Aden woke not remembering having fallen asleep, though he did remember the two—whatever they were—arguing about him. And the mention of wings. Fucking hell. He kept his eyes closed because he wasn’t sure he was ready to deal with whatever reality faced him. His back ached. His coat seemed to weigh a ton. There was what felt like a pillow under his cheek, and a mattress under his body. He didn’t have the feeling he’d been fucked—not that he was in the habit of letting himself be fucked—but something wasn’t right.

He needed to open his eyes, but hesitated, trying to convince himself the world was the way it should be, even though this didn’t feel like his bed and there was that throb in his back. Still… Everything that had gone before had to have been a dream. Maybe the concert venue had collapsed and he was trapped under a pile of rubble. Yes! Finally an explanation that made sense.

Except what he lay on was too comfortable to be rubble. He opened his eyes to find himself sprawled on an unfamiliar bed in a small room with walls of mist. It had a name. Ether… He tried to push to his feet and he let out a cry of discomfort. My back. What the hell was wrong with it? He made another effort to get up and this time succeeded, but stood bowed as though there was something heavy pressing on his upper spine. He reached over his shoulder but could feel nothing through his coat.

“It will be easier without clothes, this first time.”

Aden spun round at the sound of the voice and saw Raphael standing a few feet away.

“You’re unusual.” Raphael stared at him.

Dante stood beside Raphael, arms crossed, a smirk on his face. They wanted him without clothes? Aden could do that. This time his cock did perk up. Thank fuck for that. He shrugged off his coat, though not without difficulty, and unbuttoned his shirt, but as he reached for the snap on his jeans he wondered what he was doing and dragged his hand back. What’s wrong with me?

“All are unconscious at this point.” Raphael had a worried look on his face.

Dante made a purring sound. “He has the wrong end of the stick. But what do you say, brother? For old time’s sake? Shall we fuck him together?”

Raphael shook his head. “Stop teasing him.”

Aden wanted to ask what was happening, but the ache in his back had grown to pain severe enough to steal the thoughts from his head. His chest heaved, his ribs felt as if they were being crushed and he struggled to breathe.

“Look at him.” Dante’s eyes glistened. “Beautifully bad. He’s mine.”

Aden cried out, frozen for a moment by a series of lightning strikes, agonizing spasms shooting the length of his spine, into his arse and radiating down his legs. He lurched away from the two men watching him. Now his back felt as though it was being ripped apart, clawed hands yanking at his ribs, turning him inside out. Fucking imagination. Aden made himself check there was no monster behind him. That there wasn’t, was little consolation. He could hardly bear the pain and bit his lip to stop himself screaming.

“No way is he yours,” Dante insisted.

Raphael had a small smile on his face. “We shall see.”

Aden dropped to his knees, felled by whatever was happening to his back. He curled into a ball and closed his eyes as wrenching and tearing sensations continued to wrack his upper body. He tasted blood in his mouth. Behind his closed lids, he was aware the world had darkened. His lungs locked as a huge wave of agony rolled over him, forcing him down, concertinaing his ribs, suffocating him to the point he thought he’d pass out. There was a strange rush of warm wind as the pain faded, and his lungs filled as he gasped.

“What the fuck?” Dante shouted. “What the fucking fuckity fuck? He’s mine.”

“Not exactly, it appears,” said Raphael.

Aden opened his eyes and saw—oh Christ. He tried to push to his feet and almost fell on his face. When he finally managed to lever himself upright, Dante and Raphael were staring at him. Well, not at him, at either side of his body. Aden took a look for himself. No, no, no, no, no. They couldn’t be real. He reached down, touched the feathers and shudders rippled through his body.

A white wing hung on his right side, a jet black wing on his left. Had these wankers forced them into his body? That was why his back hurt? Why would they do something like that? But this pair looked too shocked to be responsible.

“I’ve never seen this before,” Raphael said. “I’ve heard of it happening.”

Aden flexed his muscles, rolled his aching shoulders and the wings swept out, stretching about five feet either side. Oh Christ, I did that. Suddenly everything was distressingly clear.

This was not a dream.

He was dead.

The wings hadn’t been forced into him.

He’d grown them.

