CHAPTER THREE: HAUNTED

“So … I shouldn’t wait up for you?” Nafari’s smile was as bright as the sun’s when Liam told him he was going to hang out with the bartender after Fenrir closed, which was in less than five minutes.  

A blush heating his cheeks, which hurt from grinning so much, he clapped a hand on Nafari’s broad shoulder. “Let the others know I’ll join them at camp tomorrow. Sometime tomorrow. Maybe late morning.”  He caught sight of the bartender putting the final load of glasses in the dishwasher.  That beautiful face was bathed by steam, causing the halo of blond hair to curl more, and he felt a tightening in his groin. “Or perhaps afternoon.”  The bartender ran a hand through those locks and his pink lips parted.  “Definitely afternoon.”

“Camp” was the term they used for their base of operations in any given town or city.  In a city it could be an empty lot or abandoned building. In a town like Holten they were going to use a local campsite.  They wouldn’t actually be staying there. It was a place where they would establish a door between the mortal and immortal world.  By having one main camp they minimized the amount of doors that were being created between the planes.  The more doors, the greater the chance The Gash would bring minions in.  So one door between here and Valhalla would be enough.

Nafari just shook his head and laughed. “Enjoy yourself, my friend. I believe this is the first step towards embracing that immortal life we talked about.”

Seeing the bartender’s warm, inviting smile had Liam almost believing that.  Maybe being in Holten again wouldn’t be that bad.  Maybe seeing his brother Cameron wouldn’t slice him open and have him bleeding out.  He sobered suddenly as he wondered if the bartender was one of Cameron’s friends.

He mentally went through the rolodex of Cameron’s old buddies. There had been Carmody Shyler, but he had glasses, red hair and buck teeth. No amount of growing would have turned Carmody into the beauty behind the bar. Then there was Jason Childs, but while he had the same pale skin as the bartender, his hair had been black as pitch. The bartender looked like a natural blond.  But despite it being unlikely that the bartender was Carmody or Jason this game he and the bartender were playing about names suddenly seemed both foolish and a really good idea at the same time.  He didn’t want to find out that this was some kid he’d entertained when they were ten in the backyard. It would definitely get in the way of enjoying himself.  Other than envisioning the bartender as a child while he tried to seduce him — yuck — he would be constantly tempted to ask him about Cameron.

“Your smile is fading.”  Nafari leaned forward and wagged a finger in front of his face. “Whatever you are thinking, forget it. Go have fun.”  

Nafari pushed him further into the bar while he headed out the door.  Liam nearly stumbled but caught himself with Valkyrie grace.

“Could you lock the door?” the bartender asked.

It was then that Liam realized that he and the bartender were alone.  He went back to the door and turned the three deadbolts. He tested the door and the locks appeared solid and all engaged.  He then walked over to the bar where the bartender had pushed “run” on the dishwasher cycle.  The young man took one last look around the bar and nodded as if mentally calculating that everything was as it should be.

“Everything looks good to go for tomorrow,” he said.

“You run a tight ship. I admit I’m impressed that you took care of everything yourself tonight,” Liam said as he surveyed the spotless bar and tables.

“You helped.”  A bright flash of teeth as the bartender sent him another one of those smiles that had a shivery feeling running down Liam’s spine.

“Wiped a few tables?  Put the chairs up?  That’s hardly anything.” Liam shrugged. He had been happy to help out as he saw how pulled in a million different directions the bartender had been as the night wore on.

“Every little bit helps.” The bartender threw a towel over his right shoulder and he was smiling in a slow, suggestive way as he let his gaze crawl up and down Liam’s form. “Now … work’s over.  Let the fun begin.”

Heat burned between Liam’s legs. He rested his hip against the front of the bar, leaning towards the bartender. “Where are we going to have fun?”

“I have an apartment upstairs,” he said and his blue eyes flashed with desire.  He grabbed a six-pack of Corona and gestured with his head for Liam to follow him towards a door in the south wall that Liam hadn’t noticed before.

“An apartment above where you work? That’s handy.”

Liam watched the sway of the bartender’s hips as he moved with unconscious grace to the door.  He fished out a key ring and unlocked the door. “Sigurd is really awesome.”

“Sigurd?”

“Owner of Fenrir. He lets me have the apartment cheap.”  The bartender then gave a laugh. “But that also means he has on site help. I can’t exactly lie to him that I’m sick when I’m really out partying.”

“True,” Liam chuckled.

