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Raider gave every appearance of being relaxed as he stirred the stew and sipped his raaki, but Seth sensed the man’s alertness. He was a little drunk, yes, but he was also waiting for something. Like he knew Seth had come here for a reason other than returning his kaftan.
Seth really wished that Raider would have put that kaftan on. The sight of muscle moving under that bronze skin as Raider tended the stew was damned distracting. It also made Seth keenly aware of the fact that if Raider agreed to guide him across the Kesh, they would be spending weeks together, just the two of them: riding, cooking, sleeping. Seth would see that body all the time.
He would just have to deal with it. With any luck, eventually his annoyance with the man would overpower his illogical, unwanted attraction.
“So,” Seth began. “About the Kesh—”
“What, on the gods-forsaken earth, is so important about getting across the Kesh? Why can you not stop working for one minute? It’s a beautiful goddamned evening. You have a cup of the best raaki west of the Kesh in your hands and the promise of pork and chili in your future. Why can’t you just enjoy it, you obsessive, stubborn mule?”
“Because I have a job to do, you lazy asshole!” Damn it, this was hard enough without being challenged at every turn. “That’s why I’m here. What the hell else could possibly induce me to voluntarily enter a conversation with you?”
Seth didn’t know when he’d gotten to his feet, but he was on them, and Raider was stalking his way, that right eye brightening to gold. Was it, too, arcane, maybe in a different way from the other one? It must be. It had flashed too often for Seth to continue telling himself it was a trick of the light.
Raider’s grin turned feral as he crowded into Seth. Seth’s temper was still riding him, tempting him to grab the man. His instinct should have been to shove Raider away, but Seth knew that if he let his hands come up, that wasn’t what he’d do.
“I have a feeling, Curator, that you’re more capable of blending work and pleasure than you think.”
“Step back.”
“Tell me why you’re here.”
“I was about to, you colossal prick. Step the fuck back.”
Raider’s lips quirked, though he still looked predatory. “You’re not here for information on the Kesh. You’re here to hire me.”
“Yes, I am. But if you don’t step the fuck back—”
Raider shook his head, tsking. “You’re going to have to get over this sensitivity about space.”
“You’re going to have to learn boundaries. And you’ll have to read my next words off my fist because I won’t say it again.”
Raider snickered then all but purred, “Don’t tempt me like that.”
But he did step back. He returned to the cooking pot. He stirred again and sipped his raaki, his mood as mercurial as the quicksilver in his body.
Seth’s mood was less easy to shift, so he started one of his breathing exercises. He was careful about it, tried to keep it subtle, but the way Raider glanced at him said that he knew what Seth was doing. The way Raider’s lips twitched said he found it amusing.
What an asshole.
Stirring with a casual air, Raider asked, “Tell me then. What artifact or dusty scroll or scrap of arcane history could possibly be worth getting yourself killed for?”
Jasmine, who had popped to all fours, tensing at their almost-fight, resumed his position of hopeful readiness. Somehow that, more than Raider’s easy tone, helped Seth calm down. Animals usually did that for him, which was one of the reasons he always left his apartment shutters open for the Arcanum’s resident cats.
Seth sat on the bench again. His cock, half hard, was torqued uncomfortably in his pants, but he wasn’t about to draw attention to it by adjusting it. Hopefully it wasn’t obvious. Hopefully it would go the hell away.
He got back to business. “I’m not after an artifact. I’m after a man.”
Raider frowned. “Is the Arcanum in the habit of abducting people? Is he to be taken back for study?”
Seth scowled. “I’m not going to abduct him. I’m going to arrest him and take him back to the Arcanum to stand trial for murder. He’s an arcanist who killed a fellow scholar.”
“It seems like a lot,” Raider remarked, “sending a valuable—I assume you’re valuable?—Curator haring across the Kesh after a fugitive.”
Seth ignored the thrown-in question about his value. “The Arcanum takes murder very seriously. Most moral people do.”
Raider waved that away. “Morals always have their limits. This is a fool’s errand. You don’t strike me as a fool.”
Refusing to be baited, Seth confined himself to a simple, “I will complete my assigned mission.”
