Author: Tiffany Reisz

Kingsley couldn’t argue with his logic. “Then what shall we look for, mon père? Where shall we go?”

“The photograph of us…it would have been archived in the library.”

“The library it is, then.”

Inside the library Kingsley discovered that much of Søren’s father’s money had found its way here. Their time at Saint Ignatius, the library had been a cold, sparsely furnished space. Cheap metal bookcases had been filled with decaying religious tomes. Threadbare chairs had sat on even more threadbare rugs. But when they stepped into the room now, they could have been transported to the Vatican library. The metal bookcases had been replaced with dark oak bookshelves carved with biblical scenes and symbols. Easily four times as many books filled the shelves. Elegant sitting areas were scattered about the length and width of the building. Iron chandeliers dangled from the ceiling and sent smiling light down on the boys who sat in those expensive armchairs with books and computers on their laps.

“Oh la la,” Kingsley said, laughing. “A library or a palace?”

“A library should be a palace. You do read, don’t you, Kingsley? I mean, something other than your own files?”

“Bien sûr. I read the novels your pet writes. It pleases me to read them and see how much she steals from my world to put in hers.”

“It is her world, too, need I remind you?”

“It was her world. And she left it.”

“She’ll be back. I know she will.”

Kingsley smiled and sighed. “Lovely to know that I’m not the only one of us who engages in wishful thinking. Yes, she’ll come back to you…the day you come back to me.”

Søren said nothing else to him as they headed to the archive room. Kingsley took that as a victory.

They spent an hour digging through the student archives. Christian’s other photos he’d taken of the school still remained in their boxes. Kingsley took a few pictures and slid them into a portfolio.

“What are you doing?”

Kingsley grinned. “Who knows? We could get fingerprints, peut-être?”

“I’d rather not get your police connections involved in this.”

“Very well, then. I’ll call the FBI.”

Søren glared at him. Again. If he didn’t stop glaring at him, Kingsley was going to kiss him right there in the library in front of fifty Saint Ignatius students. And that might raise an eyebrow or two.

“I don’t see that any other photos are missing. Christian numbered all fifty of them. Ours was thirty-three. This box has one through twenty-five in it. You took twenty-six and twenty-seven from the other box. Just our photograph was gone.”

“How would the thief even know to look for it?”

As soon as Kingsley asked the question, he knew the answer. He tapped the top of each box and looked at Søren.

Søren exhaled and turned his eyes to the ceiling.

“Of course,” he said. “It has to have been another student. One of our classmates. How else would the thief have known about the photos?”

“A student or one of the priests,” Kingsley reminded him.

“We’ll go to Father Marczak and ask for the names of the students who were here with us. Maybe something will come to mind. I don’t recall having any unpleasant encounters with any of them.”

“You wouldn’t. They were terrified of you.”

“You exaggerate.” Søren left the library and headed toward Father Marczak’s office. Kingsley followed him to the quad, then stopped and looked up into the trees.

“I was a student here for all of two weeks when Christian told me you’d killed a student at your last school. I say ‘terrified,’ mon ami, because everyone was terrified. I do not exaggerate. In fact, I might be understating the situation.”

“I don’t even know how the story of what happened in England got out. I told one of the Fathers when I came here—Father Pierre. He acted as my confessor until he died, a few months before you came.”

“He told?”

“No, he wouldn’t. I would trust a priest to keep my secrets as much as I would trust a corpse.”

“Perhaps your father told a priest, and a student overheard.”

“Possibly. He did like to brag that his son had killed a boy. Come. Let’s talk to Father Marczak.”

“Non,” Kingsley said, still staring into the trees. “You go hunt your ghosts. I shall go find ours.”

He strolled toward the tree line with more confidence than he felt. With his first footstep into the woods, a twig cracked under the sole of his boot and the memories of the night he’d run through these very trees came back to him.

Christian had told him that Søren had killed a student at his old school in England. That knowledge hadn’t scared Kingsley, it had merely intrigued him, made him desire Søren more. But that night as he ran through the woods, Søren hard on his heels, he had known real terror. And yet, as hard and as fast as he ran, in his heart he had wanted to get caught. He ran so Søren would chase him. He ran because he wanted to be taken. He ran hard and ran fast, yes. But not as hard and fast as he could have.

A rustle of leaves alerted Kingsley to a presence behind him. He didn’t look back at Søren, but knew the priest followed now, as he had followed him that night.

“Why did you chase me?” Kingsley asked, still not turning around.

“Because you ran.”

“Do you know why I ran from you?”

“Because you wanted me to catch you.”

Kingsley laughed and didn’t deny it.

“Did you know you would rape me when you caught me?”

“Are we really calling it rape?” Søren asked, his voice tinged with dark amusement.

“What else shall we call it?”

“It’s hardly rape when you wanted it.”

“You didn’t know that at the time, though, did you?” Kingsley passed through the trees that had whipped at his flesh that night and torn his clothes. Did they remember the night as well as he did?

“You stared at me constantly, followed me everywhere I went. You watched me sleep, Kingsley.”