He followed the bartender up a set of narrow twisting stairs.  The stairs opened up into a room as large as the bar below.  The room was almost completely open with the living areas unseparated by walls. There was a large bed, two dressers.  There was a television hung from one wall with a game system attached and a large, though rather ratty sofa in front of it with chipped coffee table between.  There was a laptop on one of the couch cushions, which the bartender moved to the coffee table so that both of them could sit down.  

“Make yourself at home,” the bartender said.

Then he took out two of the icy cold Coronas and placed them on the coffee table before heading into the kitchen where there was a humming refrigerator and a vile yellow colored stove with an industrial sink beside it similar to the one in the bar.  Liam sank down on the couch as the bartender put the rest of the beer into the refrigerator then walked over to the north-east corner of the room, which was walled off with corrugated metal walls on struts.  

“This is the bathroom, by the way in case you need it,” the bartender called, his voice echoing against the metal, as Liam heard the water running from inside.

Liam’s gaze paused for a moment on another area of the apartment that seemed to be set up for art though the implements were dusty and looked like they hadn’t been touched in some time. There was an easel and a few canvases with their fronts leaning against the wall. He saw a huge lump of clay that had been allowed to dry out instead of being used to create pots or sculptures abandoned on the center of the floor.  There were pads of drawing paper scattered on the ground along with large containers of colored pencils, chalks and paints.  

Looks like he was an artist at some point, but has hit a dry spell.  Explains his touchiness when I asked if he was an artist earlier.  Yet he hasn’t tossed them away. It seems like he can’t quite let go of art just yet. Liam’s lips pressed together. Will I find a similar state to Cameron’s art things?  Unused? Forgotten?

The bartender had exited the bathroom at that moment and when he saw where Liam was looking, he said simply, “Ghosts.”

There was something so fragile in his voice and smile that had Liam looked away from the art materials and vowed not to mention them again or even glance at them.  They were ghosts. Ghosts of a past life?  Who knew?   

He picked up the Corona and took a long pull of the cold beer.  The bartender kicked off his boots and curled his socked feet beneath him on the sofa cushion. He sat so that he was facing Liam.  Liam twisted in his seat, one knee coming up and resting on the sofa with his arms spread along the sofa’s back and arm so he could see the bartender, too.

“Okay, I need a name for you,” Liam said, his lips twitching with a smile.

“Why?  Names are overrated,” the bartender said though his eyes flickered away at the last as if it were a lie.

“I can’t keep calling you ‘the bartender’ in my head,” Liam explained.  “It’s starting to sound like some kind of title for a gangster. Like Jimmy the Knife.  You would be Jack the Bartender.”

“Who slays his enemies with broken beer bottles?” The bartender’s eyes danced with amusement.

“You have many enemies?”

The question had been meant to come out light, but the bartender flinched. It was a small movement, but enough of one that Liam caught it.  Who could hate this guy?  Who would be his enemy?

I don’t know him. I don’t know his past.  He could have a ton of baggage.  Maybe he was in a gang at some point …

But looking at that angelic face Liam simply couldn’t believe that the bartender had ever run with a bad element.  His looks alone would have put him at a huge disadvantage. He appeared delicate though he clearly was nicely muscled.  All in all, he appeared more like someone who had been wounded instead of doing the wounding.

The bartender picked at some of the loose threads on the back of the couch. “I just have this thing about my name.  See, you remind me of someone.”

“I do?” Liam felt the familiar old flare of fear that he could be recognized, but shoved it away.  His mother wouldn’t have believed he was Liam Blake even if he confessed it to her face. The magic held sway.  

“Yeah.”  

More picking.  Liam reached over and covered that nervous, plucking hand.  The bartender stilled for a moment, but then he turned his hand over so that they were palm to palm.  The bartender’s hand was soft.  Liam’s were rough and callused from sword work, but the other man didn’t seem to mind.  His fingertips lightly ran over Liam’s toughened skin as if it fascinated him.

“And if you tell me your name …” Liam began the sentence, hoping the bartender would finish it.

“This guy you remind me of would say my name in a certain way. If you say it differently …”

“It’ll break the illusion that I’m him?” Liam suddenly realized.  He was slightly wary again because the bartender had chosen his real name, but it was just a coincidence. The magic held sway. This young man could not be pretending he was Liam Blake.   

The bartender’s blue eyes flickered up to his and he bit his lower lip for a moment. “Does that weird you out that I’m drawn to you because you look like someone else?”

