Chapter Seven

His mind cleared. It had to be that way. Charon couldn’t take Paine with him where he intended to go. Paine needed to stay with Quentin. He knew Paine could keep Quentin and his little family safe. Charon had to ensure what happened tonight didn’t happen twice.

Charon waited until daylight, and he was in the air before he called the only backup he would need. Thankfully, Alastair answered on the first ring. No doubt he knew Charon would never call unless it was urgent. His first words proved his thoughts correct.

“What’s happened?”

“I need a favor, if you’re still willing to hunt.”

Alastair didn’t miss a beat. “Just tell me where to meet you.”

A smile tugged at Charon’s lips. While Alastair had been part of the Irish academy, Charon knew he would still willingly take down any leaders he found, no matter their country of origin. “Do you know where the small private airstrip is outside of Alabaster?”

“I do.”

“That’s where my plane will meet you in two hours. I’m headed there now.”

Thankfully, Alastair sounded ready to do whatever. “Let me tell Reed and I’ll be there.”

“See you soon.”

Charon ended the call and tried letting the cold calm of his training set in. Despite his best efforts, thoughts of Paine overwhelmed him. Charon swore he still felt Paine beneath him. It had been so many years since they were together, but nothing had changed. Charon recalled every detail. The way Paine kissed. His flavor. Everything. He knew Paine feared his own sanity. Charon didn’t. He would take whatever tatters were left of Paine’s mental health and stitch him back together. That was what soulmates did. They kept each other whole.

When he reached the airstrip, he found Alastair waiting. Charon tried harder to push Paine from his thoughts. He needed all his focus.

Alastair ran up the steps and onto the plane, obviously raring to go for whatever. He didn’t speak until they were closed inside, and the pilot was out of earshot. “Where are we headed?”

“Greece.” Charon hoped that one tidbit didn’t have Alastair demanding to leave.

Alastair set his bag aside, looking unconcerned about their destination. “Who’s our target?”

“All of them.”

Alastair froze in the middle of getting settled. His gaze moved to Charon and didn’t budge. “I think you need to tell me the whole of it.”

Charon hated to expose himself to anyone, especially another former victim of the academy, but this was important. He needed someone to have his back. He gave Alastair a sharp nod. “Everyone knows I moved from captive to captor at seventeen. The youngest leader in the academy”s history.”

Alastair nodded. “I’d heard that.”

Charon swallowed his pride and continued. “What no one knows is why or how I untangled myself from the situation. That’s a story they would never let leave that place. The short of it is, I fell in love with another boy.”

Alastair made the appropriate sounds of horror. Every recruit knew that was taboo. It was the worst mistake any of them could make and never ended well.

Charon nodded. “They gave me a choice. I could kill him or break him.” Charon made a helpless gesture. “I couldn’t kill him. Eventually, I ran away. I am, as far as I know, the only person to ever successfully escape their compound. They’ve decided I owe them a debt to keep my freedom. I’ve decided the only thing they’re owed is death.”

Alastair’s gaze moved over Charon’s face. “What happened to the boy you loved?”

A smile tugged at Charon’s lips. He couldn’t stop it from happening. There had never been a moment—even when he thought Paine was dead—that Charon had stopped loving him with every fiber of his being. In fact, Charon wasn’t sure he could love anyone else.

Alastair smiled. “I see. You’re right, then. You’ll never be safe until they’re dead. Let’s make it happen.”

With a shared nod, they settled in for the long flight. Eleven hours was a long time in the air. Charon used the time to sleep. He needed to be well rested for the fight ahead.

When they landed, Alastair immediately started planning. “How are we getting in?”

Charon chuckled. “The same way I got out.”

Alastair looked baffled. “It’s been over a decade. Surely, they’ve closed that gap in their security.”

“I assure you they haven’t.”

“How do you know?” Alastair sounded genuinely puzzled.

Charon flashed him a bright smile. “Because I walked right out the front door.”

“Great.”

Charon laughed at Alastair’s tone. He knew Alastair didn’t believe they could simply stroll right in unaccosted. But Charon knew exactly how far pure cockiness could take a person. Today was no different. Still, he didn’t want Alastair fearing the worst. That would distract him when Charon needed Alastair’s focus.

He climbed behind the wheel of the waiting Jeep and met Alastair’s stare. “Don’t worry. I swear you’ll make it home to your sweet Reed.” Charon would never let anything happen to his only friend’s husband.

“I hope so. He’s been through enough.”

That was true. Alastair’s husband had once been on a very different side of the academy. He had been scooped from an orphanage the way most of them had been. Unfortunately, it was only because he had caught a leader’s eye in a very perverse way. He had been kept as a sexual slave known as a pet. The damage was every bit as deep.

