The Bright and Hungry Future of Hawks (More Heat Than The Sun Book 9) by John Wiltshire

Author:John Wiltshire [Wiltshire, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Decent Fellows Press
Published: 2022-04-14T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 33

Four Months Before April

Nikolas listened to the voice on the other end of the call, his fingers tapping out a slow rhythm on one thigh.

Although Nikolas’s expression gave nothing away, Ben knew from this uncharacteristic fidgeting that he was angry. For some reason, however, he would not, or could not hang up. But there was also another emotion roiling beneath that one, something subtler, more disturbing, that Ben couldn’t interpret at all.

Something caught his eye. He glanced down. The fingers had stilled. Nikolas was digging his nails into his flesh, clenching his fist so tight that his hand was trembling.

And Ben knew then what the underlying current was.

It was fear.

Something was coming into their lives with this phone call and Nikolas was afraid.

Fear. Ben’s own hands clenched the wheel tighter in unconscious response.

There was a low rumble of menace from the seat behind.

He glanced into the rear view mirror.

Radulf was staring blindly at the back of Nikolas’s head, his hackles raised. Molly was frozen in place with wide-eyed distress at something she was too young to comprehend but clearly sensed. Ben swallowed deeply and began to interrupt Nikolas’s intense concentration on the voice only he could hear, but before he could speak, Nikolas clicked the phone off.

With his jaw locked tightly, staring down at his fist as if it had betrayed him, he murmured deceptively calmly, “The road’s clear, Ben. Perhaps we should be getting home. I think Molly is tired.”

Ben was about to start questioning him but realised he didn’t actually want to hear Nikolas lie. Nikolas didn’t need the practise.

Dutifully, almost robotically, Ben resumed the drive.

Molly’s eyes were closed before they passed the first sign to the main road.

Radulf, however, did not settle. He seemed quite keen to hear what Nikolas had to say for himself.

They drove in uncomfortable silence, main road giving way to dual carriageway and then the traffic fading as they took quiet lanes only locals knew, climbing now as the tors of Dartmoor began to appear, fleeting glimpses of granite on the darkening skyline, the brown-gold of the winter grass glinting with frost under the moonlight.

Hating the silence between them, Ben said nothing, but laid his palm on the steel-tight thigh and squeezed. As he told Nikolas occasionally, when he wasn’t furious with him, there was nothing Nikolas could ever do that would stop Ben loving him—merely empty words if you didn’t prove their veracity when they were needed.

Nikolas glanced down at the touch.

He appeared to be thinking more deeply about the gesture than a hand on a thigh would normally elicit.

After a moment, he shifted his leg away.

Ben’s hand felt the absence of contact like a cold burn.

The icy sting shot from his palm to his heart, gave him a prick of pain, and then slow bleeding commenced from a wound that he felt might never heal.

His hand still hovered over the tiny gap which Nikolas had opened up. He couldn’t move to close it. It was too deep: it was a chasm between them.

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