Kain took her by the shoulders and forced her to look into his eyes. “Listen: there’s nothing wrong with you. The problem was me and Alexi. We couldn’t coordinate ourselves. We’ve never worked together before and our methods are very different. We’ll try again, and things will be better this time.”
Sophie sighed. She could almost believe him.
“How about we schedule the next session?”
Anxiety took the best of her, and Sophie took a step back, forcing Kain to let go of her shoulders. “I don’t know…”
“Your aura is very strong, but if we don’t work on it, you’ll lose momentum. I’ve talked with Alexi, and we both agreed that we have to resume the sessions and try again.”
“Really?” Sophie’s heart grew in her quivering chest at the thought that Kain and Alexi had talked about her. The first session had been such a mess that she had even thought they wouldn’t want to be her mentors anymore. She had been so afraid she was nothing but a waste of time to the two Lure legends.
“Yes,” said Kain and gave her a sweet, encouraging smile.
?
Kain left Sophie in the library and went back to his and Alexi’s room. He wanted to tell his roommate and partner that he had finally managed to get a hold of their curvy apprentice and establish a second private session. However, Alexi was in the shower, so Kain decided to wait for him. He pictured the hard, sexy body under the hot spray and sighed. Yes, another reason for which he had rushed things a week ago was that he had hoped he would get more from Alexi as well, not only from Sophie. Such an uninspired move.
He heard the shower turn off, and he smiled thinking of his roommate covering his lower half with a huge towel. He knew it was useless to hope he’d get out of the bathroom like that. Kain strolled to Alexi’s side of the room and threw a glance over his neatly organized things. The way he kept everything clean and in order would never cease to amaze Kain. He stepped closer to the desk and almost burst out laughing when he saw one of the drawers slightly open. “You’re not so perfect after all, are you?” He reached over to close the drawer, but stopped with his hand in midair when he saw what was inside. “What the hell?” Changing his mind, he pulled it open and was greeted by a huge stack of files. He knew those files. He had completed most of them himself with pictures, reports, and evidence. He took them out of the drawer and opened the file on top. It was irrelevant what case it was. All that mattered was that they were here, and not in the archive in Septentrio, where they were supposed to be.
Kain heard the bathroom door open and turned around, rage clearly painted on his beautiful face. Alexi met his eyes, saw what he was holding, and did the only thing he could possibly do at that moment: he froze.
“Why the fuck do you have these? Who gave them to you?”
“You’ve been going through my stuff…” His voice was no more than a whisper.
“I’ve been going through… I’ve been going through your stuff?” Kain threw the files on the bed. They bounced off the soft mattress and some of them fell on the floor. “How dare you accuse me of that when you are the one who read all my case files? You weren’t even supposed to have access to them. Not without my written permission.”
Alexi sighed in defeat. “You don’t understand…”
“What? What is there to understand?” Kain folded his arms over his chest, afraid that he’d be too tempted to jump at Alexi’s throat and choke him. Countless things were going through his mind. If he had read each and every file, then he had surely read that one. That particular one. A pang of pain coursed through his chest, and he bit the inside of his cheek.
Alexi eyed Kain carefully, unsure of how to explain himself. He couldn’t tell his roommate the truth. No, that was out of the question. He had to find something else.
“I needed to know more about the Dukes.”
Kain rolled his eyes. “Bullshit.”
“No. I…” He took a deep breath and ran his hands through his wet, disheveled hair. “I needed real insight into the Dukes’ psychology and MO, not the dry information I find in all the theory books, no matter how new they are. You’ve solved so many of these cases, and I just knew these files would truly help me get a better grasp on these demons.”
“What is it with you and the Dukes? Your desk is full of books on them, and now this…” He motioned to the files on the bed. “You know what? I don’t believe you. I think you’re full of crap. There’s something else, something you don’t want anyone to know. So, what is it, Alexi? What is that dark, dirty secret you’re trying to hide?”
Alexi’s heart jumped in his chest. Was he really that easy to read? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kain stepped closer to Alexi, invading his personal space. He looked him hard in the eyes, as if he was challenging him to lie to his face again. “Spill it out, mate. After all, you know mine, don’t you? It’s only fair that I should know yours.”
For a second, Alexi got lost in the blond’s icy eyes. From up close, the thin white scars around them were extremely evident. He swallowed hard and tried to find his voice. “I never meant to… It was not my intention to… I only needed the extra info on the Dukes.”
“But you did read that one, didn’t you? Vepar. Does the name ring a bell?” Kain held Alexi’s eyes, determined to make him talk. He couldn’t believe that a wound he had barely managed to heal years ago had just been opened wide by the fool in front of him.
Alexi took a step back, then went past Kain and started picking the files off the floor. He couldn’t hold the blond’s gaze anymore. Also, he felt like his roommate would see right through him if he attempted to lie to him again. And he had every intention to do so. Kain never had to know why Alexi was so interested in the Duke cases. What good would it do?
“Yeah… I’m sorry about that. I shouldn’t have read that one.”
“You shouldn’t have read any of them. How did you get them, anyway?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Apparently, someone believed you needed them badly enough to skip the bureaucracy.”