But something else had happened, something that was even now preventing him from doing his quick vampire healing.
He covered his face with his hands. That’s right. He’d had a surge. Damnit, his jealousy over seeing Keynes’s nose buried against Brianna’s neck had forced his mastyr calling to rise up and threaten to bust wide open. But because he hadn’t actually embraced his calling in that moment, he was left in a debilitated state.
And his head was killing him, which meant he’d be useless for a few hours more.
Glancing around, he knew where he was. The Cameron city jail, though usually he worked the other side of the bars.
He needed to get out of this place and he really needed to talk to Brianna, to warn her that Keynes wasn’t the kind of man she should ever get close to. He had a bad reputation of using women. There were even rumors that more than one of his dates had disappeared from Bergisson Realm altogether. Nothing provable, of course, but as a detective he always went with the smoke-and-fire theory of events.
The clearing of a throat turned his attention a full one-eighty, to the space behind him, but on the other side of yet another long length of iron bars.
He opened his one good eye wide and blinked away as much of his blurred vision as he could. What came into view was a vampire he knew well, taller than Yolen, though not necessarily more muscled.
“Ethan? What the fuck are you doing here?”
Normally, Mastyr Ethan, who bore Bergisson’s problems squarely on his shoulders, would be out patrolling with his vampire Guard at this hour, hunting for Invictus signs.
Ethan grinned. “What am I doing? Getting your ass out of jail, that’s what.”
“But how did you know I was even here?” He swiveled and sat up to face the ruler of the realm. He couldn’t believe anyone at the station would have called him.
“Actually, my better-half told me to come. Samantha had a vision that you were in some kind of trouble. She’s a fan of yours, you know. Hell, we both are.”
Yolen clutched his head and grimaced.
Ethan frowned. “You had another mastyr surge, didn’t you, and that’s why you’re not healing. Am I right?”
Yolen once more thought back to the moment in the bar when he’d launched at Keynes. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
“So, what happened?”
Yolen gave him the upshot, but hated talking about Brianna in the context of welcoming another man’s advances. “I think the sudden rage I felt that Keynes would dare to touch her, brought the surge on.”
“Fuck, Yolen. You can’t hold out forever. The surges will kill you if you keep this up.”
“I can manage them.”
“Like you did tonight?”
He glared at his friend. “Tonight was different, completely unexpected.”
“You were out of control and you need to ask yourself why. I’ve got this feeling there’s more going on here than simple jealousy.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” But his gaze fell to the cement floor.
“She walked out, didn’t she?”
Yolen’s turn to nod. “I think she was breaking up with me, or intended to. I went to get some beers then I smelled her scent, all the way across the bar. I turned to look in her direction and Keynes had his hand on her.”
Ethan shook his head, frowning. He wore his long curly hair in the traditional Guardsman clasp. “On the best of days, Keynes can be a real dick. But what do you mean you could smell her scent?”
“It’s nothing. Sort of like she’s wearing a perfume but it’s just her and I don’t know, I just smelled it all the way across the bar.”
“Huh.”
“And what does that mean?”
“I’m not sure, but Samantha has a scent as well.”