Chapter Seventeen #2
“You weren’t exaggerating when you said ‘I fear.’ Don’t elaborate. It’s a yes or no.” A beat, amended with, “For now, don’t elaborate. I’ll tell you when I want you to, once we’re settled.”
The tip of Zyr’s tail caught at Robin’s fingertips, coiled between them. It might’ve been playful, if it weren’t for how much Zyr visibly struggled to focus on him and his instructions.
“No. I wasn’t exaggerating.” Nearby, lightning struck already blackened rocks, though the rain held off. “Though I suppose treason is a topic that invites hyperbole.”
Thirteen extra words. And no challenge to his tone. No curiosity or play.
“Yes or no, Zyr,” Robin repeated. He made sure to keep the blades tucked away, and his fingers on the tip of that tail light. “Yes or no, and one of my names if you need. Nothing else.”
Zyr’s tail tightened and eased around Robin’s wrist. His breathing deepened. Robin hadn’t realized it’d grown shallow.
“No, Raven-Robin,” he said, quiet, as thunder growled in the distance.
Robin nodded slowly, pushing his fingers down gently against Zyr’s tail in return for that squeeze. For his answer and attention.
“That was good,” he said, with another press, a roll of fingertips to smooth scales. “Thank you. Let’s get inside. We’ll talk wherever has the least breakable stuff.”
They ended up in Robin’s room. The only really breakable things he had were what he’d brought with him. There wasn’t much else. Just the furniture and the book Zyr had given him. Plus a stack of notebooks on the bookshelf, though only one had been used. The rest were backups.
Robin took out the Tupperware from his backpack, then dropped his bag on the armchair of his little living room section.
He didn’t hesitate to take up half of the most ridiculously comfortable couch in the world with a partial sprawl, small plastic tub in hand.
He gestured to the other half of the couch for Zyr.
The beithir’s gaze roved over the room with blatant curiosity, claws carefully trailing over the back of the couch before he settled. He sat on the far end, tail against his own leg for some stupid reason Robin didn’t know.
“Everil and I made lemon cupcakes. Jan loves them, and I figured with me peacing out for longer than expected, it couldn’t hurt.
” Robin offered him the Tupperware, staring expectantly until the man took it.
“Lemons aren’t the worst. I stray more toward stuff that cuts.
Chili powder and chocolate kind of things. ”
“Your family has a fondness for them. Lemons. Citrus.” Zyr studied the Tupperware with the same care Everil had the hand towel. “Faerie served lemon tarts when I spoke with the Solstice Kings. And candied grapefruit. Orange cake. I’ve not had cupcakes from the mortal world.”
“Everil and Bo each have a sweet tooth the size of Talia, and horses apparently go out of their mind for citrus.” Robin moved closer to Zyr, his jean clad knee pressed light to Zyr’s tail. “You open it with that clasp there. Don’t need to eat them now if you don’t want to.”
Zyr reached for him as soon as Robin made contact, tail coiling around his calf. That wasn’t half as distracting as the surprised smile from the beithir when he opened the container enough to see the baked goods.
“I’ll try one later,” Zyr assured, gently clipping the top back on. “I doubt I’d taste it, just now. I wasn’t expecting a gift. If I’d known, I’d have prepared one in kind.”
Corvids were rude birds that liked to share sparkly things with the people they liked. Zyr clearly hadn’t read enough stories about humans accidentally befriending a flock of crows on the internet. Robin took the Tupperware from him and put it on the table, nudging Zyr with his shoulder.
Better save the books he’d brought Zyr for later. Just in case he needed something to knock the guy out of a funk and horn grabbing didn’t do it.
“I don’t give things because I want something for it. What’s got you scared, Zyr? Let’s go high level answer. What’s up?”
“The head of my House has been killed. The next in line lead, Kesk and Veroni, head the most extreme faction of the seelie. They do not like me. I believe they intend damage to the veil, possibly with the aid of my missing texts.” Tense, yes, but delivered flat. Like he’d been practicing the words.
“That… shit, Zyr.” Robin let out a breath, shoving away the screaming Kesk and Veroni Kesk and Veroni Kesk and Veroni to the back of his mind. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
“In a manner of speaking.” And now, emotion leaked in. Wariness. Apology. “I have a request. I fear you’ll find it an overreach. And it is.”
A request. Right. Okay. “Only way to find out is to ask. Need to get married to save the farm?”
“No farm, no.” Zyr hesitated, then set his jaw. “I would like to request you consider me as a soulbond.”
