Page 9 of Rifted Hearts
Several minutes later, after Remi had ‘bought’ Kat a beer and himself a decent California Pinot by writing someone else’s room number on the honor system card, he maneuvered the young man to a table outside.
“I’ve known Kaveh for about two years.” Kat smiled as he answered Remi’s questions. He spent far too much time smiling, in Remi’s admittedly jaded opinion. He distrusted happy, open people on general principle. Of course, with Kat’s looks, the guy could get laid any time he wanted, so maybe his sunny outlook on life wasn’t unreasonable. Remi got laid pretty often as well, but using his charm to lure in a victim while under orders from the family wasn’t fun—it was a chore.
Kat kept talking, mostly about medical topics that bored Remi to no end. “He did some work with Riftworld animalsoverseas, but he says his practice here is much busier, with a lot of different species.” He wolfed down jalapeño poppers as he talked. “Thanks for streaming at our petting zoo today. The ranch website has been flooded with names for the foal already, and the mayor wasn’t as upset as Kaveh thought she might be.”
Remi didnotwant to talk about the zoo again. The only petting he was interested in involved him, Kaveh, and a lack of clothing on both sides. “I need my next stream to go deeper. My audience is interested in the mons at the ranch, and they want to know everything about the human veterinarian who’s brave enough to treat them. That’s why I need to know more about Kaveh as a person.”
“Kaveh’s super nice.” Kat supplied that bland platitude with breathless admiration.
The vet assistant wasn’t fucking Kaveh, that much Remi knew. He only idolized the man. Remi’s abilities allowed him to pick up on emotions—well, as long as they were related to lust. He could tell Kat liked men but didn’t want to get into Kaveh’s oh-so-perfectly fitting jeans. Lucky for him because Remi’s family had no compunction about getting rid of any obstacles that could mess up a job.
“He’s awfully busy though,” Kat said. “I’m not sure I can get him to spend time on an interview.”
“What about his life outside of work?” Remi pushed his own plate of poppers over to Kat. He hated greasy food, and this close to a rift he spent a lot of time thinking about green salads. His Riftworld alter form, the chinchilla part of him he ruthlessly suppressed, was acting up. “I didn’t see a wedding ring, not that it means much. Does he date men? I mean, he is awfully good looking. Totally my type.”
Kat’s cheeks turned pink. He was ridiculously pretty. Remi preferred his men on the rough-and-ready side ofthings, but if he hadn’t been on a job, he would have been sorely tempted to take Kat to bed and find out what other parts of him blushed when he got embarrassed.
“Kaveh works a lot of hours and doesn’t take as much time off as he could.” Kat hesitated, and Remi sensed he was getting closer to dragging out some real information. Remi amped up his allure, and Kat blurted out, “He doesn’t date men or women. Kaveh’s ace, you know?”
It took a few seconds for that sentence to sink in. “You’re telling me Kaveh’s asexual and doesn’t date or fool around or anything else?”
That was an unbelievably bad stroke of luck.
Remi was pansexual and seducing anyone for a brief fling, including straight men, wasn’t much of a challenge. He had never met anyone entirely resistant to his psychic abilities, although most members of his family were too conscious of his powers to be influenced by them. The good news was this meant Kaveh didn’t suspect Remi’s true nature and hopefully wasn’t the scary half-human drakone Lyall thought he was. The bad news was that he wouldn’t fall for any of Remi’s usual tricks. Remi would need to actually work to get Kaveh into bed.
“He’s homoromantic, I think.” Kat took another sip of beer and kept talking. Once Remi established a psychic link to someone he was targeting, getting information was simple. “Maybe demiromantic too. He mentioned he was in a relationship with a guy years ago, but they broke up. But if you’re open to queer platonic relationships, you should ask him out. It would be good for him to get away from work once in a while. Kaveh’s a brilliant veterinarian and a wonderful person, and I’d love him to get together with someone as nice as he is.”
“Nice.” Remi repeated the word in funereal tones. In theColony, nice was an insult. Even though Remi caught an endless amount of shit from his more powerful and dangerous cousins, no one ever accused him of beingnice. He gritted his teeth and smiled at Kat, focusing his powers on him until the young wrangler’s eyes glazed over. “I’d be totally interested in platonic-dating Kaveh. And you’re going to help me with that.”
“I hopeyou came up with something helpful with all of your sniffing around.” Remi tossed a bag of beef jerky in Lyall’s direction, threw his shopping bags on the sofa, and flounced onto the bed. It was around ten o’clock, the earliest Remi had retired to his hotel room in years.
After a surprisingly decent dinner—albeit served in family-style chafing pans—he had endured the after-dinner entertainment of cowboy singalongs and a trick roping exhibition. Afterward, he wandered the ranch property, finally arriving at the gift shop. As expected, the store carried jerky made from cows raised at the ranch and at a fraction of the cost non-lab-grown meat usually commanded. It also boasted a collection of rather fetching cowboy hats and various souvenir options. He had decided his retail therapy counted as a reasonable work expense.
“I ran into a cadejo who was willing to talk, for a price.” Lyall was in his human form again since Remi had been desperate enough to agree to keep his collar off,andthe hellhound was wearing more of Remi’s clothes, damn him.
“What price was that?” Cadejos—one of many names humans gave to the ten or so Riftworld species who reminded humans of frightening monster dogs from legends—had a similarity to their counterparts in Earth myths. Some became obsessed with particular humans,following them around and protecting them. Most of them, though, simply ate any people they came across. The last thing Remi needed was a trail of partially consumed bodies to raise suspicion.
“I gave him my collar.” Lyall laughed at Remi’s shocked expression. “Yes, I know, it was a perfect swap.”
“Setting aside the obvious issue that Father will skin me alive when he finds out I not only disengaged the damn thing but let you give it to a potential enemy, what would a cadejo want with it?”
Lyall waved off Remi’s concerns. “I can come up with a fake collar, if necessary. Plus, I can’t be released from my fucking contract with Arimanius merely by someone in the Colony taking the stupid thing off. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
Remi was quite aware of Lyall’s attempts to get out of his indenture contract. His father Arimanius, who wanted Remi to call him Ari and who Lyall always referred to by his full Earth name, had warned Lyall would massacre them all if the hellhound found a way out of the agreement.
Ari did love his drama.
“I don’t understand why your creepy new friend didn’t ask for something more typical, like the still-beating heart of one the guests here.”
“José’s pretty chill for a cadejo.” Lyall was already on a first-name basis with the locals. “He lives in the Saguaro monstertown with his human, and the two of them like to spice things up in bed. You know, she turns him into a cadejo, and he has to beg to get the collar off before the sexy times start. As long as they don’t leave it on for too long, they’ll be fine.”
Remi tried to imagine himself voluntarily putting on a device that confined him to his chinchilla alter form andshuddered. That would not be sexy. It would be humiliating and not in a fun way.
“The Saguaro Rift is different from the one you’re used to near home.” Lyall always sounded so damn patronizing when he explained things to Remi.
No, Remi had not been born before the rifts opened up. He’d never even crossed over one. So what? He didn’t care about the old country, as Lyall and his father called the fragments of Riftworld that lay on the other side of the rifts.
“Well,” Remi said, “the Witch City Rift is in the goddamn ocean.”
