Other than flying like a wild man, Liam couldn't think of what he'd done to so piss Talon off. This total avoidance was getting to be a bit much. It was past time to make Talon face him and talk to him. This sulk wasn't getting anything done.

Liam arrived back the Star Saber. This time Talon's sleeping compartment was unlocked, but Talon was not in it. His Star Dart was still docked to the Saber, so Talon had to be here.

The door to the bath was shut. Liam made it a practice to wait for someone to get out of a bath before starting a conversation, but he sensed that Talon was really, really ill.

He knocked. There was no answer.

"Talon?" he called through the door.

Still no answer sounded from the other side.

Liam tried the door. It was locked. Liam punched it, then took a step back.

"Okay," he said. "Knock once if you're unconscious. Knock twice to say 'Liam, fuck off.'"

A double knock sounded from the other side.

Liam wished Talon would have added some insult regarding Liam's proposal that Talon knock once if he was unconscious. But there was just the double knock and nothing more.

Okay, he's alive.

Liam turned away.

Liam could not say what he was feeling, sensing, picking up out of the air. This was way beyond a sulk. Something was dead wrong.

He spun round and took his big booted foot to the door. It caved in under his hammer kick.

Liam's unwilling mind took in the whole unreal scene before his eyes in an extended instant, trying to make sense of it, not believing it.

Talon.

Naked. Kneeling on the tiled floor in a ritual warrior posture.

His hard buttocks rested back on his heels. His shoulders were squared wide. His glossy dark hair was drawn back severely off his face with a cord, the tail hanging down his broad back. His head was bowed like a stallion. He did not look up, pretending Liam did not exist.

His muscles stood out, powerfully defined under his sleek red-bronze skin gleaming with moisture. The gold and blue colors in his tattoos appeared radiant through the sweat sheen. His cock was hard as bronze, long, elegant, upright, smooth. The pattern of his tattoo extended all the way down to his groin and up one side of his cock. Liam would have laughed at that except he was rapidly mounting into a fighting panic. This scene was wrong and deadly.

The strong tendons stood out in Talon's neck. The ruby on his black choker moved with the pulse in his throat. His boulder-hard biceps still bore the black ribbon tied round it.

Smells of incense wafted in the bath chamber--myrrh and a dark woods spice something like cedar and patchouli. There was a white alabaster bowl of water set on the floor before Talon's knees and a dagger in front of that, laid crosswise. A beeswax candle burned. This was the stuff of rituals across many worlds.

And there was Talon, an amazing beautiful, artistic, tormented figure. A shiver passed through Talon's whole taut frame as if he was in great pain. His Adam's apple moved up and down the stately column of his throat with a dry swallow. His voice came out a harsh command without his looking up. "Leave."