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“Are you sure it can wait?”
“Yes, sir.”
He waved him off, waiting until Jita had bowed to both him and Wren and headed for the exit before turning his attention back to the head of the Hail family. He motioned to his ensemble. “You have to admit, this is very punk rock of you. Hardly screams ‘wicked Underlord of Sixpence.’”
“Yes,” Wren hummed drolly, “and your hair does that spectacularly, you’re right.”
He reached up and tugged lightly at some of the dyed strands, grinning. “So you like it?”
Maybe being woken at the crack of dawn—or noon, as it were—wasn’t so bad after all. It’d been a while since the two of them had last found time to get together and jest, and even though the man across from him still had part of his guard up, and rightly so, Odin had always considered Wren the closest thing he had to a true friend. Sad as that may be. Everyone else he was close with worked for him. Not Wren.
Wren Shen was the King of the Den, owner of the gambling hub of Sixpence City, and all of its glittering wealth and luster. One wouldn’t guess it looking at him now, garbed in not a single sparkly jewel or even gold, but he controlled a third of the country’s main wealth and was always after collecting more.
Never satisfied.
Never satiated.
Never sane.
The three S words used to describe the three Dominus behind their backs. Of course, nothing was ever whispered in the dark that didn’t eventually reach one of their ears. Wren’s street look allowed him to move more freely, though how was beyond Odin, since he looked like a walking Bad Boy wet dream.
The two of them were famous for their flirtations and their teasing remarks, but that was as far as it ever went. Neither had ever actually been able to coax the other into bed, and a part of Odin thought that probably was because they each valued their tentative friendship in their own way.
“Sadly, I’m not here to talk about how you’d bend me over your knee if only given the chance,” Wren cut through his thoughts then, and his gaze hardened some in that way it did when he was about to talk business.
Curiosity piqued, Odin glanced back over to Loni who was standing up against the wall nearest the entrance. He should have known she wouldn’t risk waking him for something as frivolous as a hangout session.
“I found him,” Wren said, and just like that, everything else went still and silent around Odin.
He searched his expression for any signs of a lie, even knowing Wren had the best poker face on the planet. He saw nothing telling there, but still, he dare not hope…
“If this is a jest—”
“I found him,” he repeated more firmly. “Would you like to know where?”
“Tell me everything.” Odin leaned forward, not even caring that the other man had him right where he wanted him.
Wren pulled out his multi-slate—the handheld computer everyone carried around with them that acted as a phone—and tapped at it for a moment.
A second later, the device in Odin’s pajama pants pocket dinged and he pulled it out to find a map location. Springing to his feet, he was already halfway to the door before recalling this was a transaction and he needed to uphold his end of it.
“Give him whatever he wants,” he ordered Loni.
Wren grinned. “That’s very generous of you, Jokester. Makes a guy wonder what’s so special about this particular prey.”
Odin paused long enough to meet the other guy’s eyes warningly. “What’s special about him is he’s mine.” Or, at least, he would be. Soon.
After more than a decade of searching, he’d finally been found.
This time, when he passed down the corridor and headed back toward the elevator that would take him to his private suite, Odin didn’t notice the longing glances or hear the whispered offers.
Anticipation bubbled up within him, blocking everything else out entirely, that one word repeating itself over and over like a war drum in his mind.
Soon he’d have him in his clutches.
Soon.
Soon.
