Hidden Passions (26 page)

Tony felt silly, but he laid his hands on top of the cuff. Roald held it steadily, as if his arm were stone and not flesh.

"Close your eyes," he said.

Tony closed them.

He wasn't sure how Roald made it happen, but the most profound silence he'd ever encountered wrapped him up in itself.

It was like the universe hadn't formed. No stars. No planets. Just a thick breath drawn in and held. Tony's brain was blank. To be honest, he wasn't sure he existed. A rich still blackness had swallowed him. Unable to do otherwise, he waited.

The tiniest prick of light sprang to life in the vacuum.

Tony wanted to squint but he had no eyes. The light was really there. No, it was
two
lights, and they were whizzing around each other like electrons. They seemed weirdly . . . happy. Did subatomic particles experience emotion?

"It is done," said Roald's voice.

Tony's awareness snapped back so precipitously he needed to take a step to catch his balance. Roald steadied him as his eyes opened. Tony had put both hands over one of Roald's, but somehow now he was covering two. He was also touching two arm cuffs. Roald had one in each palm.

Tony looked into Roald's dreamy eyes. Starlight seemed to ray out from his pupils. The faerie's aura was a live wire that stopped just short of shocking him.

"They are twinned," Roald said.

Was that supposed to be an explanation? Then again, why would he expect faerie magic to make sense?

Roald slid one of the electrum cuffs onto Tony's wrist. Feeling dazed, Tony stroked the metal. The fit was perfect, like it had been made for him. The silvery gold was warm, the runes tingling faintly under his fingertips.

Roald lifted the second cuff so everyone could see. "Friends," he said, actually raising his voice a decibel, "as was the tradition for guards of old, when lovers fought valiantly side by side, I call Tony's mate to take up his gauntlet's twin."

Roald's warning that this wouldn't be painless rushed back to him.

Crap
, Tony thought, the pureblood's meaning as plain as day.

"Sir," Rick said in a polite undertone. "You know my brother's gay, don't you?"

Rick didn't mean to be obnoxious. He was trying to spare Tony embarrassment in front of everyone he knew.

Roald pinned him with a stern gaze. "Destiny leaves no soul bereft of its complement."

"Uh," Tony put in. "Maybe you shouldn't push this."

Roald turned the same disapproving stare on him. "This isn't your choice, wolf. It belongs to another."

"But--"

"I call this wolf's mate to me," he repeated. "Do you accept the charge of defending the Sevryn brood?"

Oh God
, Tony thought. He didn't know what to pray for. That Chris step up to the plate? That he stay where he was and not risk everything that mattered to him in life? He knew for sure he didn't dare turn around. His eyes would out Chris all by themselves. He held his breath, seconds ticking by.

"I accept," his lover said.

~

Chris
had
been thinking the arm cuff thing was cool for Tony. Of course he was a hero like his brother. Chris had known that all along. Liam's glower of resentment seemed a small price to pay. Yes, it would be a shame if Tony's progress winning over the tiger were undone. Really, though, Liam's envy of the omega wolf was his own issue to overcome.

And then the faerie called Tony's mate to join him.

Chris felt as if his face had frozen and at the same time gone searing hot. Tony was very carefully not turning to look at him. The wolf would protect Chris's secret no matter what it cost him.

"You know my brother's gay, don't you?" Tony's own brother asked, as if being gay meant Tony couldn't find the sort of love Rick had.

Chris
couldn't
leave Tony hanging--no more than he could have let Tony's house burn down. This was even more important. This was the measure of Chris's soul.

"I call this wolf's mate to me," Cass's father repeated. "Do you accept the charge of defending the Sevryn brood?"

"I accept," Chris said.

Incredibly, his voice was strong enough to carry. Tony turned around slowly, his green eyes blazing with emotion. For a second, Chris experienced the most extraordinary sense of liberation. Finally, he'd released his secret. Hiding what he was no longer burdened his spirit.

"Oh," he heard Tony's brother say in surprise. "Hey, that's nice."

Chris couldn't tear his gaze from Tony. Tony smiled and Chris smiled back, his eyes flaring like the wolf's.

Naturally, the moment ended before he was ready.

"Fuck no," growled one of Chris's tigers. "This is
not
okay."

