Fortune's Favor

Chapter Twelve

“How do you like that, son?” Malcolm laughed and pulled the blade back. “Sangre likes you. Yeah, it can feel the soul. And yours is one sick little ball of need.”

Nathan gripped the KA-BAR tight. “You’re kidding me, right? Talk about need? You’re so pathetic you couldn’t share your wife, a woman you supposedly loved, with her own nephew. Or should I say, son? Did you ever wonder why she gave me up? Because she knew you were crazy. That you couldn’t handle being a father. Christ. Look at you.”

This time when Malcolm came at him, he dodged the blow, using Malcolm’s own energy against him. The psychic memory stored in the KA-BAR let Nathan access Malcolm’s speed and agility. Everything Malcolm had felt and been while holding it bled into Nathan…the way the users of Sangre bled into Malcolm.

Malcolm smiled. “You might be a piece of shit, but you’re going to give me a good fight, aren’t you?”

“Well, like you said, I’m a piece of shit. A chip off the old block.” Nathan nodded at him with a similar grin.

Malcolm and he fenced and fought, but unless Nathan got his hands on a weapon with a longer reach, he wouldn’t be able to outlast Malcolm. He was wearing down, no sleep and his wounds taking their own toll. And Malcolm had the added benefit of fighting with a powerful object with a mind of its own.

Nathan bled from several cuts, intended to weaken and not kill him outright.

“Use your head, you idiot,” Avery snarled in the background. “Can’t you remember anything I taught you in the gym?”

Nathan frowned. “I could use some encouragement here.” Trust Avery to be a pain in the ass even now.

“Use it all, dimples. Hands, feet, balance.”

Images of him and Avery grappling came back to him, and as he danced out of the way of Malcolm’s reach once more, he realized the only way to beat the man would be hand-to-hand. No more weapons.

The next time his father came at him, he ducked and advanced. He took a fist to the face and a slice to his arm in order to knock Malcolm to the ground. But through it all, Nathan held on to his knife. A short stab to the man’s side satisfied, but it was a means to an end. To distract Malcolm long enough to grab on to that fucking sword.

The moment Nathan’s hands wrapped around his father’s and the hilt of Espada de Sangre, he tensed. Images and feelings not his own poured into him like poison.

“Nathan, fucking fight it!” Avery sounded far in the distance.

The rush of so many kills tasted sweet, and he suddenly understood Malcolm as he never had before.

“You need this. Energy, power. It fills you up.”

Malcolm stared into his eyes, and it was like looking into a mirror. The man faltered in his answer, as if seeing Nathan for the first time. “Yes. Fills me up. The way your mother used to.”

Nathan felt Malcolm’s loneliness, his antipathy toward everything. Only murder gave him the highs away from a monotonous existence. Because his time away from his wife had been hell. The constant kills, the work with so many deadly weapons, had eroded Malcolm’s ability to feel. His returns to Danielle had made life bearable, because only with her had he felt the love that brought him back to himself. But he’d been so greedy, so damn needy, that he’d refused to allow for the possibility of sharing her attention.

Michelle hadn’t been welcome. Nor had any of Danielle’s friends. They’d lived in virtual solitude for so long, and Malcolm had hated it. Hated what he was doing to her, but he couldn’t help it. And eventually he’d stopped hating their isolation and longed for it with every breath in his body. And then Nathan had arrived. A soft-spoken, handsome young boy just as deprived as Malcolm.

He’d hated Nathan, because in Nathan he saw himself. And now Nathan knew why.

Nathan yanked the sword from his hand and stood, leaving his father to grab the KA-BAR next to him.

“You can feel me in that, can’t you?” he asked Malcolm.

Malcolm nodded, his eyes wide. “You’re just like me.”

“No, he’s not,” Avery said in a hoarse voice. “Little bastard likes to think he can do anything, but he’s not a killer like you. He’s got the power, but he’s also got heart.”

Because I had the love of a great woman. Because I’ve got you, Nathan thought but didn’t say. It was a struggle to remain separate from the blade. The thing wanted blood. It wanted to kill. And it didn’t much care who sated that need. Overcome with exhaustion, it was all Nathan could do not to lean completely on it for strength.

Malcolm blinked rapidly. “I don’t care. You’re the reason Danielle left me. Because of you.” He stepped forward with the KA-BAR, a deadly killer with or without the cursed blade. He lunged.

Nathan managed to block his attack, but the deflection allowed Malcolm to slice into his side.

“Fuck.” Fury boiled over him, and he struck out. The blade found Malcolm’s weakness with ease, sliding between his father’s ribs and then again into his thigh through the femoral artery. It sang as it drank, letting the blood ease into the nicks and crevices of the ancient steel.

“Even the touch of it feels right,” Malcolm said with a sigh. The man didn’t act as if he felt pain. He came at Nathan again, graceful in step and form.

They fought for what felt like hours. Nathan couldn’t believe how powerful Malcolm was. Despite his age and injuries, he moved like a man possessed.

