12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

E nid rubbed hand sanitizer onto her hands with nervous efficiency. Her cuticles were chapped and red, but clean. Once she was done, she set the bottle back down next to the laptop.

“This is not…this isn’t legal,” she muttered. “I…I think it might be industrial espionage.”

Stúfur leaned over her shoulder.

“We won’t tell if you don’t,” he said with a wink.

Enid shied away from him, the chair rolling to the side. She braced her hands against the desk and half-started to her feet.

“This isn’t a good idea,” she said. “I have to go—”

Somerset reached over and put his hand on her shoulder to push her back down. “Bit late for that,” he said. “You already have your fingerprints all over this.”

Enid checked her hands, front and back, with what was obviously a nervous tic. “I washed them—”

“Digitally,” Somerset corrected her. “This isn’t Law and Order , Enid. We won’t need to testify to what you found. We just need you to find it.”

He pushed the chair back over until she was squarely in front of the computer. She stared at it, her sallow complexion sickly in the glow from the screen, and then her shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Babies?” she said.

Somerset nodded. “Anything baby related that ties back to Lucas…or Yule.”

Her hands were halfway to the keys when he said that. She paused, took a deep breath, and started to type. As she worked, she leaned closer to the screen, occasionally grabbing a pen to scrawl down a note on a bit of paper.

Somerset watched briefly and then glanced over at Stúfur. The look, and a nod from Stúfur, was enough to convey the request to make sure their accountant didn’t become a flight risk. While Stúfur made himself comfortable in the corner of the room, Somerset left them to it and headed out to find Dylan.

It took him a few false starts, but he finally tracked the wayward Santa down in the stables. He leaned on the half-door, arms crossed, as he watched his pet reindeer eat.

Somerset paused in the doorway to watch for a moment.

“Shift change?” Ket asked. He was in a chair on the other side of the door, tilted onto the back legs to rest against the wall. “Or are we dropping that now everyone knows you’re doing something other than guarding his body.”

“I just like to work up close,” Somerset told him. “Go. Get something to eat. If you’re looking for Stúfur, he’s keeping an eye on the accountant.”

Ket tugged a mock forelock and rocked forward, the chair’s legs loud as they hit the floor. He rose easily to his feet and stepped around Somerset. Before he could head through the door, Somerset caught his arm to stop him.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask,” he said. “Was there any word on the street about the wolves?”

Ket paused and shook his head. “Not in Belling,” he said. “Some people claimed there had been sightings out in the country, but nothing solid. Why?”

“Because they had to be somewhere,” Somerset said, “and that means they had to be with someone. Wolves weren’t made to pump gas or go to Walmart.”

Ket shrugged. “Well, wherever it was, it wasn’t around here.”

He took his arm back and left, his footsteps echoing off the half-decorated walls .

Somerset supposed that would have been too easy. He turned to look for Dylan and found the other man had turned around, arms crooked up behind him onto the door, to watch him. The stubborn tilt of his chin suggested that he expected them to end up at odds over something.

Again.

“You were right,” Dylan said.

Somerset paused mid-step as he raised an eyebrow. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting.

“Go on,” he said.

Dylan snorted and pushed himself off the door. “I should have given it up. My job. My apartment. My…life, I guess. If I was going to do this, that’s the price I was supposed to pay. Instead I tried to have it all, and Alice is the one who is going to pay. Alice and Irene.”

There was a note of grim resignation in his voice.

“We’re going to find them,” Somerset said.

Dylan’s mouth twisted into a not-quite-a-smile.

“Are wolves better at keeping people alive than they are at pumping gas?” Dylan asked. “Because they’ve got three of them, and only care about one.”

“Alice will survive a wolf’s indifference better than its attention,” Somerset said. “And the wolves won’t survive me. Not this time.”

Dylan didn’t look convinced. Before he could argue himself into more guilt, Somerset took him by the arms and pulled him into a kiss. The plan was to be gentle, to console him, but the aftertaste of violence and recently shed blood was too close to the surface. It made Somerset’s grip tighten on Dylan’s arms, fingers dug in hard enough to bruise, and roughened the kiss.

The thought that he should rein himself in occurred to him. Before he could Dylan made a low sound in the back of his throat and met the kiss with the same pitch of hungry desperation. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of Somerset’s jeans, his knuckles warm as they grazed against the flat of Somerset’s stomach, and pulled him closer.