Charon’s foot lifted from the gas as he headed down the partially hidden path to the compound. It was quiet. No one stood at the guard’s station. The field where the boys were trained was empty. It should have been filled with early morning drills. Charon glanced at his watch, making sure he hadn’t miscalculated the time difference in his head. No. The place was too quiet.

Alastair and Charon exchanged a glance, proving they had the same thought. It didn’t matter they had come from two different camps. They were all run the same.

“Maybe they’re on lockdown?”

Charon accepted that might be an option. It wasn’t uncommon for boys to attempt an escape. In those instances, they would lock down the building until the boy was made an example and executed. But this was different, and they knew it. Charon felt the unease crawling up his spine.

As they neared the building, Alastair pulled weapons from the backseat, preparing to roll out and use the tall grass as cover. Charon had drawn a rudimentary map for their attack. Alastair would sneak his way through a side door that was always unlocked. It was a leader’s office. If anyone was inside, he would take them out before meeting Charon inside. Charon planned to walk through the front door. It was bold and unexpected, giving him the drop on at least a couple of targets before anyone from the security room could warn them. Maybe it was reckless, but that was exactly why Charon expected the plan to work.

Charon slowed. In a matter of seconds, Alastair was gone, disappearing into the terrain. Charon barely spared time to park before sprinting for the door. It easily opened, disproving the theory of lockdown. The moment Charon stepped inside, he froze. Three men were already dead in the front hallway, leading to the mouth of the facility. With his attention focused on looking out for attackers, Charon bent and crab-walked while checking each body. They were still warm. It was a recent kill. He knew Alastair was good, but there was no way he had beaten Charon inside. The whole point of him coming through the front door was to ensure the office was empty, giving Alastair a free shot inside. If one of them lived, they stood a shot at success, but this was fucking weird.

Charon straightened and creeped down the hallway. When he reached the main room of the facility, he blinked. Alastair stood to his right, looking every bit as confused as Charon felt. In the center of the room, a dozen tattered-looking boys sat huddled. In a circle around them, all the leaders lay dead where they had obviously fallen. The boys shook, no doubt from shock.

Alastair headed his way. He lowered his voice. “What in the fuck is going on here?”

Charon made a helpless gesture. “I have no idea.” He focused on the boys. “What happened here?” No one answered. One boy didn’t fit in with the rest. His hair had been dyed hot pink, and he looked clean. He looked close to eighteen, and he held the smaller kids, comforting them. The boy stood out like a beacon from the rest. Hair dye wasn’t something done here. Pink hair meant free thinking. That wasn’t allowed.

Charon focused on him. “What’s your name?”

“Pink.” He didn’t sound scared.

Alastair turned his back to the boys and spoke closely to Charon’s ear. “Look at his collar. He was one of these guys’ pet.”

Charon’s heart twisted. He knew he had to treat this one as the adult. He focused on Pink again. “Who did this?”

He shrugged. “He had white hair.” Charon and Alastair exchanged a glance. Pink kept talking. “He moved so fast and silently, they didn’t stand a chance… thankfully.”

Charon focused on Alastair. “What do we do now? It seems Snow has already done our job.”

“We have to find a safe place for these boys. We can’t just leave them like this.”

He had been afraid of that. “What are we supposed to do with a dozen boys?”

Alastair shrugged. “I guess we’ll see if any of them have a place to go and then go from there.”

Charon sighed. It seemed he wouldn’t get home to Paine as quickly as he hoped. He prayed Paine didn’t disappear again while he was gone. They had already lost too much time. They deserved some peace.

A small part of Paine expected he would never see Charon again. He simply accepted the idea of losing him, whether it be to death or Charon simply disappearing. Paine never expected happiness. Hope had been lost to him years ago. The more days that passed, the more his acceptance grew. He had known Charon was too good to be true.

Quentin became like a wraith in his own home. No one saw him, or they barely caught wisps of him leaving or returning to his room. Paine checked on him as much as he could without being intrusive. Quentin deserved to mourn his way. Everyone required something different. It seemed Quentin needed silence. Paine let him have it.

After lighting the fireplace for the day, Paine wandered through his maze of rafters, checking for any danger. His bed in the sky hadn’t been used since before the night he spent with Charon. He told himself the rocking bed reminded him too much of Snow’s betrayal. In his heart, Paine knew the truth. He couldn’t leave the bed he shared with Charon.

Unfortunately, the bedding had been washed, since blood tended to splatter. Paine resented the loss of Charon’s scent on the covers. Paine headed that way after making his rounds. He wanted to roll around on the mattress and dream. As he came to the hidden passage into his room, he spotted Charon undressing. Paine froze. He wasn’t completely sure he wasn’t hallucinating. His eyes and mind enjoyed playing tricks on him.