“The black wing means he doesn’t belong to you.” Dante moved closer to Aden and stroked the dark feathers on the underside. Aden’s cock went rock hard so fast the breath caught in his throat and came out as a strangled moan. Dante hadn’t been touching his dick, but it felt as if he had.

“The white wing means he’s not yours,” Raphael said.

Dante leaned into Aden, licked his cheek and trailed his fingers up Aden’s chest. “You are so delicious. I think I might keep you for myself. Just for a while. Maybe longer than a while if you’re really bad. I do like a wicked boy with a dirty mouth.”

“He’s not yours,” Raphael repeated.

“I’m not anybody’s.” Aden tried to snap out the words, but they sounded weak.

“Oh, he speaks.” Dante laughed.

“What’s happening?” Aden asked. “Where am I? Why I am here?”

Dante danced his fingers over Aden’s tense abs.

Aden pushed his hand away. “Leave me alone.”

“That’s not what your cock’s saying.” Dante smirked at the tent in Aden’s jeans.

“I don’t always listen to my cock.” Actually, he probably did.

Dante snorted.

“You couldn’t be judged,” Raphael said. “There is both good and bad in you.”

“As with all humans.” Dante shrugged. “No one is perfectly bad or perfectly good. Not even you, Raph.”

“That’s true, but in Aden’s case he shows extremes of good and bad.” Raphael cocked his head on one side. “Your life notes made our decision difficult which was why we waited for your wings to emerge. I’ve never seen anyone awake when that happens. Nor have I seen anyone with a wings of different colours. You can’t enter heaven like that. Nor hell.”

“He can enter hell. I’ve no problem with taking him there,” Dante said. “I fancy the idea of having an exotic pet. No one will have ever seen anything like him. When I’m bored, they’ll line up to fuck him.”

A muscle ticked in Aden’s cheek.

“Maybe you won’t bore me, sunshine.” Dante stared straight at him.

Aden averted his gaze, thinking about what Raphael had said. An extreme of good? What had he done that was good? He had no problem thinking of the extreme bad.

As memories of the worst day of his life flooded back, he choked up and his cock shrank. He’d been taken out of the house, every bit of him covered in blood, and not spoken a word for months. Eventually he’d come up with ways to stop himself thinking about what he’d done because he knew if he didn’t, the memories would drive him insane. Yet here he was, insane anyway.

Yeah, that was another possibility. He’d finally lost his mind and was locked in a padded cell he thought was built of a strange mist. Except he’d sort of hoped if he did lose his grip on reality, he’d also lose the memory of what he’d done that day. It was still crystal clear.

“No, you’re not,” Raphael said.

“Not what?” Aden glanced at him. Christ, he is so…beautiful.

Dante pouted. “You think he’s more beautiful than me?”

Aden stiffened.

“You’re not insane,” Raphael said. “Not in a padded cell. You’ll never forget what you did because it’s part of you. It helped make you what you are.”

Aden hadn’t spoken out loud. These guys had read his mind.

“I’m an angel,” Raphael said. “Dantanian is a fallen angel. A demon.”

“Duh. I think he might have figured that out,” Dante said.

Yeah…but no. Where were their wings?

“Not for you to see, sunshine. Not yet.” Dante grinned.

Raphael gave a heavy sigh. A worryingly heavy sigh. “He has to go back.”

“That’s crap.” Dante scowled. “You just don’t want me to take him.”

“I never want you to take any soul, but this one deserves a second chance.”

“It’s not up to you to decide that,” Dante said.

“We decide together.” Raphael smiled at Dante and the Adam’s apple in Dante’s throat surged up and down.

Raphael’s smile was as if the sun had come out. Aden’s cock perked up. He could almost taste the testosterone. His mind filled with an image of being sandwiched between these two and his cock filled.

“That sounds so much fun.” Dante purred. “You’ll like my cock. It’s big.”

“How did I die?” Aden’s voice cracked as he spoke. He couldn’t get his head around this.

“You don’t remember?” Raphael raised his eyebrows.

“I was at a concert. I don’t remember anything else.”

“Strange,” Raphael muttered.

“You do remember who you killed though,” Dante said. “Even though it was all those years ago.”

An invisible fist squeezed Aden’s throat.

