Hidden Passions (12 page)

A spark the size of a walnut jumped out at the contact.

"Ouch," he said, unaccountably insulted as he stuck his zapped finger in his mouth. "You didn't warn me that thing bites."

Rick seemed as surprised as him. "I didn't know it would."

"The pureblood keyed the knuckles to you," Adam concluded.

Tony's twinge of annoyance intensified. Of course a badass faerie would choose Rick to save the world--or at least their city. Tony's brother was exactly what a hero ought to be: brave, true, and as hetero as they came. Even his modesty was perfect.

"Why would she do that?" Rick asked. "I'm an ordinary wolf."

"You're 'The One,'" Carmine teased. "You're supposed to warn some chickie she's in danger."

Rick swore he didn't know who the faerie meant. Maybe he thought he was telling the truth, but the more he denied it, the less Tony believed him. He'd known his brother all his life. He'd learned to tell when Dudley Do-Right wasn't being completely frank.

~

Tony didn't see much of Rick over the next two days. He knew his brother was working the fae-on-fae homicide but not the details. Adam knew what he was doing. Rick had called in and spoke to him. Nate had an assignment too, tracking down a professor at City U. No one seemed to remember Tony had been right beside Rick when the case began. No one seemed to think he deserved to be kept informed.

Sometimes, being the pack's omega sucked.

Part of why the exclusion ticked him off was that he'd have preferred to stay busy. He'd spent way too many free minutes checking the news for fire stories.

Today he was off, which he'd normally have enjoyed--especially since it was Sunday. His parents were great cooks, and they loved to spoil their youngest with a big breakfast at their house. Handily enough, they lived in the next brownstone over across the street. Admitting he was gay hadn't changed the habit, though he did have to put up with extra hand patting from his mom. She tried not to say it, but he knew she worried about his future. She wanted him to be happy. She'd been hoping for more grandkids.

This Sunday, his folks weren't in Resurrection. They'd won a trip for two to Oceana on a cruise submarine. They'd been over the moon excited, this being their first journey out of the Pocket they'd been born in. Tony was glad for them, just sorry for himself.

He contemplated inviting Ari and baby Kelsey to join him on a trip to the park. That idea appealed for about a minute. Hoping his alpha's wife would rescue him from his doldrums seemed selfish. He should offer her his company when he knew he could be pleasant.

He
could
spend the day cleaning his apartment, but that prospect was too dreary. He wouldn't be doing it for himself. He was fine with its current state.

Comfort was Tony's goal for his home, and to his mind, he'd achieved it. Found furniture was his favorite, the more dinged up the better. Making something broken useful was a hobby he found soothing. Maybe he didn't finish every project right away, but why should a source of pleasure become a chore? So what if the result was messy? A person could put their feet up anywhere without fear. Well, assuming they found room for their feet. His stray magazines did overrun everything a bit. This didn't mean Rick was right in claiming the place ought to be condemned. Tony had a good nose. He threw out old food before it stunk up the joint.

When he spotted his ElfBook sitting on a stack of newspapers on the coffee table, he knew exactly how to entertain himself.

Once he'd shoveled half the sofa clear, Tony sat on the leather cushion sideways. Ignoring the inner nudge that said this wasn't a good idea, he propped the laptop on a pillow his sister Maria had cross-stitched with a straggly wolf in high school. A couple of key pecks later, he'd typed "Chris Savoy" into Oogle's
FindThis!
window.

The popular search engine offered up three results. The first was a record of Chris's graduation from the Fire Academy. He'd trained in the same class as Nate's wife, and both had earned top honors. The accompanying grainy picture showed Chris with his brawny arm around his future boss's much more petite shoulder. He was leaning toward the camera to bring their heads level. Possibly they'd already decided to work together. Their smiles were broad and happy, their body language totally connected. Chris in particular looked younger.

Almost carefree
, Tony thought.

He realized his fingertip was stroking Chris's expression through the screen.

