Heart's Price (MxM)

Chapter 3

A rap on my window wakes me. Blinking, I see the blurry outline of my eldest brother, leaning down to peer in.

As I fumble my glasses back on, he comes into sharp focus and his face lights with a toothy grin.

I'm parked outside the cottage where he lives with his mate, Julian Hart, where I'd arrived several hours earlier. Four in the morning is no time to go knocking on someone's door, so I'd stayed in my car, put the seat back, and tried to get some rest.

After dozing fitfully for several hours, chilled by the mountain night air (I'd never got my blanket back from the dog), I'd finally fallen into a deeper sleep. Judging from the clock on my dash, which tells me it's just shy if half-past six, that was fifteen minutes ago.

Awake at last, I pop open my door and climb out, stiff with cold. Even in late summer, the nights are far from warm here.

"Little brother—you made it!" Dane exclaims in his deep, slightly rough voice and pulls me into a hug that makes me feel like a kid being crushed by a bear.

At six-and-a-half feet tall, Dane has the physique of comic-book fantasy and the face of a god—all masculine angles and smooth planes. His skin is darker than mine, a deep brown almond shade, and he wears his long hair in a mass of ropy locs.

It isn't fair. I mean, couldn't nature have spread things out a bit more evenly?

He gives me a final squeeze, lifting me off my feet, and then pushes me away to arm's length, holding my thin shoulders in his massive hands. His broad grin fades as he looks down at me, and I can imagine what he sees.

"Hey, Noah," he says in a softer tone, "You're gonna be okay, you hear me? Whatever happened, we got you now, and we'll get you back on your feet. Don't worry."

My throat hurts too much to speak, so I just nod. I haven't told Dane the whole thing yet—the tale of my fall from grace, my tumble from the ivory tower—and I'm not ready now. All he knows is that something bad happened to me, and that I need somewhere safe and secluded to hide away and lick my wounds.

"Come on, let's get you inside," he says. "Julian's making breakfast. His cooking stinks—literally—but he can brew coffee and toast waffles like a pro."

Julian is half Fae, inhumanly beautiful, and charming—if a bit strange. He has milk-pale skin, dark silky hair, and unlikely violet eyes. He makes me a little nervous, to be honest, though through no fault of his own.

He makes me nervous because of how I'd reacted when I first learned he had Fae blood; which is to say, not well. He'd quickly erased my misplaced bias, and had never held it against me, but I have a long and torturously accurate memory when it comes to past embarrassments.

Every time I see him I'm reminded of that old shame.

Now, he greets me at the door, smiling and ushering me inside. "Noah! Good to see you," he says, and I find myself wrapped in another, albeit gentler, embrace. "Come in!"

He leads me to the kitchen and offers me a seat at the little dining table. Dane follows, pulling out another chair and turning it around so he can straddle it, resting his arms across the back.

"You want some coffee?" Julian asks. "You like it black, right?"

I nod, surprised he'd remember a little detail like that. I guess he's mated to a detective, and is a detective himself now, after all. "Yes, thank you," I say, finding my voice at last, and glancing around the little cottage as I do. It's barely big enough for two people, especially when one of them is Dane.

There's a living room, a combo kitchen-dining area, a bedroom, a bathroom, an extra room used as a home office, and not much else. I wonder, somewhat belatedly, where they intend to have me stay.