As far as reasons not to think went it was as good as any, and better than most.

Somerset pushed Dylan back into the wall of the stable. The bridle strung up on a hook next to the door rattled with the impact, the strung bells ringing softly. Dylan gasped and then tilted his head back as Somerset chewed his way along his jaw, the scruff of stubble rough against his lips, and down his throat .

For twelve months Somerset had been careful not to leave any marks. None where they could be seen, anyhow. Now it didn’t matter. He worked livid bruises onto Dylan’s pale skin with teeth and tongue.

Dylan tilted his head back, throat pulled tight, for easier access. His hand grazed up over Somerset’s lean leather-clad thigh and under his shirt. Warm fingers against cool skin left a trail of prickling heat in their wake, until Somerset tightened his grip on Dylan’s biceps to limit their range.

“Please?” Dylan protested, in a borderline whine he’d deny when he wasn’t half-drunk with lust.

Somerset lifted his head from Dylan’s throat and kissed the plea off his mouth.

“Wait,” he said as he leaned back. Dylan looked at him with dark, dazed eyes and swallowed hard. He flicked the pink tip of his tongue over flushed, bruised lips.

“I did,” he pointed out.

“So you know how,” Somerset teased, as he brushed a featherlight kiss to the corner of Dylan’s lips. He lifted one of Dylan’s arms over his head and pinned it to the wall. The well-oiled supple reins of the bridle made a good makeshift cuff. Dylan’s eyes widened in surprise as Somerset tugged the strap tight, but his fingers remained loose and relaxed. The leather looked very dark against his skin, the tarnished glitter of the bells right. Somerset slid his hand down the other arm, from bicep to wrist, and then paused. “I’ll stop if you want me to do that. If you don’t want me to do this. All you have to do is say it.”

Dylan, very deliberately, tilted his head back against the wall and bit his lips together.

The right hand joined the left, mired in a web of leather and metal fittings. Dylan tightened both hands around the straps. the tendons in his wrists pulled into tight wires under his skin.

Once it was secure, Somerset stepped back. He ran a finger down Dylan’s cheek to his jaw, tracing the damp path of his own spit. Ice bloomed under his touch, short-lived fingerlings of frost that just as quickly faded to a blush on the skin.

The new shirt fit Dylan like it had been sewed on him. Somerset adjusted the collar and then ran his finger down to flick one of the little coal buttons. He had never actually watched the brownies work, so that might well be how they did it. It was almost a shame to ruin such nice work.

Or, if you looked at it another way, it was an early Christmas present for the North Pole staff .

He gripped the front of the shirt and ripped it open with a harsh, almost organic sound. The buttons pinged off the floor and the wall as they went flying. Dylan caught his breath and gave Somerset a wry look.

“I hope the brownies made me a spare shirt,” he said. “Otherwise this year Santa will be bare-chested when he comes down the chimney.”

Somerset kissed the sass away with a rough, quick buss that crushed Dylan’s lips under his. Then he dipped his head to lick a shiver over Dylan’s collarbone.

“I’d buy that calendar,” he said.

Dylan laughed and then choked the sound off into a whimper as Somerset, one hand braced against the wall, worked his way down from shoulder to chest. The muscles in Dylan’s chest, pulled long and tight by his upstretched arms, tightened under his skin as Somerset placed a wet openmouthed kiss against one of Dylan’s nipples. He scraped with teeth and tongue until the flat pink bud puckered enough he could wrap his lips around it. The attention made Dylan’s chest hitch, his breath ragged as it caught between his ribs.

His hands tightened around the tangle of straps that cuffed him, and the bells jingled gently.

“God,” he muttered raggedly. “Please?”

Somerset chuckled and slid lower. He bit bruises along Dylan’s lean stomach and across the taut span of skin between his hip bones. The ragged hitch in Dylan’s breathing, the quiver of it his stomach muscles, got more pronounced the lower Somerset went.

“This isn’t going to make it easier,” Somerset said. “You and me. I won’t be kinder or more tolerant or less…who and what I am. If anything, it’ll be harder because I’ll be in all your life, not just the bits I can steal.”

Dylan sucked in a breath, his stomach moving under Somerset’s mouth.

“Is this you giving me an out?” he asked.

Somerset flicked his tongue around the dip of Dylan’s navel, the faint musky, salty taste of skin sweet in his mouth, and then looked up. It was a good view, the sprawl of Dylan’s body splayed out against the wall made Somerset’s cock tighten with aching impatience. The splatter of half-healed bruises, on ribs and curled around his shoulder, made something darker fill in his chest. Close enough to the same, though, connected.

