Alex crossed his arms. “Because I had to leave them without a Guest of Honor, last-minute, and I feel terrible about that? Also, I think interrogating a suspect using meta-human senses, without disclosing your meta status beforehand, is illegal under the Extra-Sensory Perceptions Enforcement Act of 1988, thanks.”

  The werewolf—Agent Forrest—stopped in the act of glowering at the underside of Alex’s bed to turn the glower on Alex himself. His eyes smoldered, which was not a phrase Alex would normally have written into action-packed thriller crime novels. But they did. “How did you know—”

  “About the Enforcement Act? Public knowledge.” He threw the werewolf a smile just to be annoying right back: every drop of golden youthful brazen charm he could muster. “Plus, mystery writer. How did I know you’re a werewolf? Apart from the whole announcing you could smell me line, you mean?”

  Agent Forrest had enough self-awareness to look mildly embarrassed about that. “If you haven’t done anything wrong—”

  “I don’t have anything to worry about?”

  “You canceled your appearance less than twenty-four hours before the entire convention apparently ceased to exist, and attendees lost their entire—”

  “What division do you actually work for? How to make friends and cross-examine people just out of surgery?”

  Agent Forrest paused again. His nostrils flared. “You do smell…”

  “I told you, they took my appendix out. You want to see the incision, too?”

  “No. I…” Those intense inkwell eyes hesitated, skimming Alex’s face. “You almost died, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, because, according to my agent, I’m an idiot who ignores massive painful warning signs and then gets on a plane to Seattle. Does that exonerate me from whatever nefarious plot you think I’ve come up with?”

  Agent Forrest stared at him for another second or two. Then muttered, “Maybe,” and turned about and stomped out of Alex’s hospital room. And slammed the door behind him. Hard.

  “Okay,” Alex said to the suddenly much less occupied space. “Okay.” And then he looked around for his bag, and a notebook, and his phone.

  He had an idea or two. He had the contact information for the convention’s organizer, or the woman who’d claimed to be, who’d invited bestselling author Alex Lyster to speak; he also knew some of the volunteers, who’d helped out with previous convention years. He was thinking about the brand-new organizing committee, and the new tech team they’d brought in. About people no one had known, not even by reputation.

  He also wanted to make some notes. He did not normally write much paranormal crime, but he’d done one or two; sometimes that was what a story wanted to be. A new hero, maybe. Tall and dark and grumpy. Dangerous, but sensitive. With broad shoulders and extremely intense eyes.

  About an hour later, Agent Forrest reappeared. Once again, he did not knock, though he’d lost his suit jacket someplace and rolled up both sleeves, white fabric against tanned skin, delicious. He opened the door and said, “I talked to your surgeon.”

  Alex surfaced from scribbling notes about a werewolf private investigator firm. “I’m glad for you. Did you get his number? Are you going on a date?”

  Pink flickered behind dark stubble—artistic stubble, too, which Alex considered unfair—and faded. “I do have his number. All his numbers. Work. Personal cellphone. Home. In case you need them.”

  “Why would I need his home phone—”

  “If you’re in pain. If your stitches open. If you require more attention. If he’s an idiot and left a scalpel inside you—”

  “A scalpel?”

  Agent Forrest crossed his arms. Muscles rippled. “It happens.”

  “Um. Okay.”

  “I could tell you the statistics about—”

  “Please don’t.”

  “I also ought,” Agent Forrest said, with the caution of a man unused to the words, “to apologize? For earlier.”

  “Oh, ought you.”

  “I’m trying.”

  Alex waved a hand. “Don’t worry. Mystery writer, remember? I like puzzles.” And attractive FBI agents, he nearly said. But didn’t. Self-control. Practicing it. “I have a present for you.”

  Agent Forrest now appeared profoundly baffled, as if this were not the script he’d had in his head. Up close, and somewhat perplexed, he became younger: Alex’s age, or a couple of years older, maybe late thirties or just barely forty, and confronted by new information. “When did you…how…you shouldn’t even…you almost died, yesterday…”

  “I didn’t get out of bed. Is that concern? You look concerned. Sit down for this, it’s fun. Would you like the names of all the new organizing committee members, and their official convention-related emails, and, this is the big one, the email one of them sent to an external address, containing financial account information? With some interesting transfers?”

