Page 60 of Muzzled

He eased the door closed to avoid waking her, creeping barefoot up the stairs and slipping out of the house, scanning the area before he jogged over to the neglected shed in the corner of the property. Stripping quickly, he shifted in the shadows, the odors of the neighborhood assaulting his senses temporarily until he was able to filter through them and latch onto the two on his radar.

The shade was nearby, staying downwind and out of sight. Its scent clung high in the air and circled the small house, strongest on the eaves of the neighboring house that overlooked Micah’s basement suite window. Keeping out of the streetlight, he slunk through the yards until he had determined the shade’s preferred watch points, his frustration at being unable to get a step ahead of the spirit threatening to make him reckless.

And everywhere he went was the faint hint of the Pirithous.

Shoving the rogue shade to the back of his mind, he doubled down on his efforts to locate the path of the Pirithous. Every tree, every house, even every car had the weak smell clinging to it, the strength waning only when he expanded his search past the eight-block radius he had initially scouted.

With a final chuff of annoyance, he padded back to Micah’s house, jumping the fence and changing before the morning sun breached the horizon.

His final solo hunt had been a complete waste, and the thought of his failure chafed as he crept back downstairs, where he could hear Micah tossing and turning. Without bothering to strip out of his jeans, he crawled into bed with her, laying his hand on her forehead until she settled and stilled.

With the shade’s influence on her mind, the Pirithous was no longer his top priority.

The spirit needed to be caught. And he had the best tracker in the underworld touching down in under eight hours.

*

Mike used theback of her hand to scratch her cheek, then grimaced when Ryan leaned over with a towel and wiped the stray charcoal streaks from her face. “As much as I hate working with cold paint and cold pastels, I think hot charcoal is probably the worst,” she grumbled, eying the hair elastic sitting on her table. “Logan? Could you pony me?”

Her assistant was quick to her side, scooping up her hair and putting it into a ponytail she knew was lopsided and likely bumpy.

But the slight breeze on the nape of her neck made her forget her vanity instantly.

“He’s a guy of many talents,” Ryan mused, examining her hairstyle. “Stylist isn’t one of them, but kudos to the effort.”

“That bad?” She laughed, lightly running her hand over her head and snagging a long strand that had been missed. “Ah, well. It’s better than sweltering, I suppose.”

He crouched down, tugged the elastic from her hair, and combed his fingers through it a few times before he got to work. “Being Seph’s lapdog brought along its own unique skill set,” he muttered as he ran his pinky finger along her scalp. “You have a lot of hair.”

She skimmed the back of her hand along the center of her hair, impressed with the tight braiding he was pulling off. “You could branch out of the guard dog business and open a salon,” she suggested, grinning when he gave the unfinished braid a quick tug. “You could call it Orion’s Originals or something. Maybe do a few photoshoots of you looking all serious with a comb in one hand and scissors in the other.”

Securing the end of the braid, he stood and kissed the top of her head. “You suck at naming things.”

“That’s why I don’t have a storefront,” she replied. An uneasiness settled in her bones as he picked up his messenger bag. “Time to go?”

“Their planes arrive within an hour of each other. We’ll swing by to check in before we head back to the motel and get them set up.” His face hardened. “If I need to be here sooner, I want to know. Yes?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled, rolling out her shoulders to put on a brave front in the face of having to defend her thoughts from the shade without him. “See you soon.”

She watched him walk through the crowd, the slinking movement of the shade catching her eye as Ryan disappeared down the alley.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Bo stretched outhis long legs, seemingly oblivious to the women watching him from the escalator. “So I’m sitting at the back of the lecture hall listening to Sage’s presentation, which was so fucking impressive I could’ve jumped her right there if she wasn’t being graded and shit, and some clown in a fedora spills his whole green shit-shake down the back of my shirt. I was this close to dragging his fake-apology loser self out into the hall and beating the avocado out of him, but I couldn’t miss her speech, so I had to sit there while that shit oozed down my back and into my ass crack.”

Ryan grinned at the visual his formerly wild sibling had created. “Never thought I’d ever hear you say the words ‘lecture hall,’ let alone go in one.”

“Yeah, well,” Bo huffed, sprawling across the cramped waiting room seats. “Husbands do that stuff.” He bit his lip as he smiled, causing more than one woman to gape at him. “And it’s so fucking hot when she shows how smart she is.” Lolling his head back, he cocked a brow. “You get all revved up when you watch your artist go all creative?”

Feigning interest in the updated arrivals board, he shrugged and turned his attention back to the glass separating them from Alex. “She’s not my artist. There he is.”

Alex waved from the arrival gate before he hunched a fraction to listen to the helpful clerk, nodding as she motioned toward the luggage carousals and flashing her a smile and a regretful shrug as she stepped closer to him.

Grateful for the distraction from Bo’s attempted line of questioning, he led him to the bottom of the escalators, standing back to observe the attention Alex was receiving as he took the steps two at a time. The eyes noticing him were quickly drawn to the carbon copy he was approaching, and more than one tongue was licking lips by the time the twins were side by side.

“Never flying anything but first class again,” Alex announced, smacking Ryan on the back before he dug his knuckles into his bruised jaw. “I felt that hit from the bar,” he stated, elbowing Bo. “Thought it was this mangy bastard getting his ass kicked. What the hell happened?”

Bo gave Alex a rough shove toward the luggage before yanking him back and tossing his arm over his shoulder. “Boss-man pulled rank because his prized pet finally bit the hand.”

---