“Remember how you pressed your face to her chest? The way her heart stopped beating against your cheek? How you watched the light fade from her eyes? Oh yeah, oops—her eye. Were you sorry?” Dante moved close again. Close enough.

Aden smacked his fist into the demon’s stomach—shit that hurt—and Dante lurched back in surprise before his eyes narrowed and his lips curled in a feral grin. Aden showed nothing on his face and fought the urge to flex his aching fingers.

Dante inclined his head and gave a mock salute. “Thank you for handing me the perfect torment. Sometimes it’s difficult to choose the best punishment. She’ll be waiting for you to kill her over and over again. You can listen to that heart stop, see the light—”

“Fuck you,” Aden snarled.

“Perhaps.” Dante laughed. “Go have your second chance. You’ll mess it up, then you’re mine anyway.”

What were they talking about? What was he supposed to do with fucking great wings on his back?

“One month,” said Raphael.

“One week,” Dante snapped.

“No. He has a month.”

“How about fifty years or so?” Aden asked.

Dante chuckled. “I’ll allow you the month Raph offers. I’m feeling generous today.”

“A month to do what?” Aden asked.

“To become the person you should be,” Raphael said. “You had a bad start in life. No one taught you the value in being kind, generous, selfless. As a child, you did what you could to survive and no blame is attached to that. Yet when your life did change for the better, you didn’t change with it. You made no attempt to be a decent person. You prided yourself on not caring. You lied, you deceived, you stole. Your face might be beautiful. Your soul is dirty. But it is not yet pure obsidian.”

Raphael glanced at Dante who shrugged. “He’ll fuck up on the first day.”

Fuck you, demon. I will not.

“You have never loved,” Raphael continued. “And that you have never been loved, not even by a parent, breaks my heart.”

Aden sucked in his cheeks. Of what use was love?

“He doesn’t understand the emotion and he never will.” Dante sneered. “He doesn’t want to be loved. Once his childhood was over, he did nothing to deserve to feel that emotion. He’s a user. He cares for no one.”

“Maybe he can change,” Raphael said.

Dante made a dismissive sound. “Impossible. And in a month? Doubly impossible.”

Raphael turned to Aden. “You have this gift of time to understand love, to earn the right to be loved, to work to deserve respect and be a better man. Prove you don’t belong in hell.”

“You want me to…fall in love in a month?” Aden gaped at them. “Or find someone to love me? How is that fair if I’m going to be leaving them when the month is up?”

“Listen to what I’m saying. You have a month to come to understand what love means, to believe in it, to feel it, to offer it.” Raphael stared at him without blinking.

Aden thought he had been listening. Was there something he hadn’t understood?

“Do not come to the attention of the authorities,” Raphael said. “Do not come to anyone’s attention as Aden North. Lie about anything and it’s a mark against you.”

“And I’ll be keeping count,” Dante said. “Hey, on the plus side, why don’t you carry on the way you always have? Lie, deceive and steal. Use your bonus time to have a ball. Fuck as many men as you can. Take as many risks as you want because—hey, you’re already dead—right? The worst that can happen has already happened. When your month is up, you’ll tumble into hell and the party will continue.”

“And it will never stop,” Raphael said quietly.

An everlasting party in hell was not good. Even Aden wasn’t that stupid.

“A month,” Aden muttered. What would he have done if he’d been told by a doctor he only had that long to live?

Partied like hell for as long as he could.

“That’s my boy.” Dante slid his hand over Aden’s chest and tweaked his nipple.

“Don’t fucking touch me.” Aden pushed his hand away.

“You might try to moderate your language,” Raphael said.

“I rather like his filthy mouth.” Dante smirked.

“You can’t keep your wings.” Raphael chewed his lower lip. “Removing them will hurt.”

Aden’s head was spinning, his back aching and his cock still hard. He really had lost his mind.

“Come with me to hell now and you can keep them, and that lovely hard on. Choose to go back for a month and Raphael is right, the wings have to be pulled off. It will be sheer agony. I know because it happened to me. Don’t worry, beautiful black ones will grow back.” Dante slid his hand over Aden’s crotch and a groan burst from Aden’s lips.

“Stop touching me.”

“But you like it so much.” Dante ran his nail down Aden’s zipper and it came undone.