No more odd than the fact that I’m drawn to you and yet I know nothing about you.  

“It’s given me a leg up with you so I don’t mind.”  Liam took another sip of beer.

“You’re gorgeous,” the bartender said without shyness. “You could get most anyone you want, I’m betting.  This is just my … kink that you look like this special someone.  I don’t normally even tell people about it, but there’s something about you … I don’t know. You’re easy to talk to.  Just like he was.”

“Was?”

A flicker of darkness in those crystal clear blue eyes. “Yeah. He’s gone now.”

It was clear that he didn’t want to talk about it any longer.  Liam didn’t want to poke old wounds. Seeing Peter Stanley and thinking about Reginald Fox had opened enough of his old wounds that he was in no rush to open the bartender’s.  

“So that’s why you don’t want to give me a fake name either?  Because it will ruin the moment as well?” Liam asked.

The bartender looked down at the couch and nodded. “Exactly. So I’m just going to be like Racer X tonight.”

“You like Speed Racer?” He and Cameron had both loved that show.  Cameron had pretended to be Speed while he had played the part of Racer X, except instead of keeping his identity a secret he had come clean after saving Speed from another villain of the week. Then they had gone off to have their own garage and live happily ever after.

Now I’ll really get to play Racer X, but Cameron won’t know he’s Speed.

“Oh, hell, yes! I even liked the new movie that the Wachowski brothers made. I’m probably one of the ten people who did,” the bartender enthused.

“An older brother that must hide who he is to save the younger one? That aspect of it always spoke to me,” Liam said with a faint smile.

In the movie version though, he had felt a definite sexual vibe between the two brothers when they were adults and that had caused him to feel … uncomfortable.  Not that he had ever thought of his ten-year-old brother like that! It was more the idea of how they would live together when Cameron grew up. There was something in that which seemed strange for him to want, yet he had. He still did.

The bartender was looking at him so searchingly then as if he had said something very right or perhaps very wrong. Finally, he looked away as he grabbed his beer. “A perfect big brother.  Always there even when he wasn’t.”

“He was hardly perfect,” Liam said.

“He made mistakes, but he loved Speed, right? That was pure and good. That made up for any errors in judgment. That made him perfect,” the bartender said.

Liam hardly wanted to argue that point. He wished he had been the perfect older brother, but in comparing himself even to a cartoon character he was feeling a bit like maybe he was far less than he should have been.  After all, unlike Racer X, he certainly hadn’t been if continuing to take care of Cameron from afar. He had run out on his brother after probably the most horrific moment of Cameron’s life.  Nafari’s words on what he would do if his family were still alive came back to him.  

I shouldn’t have left Cam. Even if I could never reveal who I was, I should have been there. I should have tried to help him from the sidelines. I shouldn’t have let the “rules” hold me back.

He had always called his brother “Cam”. For everyone else it was “Cameron”. His younger brother only allowed him to shorten it. It was a special nickname between them. His throat felt tight and dry. He drained the rest of his beer.

“Do you want another one?” the bartender asked.

“No, no, I’m … yeah, actually, I could use another one.  But don’t get up. I know where the refrigerator is.”  

“Best part of this apartment is you can see where everything’s at. Worst part, too, as you can also see that I’m not exactly a neat freak.” The bartender gave him one of those high wattage smiles that soothed the pain that suddenly suffused Liam.

He got up from the couch and looked at the other man’s drink. The bartender had hardly touched it. “Be right back.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Liam strode over to the refrigerator. His heavy leather coat suddenly felt like it was weighing him down or maybe it was his invisible wings.  How could he be a Valkyrie, a brave warrior, when he had run away from the one person who meant the world to him simply because he couldn’t be the same person to Cameron anymore?  He opened the refrigerator door and saw literally the six pack of beer and some old Chinese food cartons. Nothing else.  Not even condiments.

He’s not taking care of himself.  This isn’t right. He asks a nameless guy up to his place. He won’t give his own name.   He looks like a freaking angel.  How many times has has he done this? How many times has he been hurt? Does he want to be hurt for some reason?

The unused art supplies suddenly haunted him.  The bartender’s soft gaze and warmth haunted him more.  Liam grabbed a second beer and shrugged off his jacket.  He laid it over the back of the couch and sat down again.  He looked at the bartender openly.  

“What do you need?” he found himself asking.  He felt the weight of the bed over the bartender’s shoulder, but, suddenly, he decided that wasn't going to be a part of the evening.  He wasn’t going to lose himself in this young man’s pliant body, not unless he knew that this wasn’t going to hurt him more.

