it was in English.
I froze in the doorway. A dozen shrews sat or stood around a long conference table, talking with the elders who had flown with us and others I’d only seen on screens before. The Mastrotsis Elder sat at the head, opposite the door. He eyed me severely as the conversations ended.
He spoke harshly in Greek and after a short argument the other shrews left by a side door. “You also, Maximilian,” The shews said, his voice surprisingly deep for such a small man.
“Erotas, I think I should—”
“No Maximilian. This will be private, only me and the Rasia Elder. If you will not agree to this there is no point in continuing.”
Max motioned, and the others streamed around us. “Denton, can you do this?”
Do what? Take being screamed at? Why not, what else was I good for? I nodded.
“Tom?” Max asked. Had Max ever used Tom’s first name before?
“I want one of ours on the other door, but yeah. I’m okay with it. It’s what we came here to do right?”
“You take that door, Tom, I’ll guard this one.”
“Erotas, just to be clear. This is Jeffrey’s son.”
The shrew nodded. “Now your interest in him is clearer. He is an elder, before being a Rasia to me, Maximilian. I promise I will do him no harm.”
Tom exited by the side door, then the door behind me closed and it was only the two of us. The shrew motioned to the high-back chair on his left. “Please sit, Elder Rasia.”
I hardly noticed I walked, and then I was seated next to him. “It’s Brislow,” I whispered.
“I do not understand.”
I was too drained to put any vehemence in my voice. “I hate how the lot of you say Rasia, as if it’s an insult. I have nothing to do with them. I’m a Brislow.”
“I see.” He placed a hand on mine and I felt something happen.
I bolted out of the chair, finally alert. It clattered on the floor. “What did you try to do?”
“I apologize, I should have told you first. I am used to everyone being aware of what I can do. I can settle emotions with a touch. They told me what happened, but I would have known you experienced loss just by seeing your face. We need to talk without grief getting in the way.” He extended his hand to me.
I reached back, and the chair jumped to my hand, the plastic stinging with the force of the impact. I sat and took his hand.
The pain of Marcus’ death receded until it was simply a hint of what I’d felt. The despair at not being there for Zee joined it, as did my fear all I was doing was for nothing.
I could finally breathe and my whole body shuddered with the relief. When I opened my eyes, I noticed the tiredness in Erotas’ eyes, the redness in them.
He spoke before I could ask about it. “Who was he?”
I swallowed, but the pain didn’t consume me. He was dead, but I could still think. “His name was Marcus Bodenman, but never let Zee hear you call him that; he’d never let you hear the end of it. Since their wedding, it’s been Marcus Bodenman Malhotra. Zee is Zikabar Malhotra Bodenman. I always thought it was silly, but that’s Zee, he can be silly about some things.” I so wanted to go to him right now, but this meeting was important. What was the point of comforting Zee if Damian killed my god, became my god? What kind of man would I be with someone like Damian pulling my strings?
“This Zikabar,” Erotas said, before I could ask what it would take for him to get on board. “I get the sense he matters more than Marcus.”
The shame and reproach were only a whisper in the distance. “He’s been my best friend since I was nine. Kept the bully from picking on me when my sister wasn’t around. He’s not a big man, effeminate is closer to it, but he can be fierce. I’ve watched him take on guys three years ahead of him without hesitation. And he won. He’d be bloodied and hurt, but he didn’t stop until he got his point across. It didn’t take long for the school bully to leave me alone.
“He’s the first man I had sex with, well we were both kids back then I wasn’t even twelve, he was just past his sixteenth birthday. I initiated it. Zee has this thing about respecting boundaries, but once I came on to him, he had no problem enjoying it. I wrecked my first car’s ceiling with him. Antlers and car sex are not a good mix.
“I met Marcus through him, Zee took one look at him in college, and he was going to have him. Marcus was terrified of him for a good quarter of the semester; Marcus, who’s a good head taller, way broader, just couldn’t handle the intensity with which Zee chased him. But once Zee caught him. Man, Marcus became a different man.
“For all his intensity, Zee loves being dominated. Not in a BDSM way, but once Marcus realized that Zee was his and no one else. He changed. Became confident. Marcus became my best friend quickly.”
I stopped. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to Zee without Marcus.”
“You said he is intense, strong.”
“Yes, but he poured that intensity into loving Marcus. I swear, I don’t think any two persons have ever been more in love with each other than those two. How does someone survive that kind of loss?”
“He survives it, by having his best friend at his side,” Erotas said. “Go to him.”
“I can’t, not until we—”
“Go to him, I will have the artifact contained with my altar removed and sent to you.”
“Why?” the suspicion was muffled, like the rest of my emotion, but this was too much of an about-face for me to ignore.
“Because you are here, in spite of your grief. I know the effect of grief. I lost my youngest in the defense of the hearth.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. I know how tempting it is to turn your back on your responsibilities because of it. You still came.”
“We were already in the air.”
“And you couldn’t turn them around? They said how you took telekinetic hold of the plane.”
“Max talked me down.”
“A father figure will do that. Do you know about him and your father?”
“Yeah, I saw a lot of Max’s memories of them. I had to put my foot down about how Max was treated me. I’m not his son.”
“But he still loves you as one.”
“Yeah.” I was more okay with that now. “Elder—”
“Erotas, please.”
“Erotas, I know how this work. You want something in return, not one of you just says yes to me. So what do you want?”
Erotas was silent. Finally he sighed. “I want peace. I want this war to be done with so I can wallow in my own grief. Can you give me that?”
“That what all this is about,” I answered, “stopping Damian’s plan. I’m not going to promise you I’ll win, but I’ll be dead if I don’t.”
The shrew nodded. “Then this will be enough.” He moved to release my hand, but I grabbed it.
“Why do you believe me? Everyone else thinks I lie any time I tell them I’ll do something. Any time I make a promise.”
“I believe you because you are here when you would rather be at your friend’s side. Doing what is needed is not the Rasia way.” He smiled. “It seems to be the Brislow way. I will do my part to help bring this war to an end. You do yours.”
He took his hand out of mine and the emotions came flooding back, only I didn’t drown in them, they mixed with the resolve the man had given me. I was a Brislow. Brislows didn’t give up, we didn’t surrender. Fuck, my dad had pulled me out of the fire and thwarted Damian when I was a kid. It was practically a family tradition to stand in his way.
I was going to fucking give Erotas his time to grieve, or die trying.