“For nearly thirty years, I’ve been dancing with death. You think you can take me, boy?” Malcolm attacked with well-oiled precision. He darted away to stand by Avery and stabbed into his bloody shoulder, no doubt hoping for a reaction.

Avery didn’t give him one, so Nathan wouldn’t either. But he needed to put himself between Malcolm and his lover. God, Avery hadn’t made a sound. Because he was disciplined or passed out? Because he was dead?

“Shit. Hurry the hell up,” he slurred, and Nathan breathed a sigh of relief.

Malcolm grinned. “In other circumstances, I might like the major. But I want my blade back before I finish our fight.”

And maybe that would be his downfall. Nathan tuned out the blade’s need for more blood and zeroed in on his father’s inability to work on his own. He needed to be filled, to work with an external device, a distraction that could cost him.

Nathan stopped and took a step back. “It wants you. It wants to be inside you. It’s promising me all sorts of things if I give it to you.” He listened and heard the whispered torment, the pledges of undying love and satisfaction if only Nathan would kill.

Malcolm tossed him the KA-BAR without missing a beat and stepped away from Avery. “I want it. See if you can beat me with that measly knife again. Once is luck, twice skill.”

“You don’t need luck, Nathan. Do it. Give him the blade.” Avery’s intensity sparked Nathan to action, and he followed his lover’s order without question.

Nathan put it on the floor and kicked it to his father, while at the same time, he dived for the KA-BAR.

Just as Malcolm picked up the blade, Nathan shoved the KA-BAR into his father’s leg. Then he pulled it out and sank it into Malcolm’s chest, where the KA-BAR whispered to strike. Since Malcolm had handled the knife, it knew his secrets. And now so did Nathan. Dextrocardia—the reversal of the heart’s position. The reason Malcolm hadn’t died all those years ago was because Nathan had stabbed him where a normal person’s heart would be. On the left side. But Malcolm’s was on the right.

Malcolm staggered but didn’t drop the blade, so Nathan dug the KA-BAR deeper and twisted. Then he pulled Malcolm’s hand holding the blade and positioned it so that the tip of it rested against Malcolm’s stomach.

“You want to be together with your precious weapon? Fine by me. Go for it.”

He didn’t expect Malcolm to actually do it, but when his father stabbed himself in the gut, he wasn’t exactly surprised. However, instead of peace, horror filled Malcolm’s eyes.

He screamed and screamed until death finally claimed him. And as Nathan watched, the blade seemed to glow, as if soaking up his father’s soul.

“Don’t touch it,” Avery rasped. “Leave it be and untie me.”

Nathan scrambled back from temptation, alarmed he’d been ready to pull the blade free and continue its work. The moment he left Malcolm and rushed to Avery, he felt woozy. Every cut and bruise throbbed, and he was more than tired. He managed to untie Avery and propped him up when his lover started to fall.

“Oh man. We have to get you to a hospital.” And me to a bed.

“No shit.” Avery groaned and put the entirety of his weight on Nathan. A clear sign Avery was in bad shape. “You’re not alone, are you?”

“I figure the guys are right behind me. I drove like a bat outta hell to save you, princess.” Nathan tried to joke, but he started to shake, realizing all he might have lost.

Avery sighed and rested his head on Nathan’s shoulder. “You know, I want to comfort you, I really do. But I wasn’t kidding before. I gotta take a piss.”

Nathan laughed and couldn’t stop laughing. He helped Avery upstairs and to the bathroom just as four of his friends burst through the front door, weapons drawn.

When Ian saw the two of them, he shook his head. “You’re in so much trouble, Kraft.”

“Sue me.” Nathan slumped against the bathroom door Avery shut behind him and grinned. “I’ve never felt better.” Then he passed out cold.

Avery didn’t want to spend one more day in the hospital. He’d been in Bloomville long enough. Three days being tended to by nurses while his buddies made fun of his hospital gown and the fact that a sixty-year-old man had kicked his ass were enough to have him plotting cold-blooded murder.

Jack strolled in the door just as he fastened his jeans, intent on escaping while Nathan took a much-needed break at a nearby hotel.

“Well, well. I don’t believe you were discharged, were you?” Jack crossed his arms over his chest. Avery thought the comparison of his boss to a grizzly more than apt. Then Kitty stepped out from behind him with a horrified look on her face, and he knew he wouldn’t be hiding anything from his boss.

He groaned. “Come on, guys. It’s not that bad.”

“You’re such a liar. I could feel your pain from down the hall.” Kitty hurried to him and tucked him back into bed. She pulled the sheet over his waist, hiding his jeans, but not the multitude of bandages over his upper torso.

“Kitty—”

“Now who’s lying?” Jack asked her. “You’re feeling everyone’s pain. Probably that nutcase with the broken leg in room 2B is flaring at you. Heard him yelling when they set it. Supposedly he thought he saw a ghost at the old Dixon house and broke his leg trying to tell everyone about it. Asshole slipped on some ice and fell.”

