Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Cadel was surprised that Everest was still sleeping next to him…well, it was less next to him and more cuddled up against him, and he'd put his arm around the prince as if they were lovers.

He needed to extricate himself from the embrace before Everest woke up, or he'd face a day of endless teasing, both flirtatious and malicious. As soon as anyone got close, Everest bristled and lashed out. He was a scared young man in way over his head who wouldn't back down because of centuries-old guilt and trauma and fuck-knows what else in his overstuffed mind.

Kaine Lenoir's warning that Everest remembered everything and the worry in the Chief of Security's voice had stalked through his dreams. If Lenoir was worried, it was a problem. But when he'd asked for more intel, Lenoir had only said it was coming.

Since none of the other phoenixes remembered the past, Cadel figured there was a reason they forgot when they died. Which meant that Everest remembering was bad .

How bad he was yet to discover, and he wasn't game enough to ask.

No, he needed Everest to trust him. They needed to work together, get Olier, and get out. Then they could sort out the remembering thing. He slid his arm free, or at least attempted to.

Everest put his hand over Cadel's. "I knew you liked me."

That's not what this was. "I was making sure you didn't sneak away."

Everest moved closer. "I'm not going anywhere."

And neither was he, apparently. He moved his hips, hoping to put a few millimeters between them.

Everest closed the gap with a little wiggle and pressed his ass against his morning erection. "Mmm…I can tell how much you like me."

"You are aware this is sexual harassment, right?" But Everest felt good against him, which was as confusing as hell.

Everest went still. "Tell me to stop, and I will."

Lenoir had warned him when he took the job. He'd seen Everest in action dialed up to one hundred, and it never bothered him. He wasn't sure it bothered him now. Everest was nice and warm, and when his mouth was closed, Cadel didn't mind holding him.

"I'm not hearing no or stop…or even an ‘I'm not interested'," Everest said.

"I'm not." The words came out stilted as he forgot how to speak.

"Not what?" Heat radiated off Everest's body.

"It's a complication we don't need."

"So it's got everything to do with keeping me alive and nothing to do with you being straight?"

Cadel bit back a sigh. Without Bridgeman around, he was taking the full brunt. "If you want to throw yourself at someone who's not interested, go for it. But if you're trying to unzip my pants, you won't be thinking of the job."

"I'm quite capable of doing both." Everest rolled to face him. They were nose to nose. "I think you'll find that in the dark a mouth is just a mouth. A hand is just a hand. And a?—"

"I swear if you say a hole is just a hole, I'm going to gag you."

Everest smiled as if he'd won a minor victory. "That's not what I was going to say."

Cadel stared at him.

Everest rolled his eyes. "Fine, that is what I was going to say."

"You don't need to use sex to get what you want. You only have to ask."

"What if it's sex that I want?" Everest put his hand on Cadel's chest.

Yeah, he'd walked into that one.

"And next time you threaten to gag me, please remember to use ‘sir' and follow through; otherwise, it kind of spoils the game." Everest flicked the blanket off, stretched—making sure his body pressed against Cadel's for a second or two—and then rolled to his feet.

"We're not playing a game."

"Aren't we? You haven't told me to stop…so did you lie to my brother and say you were straight, or do you want to live a little before you face the Shadow Board?"

All he needed to do was tell Everest he wasn't interested and that he wanted him to stop, but he couldn't because while Everest was busy flirting with him, it was easier to keep him close.

"I didn't lie. But until twenty-four hours ago, you were sleeping with someone else."

Everest shrugged. "It didn't mean anything. "

"And neither would this." And that didn't sit quite right with Cadel. He didn't like hookups and one-night stands. He liked dating and getting to know someone before taking his clothes off. Not that he planned on taking his clothes off with Everest.

"Is it true lions take less than five seconds to come?" Everest crouched and re-lit the fire with a flick of his fingers.

A growl lodged in Cadel's throat. "Only if I'm fucking as a lion."

Everest glanced up at him. "Have you?"

"No. Female lion shifters, European and African, want nothing to do with me." He didn't belong to either kind, so he dated human women. Yet his mother had found a partner who'd been able to see past her mixed shifter heritage. "You?"

"No body of flesh so shifted sex is impossible—doing anything while shifted aside from flying is impossible. I can't even land in a fucking tree without setting it alight." His fingers flickered with flames. "Sometimes I envy other shifters."

"Because they have bodies?"

Everest's lips curved. "If you didn't know what a soul bruise was, would it bother you? Would you try to fix it, or would you get on with living?"

Cadel frowned.

"No one will think less of you for living, sir," he said carefully. Using sir to reinforce that Everest was still determining the fate of this mission.

" I will think less of me. I let him be taken." He tapped his chest.

"But if you didn't know the cause of the soul bruise?—"

"But I do. And I remember every detail."

"Can you forget?"

Everest shook his head. "And even if I did, it's all written down in my books." He stood. "I cannot change what I am or who I am. All I can do is make the best of it. I'm going to brave the cold to take a piss, and then we should leave."

Now Cadel's erection had subsided, he should do the same. Though he would give Everest a head start. "You're not going to fly off."

Everest paused with his hand on the door. "No. You are far more useful to this mission than Bridgeman. We might even be successful."

"Does your version of success involve both of us living?"

"Today, it does." Everest stepped outside, letting in a blast of icy wind.