  Agent Forrest stared at him more. And then, slowly, sat down. The chair creaked in protest.

  “See,” Alex said. “A present.”

  “How?”

  “I know a lot of the volunteers from previous years, and most of them weren’t happy with this weird takeover by a whole new group of organizers, claiming to have new ideas and all. And one of the previous committee members, someone who worked with the convention finances, still has account access.”

  Agent Forrest leaned forward. Intense, alert, poised, and—protective? “You investigated. On your own.”

  “I made a call or two. Not dramatic. I thought it might help. Does it?”

  “Yes. You should be recovering.” He actually moved as if planning to take Alex’s hand, and then visibly seemed to think better of it. “I don’t want you hurt.”

  “Neither do I, so we’re in agreement.”

  “But you were investigating.”

  Alex raised both eyebrows at him: yes, obviously.

  “You…” Agent Forrest exhaled. Ran a hand through his hair. Muttered something under his breath that sounded like, “Humans.”

  “My great-grandmother was a siren, I’ll have you know.”

  This time the grumble sounded like, “Of course she was.”

  “What was that?”

  “I said,” Agent Forrest snapped, “of course she was. Luring people into trouble.”

  Alex grinned. “You think I’m trouble?”

  “I think—” Agent Forrest stopped, exhaled, scrubbed the hand through his hair again. In golden afternoon light, small lines lingered around his eyes. “I also brought you something. Here.”

  It was a book. A paperback. Clearly used. “Unsolved Mysteries of Victorian London.”

  “I thought you might be bored. And writers like…books. I didn’t realize you’d be attempting to give me a heart attack.”

  “Because you care so much?” Alex looked back at the book. At ruffled pages, and warmth, as if it’d been left lying someplace in the sun, on a table or in a car, just this afternoon—“Is this yours?”

  “No. It’s yours.”

  “You gave me your book. That you were reading. While you were waiting to talk to someone?”

  “I thought,” Agent Forrest said, stiffly, “that I owed you an apology. For suspecting you.” His shirt was just on the right side of too tight, Alex decided. The tempting side. And his tie was loose. Drawing attention.

  And the room felt warmer. Because an irritable werewolf agent had glared at Alex and accused him of some sort of crime, and then had fretted over him and worried for him and given him something personal, something real.

  He said, “Thank you.” He meant it.

  Agent Forrest sighed. “Again, I’m sorry. Long day. Not much sleep.”

  “I get it. And, hey, I must’ve looked suspicious. Siren blood, crime novelist, canceling the day before a big—what, money laundering? Embezzling? Fraud-related crime?”

  “We didn’t know you were a siren. But…yes.”

  “I’m flattered, Agent Forrest.”

  Agent Forrest hesitated again, and then said, “Can I introduce myself properly? Blake Forrest, Financial Crimes Unit, meta-human, werewolf.”

  “Very formal of you.” Alex saluted him from the bed. “Thank you.”

  “Do you take anything seriously?”

  “Yes. My friends, my career, the fans who’ve lost a lot of money and who’ve been hurt by this. They’re who I write for.” He touched the book cover; he thought, this is serious. You giving me something of yours. A scent of yours, a belonging. “And I’m not much of a siren. It’s diluted enough to not even show up on the registry. Which is why you didn’t know.”

  “I should’ve known,” Agent Forrest said. “You’re—never mind.” He also bit his lip, and shifted in the chair. “I’ll let you rest.”

  “I’m what?”

  “Get some sleep. Are you in pain? Thirsty? Can I get you anything?”

  “I’m good, thanks. I’m what?”

  “I didn’t say anything. I’m leaving now.”

  “They’re letting me out of here tomorrow morning,” Alex informed his retreating back. It was also a very nice back. Extremely so. “If you want to know. If you want more help with your financial fraud case and the mystery of the vanishing convention. If you want your book back.”

