CHAPTER TWENTY
The house Xan was raised in loomed large. It was three stories and two wings of solid brick and full of mixed memories. He’d arrived too late the night before to dare go straight from the train station to his parents’ house. So he’d spent the night in his own home, pulling the dust covers from his old bed and ignoring the drafty, creaking, lonesomeness of the entirely empty house. The residual soreness of his ass had provided a good distraction, though, and he’d rubbed it until he’d fallen asleep.
He’d called several times that morning and had finally spoken with the groundskeeper, a man named Berst who’d been working for the Heelies family since Xan was a child.
After confirming that Ray and his pater were both under quarantine in the house and not admitted to the local hospital—apparently for privacy reasons—he’d headed directly over, the morning sun shining pale on the unnaturally quiet city streets.
He’d managed not to think about it too much on the way over, but now, with the weight of worry, shame, and foreboding on his shoulders, he didn’t know if he had the courage to ring the bell.
Time it was he had his own key and called this place his home. Then he’d contracted with Caleb and made a new home with him on the other side of town. But surely there was no home like the one that held all the memories of his youth. How he’d missed it! But once the rumors of Xan’s perversions reached his father’s ears, he’d been banned from visiting the Heelies house at all, or from meeting his pater outside of it.
He hadn’t come all this way to stand outside the house and stare. He lifted his hand and rang the bell. It played the same chiming notes he remembered.
“Young Mr. Heelies!” Joon, the old, bald butler, glanced quickly over his shoulder after opening the door. Stepping onto the front stoop, he shut the door behind him. “Mr. Xan, you can’t come inside.”
“I want to see my pater and Ray.”
Joon swallowed hard, clearly conflicted. “Your father expressly ordered that you’re not allowed in the house. That’s been true for months now, sir. And, well, the orders haven’t changed.”
“They’re very sick,” Xan said. It stood to reason that should change things.
“Yes.” Joon’s eyes cast down and his ruddy skin paled.
“I want to see them.”
Joon wiped at his brow, his eyes blinking rapidly. “Your father is with your pater every moment of the day.”
“I’m not afraid of my father.” Xan’s voice quavered, and Joon’s skeptical expression let him know that he hadn’t sounded convincing enough.
“I’d be fired, sir, if I let you in the house.”
“So you won’t let me see him? Or Ray?”
“Your brother’s very poorly as well.” Joon frowned. “But your father only visits him in the mornings.” He scratched behind his ear nervously. “I could probably sneak you in to see Ray with no one the wiser. Though it’s a dangerous mission, sir. The contagion is severe and your love for your brother won’t necessarily protect you from catching it.”
Xan studied Joon, taking in the familiar fond worry etched in the old beta servant’s eyes, and nodded. “I’d like to see him, please.” He’d make sure Ray was being cared for and then he’d see his pater, come hell or high water.
Following Joon through the marble-floored foyer and up the grand staircase, he noticed the sepulcher-like quiet of the mansion that was usually bustling with servants. “Where are the others?” he whispered.
Joon glanced back over his shoulder. “The ones not too sick to come in to work are needed at home caring for family members who’ve come down with this virulent, horrendous flu. There’s only me and the cook left well enough to care for the house and your family.”
“Aren’t you worried that you’ll get sick too?”
“I’ve never had the flu once in my life,” Joon said, as though the insinuation that he might take ill was an insult. “And Cook, it seems, is immune to it as well. He’s been helping feed all the sick families in the neighborhood, but he remains healthy as an ox.”
“It’s that bad here in the city then?”
“It’s a wave of death, Mr. Heelies.” Joon glanced at him curiously. “It hasn’t reached Virona?”
“Only just. Janus brought it with him. We’ve been advised to keep him isolated so it doesn’t spread to the town.”
“If they keep the trains running, it’s only a matter of time before Virona is down with it too. The doctors are run ragged here. They’ve brought some in from the countryside to help out, but this strain is too strong and moving too quickly for them to keep up.”
Xan thought of Urho in Virona, and he could clearly imagine the mixed feelings this knowledge would bring up for him. He’d want to be here helping, but he would also want to ensure Vale and the baby’s health first.
Once that was taken care of, though, there was no doubt in Xan’s mind that Urho would put aside his sworn promises to stay in Virona with him and Caleb. He’d want to leave for the city immediately to do his duty as a doctor. And he should. But Xan hated the idea of Urho walking into the heart of this contagion like an armorless warrior into a lion’s den.
But wasn’t that exactly what he’d done himself? He wondered if Urho was worried about him. The thought gave him a warm glow. How strange to think he might be cared for even in his absence, and how sweet to feel certain that he was.
“Your brother was brought here last week by his omega friend who had found him passed out on his apartment floor. He’d already tried the hospitals, but they were full, and no doctor could be reached.”
“What friend is this?”