They looked at one another. Nathan had been right on the money. Aidan, Chloe, Josh, and Ian had entered the house while Avery had finally finished his business in the bathroom. A discreet cleanup had taken Malcolm Dixon’s body away, and rumors about ghosts continued to haunt the old inn.

“Yeah, well.” Kitty huffed at a piece of hair in her eyes. “I’m here now, and I’m feeling his hurt. And how much he misses Nathan,” she added with sugary sweetness.

Avery groaned and scrubbed his face with his hands.

“Oh hell. Really, Avery? Nathan?”

“Well, look at it this way, Jack,” Kitty said and touched their boss on the shoulder. “At least now we have someone to keep Nathan out of trouble, and you don’t need to move Avery back to day shifts.”

“Hmm, there is that.” Jack tried to look angry but failed. A twinkle lit his stormy gaze. “So you fell for the playboy like so many others. Major Discipline bites the dust.”

“But discipline is just what I need,” Nathan said from the doorway, a huge grin on his face.

“Oh, that is just beautiful.” Kitty had tears on her cheeks, and Avery didn’t want to know what had put them there. The empath was no doubt picking up on his intense love for the idiot in the doorway. Bad enough he’d already confessed it to Nathan’s face. The dimple on Nathan’s cheek was adorable but annoying, because Avery could just feel his lover getting ready to take advantage. And Avery would let him.

“What’s beautiful, Kitty?” Jack pulled her into his shoulder. Avery had wondered about the pair a time or two, but Kitty looked at Jack the way a friend did. Not the way a woman in love would. Like the way he imagined he now looked at Nathan. God, he was going to take so much shit from the guys because of this.

“Nathan is glowing. He loves Avery so much.”

“You just had to tell.” Nathan frowned. “I was going to declare my feelings with wild abandon. To go down on one knee, give him a ring, and propose.”

“Ah, dude. Way too many people here for all your drama.” Avery fought a smile. Though Nathan had nearly blurted out the truth a few days ago, it meant the world to hear him declare it in front of others.

“No, no. I love you, Avery. And I don’t care who knows it.”

“So I guess you’re going to have to cancel all those dates back in Bend, then. No other men for you but me.” He was aware of Kitty pulling Jack out of the room and leaving him and Nathan together, but he had to know.

“What men?” Nathan joined Avery on his bed and leaned down for a kiss. “You’re it for me. I mean it. I’m going to prove it to you.” He held up his hand and flashed a golden wedding band.

“What the hell?”

Then the bastard had the nerve to slip a matching band on Avery’s ring finger. It fit as if it had been made for him.

“These are just temporary until Rory makes us a matching set. You and me. Permanent. Together.” Nathan still hadn’t asked.

“You going to ask me or what?”

“No. You might say no.”

To Avery’s surprise, Nathan seemed to mean it. “You’re kidding, right? I told you I love you. Despite how messy and annoying you can be, I love you. I don’t fuck around.”

“I know. I date a lot, but I’m loyal. I mean, I used to date a lot. No more. But don’t be mad when I have to beat them off with a stick. The news will be hard for my friends at home.”

“So many boys, so little time.” Avery frowned, already jealous.

“Yeah. But once they see you, they’ll understand. Why would I want any of them when I have the manliest man in town?”

Avery tried not to react, but he felt the blush cover his cheeks.

Nathan crawled over him and reminded Avery of all his wounds and bruises. But he didn’t care.

“God, Avery. I was so worried about you. I love you so much. I couldn’t lose you.”

“And you won’t.” Avery hugged him with his good arm. “Not unless you reopen my wounds and I bleed to death.”

“Shit.” Nathan hurried off him and wiped his eyes with a scowl. “And I’m not crying.”

“Sure.” Avery smiled. “If you say so, dimples.”

“I saved your life, dipshit. You owe me.”

Avery groaned. “Now what?”

“You still owe me five hours of being in charge. I’m thinking we add another twenty-four to that, because I saved your life and all. And I’m getting inside that ass again.” Nathan leaned down and kissed him until Avery forgot his name.

He blinked when Nathan leaned up. “Make it fourteen hours, plus the five. An even twenty. I’ll bottom for your lurid imagination a few more times. But then turnabout is fair play.”

“Dude, you’re always on top. How is that fair?”

Avery chuckled. “Fortune smiles on the winner, son. You may be prettier, but I’m bigger and stronger.”

“Barely,” Nathan muttered.

“And do you really hate it when I’m deep inside you?”

Nathan shifted his stance, bringing to light his erection.

“I’d say that’s a no.” Avery sat up with Nathan’s help and shoved the sheet from his waist. “The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we make that happen.”

Nathan frowned. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m good. I’ll be better when we’re home, in our place, you lying on your belly with your legs spread and that ass lubed and ready for me.”

Nathan blew out a breath. “Well, what the hell are you waiting for? Let’s go.”

“Lead on, dimples. I’m right behind you.”

The End