Chapter 36

Their argument with each other apparently forgotten, they burst through the door to the inner office with Kaz only one pace behind Ty. Both of them stopped dead in their tracks when they saw me.
"Dani?" Identical expressions of shock showed on the two vastly different faces.
I sketched a wave. "Hi, guys."
They turned to glare at each other, eyes narrowed. It was like watching one of those circus "mirror" acts, but with totally dissimilar participants.
Kaz spoke first. "You two know each other?" His voice was deep and silkier than I'd ever heard it, and it gave me the shivers. It takes a lot of menace to scare a vampire, but Kaz pulled it off.
"Funny, I was just thinking the same thing," Ty muttered in the clipped British accent of his. "Care to explain, Ms. DuBois?"
I squared my shoulders, drew in a deep breath and looked up at two of the hottest guys I'd ever met. Why the hell did they have to know each other? And have a history? Damn, maybe I should have stayed in Chicago.
"I guess I'm just a slut," I answered with a shrug - though I don't typically consider myself in that light. I'm usually pretty damn picky. "I got into town yesterday. Met you both last night in the bar. Kaz, you'd left to go back to work, so I hooked up with Ty. Ty, you didn't say anything about a repeat, so this afternoon I hooked up with Kaz."
"And you had no idea we were connected?" Kaz raised one dark eyebrow skeptically.
I shook my head. "Not until I tasted your blood this afternoon and picked up the similarities. You're not exactly the same, but I figure you're from the same world."
Ty nodded. "We're both Zendir but different races." They both continued to study me like an insect on a pin.
"And you're both on the same side of whatever it is you were arguing about," I added. "Just in case there was too much testosterone flying about for you to have figured that out. And apparently you're both more into each other than either of you are into me, so I don't know why you're both staring at me like I did something wrong."
"No," Kaz barked.
"Not true," Ty argued.
They looked at each other, and I saw them start to grin, Ty first, but soon even some of Kaz's anger started to dissipate and shortly thereafter he was grimacing ruefully.
Ty turned to me and shrugged. "Maybe equally, but not more."
Kaz nodded. "That was always part of our problem. We liked each other, just not exclusively. We both like girls too much for that."
The strong lines of Ty's face softened and he laid a hand on the other man's arm. "But you fell in love with Lily - and I didn't. She was a one-man kind of woman, so I bowed out - but Kaz, she's been dead for fifty years."
"I'm sorry, Kaz." I could see the pain that still lingered in his lavender eyes. Without stopping to think about it, I moved to stand on his other side, clasping his hand in my own. "I've been there, in love with a human. It sucks pretty major ass, doesn't it?"
"It was wonderful - for a while," he said on a ragged sigh, glaring at Ty. "Except for the part where my best friend turned against me."
Ty shrugged. "You know I hated to do it. Betraying you cut out a part of my soul. But you had a choice. Lily or Zend. It was killing you to make it, so I did it for you."
And it had killed Ty to do it. I could see that grief etched into the lines of his face.
I tilted my head at him. "But something has changed now?"
Ty nodded. "There's a Zendir killer loose on Earth, and I've tracked him here to the Dark Tower. On top of that, it's taken me decades to do it, but I've talked our ruling council into reconsidering Kaz's banishment. If he helps me find the killer, he'll be able to go home to Zend."
"Why would I want to go back there now?" Kaz asked. He pulled his hand to cross his arms over his chest and glared at the other man. "There's no one left on that plane who I give a flying fuck about anymore."
Ty winced as if he'd taken a physical blow. "Fine. Just help me because it's the right thing to do."
"I told you I have no intention of letting a killer hunt in my hotel. Especially a Zendir one. But you're the only other Zendir I've seen around here lately. Don't suppose you've slipped over to the dark side, lover?" What should have been an endearment was said with so much venom that I winced.
"Ah, darling, you know better than that." Ty smiled sadly, looking directly into Kaz's eyes. "Any time you want to do a mind probe to check for the truth, you're welcome to do so."
"Mind probe?" I hadn't meant to interrupt them, but that startled me. I'd never heard of a species who could do that.
"Maki Zendir have the power to meld their thoughts with another being," Ty answered. "I can't do it, but Kaz can. The only problem is if he looks into my mind, he'll see everything. Even the stuff he doesn't really want to know about."
"Maki Zendir?" I didn't like not knowing what they were talking about.
"My race," Kaz answered with a deep rumble. "We come from the northern continent on our world. Ty's people, from the southern continent, are called Sawa Zendir. They can't mind-probe or use mind control, but they can, sometimes, exercise telekinetic force."
"Wow, those are some pretty impressive powers," I said, my overwhelmed mind whirling. "Plus you both regenerate, don't you?"
Ty nodded. "And apparently, we've got a Zendir killer on the loose who has learned somehow to mask his scent from another Zendir - something we didn't know was possible to do. Both Sawa and Maki can usually detect one another by scent."
"Licorice and cinnamon," I murmured.
"Something like that," Ty agreed. "To us, the spices you use are a fairly pale imitation."
That made sense, I supposed. It was all a matter of reference points. But that wasn't what was important here.