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Taking another gulp of liquor and clinking ice, he said in soft, muddled words, “I’m perfectly okay. Everything is just dandy.”
Well, I was no skilled lie detector like Jax, but I knew when someone’s nose was growing.
Xander sipped his Bloodweiser, asking, “Any news?”
Osric sighed, shaking his head and patting the phone shape pressing through his slacks. “I’ve been scouring every news channel, even bloody blogs and chat forums. Trying to find out any clue as to who this little rat might be, and why he’s after Ceci.”
“And nothing? Nothing at all?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Just one thing, an unverified piece of information, but repeated enough I believe it. All the victims have been either humans or half breeds. Something those blockhead cops neglected to make public.” He leaned forward in his chair, fingers fidgety around his glass. “They should have said. Arseholes. People like Ceci could have been more on guard. I don’t trust these bozos to protect her.”
Xander clunked his can on the glass-topped coffee table beside him, stretching and yawning. “Good work. There’s a lot of protection here besides the cops though. Try and take it easy uh…prince.”
Osric snorted and necked his drink, draining the tumbler dry. “I’ll take it easy when the bastard is locked up in jail, or preferably taking his last breath, with Juniper’s kiss gracing him from ear to ear.”
Xander and I looked at each other in confusion. I asked, “Who’s Junip—”
“Hey,” came Aaron’s half-awake voice from his bedroom’s direction. He and Jax were both up, dressed in just their boxers. Both their chests—chiseled and huge—were quite the sight, especially next to each other. Normally I’d have feasted my eyes and had an internal drool, but my worries, and Osric’s sad manner, weren’t really conducive to that. Just last night, in Xander’s office, I’d thought I was having the time of my life and now look at things… My life was in imminent danger and the guys could be putting theirs at risk too, standing by me.
“My wolf woke me up, knowing you’d left.” Jax rubbed his puckered eyes open.
“Mine too,” Aaron said. “He knows when you’re not near and he grumbles like hell. Especially now that he’s speaking to me more.” He looked between the three of us. “Any news?”
“It seems Jack 2’s been targeting humans and half breeds,” I replied, repeating what Osric had told us, the words sending a shiver up and down my neck.
“Is that so?” Aaron grimaced and his hands tightened into fists at his sides. “I should’ve known, I was going to—” He glanced at Osric and gestured to the empty glass in his hands. “I hope you’re taking it easy on that stuff.”
Osric waved a dismissive hand. “Okay, dad. I am a grown up in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Aaron walked to the far side and plonked himself down on another couch. “Yeah, and we both know what happened last time you drank way too much.”
Osric sighed, walked to the kitchen, squeaking the cork from a green bottle and gurgling more amber liquid into his tumbler, plopping a handful of fresh ice cubes into it. Leaning on the kitchen counter, he raised the glass to Aaron. “I know all too well, old friend.”
Jax walked past him, opened the fridge and pulled out two regular beers, holding one out in offer to Aaron, who shook his head. Closing the fridge, he cracked the can and patted Osric on the shoulder. “Sounds like there’s a story there. And since nobody can sleep…”
Osric nodded. “Fine.” He returned to his recliner. After another mouthful, he put on a mock teacher’s voice, saying, “Are we all sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Though there’s not lots to tell, I’ll warn you now.”
Xander pointed around the room. “Better than sitting in miserable silence. Go on, let’s hear it.”
“Fine. Okay, well, as you may or may not know, I am betrothed to something of a Fae princess, back in England—”
“A princess!?” Jealousy flared inside me, but I tried to tamp it down. I struggled to find more words to excuse my outburst. “Oh, how lovely.” I waved my hand for him to continue.
“Not lovely, dear Ceci.” He shook his head, looking a bit sad for himself. “Now, I had just been informed of my obligations that same day, about…how long ago was it now, old bean?”
Aaron’s eyes searched upwards. “A couple of years, about? Not much less anyway.”
Osric continued. “So, there I was, in a bar downtown, contemplating my future with an emptyheaded girl I had nothing in common with. Nothing, except of course, purity of race, purity of blood. When”—he tapped his pointed ear—“my Fae sense of hearing tuned in on a group of around eight or nine large men in the corner, slurring and babbling the usual bollocks people do after too much booze. Except this was far more sinister. Going on and on about purity, about how breeds should be bound to mate only with each other, and how humans in particular had caused a lot of—as they called it—sinful interbreeding, before the Nebraska Agreement. It was nasty stuff. They were the Temple of the Pure Breed’s purest form of shitbags.”
Jax released a soft beer burp, apologizing, but saying, “Oh man, those pricks. So their conversation was getting on your nerves?”
“More than a little, dear chap. After all, bear in mind, the whole reason my future had been so unfortunately set in stone, was because of archaic beliefs such as these. And I wasn’t in the mood to listen to them while I was trying to enjoy a peaceful drink.”
Aaron chuckled. “You were in some state. You almost fell over trying to get to their table.”
“You were there too?” I asked.
Aaron nodded. “I was, trying to have agenuinelypeaceful drink with a couple of other academics.”
