Spellbound by Marcus Atley Page A

warrior. He was not a blushing school boy.
    “You know more than you’re telling me,” he said pointedly after a moment of realization.
    Stavros gave an acknowledging grunt and leaned back casually. His shirt rode up just enough to reveal the thin trail of dark hair that ran from his navel down. Elion tore his eyes away, forcing them to focus on his laptop screen instead.
    “You can’t do that. You have to tell me things,” Elion said defiantly. He rolled his eyes and folded his arms over his chest when Stavros gave him a challenging glare. “You’re ridiculous. You know that, right? I’m not a child. I’m your partner.”
    “You are a child. You whine like one. You eat like one. Hell, you even look like one,” Stavros droned.
    “Excuse me? At least I’m not some brooding, woe is me, pretentious jerk! I can see why your last partner left you, Stavros.” Stavros flinched, his darkened eyes flickered away in submission, and then the larger man was tensing like Elion had never seen. If he could, there was no doubt Stavros would have stormed off without looking back. A sour knot pulled deep in Elion’s gut and his mouth fell shut. He knew he had said something out of bounds, but hadn’t the faintest hint of what it was. “I’m sorry. I-”
    “The necklace in the museum was a decoy planted in the human world many years ago. The real one is locked away. I know this because I retrieved it,” Stavros said coolly, but the malice threaded through his words made Elion cower into himself. “You don’t know nearly as much as you think you do and one day- one day it’s going to get you killed. I have wasted months letting you play your games, waste my time and make a mockery of me. I have wasted two days here humoring you, letting you play detective for my father’s sake. He seems to think you are worth something. I do not. While you were passed out last night I was working, and as soon as I receive confirmation from the Council I will be handling this case without so much as a breath from you. Your play time is over.”
    Elion sat on the edge of the bed with his shoulders slumped and his lips pressed into a tight, thin line to try and keep them from trembling. He was embarrassed, no, he was mortified. He was sad. He had overstepped and he knew it. He didn’t know why Stavros’ partner had left, only the rumors that were whispered behind the older man’s back. He knew that it was obviously a sore topic, yet he had run his mouth. But Stavros’ words- they hurt.
    It was abundantly clear that Stavros didn’t think much of Elion, but he had never outright said it. Not like that, anyway. Elion was fairly certain that he wasn’t supposed to want to drop to his knees and apologize and possibly kiss the harsh frown off of Stavros’ face. He wasn’t supposed to want to run his thumb over the crinkle between the cambion’s brows to smooth it out.
    “We’re ready to go back, then?” Elion asked weakly, clearing his throat as a cover for his voice cracking.
    ~~
    It was far past nightfall when they arrived at Stavros’ home. Stavros strolled through the darkness until he realized he couldn’t take another step. With an irritated sigh, he turned on a light and gave Elion an irritated look.
    “Shut up. Not all of us can see in the dark,” Elion huffed.
    Stavros ignored him in lieu of pressing his ringing phone to his ear. Elion had figured they would be free by now. They were getting along, for a short time at least, not throwing punches or bellowing at each other. Sure, they weren’t the best of friends, but that wasn’t even remotely close to being on the table, and it was unlikely that it ever would be. Elion had serious doubts that Stavros did the friend thing. Hell, even when he was a kid, he probably shunned the idea of friendship. It was easy to imagine a much younger Stavros sitting in a corner, glaring at the other kids through a curtain of long black hair. He probably even had toddler size Goth boots to