Shaking that off, he clicked the second link. That sent him to a website listing Mayor's Medal honorees. Chris had been awarded his for saving a bunch of kids from a school bus that careened off a bridge and into a lake. He'd done this without the aid of his crew. He'd simply been driving by and saw the accident. With no regard for his own safety, he'd dived into twenty meters of black water. While underwater, he'd shifted into his tiger form, using his teeth and back legs to peel the bus's side off like a tin can. Most of the kids were shifters and mixbloods. They'd swum out on their own as soon as they weren't trapped. Chris had saved the three remaining riders with CPR, including the werebear driver.

Tony assumed he'd done that in his human shape.

"Wow," he marveled. Tigers were tough, but this story was amazing. No wonder Chris was committed to his job. Tony could hardly imagine the rescuer's high you got from a day like that.

He sat thinking about the story: how Chris could be so brave in one situation and so cautious in another. People weren't simple, that was for sure. Also, what did it mean that a virtual superhero was attracted to a low-ranking wolf like him? Was it flattering? Crazy? Or maybe it was proof that Chris was out of Tony's league. At least it suggested Tony's instinct for who was worth sleeping with was good.

Tony grinned to himself. Maybe that was
his
superpower.

The second link digested, Tony glanced at the final result Oogle had delivered. If he hadn't known the search engine was magically enhanced for relevance, he wouldn't have bothered to click on it. The date was nearly thirty years ago.

Maureen Savoyard Death Ruled a Suicide
, it said.

~

The body of Maureen Savoyard, weretiger, 42, was found early Sunday morning in her home by her eighteen-year-old son Christophe. The M.E.'s office ruled the likely cause of death as a self-administered overdose of Benzodiazepines infused with faerie dust, colloquially known as Benzi-Wings.

Ms. Savoyard was believed to suffer from depression following the murder of two other children by her then live-in boyfriend, weretiger Mark Naegel.

Naegel's trial, at which Ms. Savoyard's surviving son testified, resulted in a guilty verdict. Due to evidence of diminished capacity, the death penalty was not invoked. Naegel is currently serving a life sentence at Rykers in Poughkip, a demon-run maximum-security penitentiary.

Determination as to whether Naegel's clan owes Mr. Savoyard restitution for his brothers' murders has yet to be decided.

~

"Shit," Tony muttered beneath his breath.

The article he'd read came from the
Courier
. It included a single photo--that of Maureen Savoyard. Her eyes were sadder and her features more delicate, but she strongly resembled the man he knew as Chris Savoy.

Chris must have shortened his name, presumably so the old tragedy wouldn't follow him everywhere. Tony wasn't certain why it came up in his search. The Elfnet worked on bits and bytes much like the Outsiders' world wide web. Occasionally the magic that powered it threw in its own two cents, as if the software
knew
who ought to get which info.

Tony suspected the software had glitched today. It didn't take a genius to realize Chris wouldn't want him discovering this. They weren't dating. Tony had no excuse for checking up on his background. Lack of excuse aside, he wasn't a stranger to this sort of event. Being a cop exposed him to the darker side of extra-human nature. What humans did to each other, supes sometimes did in spades. It saddened him to see it, though it also made him realize how important his job was.

Even if justice came too late to save a life, it told survivors their loss was important.

His cordless phone rang, causing him to jump guiltily. He hopped off the couch to dig it out from under a discarded pillow and an old magazine. This left him standing by his front window. On the sidewalk below, the corner grocer passed. He appeared to be having a one-sided conversation with his friendly but not-magical golden retriever.

"Hello," Tony answered, smiling in spite of the other things in his head.

"Tony!" Evina's voice exclaimed. "Thank goodness I caught you in."

"What's up?" Tony asked, a call from Nate's new wife not a common occurrence. Was it weird that he'd just been looking at her photo?

"I'm so sorry to ask you this. I know it's your day off, but could you look after the twins today? My mom's out of town, and I've been called in as backup on a three-alarm."

"Not a problem," Tony assured her. "You're at Nate's now?"

"Yes," she said, though
Nate's
was now the whole family's house. "You have the key? I've given the cubs strict orders to mind you."

Tony grinned. He knew kids . . . and how long those orders were liable to last. "Don't sweat it. I'll keep them out of trouble."

She gave him a few more breathless instructions: what Abby and Rafi liked to eat; which of the six-year-olds' toys he should probably grab and bring with them.