Robin’s thoughts stumbled to a frozen halt as he stared at Zyr, scrambling to make sense.
Being around Zyr left him feeling plenty of things, up to and including wanting to lick him, but not the kind of drag Bo, Declan, or Antonio had described.
His skin didn’t sing with relief when they touched, and Zyr didn’t make him think of nature or plants.
Nothing out of the ordinary for an electrical snake-dragon, anyway.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, frowning at Zyr. “Considering we don’t have a weird soul-drag like I’ve heard about, yeah, I’d say it’s a reach.”
“It’s irritating. That ‘soul-drag thing.’ I dislike being drawn to strangers.
And since my bond died, some centuries back, I’ve had no desire to repeat the experience.
When needs must, I wear this,” Zyr lifted his hand, tapping the dark gray ring he always wore, “to keep my soul from wandering. As I’ve done with you. ”
It’d been awhile since Robin had been hurt by someone he trusted.
But not long enough that he didn’t know the feeling.
That heavy, hollowed out fist just behind the sternum, near the bottom of it, too high to twist the stomach.
How all of a sudden, his limbs went too light, and the world existed in a vacuum of confused, clawed out spirals of what do you mean?
Allowed Robin under his skin. To paw at his heart. Let Robin believe they were both aware of the how the scales balanced between them.
Kissed him and fucked him and shared quiet intimacies and jokes and days and all the while, Zyr knew, he knew, about a part of Robin’s makeup and kept it to himself.
Made the choice for him. Didn’t say. Didn’t tell.
Hadn’t thought Robin had known, didn’t show a single flicker of surprise at Robin’s confusion.
Nervous. Tense. Apprehensive.
But not surprised.
What other vulnerable spots did he know about Robin that Robin himself wasn’t aware of?
Robin’s stomach twisted, sick and slick, his fingers cold.
“Why now?” Even words. Calm tone. Not the tangled storm of his thoughts.
“Why not when I came over that first time, or spilled my guts about my own shit? Or before we fucked? Or after?” An edge, there, but that happened.
He just needed to keep his eyes on Zyr. Not let his mouth run.
“I want to know what changed your mind.”
Years of defense mechanisms, right there. No hyperventilating once he stopped talking. Not even a raised voice.
Being fucked up came in handy, sometimes.
“It wasn’t relevant,” Zyr’s tone made it almost, but not quite, a question of his own.
“To your visit or your past or sex. And, before I knew you better, I thought it might cross the line into coercion. A soulbond in exchange for your company.” He frowned as he spoke, brow furrowed.
Looked confused more than anything. “As to why now, Faerie is about to become exceedingly dangerous for humans. There is very little I wouldn’t ask, or do, to ensure your safety.
Access to my magic would grant you considerable protection.
And I would know if you needed me.” He ran his finger over the ring again.
“I don’t understand why you’re displeased.
I thought you would be, over my asking, but not over the possibility itself. ”
Robin’s whole chest hurt by the end. His eyes, too, staring too long and hard at the man he’d gotten too attached to, like a trusting idiot, who looked at him as if Robin were the one springing shit on him.
“It wasn’t relevant,” he said flatly, and laughed, sharp, found himself somehow pressed to the opposite end of the couch, an instinctive, quick push away, his fingers clutched at the back of the couch, other to its arm.
“What part of knowing more about my soul than I do and not telling me isn’t relevant?
After— Fuck, and here I was, thinking we were being open with each other.
But, no, there’s this fucking card and you holding it to your chest and… Fuck.”
His voice broke. Robin needed it not to break. That meant hurt. He needed anger, and it was there, somewhere, but it was the betrayal that made the embers harsh.
(Robin needed to take a breath. He needed to step away and remember his knee jerk reactions weren’t always the right ones. Too immediate, and this was when I need a minute to process should be said, but this was too much, too sudden, too close, and the hurt choked all logic out of him.)
“I…” Zyr trailed off, frozen on his side of the couch. “I’ve been open with you in every way that I understood it to matter. I’m sorry. I misjudged in this.”
He took off the ring and let it fall to the couch between them. Immediately, Robin felt a wave of storm clouds and flooded libraries, only sodden, smudged paper left.
“No shit.” Broken, again, but torn, not cracked. Rough.
Storm winds and bright, shocking cracks across the sky, all abruptly gone as Robin snatched the ring and jammed the damn thing onto his thumb.
(He imagined a square, tried to trace the lines of it, needed to breathe.)