Eliana by Evey Brett Read Free Book Online

lover’s death: the long watches throughout the night when Kon had shared his bed to keep him from wandering away and hurting himself. Evan hadn’t quite gotten over having to sleep alone after Dane had come into the picture. “We’re fine. Trust me. I need to get back, all right?”
    He hurried out. Clutching the envelope to his chest, he wondered just how much of the file Evan had read.

Chapter Six
    Dane didn’t look up from the article he was writing when Kon entered their suite. “How’s your patient this morning?”
    There wasn’t an answer. Dane glanced up in time to see Kon wander zombielike into the bedroom. “Kon?” He got up to follow. Kon sat stiffly on the edge of the bed, clutching a manila envelope. His unfocused gaze worried Dane. “Darling, what’s wrong? Did that woman do something to you?”
    “No. Evan did.”
    Dane had never gotten along with Evan for just that reason—the Chief Warden had a tendency to push Kon’s buttons and then claim he meant well. “What did he tell you?”
    “My father’s dead.”
    There wasn’t a lot Dane could say to that. Kon never offered information about his childhood or his father, and Dane had learned not to ask after realizing how quickly Kon diverted the conversation. He sat beside Kon, wishing he knew what to do. “I’m sorry.”
    “Nothing for you to be sorry about.” He didn’t speak for several long moments. “Evan got this file faxed over. You can read it if you want and see for yourself what a freak I am.”
    A quip about how freakish Kon was in bed passed through Dane’s mind, but now wasn’t the time. When his lover was in such a dark mood, even the most kindly meant words could set him off. “I don’t need to.”
    Kon shoved the envelope at him. “Read it.”
    Dane shoved it back. “This is your life. Not mine. I don’t think it’s right to know things about you before you do.”
    A long, pained sigh escaped from Kon. “I’ve wanted this file for twenty years. Now that I have it…”
    Dane sat beside him and wrapped his arms around Kon’s trembling shoulders. “We’ll look together, all right? If it’s too much, say so, and I’ll put it away.” He extracted the envelope from Kon’s frozen fingers and withdrew a pile of papers. The first few pages were pictures, most of which were labeled Viktor Jäger , Kon’s father. There were numerous photographs of Viktor. The first was of a serious, dark-haired boy, the second a man sharply dressed in the black uniform of a Nazi SS Officer, and the third a corpse of a man newly deceased, wizened and wispy-haired. Dane tried to cover it up, figuring it would be too much for Kon to see, but Kon calmly took it from him.
    “He’s really dead, isn’t he?” After studying the picture for a few moments, he sighed and returned it. “Every year I asked the Warden’s Council to tell me where he was. They refused. Bastards.”
    Dane didn’t care much for the Warden’s Council either. They were far too fond of making up rules and regulations and claiming they were for the good of the persons involved. “Will you tell me about him?” He didn’t have much hope Kon would talk, but to his surprise, Kon did.
    “He was brilliant. We’d talk for hours in two or three different languages. By the time I was fourteen, I was fluent in a half dozen and had the equivalent of a college education.” His voice was composed, but Dane knew it covered Kon’s shock. “He never stopped searching for a cure for the syndrome.”
    That part of Kon’s life had never been a secret. Everyone at the enclave knew how he’d been born a cambion, the result of his Nazi father’s experiment, and affected with a deadly syndrome in which, upon reaching puberty, his demon and human halves would fight to the death. His father had given him drugs to halt puberty, which had resulted in his androgynous appearance. Two other Wardens had managed to remove the demon and save his life, but Kon had been removed from his