Aden yanked it back up. “Leave me alone.”

“You’re going to fall,” Dante said. “Why bother trying not to?”

“Because I might fly.” Aden glared at him.

Raphael smiled and the breath caught in Aden’s throat.

“You can come and come and come in hell,” Dante whispered in his ear as he slid his fingers inside the top of Aden’s jeans, down almost to the head of his cock. “Orgasm all day and all night. Lose your fucking mind in the wonder of it. You don’t need love. You’ve managed without it all this time. You just need sex, lots and lots of hot fucks.”

Aden wrapped his hand around Dante’s wrist and dragged his hand out. Raphael smiled, though his smile faded when Aden stroked Dante’s groin. Aden had only intended to tease him back but… Oh Christ, he’s big.

“Hung like a cobra, sunshine.” Dante fluttered his tongue and stared at Aden with hooded eyes.

Was his tongue getting longer? Shit, it is. Aden stuck his hands in his pockets.

“All the better for rimming.” Dante sniggered.

“Make a choice now,” Raphael said. “Straight to hell with Dante or a month with seven chances to prove where you truly belong.”

“Seven chances?” Dante barked. “Where did they come from?”

“From me.” Raphael glared.

“I’ll take the month.” Aden spoke quickly before Dante played some trick and stopped his voice.

“It’ll pass in a flash,” Dante said.

“Lie face down on the bed,” Raphael told him.

Aden dropped down and found his wrists suddenly encased in leather and fastened to a bar at the top of the bed.

“He goes back to the world with his name but nothing else,” Dante said. “These are my rules. No home, no money, no friends. Your body will not be found until your month is up. If you go near your home, you will forfeit this chance. If you contact a friend, you forfeit this chance.”

“What if they contact me? What if I bump into them by accident?”

“You’ll have no phone,” Raphael said. “You won’t meet them by accident.”

“How am I supposed to live without money? No roof over my head?”

“Changed your mind?” Dante licked Aden’s ear, then bit it.

“Ouch. No.”

“Don’t try to play the system,” Raphael said. “Do the right thing because you believe in it not because you want to impress.”

“Do the wrong thing and enjoy it.” Dante sucked the place he’d bitten.

“Am I allowed to tell the truth about this?” Aden asked.

“No,” Dante said.

“You must not lie,” Raphael added.

What?

“Would anyone believe the truth?” Dante laughed.

“My last words,” Raphael said. “Strive to do the right thing.”

The pair grabbed his wings and Aden took a deep breath. He’d thought the pain was bad before, but it was nothing compared to this. He screamed into the pillow, tugging against the restraints. Fire consumed him, ate at him, spread from his back throughout his body until he felt as if millions of long, blunt needles were being driven into his skin. He could hear things inside him crack and break. The coppery tang of blood filled the air, filled his mouth, spilled from his lips, then one side of his body felt different—lighter. Dante still yanked and twisted on the other.

“Get on with it, Dante,” Raphael snapped.

“But it’s so much fun and you know how much I like blooooood.”

Aden was lifted from the bed by the force Dante exerted and when the pain was too much to bear, he closed down and lost consciousness.

 

 

Brody scanned the packed dancefloor from a raised platform. Guys in various stages of undress were bumping and grinding to the music’s heavy beat. He didn’t want to dance. He just wanted a fuck. Eventually he’d find someone interesting enough. Using Grindr would have been quicker and easier, possibly safer. It was what he usually did, but he needed to stand in front of a guy and look into his face to know whether there was a chance of finding what he was looking for.

Yet even as he cast his gaze over the crowd, part of him knew he should walk out and catch the train home untouched by anyone. He felt like that before every hook up, so why did that side of him never win? At least he’d curbed his appetite for rough, anonymous sex since he’d moved south. This was no longer something he did three or four times a week. Now he had it down to once. Even that was too much.

He sipped his beer and thought back to when he’d been at his worst, not counting those periods of time he’d spent with Matt. When he’d been in his early twenties, Brody came to clubs and bars like this with friends and sometimes picked up the ugliest guy in there, though he didn’t know why. To render his mates speechless? To prove to himself he didn’t care about Matt when the guy was out of his life? Even in those days, as he’d strolled toward his target, he’d told himself not to, and his friends had told him not to, but he’d carried on and ended up perched on the lap of a greasy-haired geriatric or some grizzled bear who always looked as if they couldn’t believe their luck.

