“Severin?” he called. “Loïc?”
“He’s gone.” Severin’s voice came from the direction the dogs were eager to get to. There was a rustling sound, and their gazes were drawn up into a nearby tree, where Severin sat, one leg dangling casually, as though he wasn’t about forty feet in the air with an almost empty bottle of whiskey swinging from his fingers.
A mixture of relief that he was alive and concern that he didn’t look well washed over Minnow. The stupid tears came again.
“Loïc is gone?” Rodrigo asked, his gaze flicking back to the blood on the sand. “Where?”
Severin ignored the question, taking the last long swallow of alcohol before dropping the bottle, which hit several branches and shattered before landing in the long grass. He leaned his head back against the tree trunk as if holding up his brain was tiring out his neck.
“Mister Leduc, please come down,” Minnow said.
“The long way or the short way?” His ice blue eyes seemed dead in his dispassionate face.
“The long way, asshole,” Rodrigo barked. “Get the fuck down here before you give us both a heart attack.”
Severin stared out at the lake and didn’t reply.
“You had a fight?” Minnow asked. What the hell had happened between them?
From his lack of reaction to her question, she wasn’t sure he’d heard her.
Rodrigo led the dogs to a tree on the other side of the beach and tied them there before joining Minnow at the foot of Severin’s tree. He started to climb.
“Fuck off, Ro.”
“Come the fuck down.”
Far too quickly, Severin swung from a sitting position to standing on the same branch. He lost his balance and almost tumbled off then caught hold of the branch above him at the last second.
Minnow shrieked with fear, her heart in her throat.
“You’re too drunk to be playing in a tree, you ugly bastard,” Rodrigo growled up at him, climbing faster.
“I wasn’t this drunk when I came up here.” His body swayed precariously.
There was a loud crack and the branch Rodrigo had grabbed to pull himself up snapped off in his hand. He flailed, but caught hold the next branch over.
“Don’t come up here, puppy. It’s not safe.”
“I’m coming up there because you’re not safe. You’re hammered. Why are you so fucking drunk?”
“I miss Church,” Severin mused. “The universe sent me Loïc becau
se I didn’t appreciate Church when I had him.”
“What do you mean, Mister Leduc?” Minnow asked, hoping conversation would make him sit down again.
“I’ve had a taste of what it’s like having a fucked-up brother you have to take care of. I’ve learned my cosmic lesson.” He started to laugh, but it wasn’t a fun laugh. He’d gone from cold to out of control in mere moments. “Are you two the ghosts of Christmas present?”
“Where’s Loïc?” Minnow asked.
“I busted him up and told him never to come back,” Severin admitted. “I don’t know where he went, and I don’t fucking care anymore. I’m a shit brother.”
“You’re not a shit brother,” Rodrigo said, slowly making his way up the tree. “So you had a fight. It’s not the end of the world.”
Severin’s laughter boomed across the lake, and he hung from the branch above him by his hands. In just his jeans, with his hair unbraided and snarled with twigs, he looked more beast than man, all dark tattoos, muscle, his eyes wild.
“I should have gone to Marseilles and found him years ago. Maybe he’d be less fucked up.”