John Wiltshire - [More Heat Than the Sun 07] Read online

  Table of Contents

  Enduring Night

  Blurb

  Copyright Acknowledgement

  What is dying?

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  About the Author

  Trademarks Acknowledgment

  MLR PRESS AUTHORS

  GLBT RESOURCES

  ENDURING NIGHT

  More Heat Than the Sun Book 7

  JOHN WILTSHIRE

  mlrpress

  www.mlrpress.com

  You’d have thought that Ben and Nikolas would have learnt that their romantic holidays inevitably end up as disasters. A short break on the polar ice sees them trapped in a nightmare of murder and deceit. Neither of them, however, foresees the long-term impact that endless winter has on their relationship. They return with a metaphorical darkness that threatens everything they have created together. Desperate and fearing for Nikolas’s life, Ben makes a bargain with a surprising ally. For the first time, Nikolas meets an enemy more powerful than he is. But fortunately, not as sneaky…

  Copyright Acknowledgement

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2015 by John Wiltshire

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Published by

  MLR Press, LLC

  3052 Gaines Waterport Rd.

  Albion, NY 14411

  Visit ManLoveRomance Press, LLC on the Internet:

  www.mlrpress.com

  Cover Art by Deana Jamroz

  Editing by Christie Nelson

  ebook format

  Issued 2015

  This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher.

  What is dying?

  A ship sails and I stand watching

  till she fades on the horizon,

  and someone at my side

  says, “She is gone”.

  Gone where? Gone from my sight,

  that is all; she is just as

  large as when I saw her...

  the diminished size and total

  loss of sight is in me, not in her,

  and just at the moment

  when someone at my side

  says “she is gone”, there are others

  who are watching her coming,

  and other voices take up the glad shout,

  “there she comes!” ...and that is dying.

  Bishop Charles Henry Brent

  PROLOGUE

  The view from the window hadn’t changed since the last time Ben had studied it—one grey, depressing wing of the building, the car park below, and some scraggly trees, still bare in January. Farther away, he could see the roofs of some houses, and perhaps, if he let his imagination run away with it, the distant hills of Bodmin moor. He didn’t speculate much in the realms of fiction these days though. He brought his gaze back to the utilitarian architecture.

  The seagull was back, perched on the sill, as it had been day after day. Sometimes, it tapped the window with its beak. Ben was never sure if the gull wanted in, or for him to open the window and join it outside, flying or falling. Freedom either way.

  Secretly, Ben thought the gull was an albatross. It was so vast, so impressive, that it seemed inconceivable it could be an ordinary gull blown in from Plymouth Sound and sitting on the grimy ledge. The first albatross perhaps to make it to England, tossed on ocean currents all the way from the Chatham Islands, lost, alone. If it was, then it was in good company. Ben had never felt so lost or so alone, and he had spent a fair proportion of his life being buffeted by metaphorical winds far stronger than those that prowled the vast oceans of the world.

  The wind ruffled one immaculate white feather, and an immediate adjustment was made, beak ferreting and smoothing, replacing and realigning. Then the beady eyes fixed back upon Ben. One sharp tap on the glass.

  Ben peered down at the drop below the window. He was four storeys up with unforgiving concrete beneath. He shook his head at the gull. He wasn’t ready to join it quite yet. One day perhaps.

  There was a sound from the bed behind him, but Ben didn’t turn with eyes wide with expectation. He’d done that for the first few days. The noises had never meant what he’d thought, and so disappointment had gradually crushed bright hope. Now, he heard every small shift or exhale, but stored the knowledge away, staying unresponsive.

  Unresponsive. That’s what Nikolas had been when he’d laid him gently down on the floor in the little medical centre.

  Of course, it’s difficult to be responsive when you’re dead.

  The gull gave him one last, baleful glare and then just tipped away from the glass, launching itself into the cold air currents, wings unfurling, catching and lifting. A little bit of Ben’s heart went with it. It did every day he watched the same display of effortless escape. It wasn’t that he thought about doing so himself. He had tried that once in Denmark and had failed. It was more that he wondered if the bird took something else away with it when it flew so fluently into the air. For if Nikolas had once fallen from heaven, as Ben had accused him of once or twice in private moments, then wasn’t it equally possible that he could one day rise again? Ben had no doubt that if souls did ascend, then Nikolas’s would be riding thermals, fast and furious, just as he’d ridden pathways on solid ground. But no soul as big and as powerful as Nikolas Mikkelsen’s could rise in a single moment of graceful beauty. No, it would ease away day-by-day, small flutters upon the currents of the earth until it was entirely free.

  So Ben watched the gull rise over the roof of the grey hospital and wondered if a tiny slice of Nikolas was leaving with it, borne aloft upon those perfect white wings.

  He turned away from the view and sat once more in the armchair alongside the bed.

  He took the unresponsive hand in his and lowered his head.

  Once more, he repeated his promise.

