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“Kaden,” Joseph shouted in his shrill yet gravelly voice, “You’re cramping my style, which is to say if I don’t meet my nightly quota, my cock will not be happy.” He nudged Stone’s shoulder with his small elbow. “The little woman has the heart of a miser.” Maybe he meant it as a dig, but his eyes shone with pride.
Goddess, save him from gremlins.
But Stone waited quietly for the gremlin to acquiesce or not. Kaden was not exactly someone any realm-person could challenge, at least not without serious consequences. Even separated by a few walls, Stone could feel the man’s energy vibrating along the tunnel.
“J-o-s-e-p-h.” Kaden’s voice carried a resonant warning. “I mean now.”
Joseph finally huffed a sigh and blew the air from his cheeks. “Oh, very well. You’ll find your size there at the east end of the racks.”
Stone went to the right of the doorway, in the direction of Joseph’s waving hand and could see at a glance that the Guard coats were suited to the breadth of his shoulders. He’d pushed three aside when he came across one with special silver studs that looked remarkably familiar. “What the hell! Joseph, this is my coat and I know exactly when it disappeared. I went swimming in my lake one night and got out of the water to find my clothes gone. And how the hell did you even get past my security shields?”
He turned, intending to glare at his forest gremlin host, but Joseph was nowhere to be seen. Stone’s turn to puff out his cheeks, then sigh.
He grabbed the coat and it didn’t take him long to find the matching leathers and black boots with star studs down both sides. After foraging among stacks of woven shirts, he also discovered a cache of several with his name stitched along the inside neckline. One of his doneuses had been making these shirts for him for decades. Not that he always wore them, but dammit, these shirts were his.
He muttered under his breath as he dropped his towel and got into his uniform.
When he’d pulled up his boots then ran his fingers down the familiar studs on his leathers, he started to call out for Joseph. But his sensitive vampire hearing detected two voices toward the west end of Joseph’s home: Kaden and Joseph were squabbling.
Stone heard Kaden snort. “I’m not using ‘keylap’ because that’s not a word. You made it up.”
“I did not. And it fits. See? Six letters. All right. I see you still don’t believe me, so let me explain. I was at a gremlin strip club near the Vermed Sea and that’s what the dancer called it, but you had to be in a private room and pay extra: Keylap. Now do you see?”
“Did you get one?”
Stone heard the shudder in Joseph’s voice. “I was tempted. That woman had breasts the size of plums. Now that may not seem big to you but for a woman only a foot and half tall, they were hefty honkers.” Another shuddering sound ensued.
“I’m telling your wife where you went.”
Joseph blew another fatty sound from between his lips. “You do and you won’t be welcome back here anytime soon, then where would you be? And I’d like to see another realm-person anxious to open his dwelling to a Goddess-be-damned elf-lord.”
Stone fell very still and a terrible chill went through him.
Elf-lord?
Holy fuck.
Several questions ran through his head. Was it true? If so, how had an elf-lord survived all this time without detection? And what was he doing in Ferrenden Peace? Did Aralynn know what Kaden was?
In ancient Realm history, the elf-lords had subjugated the entire population of the Nine Realms and a reign of terror ensued. Over the centuries, a resistance movement arose that eventually wiped them out.
If Kaden really was an elf-lord, then Stone had an obligation to turn him over to the Sidhe Council, but that hardly seemed like a just recompense for a man who had healed him of an otherwise mortal wound. Stone would have died without Kaden’s healing touch.
He turned the issue over in his head several times eventually deciding that he’d keep his mouth shut for the time being. Joseph was so full of horseshit, Stone thought it possible Kaden was no such thing. For now, Stone had a war to win against someone clearly more dangerous than this particular elf.
Putting his feet in motion, he arrived at the doorway and finally understood the nature of the discussion about the word ‘keylap’.
Kaden sat in a la
rge comfortable leather chair, a lamp lighting up his right shoulder with Joseph perched on his left. Kaden had one leg balanced on the other at the ankle and he held a crossword puzzle book on his knee, a pencil in hand.
Both men glanced at him, their eyes dipping to take in his uniform.
“I see it still fits.” Joseph lifted a brow. His lips turned down at the same time. “I could get a couple hundred at least, on the black market.”
“Give it a rest.” Kaden snorted.
Stone stepped into the room, dipping below the arched doorway. Because Kaden was a tall man and clearly a frequent guest, Joseph must have shaped a few of his rooms for him.