Brody rarely got what he wanted. Those sorts of guys fell in love with him. That was the last thing he’d needed. Yet here he was, away from Matt and still fucked up. What did Brody’s good looks matter? Or his smile or fit toned body? Or that he was up for almost anything? Most guys in this club took what they were offered or went home alone. He guessed most went home alone. They didn’t deserve to be ugly and unwanted any more than Brody deserved to be handsome and desirable.

If they could see inside his skin, they’d be repulsed, though they’d still fuck him given half a chance, and be grateful. But Brody wasn’t looking for a guy to be grateful. He wanted someone to fuck him—hard. He wanted to be treated like a piece of shit because he didn’t deserve more than that. He didn’t want someone telling him they loved him desperately, madly, incessantly.

Brody knew what an idiot that made him. He and Matt had almost managed to destroy each other. Brody was lucky to be alive after their last encounter, though in some ways he felt he hadn’t survived. Even though he’d told Matt it was over and he’d told himself the same thing, he’d been left an emotional mess. It was a minor miracle he was holding down a responsible job, and doing it well according to Henrik. But outside of work, he was unhappy and didn’t know how to make things change. The sad, disappointing, fucked up truth was that if Brody had seen Matt on the dance floor tonight, there was a chance he’d have thrown himself back into that dangerous world.

No, no, no. Brody gritted his teeth. He had to stop thinking of Matt. The guy wasn’t what he wanted. He needed him out of his head. He’d had enough of being strangled by his past—almost literally. Therapy might help, but he was too ashamed to admit to what had happened, what he’d done, what he was still doing.

So stop this right now.

Brody took a shuddering breath. It was a mistake to come trawling in this state of mind. He had victim written all over him and he hated that. Even as he’d parked his car at the station, he’d told himself to turn around and go home, get the good night’s sleep he needed after a tiring, stressful day. But here he was in his tight trousers, and tight T-shirt, his heart thumping, his cock already swollen in anticipation. How was his life going to get better if he didn’t do something to make it happen?

Someone tapped his shoulder and he spun round. Not Matt. Fuck, stop it. But this was a guy with eyes like Matt’s. Blue, ice-cold and hard. No risk of love.

“Dance?” the guy asked.

“Fuck?”

He laughed. “Sure.”

They walked together to the bathroom, the brown-haired man’s hand in the middle of Brody’s back in a gesture of possession Brody both liked and disliked. This was part of his problem. He didn’t know what he liked. He’d never chosen. He’d always been led. One last fuck with a stranger and he’d stop.

He almost believed it.

Inside a stall, Brody handed over a condom and a sachet of lube. He was stupid but not reckless. He peeled off his T-shirt and hung it on a hook. His motive partly to keep it clean, partly to expose his body. Tell me to go. Tell me you don’t want me. He watched the guy’s face as he took in the bruises and bites on his torso, still visible from last week’s mauling in a different club.

Brody could tell the way he was going to get fucked by the reaction to the marks. If eyes widened in shock, the fuck would be gentle, and he’d be treated as if he were going to break. That wasn’t what he wanted, some patronizing twat who thought he was better than him, better than whoever had done this to him. Even if it were true.

Signs of disapproval on the man’s face implied Brody would still likely get fucked, together with a lecture about being careful.

Then there was the third alternative.

This guy touched the bite mark on Brody’s shoulder and grinned as he pressed his fingers into it—hard. His pinch of Brody’s nipple was vicious enough to make Brody gasp and for heat to flood his body. The kiss was unexpected and bruising in its intensity, teeth clashing before Brody’s lip was nipped so hard he tasted blood.

Guessing this was going to be rough, and excited by the prospect, Brody fumbled to open his jeans so they didn’t get ripped. The guy shoved them down, spun him round and pressed Brody’s face against the graffitied wall hard enough to make him cry out. On his left, someone had written God is love but Satan does that thing with his tongue that you can’t get enough of. It had been a long time since Brody had been rimmed. A long time since he’d gotten a blow job.