The bartender blinked. He looked down at his mostly full beer and back up at Liam.  “Uhm, I’m good.”

“No, you’re not,” Liam said quietly.

There was a flash of panic in those blue eyes as if he had seen too much. The panic was quickly quashed as the young man clearly didn’t want to show weakness.  “Let’s put it this way, I’m as good as I’ll ever be.”

“When I walked into the bar tonight I was – I was avoiding some pain of my own. When I saw you …” Liam paused and he couldn’t help the smoldering look he gave the bartender. The other man was so gorgeous and pushed every protective instinct he had as well as aroused him as easily as breathing. “When I saw you I felt that I could forget all that for a while.”

The bartender quirked a smile. “Me, too.”

Liam lightly ran a finger down the bartender’s cheek.  The other man’s eyelids fluttered shut for a moment at the touch and he turned his face into Liam’s hand. His skin was so soft.  No razor burn. Likely didn’t have to shave often unlike Liam who would grow a beard as thick as Thor’s if he didn’t shave twice a day. It was a strange thing to be dead and immortal yet still have things like hair grow.

“I don’t want to use you, Speed,” Liam said gently.

Those blue eyes fluttered open. “Speed?”

“Yeah, you’re not Racer X in this story.”  Liam smiled.  “You’re the younger brother type. At least in relation to me.  So I just can’t do it. I can’t use you. Won’t.  If you were my little brother I would kill a jackass like myself for coming up here.”

There was something so strange in the bartender’s reaction to his words that Liam almost laughed out of sheer uncomfortableness.  Again, it was like he had the absolute right and wrong thing at the same time.  The young man suddenly slid along the couch until there were only inches between them.  One of his arms curled behind Liam’s neck and his skin prickled at the touch.

“You took off your jacket,” the bartender said softly. “You want to stay.”

“I took it off so that you knew I was staying to talk.  That I wasn’t just going to make this speech and leave because we weren’t going to bed,” Liam said firmly and he removed the young man’s hand from his neck even though part of him was cursing himself loudly.

“I don’t want to talk.”  He was pouting. It was rather adorable. Liam let out a bark of laughter which had the young man’s eyes narrowing. “You asked me what I need.”

“Yes, I did,” Liam said, remembering the bare refrigerator.  

The bartender was suddenly in his lap, arms wrapped around his neck, sweet breath gusting against his lips.  Those blue eyes were alight with desire and mischief. “I need to go to bed with you.”

Liam’s hormones, or whatever they were now that he was immortal, surged to life.  Heat built in his loins. His hands slipped around those narrow hips.  

“Speed,” he warned huskily.

“Racer X,” the bartender laughed and ground down on his already prominent erection. “It’s okay. I really want this. Need this. Let me pretend you’re him.  Although … you seem pretty damn awesome just as you are.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Liam whispered.

The young man carded his fingers through Liam’s long hair, his gaze locked on Liam’s, unblinking. “This won’t hurt me. It helps me feel alive again.”

A million questions ran through Liam’s mind.  A million objections to doing this followed thereafter. Yet he believed what the fragile yet strong young man in his arms was saying. He needed this. So did Liam. It made him feel alive.  Liam needed to grasp life, too.  To remember what it was like to be a part of this world instead of above it.

“This is such a bad idea,” Liam murmured.

“No, it’s a great idea.  You won’t regret it,” the bartender said.

“I’m more worried about you regretting it.”

Those blue eyes widened with pleasure and surprise. “I won’t.  Believe me.  I think … I think this will be just perfect. Please.”

It was that “please” that undid Liam. He was moving before he could think. His hands slid up the young man’s back, pushing his t-shirt out of the way and touching the hot flesh.  He then raked his fingers down the length of the young man’s spine.  The bartender shivered with pleasure.  His eyes were hooded with desire.  

“Your skin is like silk. So fine,” Liam whispered.

The young man leaned in and kissed him. The kiss was full of desperation and a kind of hungry fury as if he feared Liam would be yanked away from him at any moment.  This stemmed from whatever pain had happened to the young man long ago, the pain that still haunted him.  Liam gentled the kiss. He stroked his tongue against the young man’s slowing, moving it in a strong luxuriant slide to show him what he liked and to quell the young man’s desperation. All the while his hands moved into the bartender’s hair, feathering the soft curls between his fingers.  He tilted their heads so that the kiss could deepen. He felt the bartender shiver against him.  When they broke apart, both of them were breathing hard even though Liam didn’t need to breathe.