  Then he waited for a sign, which, so far, had been noticeable by its absence.

  CHAPTER ONE

  It had been an almost perfect Christmas. No one had been murdered. No one kidnapped. No torturing had been necessary. They had celebrated together in the big glass house in Devon. It was fortunate it was spacious. They had an extensive family now, lots of guests—Babushka and Emilia, Miles and Enid Toogood, Squeezy, Tim, Jennifer and Reginald Armstrong and, of course, their daughter, Molly Rose Rider-Mikkelsen.

  Perfection didn�
��t necessarily mean peaceful, however. As Ben had pointed out to Nikolas one night, when they’d lain too exhausted to do much more than gaze at cold stars through the glass ceiling of their room, Christmas was supposed to be chaotic, exhausting, fuelled by family disagreements and too much food. They were too eclectic a bunch to glide through the holiday like a fictional family on pleasantries and goodwill, but their arguments were robust and carried on good-naturedly enough.

  In contrast to their first Christmas together, when neither had mentioned the day nor changed their routines in any way, both he and Nikolas agreed this was…better.

  They welcomed the noise in some ways. There were too many silences that needed to be filled. Ben heard them in Nikolas’s head—the spaces of cold terror that could not be eased, even by his unfailing love and attention. But he knew he was the source of some of Nikolas’s pain as well. Nikolas shouldered the weight of the world and resented anyone else sharing his burdens. Ben had not only shared them, he’d taken them on and destroyed them. Ben knew Nikolas was still skirting around the discovery that he had not known him as well as he’d thought.

  So it was with some genuine pleasure that when Ben opened his Christmas present from Peter Cameron, thinking it might be tickets to the director’s latest movie—a film which, as he’d written to Ben, had more explosions than dialogue, especially for him—it turned out to be a holiday. Ben couldn’t remember the last time it had been just him and Nikolas. Time to reassess, perhaps, reacquaint themselves with who they were.

  He’d actually forgotten to open the envelope during the loud, messy exploration of presents earlier. It had almost been cast aside with some other cards. But now, lying on his back next to Nikolas, contemplating the stars, he saw it on the bedside table.

  Nikolas turned his head, watching him unstick the flap. When Ben huffed in pleased surprise at the contents, Nik plucked the letter away from him. He couldn’t read it without his glasses, and definitely not in the low light, so he handed it back as Ben asked, “Where’s Jasper Bay?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Peter’s bought me a holiday in somewhere called Jasper Bay. An arctic experience.”

  He felt Nikolas shudder theatrically.

  “Jasper Bay?”

  “It sounds familiar but I do not recollect from where. Does he not say?”

  Ben sat up so he could read better, his strong, powerful muscles stark in the starlight. Nikolas placed a hand on him, moving it slowly up and down Ben’s spine.

  “Svalbard.”

  “What!” Nikolas sat up and took the letter again, as if he could see the offending name.

  “Where’s Svalbard?”

  “Somewhere we’re not going.”

  Ben retrieved the letter and stowed it for safety in the drawer next to the bed. He eased over Nikolas, propped up on one elbow, considering him. He snorted.

  “What?”

  “Very blond for midwinter.”

  Nikolas shoved him off. “Give the holiday to your moronic friends. I think they would appreciate it.”

  Ben chuckled, thinking about Tim and Squeezy. They had entered a new phase of their relationship—Tim’s words. Squeezy had privately confided to Ben he was banned from shagging away from home. The jury was still out, he moaned, on whether this meant he could bring people back to shag. Tim said they might commit. Squeezy said he might go back to women—they were less clingy and nagged less, in his vast experience. Ben listened to their various complaints, occasionally relaying salient points to Nikolas.

  It would be a good idea for his friends to have a holiday together.

  The more he thought about it, the more he could see the advantages of being shut up in a luxury hotel, surrounded by snow, with nothing to do but have sex. And eat…

  Bugger Squeezy and Tim.

  Not literally, of course.

  That was reserved for Nikolas.

  §§§

  The next morning, Ben discovered Nikolas at the breakfast table with Molly Rose. Nikolas was studying Peter’s letter. Molly was reading a thick biography in Danish, which Peter had given Ben earlier that year. Ben frowned and took it off her then gave her back her small cloth book, which she immediately stuffed in her mouth. Nikolas only commented, “She was enjoying that.”

  Ben glanced at the book, which he had yet to even open. He’d been a little busy since Peter had given it to him. But they didn’t talk much about that. “Enduring Night?”

  Nikolas shrugged. “Eclectic tastes in literature. Unlike her father. It is a very interesting book.”

  Nikolas read a great deal more than Ben did, and quickly, consuming words as avidly as Ben demolished food. But Ben had forgotten Nikolas had read his book from Peter and felt guilty he hadn’t made a similar effort.