"Uh," Tony said, a smidgen of alarm rising. "You don't want me to babysit them there?"

"The painters are coming to do the kids' new bedrooms. I'm afraid they'll be underfoot."

The twins were cats, so
underfoot
could be literal. Tony looked around his epically cluttered apartment. He found it comfortable, and the cubs might not disagree. Their mother, however, would have a different perspective.

"Okay then. I'll, uh, probably watch them at Rick's place."

Evina was so relieved to have her kids taken care of she didn't question this. "Bless you," she said. "You're a lifesaver."

Tony hung up . . . and immediately wished he'd found a way to ask if Chris had been called out on the fire with her.

~

Being the baby of his generation meant Tony was half kid himself. He and the tiger twins plunged right into having fun. They made pancakes and bacon and built a fort by overturning a sofa and draping it in sheets. A slightly too-competitive game of Portals and Ladders seemed like it might end in tears, but Tony was able to distract his charges with a giant pad of paper and the kids' own mess-proof magic markers.

No matter how hard you pressed, they wouldn't write on walls.

Quiet for the time being, the cubs lay on the floor beneath Rick's sunny front window, drawing from either side of the large manila sheet. Rafi's tongue stuck out in concentration, and Abby colored so energetically her dark mop of curls jiggled.

Enjoying the opportunity to catch his breath, Tony watched them fondly from an armchair. Maybe his mom was right about more grandkids. These two had certainly turned his day around. He wondered if the rules of Resurrection allowed gay men to adopt. Did Chris like kids? Chances were he had issues on account of losing his littermates. If that hadn't put him off parenting, a cat like him would make a great father.

Tony sucked in a breath at the errant thought. Talk about romantically deluded.

He sprung up like a Jake In the Box when he heard his brother's tread coming up the brownstone's stairs. Rick was supposed to be at work. Tony guessed this wasn't his day for relaxing.

His brother was talking to someone--a female someone, he realized. Rick seemed to be trying to convince her she shouldn't be shy to meet Tony.

Hm
, Tony thought. Maybe one of the Lupone brothers' romantic stars were aligning.

"I hear you out there," he warned Rick.

Too curious to wait for them to knock, Tony opened the door himself. To his surprise, he recognized the woman Rick was with.

"Whoa," he said. "Snow White."

It wasn't really Snow White, of course. It was Cass Maycee, a half fae, half human girl they'd gone to high school with. Her family had founded Maycee's, Resurrection's version of the similarly named Outsider store. Thanks to a happy combination of genetics, Cass was like the fairytale come to life: snow-white skin, ruby lips, hair as black as a raven's wing. Her rich girl pantsuit didn't fit the image, but other than that she was exactly as he recalled.

Also front and center in his memory was that Rick used to have a huge crush on her.

Tony guessed he wasn't over it. Rick glared at Tony like he'd committed a cardinal sin. "You want to step aside and let us in?"

"Uh, no?" Tony cut a look at Cass. Her cheeks were pink, but she didn't seem upset--not at him, anyway. "We, um, made a bit of mess."

"
We
?" Rick said, which meant Tony had to explain.

Rick wasn't happy about Tony using his apartment to babysit, or turning it into a disaster zone. Tony was lucky they weren't alone. The cubs were part of their pack now. Even if Abby and Rafi hadn't been likable, which they were, Rick shared Tony's instinctive drive to ensure they were safe.

"It
is
Snow White," Rafi breathed, looking up from his drawing.

Blushing, Cass explained she wasn't. She was just half faerie.

More down to earth than her brother, Abby had her own question. "Are you Uncle Rick's girlfriend?"

Tony noticed Cass couldn't help glancing at Rick. Despite his naturally tan skin tone, he'd gone redder than she had.

"She's my friend-friend," he answered in an admirably level voice.

He kept his temper even when Rafi suggested he ought to ask Snow White to be his girlfriend. "Clarence's dad says part faeries are hot stuff."

"O
kay
," Tony said, grabbing both cubs before they could further embarrass the supposed non-couple. "Why don't you two go color in Rick's kitchen?"