  Agent Forrest paused halfway to the door.

  “So I’ll see you in the morning,” Alex said.

  “I…maybe. If I have the time.” He put his head on one side, studied Alex. “You’re smiling.”

  “Excellent deductive skills.”

  “I mean you smell like you’re smiling. Like…sunshine.” Agent Forrest did the hand through hair gesture again. Dark strands slid through his fingers, touched with one or two stray streaks of silver. “But you are tired. Get some sleep.”

  “That’s cheating.”

  “It isn’t. I’ve disclosed it. Rest, Mr. Lyster.”

  “It’s just Alex,” Alex told him. “Please. We’re sharing books and all, now.”

  That earned a tiny evanescent grin, there and gone, tempted out for a second, and oh, Blake Forrest was even more glorious when grinning. “I’ll see you in the morning. To ensure your safety. Since you’re recovering. And apparently asking questions. Without oversight or any consultation with the agent in charge.”

  “Which is you. And you want me to be safe.”

  Blake managed to both blush and glare at him again, which made Alex’s heart do an excited small flip, because yes, yes to the hotness and the hint of power and the protectiveness, please. “I take my responsibilities seriously.”

  “I’m your responsibility now?”

  Blake did the almost a growl again, and flung open the door, and vanished with surprisingly little noise, given annoyed werewolf size.

  Alex looked back down at the book in his lap. His stitches ached a little, but not badly. His body felt tender, bruised, aware of recent last-minute surgery.

  But also alive, alert, awake. Intrigued, because he had a mystery and a tantalizing crime-solving werewolf, and he wanted both of those. He wanted them in a way that felt like possibilities, like questions that might have answers, a story unfolding, taking shape before his eyes.

  The Dark Sky, Dusty with Stars

  The first night that Federated Planets Ambassador Tamlin Rye spent entirely in Valentine Perrin’s captain’s cabin, on that beautiful space-washed courier starship, Val did not have a nightmare. In fact, Val slept well and easily. Or so Tam hoped.

  Gazing at those shut eyes, at the fall of blue-violet-onyx ink swirl hair against his own shoulder, he thought that Val looked peaceful. Tam had certainly done his best to ensure they both ended up worn out. Pleasurably so.

  The captain’s bed—indeed, the entirety of the captain’s quarters—settled comfortably around them. Standard Federated Planets courier-ship walls and lines, but transformed. Hung with glimmering chime-silk in color-shifting hues. Glinting with a heap of jeweled hairpins and bronze earrings and tiny bells strung on chains. Highlighted by pretty rocks that served as bookends for the few actual physical books and notebooks on Val’s shelf, by the desk.

  So many stories. So much Tam didn’t know, and wanted to dive into.

  A week, they had. A week, for Val’s slim star-dancer Calliope to deliver him home, after this last peace-brokering mission and his own ambassadorial success, or what he hoped had been a success. A week to get to know Val, to learn Val, to memorize every detail: colorful, shy, literary, wounded.

  He rested his head against Val’s, there in the bed, and shut his eyes.

  Of course the peace didn’t last. That night, yes; that first night. But Tam should’ve known. Val had told him. No secrets, nothing held back.

  Val was the sort of person who told people stories. The stories were true, but delivered in a gentle or amusing or teasing or self-deprecating way, such that the listeners never felt uncomfortable or afraid, not even when Val casually mentioned the disastrous Cronus evacuations and his own first ever mission as a captain, because if Valentine Perrin was good at anything, he was good at being a courier: in motion, charming, easing people along. Flitting from place to place, dyed hair shimmering in the evenings when he took it down from serious pins and let it fall in a rhapsody of black and purple and sapphire, summoning a lover’s hands for this week, this joy.

  Tam got to be his lover. That was still a new thought, sparkling.

  Tam had not met him before this, before the day Val had run down the Calliope’s ramp and announced himself as the ambassador’s ride home from that successful mission, hair swinging, eyes sparkling, long limbs graceful in the way of someone used to slightly different gravity. Val moved like ballet, like veils, like ribbons, Tam had thought even then. Like flying thistle dancer seeds in Eridian’s winds, thin and swift.