“He didn’t leave his name, sir.” Joon cleared his throat awkwardly.
Xan suspected there was more to the story, but Joon put his finger to his lips as they passed the wing to his parents’ rooms. Xan held his breath until they were behind the door of the “nursery wing,” as they still called the hallway of rooms that had belonged to the Heelies children.
They stepped silently down the corridor past Xan’s old room, then his long dead brother Jordan’s still-intact room, and stopped in front of Ray’s room—usually only used during Autumn Nights feast weeks—at the end of the long length of blue carpet.
Joon nodded at the door. “He’ll likely be asleep, sir. I’ll leave you to it and don’t linger too long. I’d hate for your presence to upset Mr. Heelies. He’s already quite distraught over your pater and brother being so very sick.”
“Thank you for letting me in, Joon.”
The old man hugged Xan and patted his back, bringing a flood of fond memories of childhood. “You’re a good boy. I’m sorry for all of this…this….” He shrugged, obviously not sure how to encompass all that he was sorry for in the lives of the Heelies family. Then he hustled on down the hall and closed the doors to the wing behind him.
Coughing came from Ray’s bedroom, and Xan pushed the door open, stepping in carefully. It was gloomy and close inside, with the scent of sweat and sickness rising up all around him. It filled his nostrils and he gagged slightly, holding in the horror at finding his brother so very ill. He wondered when his sheets had last been changed, though he hated to doubt the dedication of Joon’s care.
He crossed to the windows and opened the curtains slightly, letting fresh, morning light into the room. Ray stirred in the bed, coughing and moaning softly.
“Ray?” Xan asked, crossing to him.
Beneath layers of sheets and blankets, Ray shivered violently. Xan gasped. Ray was sweaty and sickly, with dark circles like stains beneath his eyes. His nose was red and sore-looking, and his lips dry and crusty. “Wolf-god,” Xan swore under his breath.
Ray’s cheeks blazed with fever, and his eyes as he blinked them open were glassy. “Xan?” He sounded so uncertain that Xan wondered if he’d been having hallucinations from his fever.
“It’s me. I’m here. Let me help you drink some water.” He turned to the pitcher and glass beside the bed.
“You can’t—” Ray shook his head, coughing hard. “You can’t be here. You have to leave.”
“Father can’t keep me away from you and Pater. Not when you need my help.”
“Joon takes care of me,” Ray said. His voice was a rasping version of its former warm, thick tenor. “The heirs need to stay well. This isn’t a typical flu, Xan. People are dying.”
“But not you,” Xan said, touching his brother’s cheek and almost hissing at the heat. “You’re going to be just fine.”
Ray shuddered and coughed again. Xan hustled into the bathroom and ran the tap. Once he had a cold, wet cloth, he hurried back to his brother. “What are they doing for the fever?”
“Elderflower tea and tablets.”
“I’ll get more for you.”
Ray didn’t protest, clearly too sick and weak to argue. Xan’s heart ached and his fingers shook as he stroked his brother’s hair off his forehead with the cool cloth. “I’ll be right back. We’re going to get this fever down. No arguments.”
Ray said nothing, his eyes so glassy and distant that it made Xan’s insides quiver.
The house was still quiet as he took the back stairs down to the hall where his pater’s study and the telephone resided. He paused outside the doorway, listening for any sound, but there was nothing. Unsurprising since his father was, according to Joon, with his pater every moment.
Standing next to the massive oak desk, he dialed the house in Virona. It rang five times before Ren picked up and Xan sent him for Urho.
While he waited, he gazed around the room, taking in the family portrait across the wall. His father stood tall and proud, his big hand resting on his seated pater’s shoulder, while Xan and Ray stood off to the side. It had been made when Xan graduated from high school, before his failures became too well-known for his father to ignore.
Xan stared at the painting. His father’s dark, curly hair, so like Xan’s, and his bright blue eyes were striking. He was bigger than Xan could ever hope to be, muscular and handsome, with a strong jaw and a masculine cruelty to his features. His pater, though, was nearly opposite in his looks: slight and short, with light brown hair and hazel eyes. Almost unremarkably bland in appearance. Handsome, yes, but in a dull, easily overlooked way. Of course they were both older now, in their early sixties, but they were much the same.
Xan’s eyes drifted next to the portrait of his pater when he was young, and the photograph of Jordan, an alpha, given a place of pride over the fireplace.
He wondered about Jordan sometimes. Xan had been so young when Jordan died that he didn’t remember him. And his pater never spoke of him, not even when he made his yearly visits to the graveyard to leave flowers on the stone. His father, on the other hand, spoke fondly of his lost son—memories of swimming in the sea together in the Lofton house, and Ray teaching Jordan to ride a bicycle while Father ran uselessly behind saying, “Pedal! Pedal!”
Xan wondered if his father would speak so fondly of him if he were gone. He imagined not.