“That was …” the bartender gasped out. His pupils were huge, blown wide with pleasure now. His pink mouth was wet and parted. “If you fuck like you kiss …”

Liam kissed him again.  He sucked on the bartender’s lower lip, raking his teeth along it when he pulled away, leaving the young man panting and digging his fingers into Liam’s shoulders.

“Big brothers have to be the best at things they teach their little brothers, don’t they?” Liam’s voice was a low growl. He couldn’t believe he said such a thing, but the other man reacted positively.

Those blue eyes went wide then hooded.  “Yeah, they do. Little brothers need that instruction.”

Arousal, forbidden and hot as magna, coursed through him. He knew he would feel deep shame when he did see his beloved Cameron later, but this was just a fantasy. Just once he would allow himself to have it.  He prayed that Odin was not having Huginn and Muninn watch this particular part of Midgard right now.

“Big brothers don’t like sharing though. So maybe I’m teaching you just for me,” Liam husked out.

The bartender’s hands tightened in his hair. “Maybe I like that idea. Maybe I don’t want to be with anyone else either.”

A flare of heat followed by shame coursed through Liam as those words had his cock pressing painfully against the zipper of his jeans, but he ignored the shame.  He was hurting no one doing this. It was a fantasy that he would never allow himself again.  But for now he would.

The bartender reached down between them and grasped the hem of his shirt. He pulled it up and over his head, tossing it somewhere out of sight.  The young man’s bare chest was everything that he thought it would be. Lean and muscled with cinnamon colored nipples that were already peaked in the cool air of the room.   Liam trailed one finger along the hills and valleys of the bartender’s stomach, which had the young man sucking in a deep breath and the muscles fluttering when he let it out.

Liam could not look away as the bartender then popped open the button of his faded jeans and the top of his dark blue boxer briefs were revealed.  Liam’s mouth watered.  He kissed down the young man’s chest, leaning him back so that he could kiss the tender skin that had been behind the button of those jeans.  The bartender gave a gasp.

“You’re strong!” he laughed.

Liam realized he was literally holding the young man up in a horizontal position with one hand under his mid back while the other was under his ass.  His immortal strength was showing. To counteract this, he gently lowered the young man down on the sofa, pretending he couldn’t hold him up any longer.  

“You’re light,” Liam claimed.   

With a twist of a smile and a voice as soft as frost, the bartender said, “Big brothers have to be strong to keep their little brothers safe.”

“Yes.” Liam swallowed, a flashback of what happened with Reginald Fox zipping through his mind. I saved Cam then.  “Yes, they have to be.”

Liam kneeled between the bartender’s spread legs.  One of his hands went to the zipper and he looked up at the young man’s face for assent. He would stop no matter what his body wanted if the young man wasn’t game for this. But he nodded and his breathing quickened.  Liam undid the zipped and slid both the jeans and boxer briefs down to mid-thigh.  The young man’s cock was also cinnamon colored and slender, but long.  It bobbed, the head wet with precum, before him, looking incredibly inviting. He leaned down and licked the head. The precum was salty and earthy. He dragged his tongue along the slit for more. The bartender trembled with pleasure.  Those hooded blue eyes looked at him with almost desperation.

Keeping his eyes locked on the other man’s he opened his mouth and sank all the way down on his cock. There were great benefits in not having to breathe. The bartender gasped and arched up, but that wasn’t a problem for Liam. He easily let the slender shaft go down his throat. He closed his lips tightly around the cock and sucked hard.  

The bartender’s hands were suddenly scrabbling across the tops of his shoulders before fisting in his long hair. He didn’t mind the burn of the hair pulling. It felt good and helped tamp down his own erection as he sucked and licked and lightly dragged his teeth along the sensitive length.  The young man was letting out a high whine.  Liam felt his cock plump in his mouth. He fingered the young man’s balls, rolling the furry things. They drew tight against the bartender’s body and the extra tug on his hair told him that the young man was close to the edge.

“I-I’m going to – to cum! You should – should pull off,” the bartender gritted out.

But Liam shook his head even as he swirled his tongue over the head of the hot, hard cock in his mouth. He dove down once more, all the way to the root, just as the bartender came. His hips lifted high off the couch as the first spurt left him.

“LIAM!” he shouted and that had Liam’s cock letting out a trickle of precum in reaction.  It was so good to hear his name on the young man’s lips.

