Page 25 of Something Handsome This Way Comes

“My Milo is so sweet,” he murmured.

Hadn’t Milo been here? Just a second ago?

Grievance tried to open his eyes, but they wouldn’t obey. For one confused, fever-drowned moment, he couldn’t remember where he was. Couldn’t remember who had been touching him. He only knew the terrible emptiness beside him and the frantic need clawing through his chest.

“Can’t… can’t find him.”

Where… where is Milo? He would never leave me like this. Doesn’t he know how terribly I need him right now?

“Grievance, what are you talking about? I’m standing right here.”

Someone was bent over him, touching him. But he didn’t know who. Then rough hands shook his shoulders.

“Grievance, stay with me. Listen to me. You’ve been drugged. You need an antidote.”

Doesn’t this person get it? My only antidote is Milo. Just Milo.

“No,” Grievance groaned. “Need Milo. Just need my mate.” His cock jerked, pre-cum spattering his chest. “Need my mate. Need to breed him. Fill him. Love him. See if… if he loves me back.”

Grievance was going to burn alive. His head lolled back, and even the stranger’s call couldn’t bring him to raise it again. His cock hurt so bad.

“Grievance… fuck. I don’t have the right ingredients to make an antidote. Babe, are you with me?”

A hand forced his head up. Blearily, he looked into twin emeralds.

So beautiful.

“I’m going to fucking kill Rowen,” the voice said.

Then a cool mouth crashed into his, a searching tongue breaching his lips and stealing what little remained of Grievance’s reason.

The Chimera jolted. For a moment, he didn’t know who was touching him. Only that they were cool. So wonderfully, impossibly cool.

Grievance chased the relief without thought, turning into the kiss with a desperate sound. Something inside him insisted he knew this. The shape of those lips. The softness of that mouth. The familiar scent filling his lungs beneath the suffocating haze of heat.

He knew this person. Didn’t he?

His fevered mind reached for the answer and found only fragments.

Green eyes.

Copper curls.

Freckles.

Cold feet tucked beneath his legs in bed.

A pink sweater swallowing slender hands.

A laugh Grievance would know anywhere.

Home.

Mate.

Milo.

The name broke through the delirium like sunlight.