Bonedust

of seconds and Gabriel’s heart plummeted to his gut. “I’m sorry. I’ve been hurt before, and it’s not something to mess with. I can’t. I just need time. Space.” He turned away and stuffed both hands in his pockets, continuing to walk.
    Gabe stood there, feeling strangely hollow. Rejected. Pandora nudged his hand, his arms hanging limp at his sides. She whined for a moment, then padded ahead, and wiping away a tear, he hurried after Urban. They said nothing to each other the whole way home, the empty feeling growing to a void in Gabe’s chest. He would give him time. He wouldn’t give up. He couldn’t. He loved Urban and knew, deep down, behind all the fear, Urban loved him back.
    “Goodnight,” he murmured to Urban as he climbed into bed. Urban parroted the word, then sealed himself up in the bathroom and Gabriel tangled himself up in blankets, falling into a fitful sleep to the sound of the spray of water.

Chapter Fifteen

    Goddess, what a fool he was. The shower spray slicked over him, but the warmth wasn’t enough to keep the ache from his bones, from his heart. He felt chilled and sick, his gut twisting like a snake. Like the snake that he was. He couldn’t stop looping Gabriel’s pained expression through his mind, the way he woundedly said goodnight to him. And damn it all. He was just a fool.
    He ran both hands through his wet tangles, working shampoo and then conditioner through from root to tip. He let the water pulse the suds out, then worked on scrubbing his body. He felt dirty, worse than he’d felt that one time he’d had that orgy… Goddess, that was something he’d rather forget. He pressed his thumbs into his eyelids and groaned.
    In his mind, Dante Saunder’s lips curled into a frown. His dark hair fringed just above his eyebrows as he sat across the booth from Urban. The same booth Urban had confessed his love to the man was the booth where his heart was broken, like a shattered crystal glass. “It’s moving too fast, Urban. I can’t take it. I need room to breathe.” And then, the final words, the words he’d bit back from telling Gabriel: “I think we need to go our separate ways.” He’d come so close, the fear nipping at his heart like a dirgehound’s fangs.
    The water ran cold and his skin was puckered by the time he got out of the shower. He toweled off and dressed, the fabric clinging to his damp skin. He didn’t deserve that beautiful angel of a man. He deserved no one. He bit his lip, hard enough that his teeth pierced the skin and the copper tang of blood filled his mouth. He sat on the closed toilet lid, elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands. He had to remind himself to breathe. Halcion, why did it hurt? This was his choice… He knew what he had to do. “Just do it already,” he snarled, his voice desperate.
    Then he stood and, checking to make sure Gabriel was sound asleep, he slipped out the door. Pandora shot out after him, nose to the ground, but he was already striding across the gravel parking lot, to the benches that sat in front of the forest. He touched the caller in his ear, voice dialing a number he knew by heart but had denied he ever knew.
    It took a half a ring before the voice, sultry and sexual and slightly annoyed, answered.
    “Dante.” Urban’s voice was soft, childish, and he inwardly snarled at himself for being such a baby. “I have a job. I need it done ASAP.”
    “Let me guess, darling. Evil vampire overlord is stalking your new boyfriend?” A soft laugh. “Oh, don’t give me the shocked silence treatment—you think I haven’t been keeping tabs on you? His name is Gabriel and he’s drop-dead gorgeous, just the way you like them. And it’s obvious that he adores you…”
    “It doesn’t matter. It’s over. I told him… I told him I’d find you; as far as he knows, you’ve gotten in touch with me from the guild.” Urban ground his teeth together, breathing sharp through his nose. “I need you to kill the vampire.”
    “No problem. On one condition.”
    Urban paused, holding his breath.
    “I want Gabriel.”
    Warning sirens shot off in his head and he lurched to his feet. “What?” The words were all but torn from him.
    “Oh, but he’s perfect, darling, and I need a new apprentice. My last one met an…untimely death. He can stay human, I don’t mind. But I can’t promise you I won’t sleep with him.” There was a secret grin in the man’s softly uttered words. Cocky. Confident. “Or