“Tell me what happened after you left the meeting room,” Everet ordered, when silence finally settled over the cage. Exhaustion filled every cell in his body, but he made sure it didn’t seep into his words.
“None of your business.” The words were barely muttered loud enough for anyone to hear, it was obvious that Kane’s heart wasn’t in it any more.
Everet had never seen a man look so defeated. He longed to wrap his arms around Kane, but he didn’t dare let go of his wrists just yet. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibilities that Kane merely wanted to lull him into a false sense of security.
Unable to ignore their surroundings, Everet looked at the bars around them. Knowing that Kane was once more safe with him, another part of that question presented itself for his consideration. Who the hell would dare to put his submissive in a cage without his permission—without even sending word of his submissive’s location to him? It was tantamount to a challenge for ownership.
“Who brought you down here?” Everet demanded.
“I don’t need to be
taken
places. I’ve got legs. I can go wherever I want without someone hovering over me warning me to look both ways before crossing the road.” Kane stared at the floor, pouting like a child who suddenly realized he couldn’t get his own way and now intended to make life as annoying as possible for the man who refused to indulge him.
“You put yourself in here?” Everet asked.
Kane shrugged, but it was obviously the truth. It would have been too bizarre a lie for anyone to tell—even Kane, even if he was high as a kite.
“Why would you do that?” Everet demanded.
Another shrug.
“Answer me!” For the first time, Everet let a little of the fear he’d felt as he raced around the nest out as anger.
Kane looked up, his eyes declaring that he was just as scared and just as angry as Everet. A little of the fight he’d shown earlier came back. He straightened up, squaring his shoulders.
“Why?” Everet repeated.
Chapter Fourteen
“If it was obvious, I wouldn’t have to ask,” Everet said, as calmly as he could, which wasn’t all that calmly at the moment. If it sounded like he spoke through gritted teeth, it was for a very good reason.
“Because this is where I belong!” Kane suddenly yelled.
Everet stared down at Kane for several seconds in complete silence. He had no answer to that. The statement was so bizarre, he wasn’t sure an appropriate response existed. “No, you—”
“What would you know about it?” Kane demanded, before Everet could get out a third word. “You’re not one of us. You don’t know what magpies are really like.”
“I know you,” Everet said.
“No,” Kane cut in. “
I
know me. And I’m just like her, like my parents, like every magpie that’s ever lived—I’m like all of them!”
“No, you’re—”
“Stop saying that,” Kane said, completely ignoring the fact Everet hadn’t actually managed to finish saying anything once, let alone repeat it. “You wanted to know what the rest of my family’s like? We’re all the same: Thieves, whores and gold diggers. Happy now?”
Everet had guessed what kind of example the rest of Kane’s family had set for him, but the arguments about nature and nurture that he’d intend to set out in front of the elders, and Crystal, seemed pointless now.
Kane fell silent, he stared down at the way Everet’s hands still encircled his wrists as if he’d never seen skin pressed against skin before. “You can’t cure a man of his species, Ev. You saw her up there. She’s a whore and so am I. You can’t change that, no one can.”
Everet thought he’d felt angry before. It was nothing compared to what he felt now. He stepped forward, forcing the smaller man to retreat. Pushing Kane back against the bars of the cage, he held him there with both hands.
Kane’s eyes opened very wide with shock, but his expression soon changed to one of acceptance. Of being beaten? Worse? Everet didn’t know, but every possibility that ran through his mind turned his stomach.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Everet growled.
“Too late.” The words were barely louder than a whisper.
Everet immediately checked his grip and eased the pressure he put against Kane’s body as he looked down his torso, checking for any injuries he’d failed to notice behind.
Kane laughed as he shook his head. The sound was so sad; it cut through Everet to the bone.
“You don’t have a clue, do you?” Kane asked. “I don’t care how tight you hold me. I’m used to having it rough. But, you’re worse than any back alley trick, you know that? You made me think I could actually have something like that, with someone like you! You made me think I could have the job, and the guy, and the life, and…” He shook his head again. “You bastard…” The words were just on the edge of hearing.
Kane tried to push Everet away, but there was far less strength behind his struggles now. It was as if he knew Everet wasn’t going to budge, that he had no choice but to submit to whatever the guy pinning him to the wall wanted to do to him next.
In reality, Everet was simply too surprised to do anything. For what seemed to be years, he just stood there, trapped in a bubble of shock. “I’ve never offered you anything you can’t have,” he finally managed to say.
Kane shook his head, keeping his gaze averted, peering at the bars of the cage he’d put himself in, rather than risk looking Everet in the eye.
“You haven’t done anything wrong. You know that, don’t you? All you’ve actually done today is listen to some vindictive bitch babble on about things that are all in the past. Nothing she said has changed anything between us. It hasn’t changed your position in the nest.”