But then he was too busy swallowing down the cum the other man was letting loose and he could think of nothing else but the earthy essence he was devouring.  Finally, the flow slowed to a stop. The bartender had collapsed fully on the couch. Sweat coated his face and stuck some of those curls against his forehead. His eyelids were closed, but his pink lips were parted as he breathed deeply. Liam slowly drew off, kissing the softening cock’s tip before he moved up the bartender’s body and covered that sweet mouth with his own.

At first the kiss was slow as the other man was still lost in the haze of post-orgasmic bliss.  But then his tongue started moving eagerly against Liam’s and he was licking every possible millimeter of Liam’s mouth searching for a last taste of himself. Liam chuckled as the other man sucked on his tongue as if it were a lollipop.  

They broke apart and Liam found himself smiling down at that incredibly lovely face, those blue eyes that were no longer haunted, but looked peaceful, and he felt calmness and rightness flow through him as well.  Staying here, doing this, had been the right thing.  He knew that down to the bottom of his soul.

The bartender reached up and moved Liam’s hair behind his ears then curled a long lock around his fingers as he studied Liam’s face.

“You’re … you’re so like him. I feel that this must be a dream,” the other man said, his voice hoarse with the shout he’d given out.   “But I don’t want this to be a dream. I want this to be real.”

Liam felt a sadness flare inside of him. In some ways, he was a dream. But he was real, too.  So he held onto that and said, “I’m real. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re not going to disappear?”

“No, I’m not.”

Not yet.  Not now.  I won’t go until I help you.  I’ll deal with The Gash, but I won’t leave you in this place.  I’ll get you out of here. Back to doing art or whatever you want.  I’ll fix this.  And I’ll do the same for my brother.  

He knew that was a tall order. Perhaps it wasn’t even something he could do.  But he wanted to do it. He wanted to help this man so very much. Make him smile without shadows. Make him view the world without darkness in those blue eyes.

“I believe you.”  The bartender suddenly blushed, but didn’t look away. “I – I want to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

“Because you’re right that you can’t keep calling me ‘the bartender’ or ‘Speed’.”

“So you’re going to tell me your real name?” Liam grinned.

“Yeah.”  The young man licked his lips. His nervousness apparent in every line of his face.  Liam petted him to calm him.  Finally, he let out a deep breath and said, “My name is Cameron.”

Cameron.

Liam stared at him without moving, without blinking, without taking that breath he didn’t need.  Cameron noticed the sudden unnatural stillness and concern flooded his expression. His hand left Liam’s hair and went to his face.

“Hey, hey, is everything all right?”

It can’t be him.  There is no way. Mom would never let him work at a place like Fenrir …

Liam was suddenly jerking upwards and turning towards the disused art supplies. He was breathing now. In hard, heavy gusts. Panicky gusts.  

Liam. He picked the name ‘Liam’ to call me tonight.  We talked dirty about big and little brothers. It can’t be him. It’s just not possible!

Cameron was sitting up, clearly concerned for him.  He grasped Liam’s face and turned it to towards him. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?  You’re so …”

“Cam,” Liam whispered. His special name for Cameron.

And then it was Cameron’s turn to freeze.  He stared into Liam’s eyes and the knowledge was just there.  From nothing to everything in half a second.  He knew that Liam was Liam.

“Liam?”  Cameron breathed his name and meant Liam his brother this time.  Not Liam the guy he met at a bar. Liam’s wings suddenly flapped and he saw Cameron’s eyes move towards them.  Those eyes went huge. “Wings? She had wings. The lady who came and – and took you up –”

Elda?  He saw her?

Liam was off of his brother’s half naked body. He was perched on the edge of the couch. His wings were flapping wildly, disturbing the notebooks and loose papers. Things began to fly around in the wind he was creating.  Right now Cameron was doing what no mortal should have been able to do: see him for who and what he really was.  

Cameron sees my wings. He knows it's me.  

Cameron reached up for him, trying to grab him, and keep him near.  But Liam couldn’t stay. He’d just – just violated his little brother. He could still taste Cameron’s cum on his lips and he – Odin help him –wanted more. His erection had not died down in the least.  Shame coursed through him as he realized he was perhaps more aroused by their shared blood than before.

“Liam?  Liam, it’s you … I know it’s you!  LIAM!” Cameron shouted, but his voice suddenly sounded very far away as Liam was flying up and up and up. The roof of the bar became translucent as he opened a door between the mortal and immortal realms and he flew up and up and up.