Dark gray-streaked curls cast shadows over Dylan’s face as he looked down, his mouth well-kissed and parted and his eyes dazed. Whatever he saw on Somerset’s face made him twist his hands tighter in the leather straps .

“No. It’s far too late for that,” Somerset said. He slid down onto his knees and flicked the button of Dylan’s jeans open. Goose bumps bloomed on Dylan’s stomach as he squirmed in place. “Just letting you know.”

He pushed the trousers down just enough to free Dylan’s cock, already warm and heavy for Somerset’s touch. It had been…fuck, he couldn’t remember dates…too long. The idea that after tonight Somerset could have Dylan tomorrow as well—in a bed, on a chair, bent over the kitchen table—made everything from Somerset’s balls to his asshole clench almost painfully tight.

“Are you—”

Whatever Dylan had been about to say was strangled by a groan as Somerset wrapped his mouth around the half-hard length of his cock. The heat of it in his mouth spread through his jaw and down his throat, like honey and summer. Somerset swirled his tongue around the shaft as it thickened, the pulse of warm mortal blood almost overwhelming as it filled his head.

Dylan moaned and rolled his hips forward. His fully erect cock slid over Somerset’s tongue and bumped the back of his throat. As he pulled his head back the sticky glaze of pre-come was sharp and salty as it smeared his lips.

“Somerset,” Dylan begged him with the name. The muscles in his arms stood out like wires as he gripped the reins tight enough to lift him up onto his tiptoes. Then again, as if he needed to try them both on for size, “Skellir.”

It didn’t matter.

For once the schism formed by Somerset’s decision to leave Yule didn’t matter. Somerset or Skellir, they both wanted to be here.

Somerset gripped Dylan’s hip with one hand, thumb hooked over his hip bone and fingers spread over the curve of his ass, and pinned him against the wall. He ran his other hand up the back of Dylan’s thigh, waxed cotton rough against his palm and skin smooth.

He worked his mouth around Dylan’s cock, hard and wet and warm as a heart. The pulse of it tangled with the throb of Somerset’s blood. Eventually Dylan’s pleas were worn down to just breathless, wordless need.

Before he came, Somerset pulled back. He gave the head of Dylan’s cock one last lick to savor the taste and then rose to his feet in one easy movement. Dylan pulled enough syllables together to swear, a low, strangled noise, and dropped his head back against the wall. His attention was on the ache dammed up in his balls and not on Somerset .

He could fix that. Somerset slid his hand around the back of Dylan’s neck and lifted his head back up, then kissed him. The taste of his own cock on Somerset’s tongue pulled Dylan’s focus back to where it was supposed to be. As he explored Dylan’s mouth, Somerset reached down and unfastened his jeans. He reached into them and pulled out his cock, already hard and aching.

When Somerset pulled back, Dylan craned after the kiss, until the cuffs pulled tight.

“I’m yours,” Somerset told him, his mouth close to but not touching Dylan’s ear. “Like it or not.”

He cuffed their cocks together, fingers wrapped around the hard shafts. If Dylan wanted to argue he’d have to wait until later. Somerset fucked his hand roughly, the underside of his cock rubbing against Dylan’s. Pre-come and spit slicked his palm and smeared along his cock. It dripped from between his fingers.

Pleasure built in Somerset’s balls like snowslip, that building feeling about something ready to give. Dylan gasped under his attention, sweat shiny on his chest and flushed throat. He chewed his lower lip, already bruised from Somerset’s kisses, as he thrust up against the cup of Somerset’s hand.

He came first, his spend dripping onto Somerset’s knuckles and jeans. Dylan sagged back against the wall, his weight hung from leather straps, and breathed raggedly. His throat worked as he swallowed.

Somerset jerked his hand down his cock a few more times, threads of ice caught back into his balls, then stepped forward. He pressed his body against Dylan’s, sweat-slick skin to sweat-slick skin shoulder to balls, and thrust roughly against the tight, flat span of his stomach. He leaned forward to grab a kiss from salty lips as he spilled himself over both of them, sticky and wet.

They stood there for a minute, breathing each other's breath, and then Somerset reached up to untangle Dylan’s hands. Dylan sagged into him, limp and loose, until he pulled himself together and straightened up.