The man gripped Brody’s hips, holding him in place as he pushed into him, by the feel of it his prick hardly lubed, and though Brody thought he’d wanted a hard fuck, now he didn’t. Except how could he stop him? I am such a dickhead. He wrapped his fingers around his own cock that had no qualms at all and jerked himself off, coming a moment after the guy behind him. As fucks went it wasn’t good. Not for him.

Was it ever when he did this?

No words were exchanged. None were needed.

I am never doing this again.

He meant it.

Except that’s what he’d thought last time.

No more. He had to change or he’d end up dead. He had to change or he’d end up a sad and lonely old man.

Brody lingered after the guy had gone. Cleaned himself up and held onto the wash basin as he stared into the mirror. You are such a stupid pathetic fuck up. He let stuff happen to him. It was as if he was trying to get hurt badly enough for him to feel something. Tomorrow, he’d make a call. Find someone who could help him break out of this spiral of self-loathing. He wasn’t blaming Matt for all of it. The guy wasn’t around now and Brody was still a mess.

Almost immediately, the less sensible part of his brain was convincing him this was no big deal. He didn’t need to get bent out of shape. It was just sex. But it wasn’t. It was about need and loneliness and fucked up emotions. For those few moments with a guy’s cock inside him, he felt connected to someone. Yet how could that be when he didn’t care about the guy and the guy didn’t care about him? The connection was only physical and gone in as long as it took to come.

When he told himself to go home, he listened. He collected his jacket from the cloakroom and headed back onto the street. If he hurried, he could catch the next train and not have an hour’s wait for the one following. The last thing he needed was time to sit and think about how messed up he was. But he’d hardly gone more than a few yards before his path was blocked. He moved to the side and the guy moved with him.

It could have been one of those funny moments when people trying to pass each other end up doing some weird dance-like shuffle, but when Brody felt someone press up behind him, he knew he was in trouble. There were three of them, one was the guy who’d just fucked him, and before Brody could cry out or reach for his phone—though who the hell would he call?—a hand slammed over his mouth, an arm wrapped around his neck, and he was manhandled into an alley at the side of the club.

Brody knew what was coming, but that didn’t mean he was just going to take it. He fought and struggled and kicked out while his heart pounded faster and faster. They were muttering in his ear, saying this was what he wanted, but not giving him a chance to tell them it wasn’t. His jeans were wrenched down and he was bent double. The men hit his face with their hands and their cocks, slapped him, scratched him, laughed at him, and called him names.

One of the guys fucked him in the arse while another shoved his cock between Brody’s lips, hands keeping his mouth open. Fingers threaded in his hair and held his head down, fixing him in place, forcing him to take the cock so deep in his mouth, he choked. Exhausted by his efforts to resist, Brody slid into acceptance and let it happen. He tried to stop thinking about what they were doing, concentrated on imagining it over. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He couldn’t breathe and when he choked, the guy pulled his cock out.

They shoved him to his knees, held him arched back and came over his face, not in his mouth. He kept his lips pressed shut. Two used condoms were thrown at his feet. When they’d done, he slumped to the ground and only just saved himself from face planting.

He hadn’t expected the hands that lifted him upright.

“You okay?” asked the guy who’d fucked him in the bathroom.

Brody opened his mouth and couldn’t get any words out.

“Too rough? I thought… Sorry. No hard feelings?” The guy tugged Brody’s jeans up around his hips and Brody shoved him off.

The guy took one look at his face and hurried away. Brody staggered to the shelter of a skip full of builders’ rubbish. He pulled himself together, straightened his clothes and wiped his face, struggling to get his head around what had happened. I let myself get raped?

More tears fell and he angrily brushed them away. Maybe this was the wakeup call he’d needed. He’d done nothing to ask for that, or to deserve it, but that guy in the bathroom had seen something that made him think this was okay. Brody’s heart hurt so much. He could call the police. He should. But he had more to lose than if he kept quiet.

He wasn’t able to leave the alley until he’d got his shit together, his head back in gear, his limbs under control. Then he headed for the station. People avoided sitting anywhere near him on the train and when he was back in his cottage, he saw why. He looked as if he’d been in a fight. His eyes were wild, his irises dark and the whites bloodshot. He had bruises and scratches on his face, blood and a streak of dried come at the side of his cheek.