“You’re right,” Kane said. “It didn’t change anything.”
His tone was off. Everet tensed, knowing that there was more to come. He couldn’t possibly have won that easily.
“It just reminded me of who I really am. It’s been fun, playing pretend with you. And the sex has been great—I’ll give you that. But no one can play a part forever.” He shrugged, still not looking Everet in the eye. “Sooner or later, I’ll start acting like a magpie again. I’ll screw up; you’ll have enough and get rid of me. I’ll end up in the cage one way or another. So, I’m not going through all that bull, I’m jumping to the last bit and—”
Everet released one of Kane’s wrists and put his hand over Kane’s mouth. Against all his expectations, Kane didn’t bite him. He didn’t even lift his gaze.
“I won’t get rid of you,” Everet promised, willing the other man to believe him with every fiber of his soul.
Kane closed his eyes as if in more pain than ever.
Everet ached to be able to ease his hurt, but he had no idea how anyone even started to heal the years of pain Kane had endured.
Kane mumbled against his palm. Everet lowered his hand.
“You have no idea, do you?” Kane whispered.
“About what?”
“That would just make it worse.”
It took all of Everet’s self-control not to curse the sheer rate at which Kane seemed to change what he wanted from him. “How the hell could it make things worse?”
“You deserve better than me. If you did get all stubborn about it and decide to keep me no matter what, I’d still start screwing up. You’d end up getting whipped, or worse, just because of me. I can’t…”
Everet blinked down at his lover. “Keep in mind exactly what you just said. And tell me, do you still think you’re too much of a magpie to fight against your instincts and put someone else first?”
Kane frowned for a moment then shook his head, tossing aside everything Everet said as if it amounted to nothing.
“You can’t change your species, Kane,” Everet said, damned if he’d back down now. “You can’t change the fact you might always be tempted to do the wrong thing. But you can change whether or not you give in to temptation.”
He stared down at the magpie as he ran the past couple of weeks over inside his head.
“Scratch that, you
have
changed whether or not you give in to temptation.”
Against every instinct he possessed, Everet forced himself to take half a step back, allowing the other man a little more freedom, making it clear that he trusted Kane to make good use of whatever independence he chose to give him. Even so, he kept hold of the magpie’s wrists—Kane was still his after all.
Kane’s frown only deepened.
“You have no idea how proud I am of you, do you?” Everet asked. “Every species is prone to certain weaknesses, but you’ve faced every one of yours head on and you’re controlling them. Kane—you’re amazing.”
And I love you all the more for it.
Everet somehow managed to keep those words back, but only because he was sure Kane wasn’t in any condition to take them in right then.
Everet wasn’t the kind of man who told jokes on a regular basis, but Kane knew that it had to be the only explanation. He tugged, trying to pull his hands out of Everet’s grip. No one was more shocked than him when he succeeded.
He stared down at his freed wrists. It really was true, then. No matter what he said, Everet had no interest in holding on to him anymore. Until that moment, some stupid little part of Kane had actually believed that Everet gave a damn about him.
He shook his head as he turned his back on the other man. He should have known better. No one could really care about a magpie. He’d known that all his life, why should it change now?
“Kane?” Everet asked.
“Don’t,” Kane whispered to the bars.
“Don’t what?”
“Whatever you’re going to say, don’t,” Kane tilted up his chin and turned back to face Everet. “Don’t make fun of me—not for this.”
Everet frowned. Even then, Kane couldn’t help but acknowledge that Everet looked hot when he was grumpy. There really was no limit to Kane’s own stupidity.
“I’m not joking about anything.”
“Really?” Kane demanded.
Well, that was fine. If he had to play the game, fine.
“So, what are ravens’ weaknesses?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest.
Everet smiled slightly.
It wasn’t just while grumpy he looked sexy as Satan himself. In spite of everything, Kane’s cock tried to rise.
“An inclination to try to control the whole world, to make rules and bully people into following them for their own good, regardless of whether they want to or not.”
Kane turned away. “That’s not a weakness,” he snapped, as he reached the other side of the cage.
“It is if I try to date a man who doesn’t get some sort of benefit from his lover micro-managing his day and checking up on him all the time,” Everet said. He sat down on the narrow cot, no longer making any attempt to block Kane’s exit or his path across the cage.
Stepping into the middle of the small space, Kane glared down at Everet. “You’re not making this easy.”
Everet leaned back against the only side of the cage constructed out of masonry rather than steel bars. The stark white paint was cold, hard and uncomfortable. Everet made it look like luxury.
Kane stood uneasily with nothing to lean against, nothing to support him—nothing except Everet. He quickly looked away from the raven, but he couldn’t change the facts. Everet had supported him ever since they met. He did it as if it was the job he’d been born to do.