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“Careful.”
I nodded and slipped out of the nest. It was strange getting dressed on my own. Somehow, I could recall when Jack and I had fallen into the habit of acting as valet for one another. I was used to his shaving me or helping me fit into my coat. My boots too were his domain, as his were mine.
But just because I was used to his help, didn’t mean I couldn’t do the job myself—it just felt lonely. Now there was a change. I’d never noticed loneliness before. Never appreciated the easy companionship inherent in being a member of a triad that was equally devoted to one another.
I was so damn happy I practically skipped down the stairs—a steady thud, of course, but damn lively compared to how I normally moved about the house.
“Meeker!”
“Aye, lordship? What is with you this morning? Looking positively rumpled.”
“Do you wish to take back your position as my valet?”
“I was never your valet! Goddess luv, ya! But I might have scraped the whiskeys off yer face and spit shine your boots, but I ain’t no valet.”
“A man of all business?” I asked, amused by his denial. Not that I could blame him. He wasn’t a valet, never had been, never could be considering how ill kept his own appearance.
“Precisely that. Which is how I is knowing you wants to see the Black man this morning.”
“Puck to you,” I warned him.
“I meant Drexler. Puck’d like to have my balls if I so much as implied he needed a title. We’s two peas in a pod. Him Puck and me Meeker. Just those names for us. None else will do. The Black man is Drexler, for he is always wearing black. As he should since his soul is blacker than the devil’s.”
“You are talkative today.”
“You ain’t the only one…” he winked and gave me a wheezing cough.
“I’m to assume—”
“Yes.” He almost seemed happy.
I laughed. “Then lead on Meeker.”
He followed behind me, and it was only the skip in his step that had me slowing down and attempting the decorum this morning so decidedly rejected.
Drexler’s Hell was still awake, if it ever went to sleep. The former prize fighter at the door nodded to Meeker and gave me a strange sort of bow.
“Morning! Lord Paxton here to see your master.”
“Up at the top of the place,” the man with the cauliflower ears grunted, but his eyes were all for Meeker, who was whistling a timeless ditty.
My mouth shut with a snap and I left them to it… whatever it was.
The Hell had a few guests, all looking like lost souls, half awake, half certain of their own demise. And Drexler owned them all.
“Up at the top of the place,” I muttered. It was such a vague location and seemed to say there was no where else his employer could be at this hour. It also meant a long trudging walk up flights of stairs until I reached the attic. Stepping into the room, I recognised it from Jack’s description, a training place for betas.
“Looking for Oberon?”
I spun and came face to face with Puck. He was shirtless, sweaty, and smelled of sex. And though his body moved with that easy grace one saw so frequently in athletes, his eyes were sharp and full of… mirthless humour. As if there was a joke that he saw but knew wasn’t funny, one that he shouldn’t laugh at but almost couldn’t help himself.
“Yes.”
“He’s in his office.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, which was starting to show a beard, black tight curls against flawlessly dark skin.
“Your man at the door said he was at the top of the place,” I said, hoping to distract myself from observing a man who confounded me on so many levels.
“He was. Just went down to the office. He’ll be glad to see you. I think he is jealous that I spend so much time with Fordom. When Oberon is jealous, he is willing to do anything to—”
