“I already told you everything!” Jai crossed, then uncrossed, his arms, his foot bouncing against the marble floor. Even without Gideon’s interrogation training, it was easy to see Jai was hiding something. He was jumpy and sweating, avoiding eye contact. He looked guilty as hell, but Gideon couldn’t fathom why.
“Just tell them again, Jai,” he said gently.
With a glower, Jai scratched the back of his head, then yanked on his mussed hair. “Riley was acting weird all day, ever since he talked with the Thrones. Maybe you should be interrogating him instead of me.”
“We’ve sent a request to the temple for an audience with Hezekiah,” Uriel said. “We’re waiting for a response.”
“We’re not interrogating you,” Gabriel sniffed.
“We’re just trying to understand,” Raphael said.
Jai’s hand returned to his chest, rubbing at his heart again. “Yeah, whatever. I already told you. Riley had a bad dream. He came to my room—I don’t know, it was early. Way too fucking early. But he tried to sneak back to his room. I don’t think…”
Silence stretched, and Noel laid a hand on Jai’s shoulder. “You don’t think what?” he asked.
“I don’t think he meant to wake me,” Jai admitted, ducking his head. “I followed him to his room, and he seemed scared. I thought it was his nightmare, but maybe—I don’t know, okay? I stayed with him, but then I woke up, and he was gone. The sheets were still warm. I thought maybe he’d gone to Noel or bunked with Gideon, but it felt wrong. Everything felt wrong.
“And when he wasn’t in the apartment, I checked the parking lot.” Jai faltered. “We went to the park—”
“How did you know he was in the park?” Michael asked.
Jai shrugged. “I dunno. I just knew, okay?”
“You just knew?” Uriel cocked his head.
“It was a feeling!” Jai was getting defensive again, and Gideon tried to signal him to calm down.
“A feeling?” Gabriel’s nose wrinkled. “You just magically knew?”
Chest chugging, Jai looked away, eyes glazed, focused on a far-off point. “It was like a thrumming in the air. I didn’t know where he was, just that I had to go in that direction. So I did.”
Jai had explained this to Gideon, and it made just as little sense now as it had then. The connection Jai had forged with Riley in the form of his tattoo couldn’t even account for it. With the Guardian bonds broken, they shouldn’t have been able to find Riley, yet found him they had. But the more pressing question: why couldn’t Jai find him now?
“And this thrumming, it’s gone now?” Uriel stepped forward, eyes locked on Jai’s hand, which was massaging circles over his heart again.
“I don’t know where he is. If I did, I would already be bringing him home!” Jai tracked Uriel’s gaze and startled at his own hand’s placement on his chest. Had he not known what he was doing? Jai straightened his arm, his hand dropping to his side.
“Am I the only one concerned about the hybrid’s sleeping arrangements?” Gabriel curled his lip, shooting Gideon a judgmental glare. “I didn’t realize you like to diddle with little boy parts, brother.”
Gideon didn’t remember making the conscious choice to move, but the crack of his fist meeting Gabriel’s face filled him with a terrible satisfaction. Blood gushed from Gabriel’s nose in a brilliant red stream, and he screamed in rage as Gideon allowed Michael to shove him back. Like a stubborn child, Gabriel stamped his foot in outrage, cupping his injury. And Gideon grinned.
“For Trinity’s sake, what is wrong with you two?” Michael pushed Gideon against the opposite wall, the atmosphere buzzing as his midnight skin glowed. “Gabriel, I don’t want to hear another peep out of you. And Gideon, damn it! Gabriel is your superior—”
“A superior accusing me of pedophilia!”
“Riley’s not a child.” Jai, Noel, and Uriel all spoke at once, casting furtive glances at one another.
Raphael placed a comforting hand on Gideon’s shoulder. “They’re right. Riley isn’t a child, and he is no longer your ward. There’s no need to defend yourself—”
Humiliation boiled beneath his skin as Gideon smacked Raphael’s hand away. “I’m not fucking him!”
He tried to ignore the guilty expressions on both Jai and Noel’s faces, but his stomach soured. No, he wasn’t fucking Riley, but clearly, his Secondaries couldn’t claim the same. For the first time in a millennia, bile crawled up his throat and bathed his tongue. He swallowed the sick down.
“Maker have mercy. Gideon’s personal life is not on trial!” Michael said.
Gabriel cackled, dabbing the blood drying under his nostrils. “Maybe it should be. I told you it wasn’t just Jairus fucking around with their ward. But you didn’t want to listen.”
“Oh, poor Gabe,” Raphael drawled. “Do you feel left out of the cool kids’ club?”
Punctuated with a rude gesture, Gabriel spat a particularly vile insult, and everyone in the room gaped. Raphael and Gabriel launched into a heated shouting match, lobbing insults and curses every few words as Michael jumped between them as mediator. Adelle rolled her eyes and left the room, sick of their family’s drama.
Gideon would have joined the argument, if only to piss Gabriel off more, but his focus shifted to his Secondaries. Jai’s skin was ashen and covered in sweat. He grasped at his chest, fighting for every breath as Noel fussed over him. And Uriel watched, a knowing glint in his narrowed eyes.
“Jai, what’s wrong? What—Jai?” Noel cupped his Other’s face, terrified. “Gideon, help him!”
When Gideon stepped toward them, hand outstretched, Jai stiffened, and his dark eyes widened. “Riley?” he whispered. Then his eyes rolled back into his head, and he dropped like a rock.
Not expecting the full weight of his Other, Noel lost his grip, and Jai hit the floor with a thud. His muscles locked, his entire body rigid, and then he started to seize. Noel screamed, and Gideon yanked him back before he could make contact with Jai’s flailing limbs. Fighting his hold, Noel strained to reach his Other.
“Stop, Noel. We don’t know what’s wrong with him. He might hurt you.” Gideon hugged Noel tightly, his slim body slight compared to his own.
“He would never hurt me,” Noel whimpered, slumping in Gideon’s hold as they watched Jai convulse.
Uriel knelt beside Jai, waiting for the worst of the tremors to subside as the arguing angels behind them quieted. They waited with bated breath for Jai to still, heaving a collective sigh of relief when his body went lax. Running his hands over Jai’s forehead, then his chest, Uriel’s brow furrowed.
With a groan, Jai’s face twisted in agony, nonsensical words stuttering from his mouth. Noel struggled in Gideon’s grip, and Gideon released him. He collapsed to the floor and ran a loving hand over his Other’s hair. Uriel straightened, eyes wide, mouth thin.
“How long has he been bonded?” The serious expression seemed out of place on Uriel’s childlike face, and Gideon gawked, lost in a quagmire of exhaustion, shock, and confusion.
“Bonded? The Guardian bond was broken months ago,” Gideon said dumbly.