He leaned back against the wall and reached down to pull his jeans up with clumsy hands.

“It’s not…what happens if Yule finds someone else to be Santa?” he asked. When Somerset gave him a curious look, Dylan shrugged. He dropped his hands from his jeans, leaving the waistband agape to flash come-smeared skin and hair. “It’s not like anyone picked me. Not even you, Saintmaker. ”

OK. Skellir or Somerset he could accept from Dylan’s mouth. Saintmaker still left a bad taste.

Dylan hadn’t noticed.

“And after a year, I still can’t feel like I’m what Yule wants for the job,” he said as he looked down at his hands. His wrists were red, rubbed raw by the leather. “I…when the wolves took Irene and Alice, I was useless.”

Somerset put his finger under Dylan’s chin and tipped his head back up. He leaned in and dropped a quick, salted kiss onto his bruised mouth.

“You are Yule,” he said. “And we’ll find the wolves. We’re getting closer. We’ll have Irene and Alice back before you crack the Whip.”

There was still something worried at the corners of Dylan’s eyes, but he nodded reluctant acceptance of the reassurance. Before Somerset could push more, the door to the stables swung open and cracked against the wall.

“Well, now I have to learn to knock,” Stúfur said as he turned his back. The nape of his neck was bright red.

Somerset looked down at himself. “You’ve seen it before,” Somerset said dryly.

“Yours,” Stúfur said. “Not his. That’s Santa. I don’t want to see that. ”

Somerset scoffed at that as he tucked his cock away and buttoned his jeans. Then he waited until Dylan made himself decent.

“What is it?” he asked.

Stúfur half turned, one eye squinted open. Once he was reassured that he wasn’t going to see anything he turned the rest of the way around.

“They’ve found something,” he said.

Somerset swore under his breath as he crossed the stables in two long strides. “Next time,” he growled as he pushed past Stúfur and out the door, “lead with that.”

“I am still going through the accounts,” Enid said. She absently unpinned some of her hair and then pinned it back down, more severely, again. “Based on what Lucas said, he’s had almost nothing to do the changeling brokering. That was all Demre. The only fingerprint he put on it was to approve the pay-out schedule, which was standard procedure for everything. ”

She stopped as she pulled one of the stacks of paper toward her. Her hands were so clean they glistened, but her nails were flaky and her cuticles raw.

“What I did find,” she said, “is the petty fraud that the Duke of Belling mentioned. It didn’t just go unnoticed because most of our kind still struggle with modern economics, but because most of what he skimmed was from the Yule coffers.”

She pulled a sheet from the stack and held it out.

Dylan took it from her. He read it twice, to double check, and finally raised his eyebrows.

“That would definitely put me into my overdraft,” he noted.

Jars plucked the paper out of his hand and frowned at him. The crease between his eyes slowly deepened until, in a fit of pique, he just handed it to Somerset.

“How did he have access?” Jars asked

Enid shrugged. “An accomplice?” she said. “Convenience? Someone approved him, as Demre and Hill’s representative, to be on the account and then didn’t remember to rescind it? It could be any of those.”

Somerset looked up at Jars and raised his eyebrows. “Any of that sound familiar?”

“They handled our finances when you were here too,” Jars said stiffly. “Money was just simpler then. It couldn’t do tricks.”

That was true, Somerset supposed. Back then he’d had the vague idea that their money was just kept in some vault, and Demre fetched it when they needed some. It was only when he’d opened his own business, he’d gotten more interested in how it worked.

Not that he was going to admit that to Jars. They might have struck a tentative alliance, but that didn’t mean Somerset liked him.

“Stúfur told me you found something,” he said. “It better be more important than Jars needs to change our password more often. I was…occupied.”

Enid looked sympathetic. “At the toilet?” she asked.

The snigger from Stúfur earned him a look. Once that had quelled his brother, Somerset delivered a dry-as-rice “No” and waited. After glancing around the room, Enid reached for the hand sanitizer again. She had to give the bottle a good shake to dislodge enough to squeeze into her hand.

“Some of the money just went into his pocket,” Enid said. “ He says that was payment, but either way…everything else seems to involve one place. A house. Donations to the local sheriff’s department and mayor. Rental cars dropped off at a depot in a nearby city. They’re all in or near— ”

She paused to give the moment a little bit of drama.

“Bury,” Dylan interrupted in a flat, resigned voice. “Bury, Montana. That's right, isn’t it.”