Page 10 of Silver & Gold

It also felt entirely unimportant.

Only Raider mattered. But, for Raider, Seth needed that book.

Noticing their approach, the ifrit drifted drunkenly upward, its smoky tail trailing through the spilled wine. Its citrine eyes blinked lazily, then a look of surprise came slowly to its face, and it shot toward the low building.

Seth and Raider sprinted after it, racing up the slope as the drunken creature careened wildly. Missing the open doorway by at least a foot, the ifrit ran straight into the wall.

When it bounced off, Raider made a grab for it, but his hand passed through its smoky tail. It blew a raspberry at him before zipping away into the night.

Seth saw no more than that. Commotion inside the building had him leaping through the open doorway and down the stairs into the dark, recessed space. He heard a startled scream before colliding with a body much smaller than his own.

They landed on a mudbrick platform. Seth’s quarry was squashed beneath him. He groped around for the man’s hands before realizing they were pressed limply against his chest. Seth reared back and grabbed two slender wrists in one hand, using his other to snatch the shackles from his utility belt.

As he clapped the first cuff onto one of the slender wrists, his quarry let out a garbled cry and tried to yank away. Seth pinned the man’s squirming torso to the platform and clapped the other cuff onto the remaining wrist.

At the top of the steps, the door shut with a light thump. Raider’s voice came down through the darkness.

“This is your ruthless killer?”

CHAPTER 4

SETH’S ARCANE LAMP clicked on at his belt, fully revealing the scene that Raider’s arcane eye had already glimpsed. Raider was pretty sure that Seth wouldn’t appreciate it if he laughed, but it was hard not to.

Seth was standing in an aisle between two raised platforms running the length of the narrow building. He had one hand on the bar between the shackle cuffs. His other hand hovered at his belt as though to be ready for … well, the gods knew what, because it was hilariously clear that his captive posed absolutely no threat.

The slender young arcanist, who looked about seventeen, was sitting on the far platform and leaning away from Seth to the full extent allowed by Seth’s grip on the shackle bar. Julian’s eyes were huge in his delicate face, and they were locked on Seth in sheer terror.

This seemed to make Seth uncomfortable because his boots shifted audibly on the packed-earth floor and he said, “Um, Julian, you’re under arrest.”

There was no response.

Seth glanced back at Raider as though for help. Raider raised an amused eyebrow. When that made Seth scowl in the way Raider loved, he felt a little more of the tightness ease from around his heart.

That tightness had been letting go incrementally since Seth had surprised him with words that he hadn’t dared hope for.

Those words hadn’t quite settled inside Raider yet. He still felt raw and shaky and unsure, but at least he felt like he could breathe again. He could enjoy the moment, he could enjoy Seth—because Seth was his, and they would figure this out.

Seth’s scowl softened at whatever he saw in Raider’s face, and a painful yearning stretched between them. Raider needed Seth’s eyes on him, his hands, his lips. He needed Seth’s voice in his ear and Seth’s cock in his ass. They needed time to fuck, to sleep, to talk. That last part would be hard, but Raider would try. He saw now what a mistake it had been to not talk to Seth. What if Seth hadn’t given him another chance?

A tremble started in Raider’s body at the thought, and it brought all his fears rushing back. For a second, those fears threatened to swallow him like they had yesterday. Reconnecting with Seth in the olive grove had helped Raider pull himself together, but it was mere threads holding it all.

Maybe Seth glimpsed that because he rocked toward Raider with an agonized look in his eyes. Raider gave his head a slight shake. This wasn’t the first time he’d had to function like this. He could manage, and they didn’t have time.

Seth’s jaw clenched in frustration, then he turned back to his captive. Raider turned his attention there too, taking a fuller look at the man they had been pursuing for so long.

Julian had a refined, almost fragile looking beauty that was obvious in spite of the dirt smudging his nose and the mop of brown hair hanging in his eyes. A threadbare yellow kaftan draped his thin shoulders. It hung open to reveal dingy white robes cinched at his slim waist with a leather belt. A knife, notably untouched, was sheathed at that belt. That fact, combined with the boyishly innocent look on his face?

Raider was sticking with his first impression: no way was this a killer.

Seth and Raider hadn’t talked much about Julian during their travels. In the beginning, when Raider’s job had been simply to get Seth across the Kesh, it hadn’t been relevant. Seth had merely explained that Julian had (allegedly) bludgeoned a fellow scholar to death. Seth, never having spoken more than a word or two to Julian at the Arcanum, had had no idea of the motivation.

And yet, faced with the boy now, surely Seth could see that something was off here? But if he did, he ignored it to demand harshly, “Where’s the book?”

Raider’s heart skipped. Seth had said that Julian had recovered the book, but somehow Raider hadn’t thought about the fact that that meant the book—Kahzir’s book—was here.

Shit. He wasn’t ready for this.

Julian’s brown eyes remained wide and unblinking. “It’s—it’s in my bag.”