  Of course he’d fallen head over heels. Val, on the other hand, had tried to behave: breathlessly enthusiastic but achingly polite to a distinguished senior ambassador. Val had, at first, tried to apologize to him on the night they’d found each other on the observation deck, even though Tam had been the one interrupting him under dark late celestial swirls.

  That’d been the night they’d realized they liked each other, not just as ambassador and courier. In starshine, in swiftspace, bathed in light.

  The first time Val accidentally woke him happened on the fourth night they spent together, into the second half of the journey back to Terra. Tam had guessed it might be one of those nights. He knew they occurred; Val had told him that as well, the two of them alone on the observation deck, confessing quiet words and wants. No secrets, no concealment. Once Valentine had decided to open up, it was that simple.

  In the captain’s bed, after shared mutual pleasure—Val was gorgeous, uninhibited, flexible, playful—he’d watched Val try to fall asleep. On the first few occasions, this hadn’t been a problem. Tam had felt a mild sense of smugness about that: despite being older and less weightlessly graceful, he could wring quite a lot of satisfaction out of Valentine’s body.

  He held Val against him, there. With Val’s head on his shoulder, and Tam’s head tipped that way, a strand or two of colorful hair snagged on Tam’s beard. He did not mind. He rather liked it.

  Drowsy, he floated along the edge of sleep himself; after some uncounted time he heard Val’s breathing soften, and then catch, and not settle into a rhythm. He felt Val’s tiny movements against him, the shifts of someone trying very hard not to disturb another person.

  Tam, awake now, ran a hand along Val’s back, tracing smoothness and distress. “All right?”

  “I just can’t sleep.”

  “You can stay up if you want. You get some writing done when you can’t sleep, you said.”

  “I’ll keep you awake.”

  “I can sleep through anything. Useful trait in an ambassador.”

  “Thank you, but I shouldn’t. I’ll need to be on the bridge in the morning. Awake and alert.”

  “What might help?”

  “You,” Val said, and reached for him. “Distract me.”

  After that second round, naked and replete in Tam’s arms, he murmured into Tam’s chest, “You can play with my hair,” and Tam nodded and did, and hummed softly while doing so, an old lullaby he didn’t know all the words to but recalled one of his parents singing.

  Val did fall asleep, and Tam counted that as a win; but he wondered, and he was proven right about an hour later. He’d mostly managed to drift off himself—tired, but wanting to stay awake in case—and the fantastic bed was soft and the captain’s quarters were quiet and dark, stars flowing in the viewscreen, lights down. Val’s hair held the scent of oceans and sweetness, clean water and salt and honey, and Tam liked the buoyant slim strong weight of him, growing familiar now.

  Val tensed against him, and stirred, and made a sound; Tam snapped to full awareness. Before he could do much, Val made the sound again, a scream that didn’t escape, a gasp; and then jerked upright. The night limned his hair, the tumble of his emotions.

  “I’m here,” Tam said, sitting up too. “I’m here.”

  “I…” Val hesitated, glanced away: at a crumple of blanket, at Tam’s knee. “I’m so sorry.” He tried for a smile, a joke: “Well, I did say I like sharing things…recipes, stories…bad dreams, apparently…”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” He held out an arm. “Or not. Either way. But I’d like to hold you.”

  Val’s smile became more real, more fractured; but he came back and accepted the cuddling. “Are you practicing tactful ambassadorial techniques?”

  “Yep. How’m I doing?”

  “Very well, thank you. I’m all right, it’s just a nightmare.”

  “I remember you said you get them.” Not pushing. Coaxing. Letting Val set those terms. Wrapped up in his arms, because Val had accepted that, and easily so. Blankets, both the Fleet standard-issue variety and one of Val’s personal allowance, a huge fluffy violet and bronze cloud puff.

  “Yes.” Val nestled in closer. “I can tell you if you want. You can probably guess, though.”

  “Cronus, and the fires?” Tam let his hand rub Val’s arm, lightly. Warming him.