He was relieved to shove aside morbid thoughts when Urho’s voice came on the line. “Xan, is all well?” Urho sounded troubled.
The rasp of his voice was enough to make Xan relax and breathe a sigh of relief. This was a man who loved him. This was an alpha who’d take his demise very much to heart. “No,” Xan murmured, collapsing into his father’s giant leather desk chair and rubbing his forehead. He was so damn glad to have Urho in his life. “My brother isn’t being well-tended here. It’s not the staff’s fault. Everyone is gone except for old Joon and the cook. They’re trying to hold the place together.”
“Wolf-god. Do you need me to…” Urho trailed off, and Xan knew he’d bitten off an offer to come down to the city. His commitment to Vale and the baby prevented that. And as much as Xan wanted him here, to feel his steady presence and have his support—not to mention get his help in caring for Ray—he understood the promises Urho needed to keep.
“Ray’s fever is very high,” Xan went on. “They’ve given him elderflower tea and tablets, but there must be something else I can do to help him. I think he’s been hallucinating from the fever.”
“Isn’t there a doctor who—”
“No. None. The epidemic here is beyond what we realized in Virona. Every doctor is occupied.”
Urho was silent for a long minute but then he finally said in a no-nonsense tone that gave Xan strength, “Go to my house. Upstairs, in my bedroom, there is a cupboard with medicines inside. The tin with the willow-tree label has tablets normally reserved for doctors alone, and given for only the worst fevers. Take the whole tin with you, but only dose Ray and your pater twice a day. There’s also a bottle with black elderberry on it and a dark star on the brand’s label. That’s a prescription strength whole system booster. It also relieves congestion and over-production of mucus. Give it three times daily, with or without meals.”
“Will your servants let me in?” Xan felt doubtful that the men he’d glimpsed in Urho’s house would trust his word alone, and they shouldn’t. No doubt they’d be protective of Urho’s place with the city turned upside down with sickness.
“I’ll call them.” Then Urho added, a hint of worry in his voice, “Hopefully they’re well.”
“Surely they would have called you if they weren’t?”
“I’d like to think so,” Urho said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “But you’re safe?”
“So far,” Xan replied with a snort. He didn’t know how safe he’d be if his father discovered him in the house.
“Wash your hands in hot water, as hot as you can stand, after visiting the sick rooms and any time you can. Please, Xan, for the love of wolf-god, stay well.”
“I’ll try.” His stomach fluttered, and a tender fondness that he wanted to roll up in like a blanket washed over him. “You too.”
“I’m not worried about me.”
Xan smiled. “I know. That’s my job.”
Urho huffed softly. “You should go. The sooner you get the medication into them, the faster the fever will drop.”
Xan hesitated another moment and then confessed, “I’m not sure if I leave the house that I’ll be granted access back inside. My father doesn’t know I’m here. Our oldest beta servant snuck me in to see Ray.”
“I believe in you. If you want back in that house, you’ll find a way.”
Xan pondered the problem once he hung up, not wanting to further involve Joon in his mission. He closed his eyes and considered. The answer presented itself almost immediately. Jason had always called him a wily thing and smarter than his grades suggested.
At the moment, Xan was willing to think he might have been right.
At Urho’s house, the door swung open door before he’d even rung the bell.
“Mr. Heelies, I’m Mako,” the tall, casually dressed, middle-aged beta servant said, with a kind, welcoming smile. “I’m Dr. Chase’s cook and, unfortunately,” he clucked his teeth, “the only servant not ill.”
Xan shook his head in amazement. The more he heard about this flu, the more he marveled at the intensity of it. Maybe he should be more frightened. “I’m so sorry to hear everyone has taken sick. Is there anything I can do?”
“No,” Mako said, waving him inside. “I’m caring for the others and Dr. Chase has given me permission to use some of his medications. All in all, we’ve been lucky.”
Xan scooted by him and into the posh foyer. He gazed up at the vaulted ceiling as he had the first time he’d come, and let Mako take his coat. Once it was hung neatly in the foyer closet, Mako gestured at the staircase.
“His room is up there, at the back of the house. I’ll let you find it on your own, sir. He’s private and I don’t normally go in there. That’s normally the housekeeper’s job and since he’s sick…” Mako shrugged helplessly. “I did go in earlier, though, and take the medication he said we could have.”
“I’m sure that’s find. And, it’s all right. I can find it myself.”
“It’s the last room, sir. Make yourself at home. Dr. Chase said to give you free reign of the house.”
Xan smiled at Mako. “Thank you.”
The banister was cool under his fingers. The entire house smelled like Urho’s clothing usually did, or at least had before he came to Virona. It was warm, a little spicy, and somehow there was a hint of old pipe tobacco. Though, as far as Xan knew, Urho didn’t smoke.