Great. That meant tomorrow, it may not. Cadel sat with the blanket wrapped around him for a few minutes more. He'd expected the prince to be demanding and spoilt. Instead, he was a young man burdened by centuries of failures. The more Cadel learned about him, the more worried he was about him.

Everest was adrift. He used his bodyguards to warm his bed because he could never be close to them, and the further he pushed people away, the harder it was for anyone to reach him.

He was a troubled young man filled with trauma that Cadel didn't want to unpack. He wouldn't live long enough to make a dent. And it wasn't his job to be Everest's therapist. All he needed to do was keep him alive.

And keeping him alive meant rescuing Olier.

This was not the job he signed up for. No, it was far more interesting.

"So, this is where we find out if Kaine was being truthful." Everest leaned against the car door. He had one foot propped up against the dash, and despite sleeping on the ground rolled in a blanket, he appeared well rested .

They had stopped in a small town for hot chocolates and breakfast rolls, with both of them being shifters going hungry wasn't an option. Cadel planned on stocking up at the nearest supermarket once they crossed the border.

The armed man at the border crossing beckoned them forward, and Cadel inched the car up to the checkpoint. If Kaine had lied, they'd both be arrested. Or he would be. He had no doubt that Everest would shift and fly away and try to rescue Olier on his own. Then he'd be killed, and the Shadow Board would have two phoenixes.

While he'd only spoken to Kaine a half dozen times, he hadn't struck Cadel as a liar. Everest, on the other hand… He stretched the truth as far as he could if it got him what he wanted. He was a razor twisting in the breeze, a scalpel dancing over skin. A danger to everyone, including himself.

Cadel wound down the window. "En Anglaise s'il vous pla?t."

He had been working on his French, but it was not up to conversational standards.

"Passports and the reason for the trip." The guard peered inside the car.

Everest waved as though expecting to be recognized.

"Diplomatic," Cadel said, keeping hold of both passports. "The Chief of Security has cleared us."

The guard paused and studied Everest more closely. Yeah, he recognized the prince. "Un instant s'il vous pla?t."

The guard stepped away from the car and got on the radio.

Everest muttered something in rapid French that didn't sound very complimentary, but Cadel wasn't sure if he was cursing his brother or the guard.

The guard returned. "Can I scan your passport, sir? Then you can be on your way." The guard addressed Everest, not Cadel, even though he was the one holding the passports and driving the car.

Cadel was used to that. He didn't exist unless Everest needed him. He was a suit standing in the background, observing everything. Five minutes later, they crossed the border into Switzerland.

Cadel had spent the first twenty-five years of his life in Australia. The first overseas holiday he'd taken had been to Thailand for a friend's birthday. Since working for Everest, he had been to France, England, Mont de Leucoy, Germany, and now Switzerland.

"Where to, sir?"

"Why are you so formal when we're in the car? This morning, when we were cuddling…"

Cadel's cheeks heated. They hadn't been cuddling. Sure, they'd been close, and he had put his arm around Everest. But it hadn't been a cuddle. It had been instinct when sleeping next to someone, nothing more. The hard-on he'd woken up with was the usual morning erection. Nothing more.

"Because I'm working?" Because he needed boundaries. Everest wasn't his friend; he was his charge. And if Everest didn't get him killed, Kaine would kill him if he got Everest killed.

If they retrieved Olier and made it home alive, he hoped there was a fucking big bonus in it for him.

"It's only us…" Everest licked his lip. "And if you keep calling me sir, I might get ideas."

Cadel shot him a glare. "What kind of ideas?"

He regretted the question as soon as it left his lips.

The glint in Everest's dark eyes only confirmed his suspicion.

Cadel fixed his gaze on the road. "I do not call my lovers ‘sir'."

"Only because you've never had male lovers…have you ever called one ‘madam'?"

"No." He refused to look at the prince. But he could feel the heat of Everest's gaze on him.

Everest watched him far too closely. Cadel was supposed to be the apex predator. He was a lion. He was older. He was an ex-cop.

He was prey, and Everest was toying with him.

And he couldn't say that he hated it. Or form the words to tell him to stop. He understood why Everest had managed to seduce so many of his bodyguards.

There was something in the way he looked at him, all teasing smiles. And he had hundreds of lifetimes of experience. No one could measure up to that.

"But you can take orders." It wasn't a question or a reminder that Everest was in charge, either. It was a simple statement.

Cadel nodded, wanting to put the conversation back onto firm ground instead of wondering what Everest might do next. "Which is why I asked where we are staying and where we are meeting your handler?"

Everest gave a low laugh. "Like many shifters, I can sense the quickening of a pulse and a change in scent. You are intrigued."

Cadel clamped his teeth together, not wanting to admit his blood had heated. Clearly, Everest had a thing that he liked during sex. And until Bridgeman bragged about fucking him, Cadel thought the prince had been doing the fucking.

"It's okay to be curious." Everest's voice was a low purr. His fingertips brushed Cadel's arm, and he almost stopped breathing.

Was he curious? No. There was a difference between being able to say a guy was attractive and wanting to sleep with one. Wasn't there? Cadel cleared his throat. "Sir."

"Yes?" Everest leaned a little closer ready to claim his prize.

Focus on the job. "Where are we meeting your handler?"

Everest leaned back in and laughed. "The next time you call me sir, you had better be naked and kneeling at my feet."

That was not an image that Cadel needed…nor should he have found the idea intriguing…

Everest was going to keep pushing his buttons until he got what he wanted. He should give in so it was no longer a distraction from doing his job.

If he failed, neither of them was going home.