A Warm Heart in Winter(34)

Then again, anyone tried to get inside who wasn’t allowed? Not going to be pretty. And hey, Fritz would have plenty of blood to clean up, which was one of his favorite hobbies. #BOGO

Blay led the way forward with his phone, and as they emerged into the culinary area where preparations for Last Meal were indeed in full swing—or had been until it was lights-out—the doggen were clustered together, holding hands in their chef whites.

“Don’t worry,” Blay told them. “We’ll figure this out. Let’s get you guys some candles—”

Fritz came in from the pantry with a miner’s light on his head and a bundle of wax-and-wicks in his arms. For once, he was not smiling.

“What shall we do about the bread,” he said as he began passing out the candles. “Light these, yes, light them, please. We must needs recalibrate our offerings for the end of the night.”

As the staff shared a box of matches, pinpoints of lights flared in a circle around the stainless steel island, drawing anxious faces out of the dark.

“You all are safe here,” Qhuinn told them. “The shutters are in place in this wing, so nothing is going to get through any windows or the foot-thick stone walls. But we need to check for damage elsewhere.”

“Whatever may we do to assist you?” Fritz asked as he tucked his hands up close to his throat. “May we help in some manner?”

“Call your staff down here, all of them. If we know where you are, we don’t have to worry about you. God only knows what else has gone wrong.”

Fritz bowed low and took out his phone. “Yes, sire. Right away!”

When Qhuinn motioned over his shoulder, Blay nodded, and they walked out into the dining room. Everything from First Meal had been cleared, but there were tall stacks of china and bundles of sterling silver flatware that had already been put out to reset the table.

“Where’s the generator?” Blay asked.

“Not a damn clue.”

As they entered the foyer, others in the household were gathering at the base of the stairs, various camera phones and candles doing the duty with the light thing. There was a lot of talk, and then a voice broke through.

“I can fix the generator.”

All the chaos turned to the male who had spoken. Ruhn, mated of Qhuinn’s cousin Saxton, was calm-eyed and handyman-ready in his flannel shirt and his low-hanging jeans.

“Just show me where it is,” the guy said. “And I’ll figure out why it hasn’t kicked in.”

“‘They,’ you mean,” somebody said. “We’ve got three. And right this way.”

As Ruhn followed Phury around the base of the grand staircase, Qhuinn decided, not for the first time, that his cousin Sax had picked a real winner. Ruhn was an all-around good guy, quiet and steady.

And hey, the pair were clearly in love—which mostly took the sting out of the fact that Blay and Saxton had had a thing once. For a little while. Because Qhuinn had been a douche and a coward.

“Anyone want to help with the shutters out back?” a voice said in the dark.

“Yes,” Qhuinn replied, without knowing the details or caring about them. “I’m in.”

Anything to avoid going back to that part of his and Blay’s past. Even if the distraction involved minus-four-degree windchill, chapped lips, and frostbite.

Blay stepped in close. “I’m in, too.”

Outside the pools of light, Qhuinn reached to the side and found his true love’s hand. As he squeezed the palm he so often held within his own, he had a thought.

Why hadn’t they been formally mated by now? ’Cuz maybe that was something they needed to get on the goddamn calendar.

Not that he was feeling territorial or anything. Or still a little jealous of his very handsome, yet very happily mated cousin Saxton.

Nah.

There was just something about a power outage in the middle of a blizzard that made a young male’s thoughts turn toward romance.





This time they were going to be better prepared for the great outdoors.

As Qhuinn zipped up a Mount Everest–worthy parka from his hips to his chinny-chin-chin, he felt like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Add in a set of Gore-Tex mittens, a hood, and a coat of Chap-Stick on the lips, and he felt like he was going to war out on a tundra.

He also knew what steamed broccoli felt like. Jesus, it was hot under all the thermal gear—and not in a fun way.

Turning his head, the miner’s light strapped to his skull hit Blay’s chest. His mate had grabbed a load of wearable duvet as well, and as long as a person didn’t focus on the twelve-foot-deep gash on that cheek, the sheer beauty of the male was almost overwhelming. Between that wind-burned face and those bright blue eyes and that red hair, Blaylock, son of Rocke, was positively edible.

And okay, fine. Maybe that scratch on the cheek was just a minor injury, but the thing certainly seemed like a mortal wound—

The emergency lights came on, offering a quarter of the normal illumination—and saving all kinds of retina burn.

“Thank you, Ruhn,” Blay murmured as he looked to the ceiling fixture.

“Guy’s a frickin’ genius.” Qhuinn switched off his headlamp, but kept the contraption noggin-bound on a just-in-case. “Let’s do this.”

Hitching an arm through the rung of a five-foot stepladder, he led the way back into the garage. The lights that were motion-activated came on at that reduced level, but it was more than enough to see by as they tromped along the concrete floor, passing by the riding mowers that were drained and draped for the winter, as well as the thirteen ancient coffins that were lined up like something out of a Bela Lugosi movie.