“Come down here, baby. I’m tired.”

The breath in his lungs shuddered, coming out sounding ragged. He was real. Paine dropped from the ceiling. Sexy eyes focused on him. An exhausted-looking smile touched Charon’s lips. “I felt you there.”

Despite his belief that Charon was real, Paine slowly approached. If his mind fooled him, he wanted to savor the moment before painful reality stripped away his dreams.

Charon was obviously tired of waiting. He closed the distance between them and swept Paine off his feet. Paine expected fear to send him scrambling. Instead, he melted. Charon chuckled. “You’ve been playing the cat too long. You have the mimicking down to a science.”

Paine hadn’t realized he had truly melted, going limp the way a cat would. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

Charon’s brow furrowed. “Do you think that little of my skills?”

Paine shook his head. “I thought you had time to think about the mess I am and decided I wasn’t worth it.”

After carrying him to bed, Charon climbed in and gathered Paine into his arms. He held on tight. “If it takes the rest of my life, telling you every single day, that’s what I’ll do. I’m never letting you get away again. You’re the only person I’ve ever loved or will ever love. As long as there’s breath in you, nothing could tear me away. Maybe not even if there wasn’t breath in you. Through sickness and health, remember?”

Paine searched his mind. Did he remember? “We exchanged vows.”

He felt Charon smile against temple. They toyed with each other’s fingers. Charon circled Paine’s ring finger. “We didn’t have rings or witnesses. No one blessed our marriage or signed any certificates. But you’ve always been my husband. Paperwork doesn’t bind anyone together. I meant those words when I spoke them.” He kissed Paine’s temple. “I still mean them.”

Paine remembered. The moment had felt so powerful—like God had sealed their marriage. “My husband,” Paine whispered. Saying the words aloud cemented their marriage into his heart.

Charon kissed his cheek. “I still want that paperwork, though, so you can’t escape.”

A ragged breath left him. With Charon’s lips on his skin, Paine felt safe. “What else do you remember?”

“I remember everything. Every single second with you. I don’t recall this, though.” Charon ran the pad of his finger across one scar on Paine’s face.

Paine tried to slip from the bed. He wanted to be an invisible cat again.

Charon wouldn’t let him go. He kissed Paine’s neck, paralyzing him with love.

“Please don’t make me,” Paine whispered, begging for mercy.

Charon didn’t respond. He kept kissing Paine’s neck, breaking Paine’s resistance.

Paine’s entire body shuddered. He rolled Charon’s way and buried his face in the crook of Charon’s neck. Paine didn’t want Charon to look at him. He whispered his confession, hoping no one heard, especially Charon. “You weren’t the only leader who visited me.”

Charon took a shaky-sounding breath. He held Paine tighter.

With the words out there, Paine kept going. “They didn’t want you to think I’m beautiful anymore.”

Charon moved, forcing Paine to hold his stare. “Nothing could steal your beauty. Not age or scars. I’m in love with your soul. They can’t steal what I see when I look at you.” Charon stroked his face. “You’re gorgeous and sexy as fuck. No one can compete.” Charon took a breath. “They’re dead. All of them.”

Paine went back to hiding. He didn’t know how to feel. While he hadn’t known exactly what Charon meant to do when he left, he had expected as much.

“It was Snow.”

Paine’s head shot up at Charon’s statement.

Charon stroked Paine’s jaw. A sad smile touched Charon’s lips. “He beat me there. I waited for backup since I have a reason to live. Quentin was Snow’s. Now he’s in the wind.”

Paine rubbed his chest. “I would’ve made the same choice Snow did for you.”

Charon nodded. “Except we would’ve been smarter about it.”

“Except we have the luxury of the what ifs.”

“Except for that,” Charon agreed.

Paine settled on Charon’s chest and listened to his heartbeat. “What now?”

Charon softly stroked Paine’s back. “Right now, I hold you. Then I guess I’ll stay right here until you feel safe enough to leave with me.”

Paine felt a little guilty. Charon had a whole life before Paine returned from the grave. “Don’t you have a business to run?” Charon was an antiquities dealer by day. On the side, he killed people. That was who they were. It was how they were built. Everyone had their quirks.

Charon kissed the top of his head. “Nothing comes before you.”

“Go to sleep,” Paine whispered. He heard and felt Charon’s exhaustion. “I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

“Promise?” Charon sounded half asleep.

“Always.”

Paine covered them and held Charon. His biggest fear was waking up in a padded room and learning this had been another mental break. If so, Paine needed to soak up every second. He had nothing else.