Well
, Chris thought. It seemed the other shoe had dropped.

"YOU lied," Jonah said, for it was he who'd spoken. "Every word that came out of your mouth as beta was calculated to mislead us."

The clan's third-ranked tiger looked furious. Never Gandhi-like in temper, Jonah's chest had expanded so dramatically with anger he'd nearly ripped his navy and gray RFD T-shirt. Animals in the wild puffed themselves up like this. Despite the threat display, Chris felt no fear as he faced him.

No fear for his physical safety anyway.

Jonah and Liam weren't the only tigers who were offended. Syd and Vasur had crossed their arms and were staring at him with raised eyebrows. That disappointed Chris. He'd begun to hope for more from them.

Disappointed or not, he owed them a response.

"I lied to you about my personal life," he said. "Professionally, I've always been honest."

"You can't separate the two!" Jonah shouted. "If you'll lie about one thing, you'll lie about another. And no wonder you've been favoring the wolves' interests. Their omega is your butt buddy!"

"Tony is my lover," he said as calmly as he was able. "And my friend. His influence over me probably isn't any greater than Liam's over you. When the pack's interests intersect with our own, I'd be shortsighted not to support them."

Following Chris's example, Jonah lowered his voice to mere fierceness. "Not good enough," he said. "You're supposed to put us first. Hell, you're not supposed to be a cocksucker. What you sneak around doing reflects on us." His features hardened with resolve. "You're not fit to hold your position."

"No, Jonah," Evina said, stepping out of the crowd and into the fray. "Don't tear our clan apart over this."

Even now Chris couldn't tell if she'd known his secret. At least she didn't seem disgusted like the others. Nate didn't look disgusted either, though he'd stayed where he was when his wife stepped forward. He seemed disinclined to play his co-alpha card. As was the case for his fellow wolves, he watched the drama closely but didn't interfere. Tiger business was tiger business . . . until they decided otherwise. Cops were accustomed to sticking their noses wherever they thought they ought to go.

Chris wondered if Jonah understood their hosts might not let him play this out exactly as he hoped.

"
I'm
not tearing us apart," the irate tiger said. "Chris brought this on himself."

Call Chris a cynic, but he thought it would be as accurate to say Jonah's desire to move up in the clan had brought them to this point. Chris being gay or deceitful or whatever complaint Jonah wanted to assert was only the excuse. That being so, Chris didn't know how to head off the inevitable. The sense of liberation he'd felt a minute ago had been deluded. Resignation weighed him down instead.

He
knew
how this was going to end.

"You can't beat me," he said, the simplest, surest statement he knew how to make. "Whatever you believe about the righteousness of your position, you have neither the strength nor the dominance to defeat me in combat."

"Don't I?" Jonah's manner was confident. "I think we'll have to see."

"I challenge you, Jonah," Tony said from behind him.

Chris and Jonah let out matching gasps of astonishment, spinning to face the insane man. Tony had
not
just said that. He'd have to be stoned to even consider it.

Jonah recovered from his shock first.

"You
can't
challenge me," he sneered, his extended tiger fangs exaggerating the scorn in his expression. "You're a wolf. And an omega."

"I challenge you as the champion of my acknowledged mate, as is allowed by shifter law."

"No," Chris said, horror washing through his blood. When he'd admitted he was Tony's mate, it wasn't so this could occur.

"You're out of your fucking mind," Jonah said, which was probably what a lot of folks were thinking. Jonah was a big tiger and gamma in rank--maybe more if his ambitions had a biochemical basis. Tony looked half his size in his stupid sexy red speedo. He also looked absolutely calm.

"I'm the wolves' omega," Tony said. "That doesn't make me subordinate to you. Nate is our third, and your will bows to his."

"Shit," Chris breathed. This was not the time to rub Jonah's nose in that.

Jonah filled his big chest with air, obviously about to accept the glove Tony had thrown down.

"Stop," Evina said, her alpha power causing the command to vibrate the air.

"Evina--" Tony said.

"You shut up, too," she ordered, jabbing her mom finger straight at him. "Nobody say another word until Tony and I talk this through."

"You're not leaving me out of it," Chris said.

"Or me," Nate put in mildly.

His wife glared at all of them.