Almost like being back with Matt.

He gripped the rim of the wash basin as he looked in the mirror. You sick fuck. In what world was any of what happened with Matt something that made him so happy he had to repeat it with strangers? He’d forgotten what being happy was like. Even his early happiness that Matt wanted him had been nothing but an illusion. Now his only pleasure came from his job. If he lost that, his life was over.

No more cruising for trouble.

No more thinking about Matt.

No more sex until he could keep himself under control.

He stripped off and groaned. Stepping under a torrent of hot water made him feel more human, but he’d hardly begun to wash before he heard someone pounding at the door. Brody wasn’t on call, but that didn’t mean Henrik wasn’t outside to demand his presence at some emergency. Though wouldn’t he have phoned? Brody switched off the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist and slipped on a robe before he went to see who it was.

His brother Des stood there, looking as grumpy as ever, but his mouth slackened and his eyes widened as he took in Brody’s face. “What the fuck happened to you?”

Brody opened his mouth but Des spoke again. “Get dressed. I need you in the stable. I’ve got a mare with colic. Hurry.” He turned and strode away.

The contents of Brody’s stomach surged up his throat. He slammed the door and rushed for the bathroom. He’d nearly told Des he’d been raped. Not a good idea.

When he had his stomach and emotions back under control, Brody put on the clothes he’d just taken off. The knees of his trousers were filthy with dirt from the alley. He grabbed his bag on the way out and hurried through the farmyard to the stable block. Des was walking the mare, but when he saw Brody coming he took her into a stall. The nasogastric tube was already softening in a bucket of warm water.

“She’s a new one in today,” Des said. “Dreamer. I don’t know what she’s been fed before we got her, but she’s been pawing the ground, biting at her side and trying to roll. Walking her hasn’t helped.”

Brody checked her out. The mare was restless, sweating heavily and breathing fast. Her pulse rate was way up and her belly tight. Unlike people, horses couldn’t throw up something unpalatable. Though emptying his stomach hadn’t rid Brody of the memory of what had happened.

“All right, girl.” Brody stroked the horse. “Looks like colic.”

Des glared. “Isn’t that what I said? But it might not be.”

Brody sucked in his cheeks. “Let’s hope it is.”

“Now tell me why you look like shit.”

“I got mugged.”

That shut his brother up, though Des pointedly stared at the dirty knees of Brody’s jeans.

“Hold her head,” Brody said. “Is she eating, drinking, shitting?”

“Yes, yes—though not with much interest, and no.”

Brody listened again to her gut, which sounded on the fizzy side, then pulled on a glove and did a rectal exam. He was fairly convinced it wasn’t anything more serious than colic, though that was serious enough. He pulled off the glove, then looped the plastic tubing around his neck and squirted lube over the end he’d push up the horse’s nose. Des stood on the same side of the animal as him, holding the head down. Brody pinched the side of the horse’s nostril, holding it open to push the tube up the nose. Working stopped him thinking. He couldn’t let what had happened tonight dominate his thoughts or he’d end up more of an emotional wreck than he was.

“Good girl,” Des whispered. “There you go. You’ll feel okay soon provided my brother doesn’t cock this up.”

Brody was alert for any sign of resistance against the tube, but it went down easily. He was able to track its path along the neck and was confident he was in the right place. He put the end of the tube in his mouth, sucked, then blew into it as he pushed it further in. When he could smell the contents of the stomach, he took his mouth away.

“That stinks,” Des said.

“Yeah, no wonder she’s not happy.”

Brody pumped fresh water into the tube and began to wash out the stomach to remove the sour feed.

A couple of buckets of water later, with the stomach well and truly lavaged, he withdrew the tubing.

“Thanks.” Des stared at him. “Mugged?”

“I was coming out of a club. Three of them jumped me, knocked me down.”

“They take your wallet? Your phone?”

“A couple of guys came to my rescue.”

“Hmm.”

Brody bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not. I was attacked.”

“I worry about you.” Des had softened his tone. “You promised to be careful.”

“I am being careful.”

Brody stalked off before either of them said something that couldn’t be unsaid.