“Why don’t we go take a look?” Blair shoved her plate aside. “You and Glenna can look your way, and Larkin and I can do a fly-by. You up for the dragon?”
“I am.” He smiled at her. “Especially when you’re doing the riding.”
“Sex, sex, sex. The guy’s a machine.”
“On that note,” Cian said dryly, “I’m going to bed.”
With a quick squeeze of Glenna’s hand, Hoyt murmured, “A moment,” then followed his brother.
“I need a word with you.”
Cian flicked him a glance. “I’ve had my quota of words this morning.”
“You’ll have to swallow a few more. My rooms are closer, if you would. I’d prefer this private.”
“Since you’d just dog me to my room and pester me until I want to rip your tongue out, your rooms will do.”
Servants bustled on the route between the parlor and bedchambers. Preparations for the feasting, Cian thought, and wondered if it was Hoyt’s talk of fire that put him in mind of Nero and his fiddle.
Hoyt stepped into a chamber, then immediately threw out an arm to block Cian from entering. “The sun,” was all he said, then moved quickly to pull the coverings over the windows.
The room plunged into gloom. Without thinking, Hoyt gestured toward a brace of candles. They flared into light.
“Handy bit of business that,” Cian commented. “I’m out of practice lighting tinderboxes.”
“It’s a basic skill, and one you’d have yourself if you’d ever put your mind and time into honing your power.”
“Too tedious. Is that whiskey?” Cian moved straight to a decanter, and poured. “Oh, such sobriety and disapproval.” He read his brother’s expression clearly as he took the first warm sip. “I’ll remind you that it’s the end of my day—well past it, come to that.”
He glanced around, began to wander. “Smells female. Women like Glenna always leave something of themselves behind to remind a man.” Then he dropped down into a chair, slouching, stretching out his legs. “Now, what is it you’re bound and determined to bore me with?”
“There was a time you enjoyed, even sought my company.”
Cian’s shoulders moved in something too lazy to be called a shrug. “I suppose that means nine hundred years of absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder.”
Regret showed on Hoyt’s face before he turned away to add turf to the fire. “Are you and I to be at odds again?”
“You tell me.”
“I wanted to speak with you alone about what you did with the prisoner.”
“More humanity heard from. Yes, yes, I should have patted his head so he could stand trial, or before the tribunal, whatever goes for the name of justice in this place. I should’ve invoked the sodding Geneva Convention. Well, bollocks.”
“I don’t know this convention, but there could be no trial, no tribunal on such a matter at such a time. That’s what I’m saying, you great irritating idiot. You executed an assassin, as I would have done—but with more tact and, well, stealth.”
“Ah, so you’d have slithered down to whatever cage they put him in and put a knife between his ribs.” Cian raised his eyebrows. “That’s all right then.”
“It’s not. None of it’s all right. It’s a bloody nightmare is what it is, and we’re all having it. I’m saying you did the necessary. And that for his trying to kill Moira, whom I love as I did my own sisters, and for putting an arrow in you, I’d have done for him. I’ve never killed a man, for these things we’ve ended these past weeks haven’t been men, but demon. But I’d have killed this one if you hadn’t been there ahead of me.”
Hoyt paused, caught his breath if not his composure. “I wanted to say as much to you so you’d know my feelings on it. But it seems I waste both our time as you couldn’t give a damn in hell what my feelings are.”
Cian didn’t move. His only change was to shift his gaze from his brother’s furious face down to the whiskey in his hand. “I do, as it happens, give several damns in hell what your feelings are. I wish I didn’t. You’ve stirred things in me I’d calmed too long ago to remember. You’ve slapped family in my face, Hoyt, when I’d buried it.”
Crossing over, Hoyt took the chair that faced his brother’s. “You’re mine.”
Now when Cian lifted his eyes to his brother’s they were empty. “I’m no one’s.”