~

Adam volunteered to keep a lid on things outside while Evina led her little discussion group into the penthouse. Cass's grand Gothic living room had plenty of comfy furniture, but they were too hyped to sit. Rick would have joined them in their huddle, except he and Cass had stayed back to keep the dragons calm.

The brood seemed to think Tony was crazy too. They'd started chittering and flapping like mad things.

"You can't do this," Chris said as if he were explaining the facts of life to a two-year-old. "Jonah is twice your size."

"Not twice," Tony said, wishing everyone weren't so horrified. "Maybe a third again as big. Anyway, the bigger they are the harder they fall."

Chris didn't appreciate his humor. "What if Jonah shifts to his tiger form while you're fighting? You can't change without the moon."

"Evina can order him not to. I doubt Jonah himself would consider that anything but an appropriate handicap. You and he, on the other hand, would be sure to go tooth and claw."

"That would be an even match."

"No, it wouldn't. You'd crush him, guaranteed. How would you survive doing that after what happened to your brothers?"

Chris didn't like him bringing this up. His eyes sparked and his jaw muscles bunched.

"What happened to his brothers?" Nate asked Evina.

"His mother's boyfriend had Tomcat Syndrome and murdered them. I assume Tony is implying Chris wouldn't be comfortable killing someone in his cat form."

Chris looked at her, startled. Tony guessed he hadn't expected her to know.

"Sorry," she said. "I've been aware of your past since before I asked you to be my beta. Not about you being gay, but about your family. I uncovered it in a background check. I figured if you ever wanted to talk about it, you would."

Chris and she had been colleagues a long time. Their gazes held for a few heartbeats. Chris dropped his to the antique carpet.

"I could defeat Jonah without killing him," he said.

For Chris's sake, Tony wished he sounded a hundred percent certain.

"He'd push you," he said. "And he'd push your tiger. Challenges bring out primitive impulses in shifters. If he won't back down, he might force you to fight him to the death. Worse, if it comes to the crucial point, and you find you don't have the stomach, he could kill you."

"Oh I'd find the stomach," Chris said darkly.

He'd shoved his hands in his pockets, his body language defensive.

"Say I believe you," Tony said. "What then? How would you live with having killed your own crewmember? Your conscience would torment you. You'd always wonder what you could have done to stop the challenge from happening. I'm the catalyst in all this. You'd end up hating me."

Tony's last sentence had come out rough. Chris looked up, his orange-brown eyes burning. "Never."

Tony said nothing.

"Never," Chris repeated, then squeezed his temples between his hands. "Fuck. You couldn't challenge Liam instead? At least he's an omega."

Tony smiled gently. "Liam wasn't challenging you. Plus I kind of like that kid."

Chris shook his head. "That 'kid' thinks you're a cocksucker too."

"I am one. I just don't consider it an insult. Jonah's the manipulator. I'm willing to bet he's been planning this for a while."

This accusation surprised Evina but only for a moment. "Jonah
has
seemed like he's been taking everyone's temperature. As if he wanted to know who'd support him as beta. Crap." Her lustrous golden gaze met Tony's. Her eyes were a different color than her beta's but similarly exotic. "Maybe my crew is right about me liking you better."

Though Tony was incredibly touched, he laughed. "I'm new to your life. Our baggage is lighter. Jonah is like an annoying family member. You probably don't really want to see him hurt."

"I'd like him to get his butt kicked," she muttered, sounding pretty sincere. She frowned. "I just don't see how you'll pull it off."

"We need time to prepare," Chris said before Tony could respond. "Put Tony in training for a couple weeks. Maybe feed him up."

"No," Tony and Nate said in unison.

"No?" Evina asked her husband.

He cupped her cheek, his narrow handsome face shining with love for her. "Tony will never have a better advantage over your cat than he does right now."

"He doesn't have any advantage!" Chris exclaimed.

"I do," Tony said.

"He does," Nate agreed. "Your cat is big, and he can probably fight, but his entire career is about saving people. Tony's job is subduing them--no matter how big and fast they are or even how magical. Tony confronts beings more dominant than he is every day. Sometimes the pack is there to back him up, but sometimes we're not. He's
used
to fighting above his weight class. It's a regular thing for him."