He followed the curve of the stairs up, and then around. The hallway was dark and cool, and he spotted the door near the end that must lead to Urho’s bedroom.
Reaching it, he hesitated. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized he’d hoped for something very different the first time he was granted access to Urho’s bedroom—something more intimate, and sexier for sure. But this inner sanctuary, which even Mako admitted was special to Urho, seemed like such a revered place now that he had his hand on the door.
He wished Urho was here with him and that instead of fetching medicines for his brother and pater, his lover was bringing him to this room to share it with him.
Shaking off his disappointment, he opened the door and paused inside. The room was beautiful, but it looked nothing like Urho’s tastes to him. On one wall there was a large painting of the ocean, full waves flooding over white sand and blue skies colliding with blue water.
Urho loved the ocean; that much was true. Xan had walked alongside it with him every day since Urho had arrived in Virona. But he didn’t seem the kind of man to want the ocean in his bedroom, especially this cheerful, lively rendition of it.
The other wall was a mirror, reflecting the bed and the windows. Blue, gauzy curtains floated over the sparkling, clear panes of glass, light and airy. It was a gentle room, a youthful one, full of air and water, and a sense that laughter should ring tirelessly in the air around him. It was nothing like the staid, serious, intense man Xan had come to love.
For a moment, Xan wondered if he’d misjudged Urho so deeply, that this would be his bedroom. How was it that he understood so little of his lover that his most personal space would seem foreign and strange to him?
And then he realized.
The room had been decorated by Riki.
He sucked in a breath, shocked by the sharp pain he felt. No, he didn’t want to have this reaction. It wasn’t generous. It wasn’t loving. It wasn’t even kind.
He frowned, shook himself, and headed toward the medicine cupboard Urho had told him about. Ray and Pater were sick and there was really no time to lose in unwanted self-pity and silly jealousy. He opened the wooden chest carefully and looked inside for the tin with the willow-tree branding. He found it easily and pocketed it. Then he took the bottle with the black elderberry and the dark star.
As he turned back to the door, his eyes lingered on the bed and, against his will, his nose wrinkled. He couldn’t imagine Urho taking him here, fucking him on this bed that was still so obviously Riki’s. His heart knotted up, tangled between emotions, useless and strange.
His eyes landed on another door, half-open and, oddly, already lit from within by a lightly glowing electric lamp. He hesitated, something inside telling him that he’d only been granted permission to look in one cupboard.
And yet…
He had the door to the smaller room open before he’d fully made the decision to invade Urho’s privacy in this way.
The painting above the desk of a pregnant Riki was, at first, all he could see. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the handsome, happy, blond man, with his hand on his bulging belly. Pregnant with Urho’s child—something Xan could never be. Bitterness filled his mouth.
Xan’s hands shook slightly as he stepped deeper into the room and recognized it for what it was: a shrine. Urho’s Érosgápe was forever worshiped here as his other half, as his soul mate, as the completion that Urho’s very cells longed for day in and out forever.
The photos of them as young men burned into Xan’s eyes. There were several of a baby-faced young Riki with a pipe in his mouth. He touched the picture with his index finger, smudging a subtle layer of dust.
“So that’s where the lingering tobacco scent comes from,” he muttered to himself.
Even all these years later? Did it truly linger so long, or was Riki’s ghost present in the house, here for Urho in death as he’d been in life?
Xan shuddered. He didn’t belong in this room. It wasn’t his. This was a part of Urho that he didn’t have permission to know about, and could never, ever fully share. He backed out of the chamber of grief—the shrine to two lives cut short, a joy that was never to be—and into Riki’s bedroom again.
Xan couldn’t think of it as Urho’s bedroom at all.
He turned around, taking in the evidence that Urho had never moved on, and he girded himself against the rising tide of feelings. He didn’t have time for them. He didn’t want them. They were useless and ugly, and he wasn’t going to give into them.
Hustling out of the room and down the stairs, he called to Mako over his shoulder as he grabbed his own coat from the closet. “Thank you, Mako. I have to go. I have what I need.” Then, belatedly, “Please contact me at…” he didn’t know where to say. “Please contact my house in Virona if you need anything. Urho will make sure you have it.”
Mako stepped from the gloom behind the stairs and smiled at him. “Thank you, Mr. Heelies. You’re always welcome here.” Then he pressed a bag into his hand. “Food, sir. You look hungry.”
“Thank you. I am.”
“Anything for Dr. Chase’s friends.”
Xan smiled but didn’t wait for Mako to open the front door for him. With the bag in hand, he dashed out, the frosty wind of lingering winter stinging his eyes, and he climbed into his father’s silver new Sabel-made car. He quickly stuffed some of the sandwich Mako had given him into his mouth as he started the engine.
He drove back to his parents’ home with the keys to the garage—and thus the house—hanging from the keychain. Whether his father liked it or not, Xan would not be denied.