“How did you know that?”

Kingsley shivered as Søren’s laugh rippled through the woods.

“I watched you watch me.”

Today Kingsley managed to avoid the thorn bush that had cut open his forehead and sent blood dripping into his eyes. When he had returned to Saint Ignatius after summer break, he had learned every inch of the woods that surrounded the school. But nowhere on the thousands of acres he’d roamed and memorized had he seen another thorn bush. Only here, guarding the clearing where he’d lain underneath Søren and let the boy he loved destroy him.

“When did you know you wanted me?” Kingsley asked as he entered the clearing where he’d died and bled and been born again. “I wanted you before I even saw you. When I heard the first notes of Ravel coming from the chapel.”

“Father Henry told me a French student would be coming to Saint Ignatius. I’d never played Ravel before. I thought I should play something French so you wouldn’t feel so homesick.”

Kingsley looked at Søren and said nothing. Søren merely looked back at him.

Closing his eyes, Kingsley remembered that day in the chapel, a petrified Matthew at his side trying to warn him to leave Stearns alone. Kingsley should have listened, would have listened but for one thing...

“I loved you because of the Ravel. Had you played any other piece I would have thought you merely handsome and fascinating.”

Søren gazed up at the sky. “Then I’m glad I played it.”

Kingsley took a step toward him and waited. Søren did nothing, said nothing to stop him.

So Kingsley didn’t stop.

Another step. And then another. And after one more step he stood in front of Søren, merely a hairsbreadth apart.

“I thought you were the most beautiful creature on God’s earth,” Kingsley confessed. “I would have been an atheist but for you proving to me that both heaven and hell were real, even if they existed only when I was with you.”

“I can’t say when the moment came that I wanted you,” Søren said. “Perhaps before we even met. Why else would I have chosen the Ravel? I always thought God brought Eleanor and me together.”

“Then who is to blame for us? The devil?”

“I hope not.” Søren sighed. “I have no intention of meeting him. Even to thank him.”

Søren turned his face to Kingsley.

“You are still the most beautiful creature on God’s earth,” Kingsley said, meaning every word.

“I hated how you stared at me.” Søren raised his hand and laid it on Kingsley’s shoulder. He moved his hand up Kingsley’s neck and pressed his thumb into the hollow of his throat.

“And why is that?”

“Because,” Søren said, bending his regal head the four inches that separated them, “it made it impossible for me to stare back.”

Their lips touched for the first time in thirty years. Even the night Søren took him fourteen years ago, they hadn’t kissed. Søren had reserved his kisses for Eleanor alone. What happened that night had been mere violence, not even lust or love. But Kingsley sensed no violence in this kiss. Søren’s mouth was cold and clean. Their tongues gently mingled. But the gentleness lasted only seconds, and Kingsley knew it was merely the product of their own astonishment the kiss was even happening.

Fingers on the back of his neck.

He remembered those fingers.

A hand digging into his hip with bruising force.

Kingsley remembered that hand.

Pain with every touch. Pain with every kiss. Pain with every beat of his heart.

Kingsley loved this pain.

Søren pushed him until Kingsley felt bark against his back, digging through his shirt and into his flesh. They devoured each other with kisses, bit lips, nipped tongues. Kingsley tasted blood and knew it was his own.

Or was it?

“Stop, Kingsley.” Søren spoke the order against Kingsley’s mouth. He didn’t stop.

“You never told me your safe word,” Kingsley whispered back. “I don’t stop for anything but a safe word.”

He laughed then and Søren’s hand came out of seemingly nowhere and slapped the laugh off his lips. Then they kissed again, harder, deeper. Kingsley felt the kiss in his stomach, in his hips. The pants he wore were made by the finest tailor in the world and cost a small fortune. He wanted to drop to the ground in them, take Søren in his mouth, and afterward take the trousers to his tailor and demand he repair the tears in the knees.

“I’m stronger than her,” Kingsley whispered into Søren’s ear. Søren responded with so vicious a bite on Kingsley’s neck that he cried out. “I can take so much more pain than she. She’s gone. It doesn’t matter if she’s coming back or not. For now, she’s gone. Let me warm your bed in her place.”

“Who?” Søren pushed Kingsley even harder against the tree and thrust his thigh between Kingsley’s legs.

“Eleanor.”

Kingsley was free. No hands held him. No mouth kissed him. He stood against the tree, alone, untouched. Bewildered, he stared at Søren, who stood five feet away from him, panting. Søren raised his hand and wiped a drop of blood off the side of his mouth.

“Mais…” Kingsley protested.

Søren lowered his hand.

“You said my safe word.”

SOUTH

He couldn’t stay mad at the woman if his life depended on it. How could anyone stay mad at Nora? She had this thing about her, this force, this wildness... Of course she hadn’t slept with him last night. That’s exactly what Wesley had wanted, exactly when he wanted it and exactly who he’d wanted it with. So it hadn’t happened. Nothing ever happened except on Nora’s terms. That’s why she made him want to scream sometimes. That’s why she made him love her all the time.