  The kitchen would soon be full of hungry people demanding a traditional Boxing Day breakfast, so he put on a pan and filled it with sausages, cracking eggs into a bowl with his free hand. As he cooked, he scanned the first few pages, glad his Danish was still good enough.

  The story appeared to be set on Svalbard—the tribulations of a Danish polar explorer who had experienced the isolation, the terror, of being abandoned by his companions on the coast of that remote place.

  Nikolas was giving him amused consideration and said wryly in Danish, “I think Peter has decided his next film project.”

  “A movie of this book?”

  “And guess who he wants to play the doomed Danish explorer?”

  “You?” Ben couldn’t decide whether he was impressed or dismayed by this possibility. Nikolas rolled his eyes, and Ben then got it. “Me? But I’m not…Danish.”

  Nikolas chuckled. “I was worrying more about your woeful acting ability.”

  “I’m not that bad.” He held Nikolas’s gaze, and knew Nikolas got exactly what he meant. When it suited him, Ben could act very well indeed.

  He brought the sausages over to the table, separating out a fair few to cool for Radulf before the vultures arrived and fell on them.

  Nikolas took the book off him. “I remembered this morning where I had heard of Jasper Bay. The similarities are too much of a coincidence, no? I wonder what his next tactic will be.”

  “You’re being ridiculous. He gives me a book, then sees a holiday in the same place—a coincidence—and thinks about me again. That’s all this is. It’s your phobia about me becoming a Hollywood star that’s putting two and two together and making five.”

  There was some justification for Nikolas being slightly wary of Ben’s fame, but also some truth to Ben’s assertion that he was being ridiculous. Nikolas’s recent, largest, acquisition ensured Ben mostly stayed anonymous. Peyton Garic ran benrider.com. It had been Peyton’s idea. He controlled access to any information on Ben whilst at the same time using his more unique and unethical skills to subvert anything Nikolas didn’t want coming out or being available for too long on other sites.

  Nikolas was saved from making a reply and pointing any of this out, however, as Emilia and Miles came in from the grounds, stamping snow off their boots. They’d been to see to Mr Darcy, Emilia’s horse. Nikolas employed a fulltime groom for his horses, who lived in nearby Ashburton, but during the holidays Emilia took care of her own animal and she was, apparently, training Miles.

  Miles had yet to see the point of horses, claiming they were extremely dangerous, even to superheroes, but he liked studying things and had become something of a theoretical expert on the creatures. Although he had yet to ride one, he could knowledgeably discuss their most likely injuries and illnesses. Now, however, he was eyeing the sausages with something akin to grief. Miles channelled his inner Nikolas at all times, but at mealtimes he found this particularly stressful.

  Ben heard a faint, annoyed, yet at the same time resigned and amused huff from Nikolas as he helped himself to some of the cooling sausages. Sometimes Ben loved Nikolas so much it was a wonder he didn’t tell him more.

  With this tacit permission, Miles now happily joined Emilia in demolishin
g the rest of the English breakfast, so with a sound very similar to the one Nikolas had just made, Ben rose to make another batch for the lazier adults who were yet to join them.

  He liked cooking.

  He’d recently questioned this hobby, wondering if it…unmanned him somehow. After recent events in a redbrick house in London, he’d decided there was nothing much going to do that, and if it did, no one would dare call him on it anyway. Besides, sometimes Ben reckoned that if he didn’t cook, Nikolas wouldn’t ever eat. He only seemed to now because he liked the whole process of observing Ben, being his taster, and making irritating assessments on things Ben suspected he knew nothing about.

  Perhaps, Ben reflected in quiet moments, watching Nikolas trying the things he’d cooked, he’d only adopted this new hobby because he wanted, needed, to feed Nikolas. In even more private thoughts, Ben wondered what would happen to Nikolas if something ever happened to him…Who would feed him then? Dear God, was he mothering Nikolas Mikkelsen? But if he was, then maybe it was the first time Nikolas had enjoyed that kind of care. Despite Ben’s occasional gentle suggestion that Nina had not killed herself, that some more sinister fate had befallen her, Nikolas seemed sanguine about his belief in her suicide. This spoke volumes to Ben. Although he had not voiced this opinion to Nikolas, for obvious reasons, it seemed to him that there was a great deal more to Nikolas’s experiences with his mother than he had ever related. Ben could only imagine what a ten-year-old boy had witnessed that would lead the adult man to so calmly accept that his mother had made the ultimate statement about his worth to her.

  Ben shook himself from the unpleasant introspection and glanced at the table.

  Miles was now studying Ben’s letter as he ate. “Did you know—?”

  At Ben’s faint groan, Miles stopped and turned. Ben regrouped and smiled. “What? Did I know what? Bet I did.”

  “That a polar bear’s fur isn’t white at all—it’s transparent.”

  Ben frowned. “No, it’s not. It’s white.” He glanced to Nikolas for support, but as with all his conversations with Miles, Nikolas was conveniently busy doing something else. He was smirking though.