Chapter Twenty-Nine
Robin
“That didn’t suck as much as I thought it would,” Robin said, as the front door of the allotment closed behind them. He dropped his bag to the floor. “But it wasn’t how I was hoping to introduce you to Jan. A little too much sacrificial murder.”
“I’m certain we can arrange some lesser emergency for our next meeting,” Zyr answered. Humor that almost wasn’t, bittersweet and smooth. “Standard murder, perhaps. That’s common enough.”
Robin laughed, sharp as ever, made for meat, and being bonded to a funny beithir wouldn’t make him any less so.
Not even if he was soft for Zyr a little, holding out his hand to the dragon in wordless offer.
The relief of cool scales around his wrist chased away the memories of the palace.
The scent of blood and death. The sound of the murdertwins working, meaty cracks and childlike laughter.
“That’s one idea, yeah.” Robin leaned into Zyr, feeling the distant crackle of his unease. “I’ll think of some backup possibilities tomorrow.”
Zyr leaned back, his tail twitching against Robin’s wrist. (There was so much of him.) Neither of them spoke for awhile. But Robin didn’t have to wonder if Zyr’d gone wandering, not when he could feel his attention, like a notebook open to a blank page.
“I’m glad to be home, Treasure. I didn’t think I would see it again.” Zyr murmured. “I…”
Another silence. Heavier. Images of charred paper, crumbling under a bolt from the sky, and fires set to linen drapes shivered through Robin’s mind.
“What is it?” he asked. “There’s something.”
“I’m unsure what you know of bonds.” Zyr fixed his gaze on his tail, where it wrapped around Robin’s wrist. “It’s important that you understand that, should you wish to unknot the tie between us, it can be done.”
Blunt as Zyr could be, he still had that fae habit of talking sideways. Fae lied all the time, even if it wasn’t with words.
“This isn’t really a standing up conversation,” Robin said. There were chairs just there. “Let go. I want to sit.”
“Of course.”
Robin’s favorite armchair was the one that Zyr hadn’t torn the armrests off of. Well, hadn’t yet. He settled in it and propped his elbow on one of the still-intact armrests, knuckles to his cheek.
Zyr stayed standing, hovering in his own living room like an unwelcome guest.
“Raven-Robin. I’m unaccustomed…” His gaze shifted from Robin to the couch to the floor, then back to Robin. “This is difficult.”
Now wasn’t the time to push for a proper ask. Not with his mind full of burning paper and Zyr’s attention returning again and again to Robin, like a compass seeking north.
Should you wish to unknot the tie between us.
“Show me where you want to be, beithir.”
He felt Zyr’s relief like leather spines under trailing fingertips, searching for the perfect read as the thunder rumbled distantly outside.
The beithir knelt on the floor at Robin’s feet. Looking up now, instead of down, his eyes flashing with lightning. Hope, Robin learned, tasted like the first bite into spiced chocolate, a threat of burning through rich sweetness.
Zyr twined his tail around his ankle. Clingy. One of those things Robin usually hated, but had found only comfort in, with Zyr. Contact without pressure. That consistent I’m with you.
“Here,” Zyr said, in his low rumble. “This is where I wish to be.”
Robin wrapped his fingers around Zyr’s horns, pulling him in to where he needed to be. That awareness sparked again, the purr of yes, this. New and right, once he had Zyr’s cheek to the inside of his thigh, head tilted up, watching Robin with that lightning-laced hope.
“This is where I wish you to be, too,” Robin said, thumb running over the bright ridges of his horn. “Respected. Intimate.”
“Valued,” Zyr answered, emotion for emotion. “Hopeful.”
Yeah. That fit. Robin did value him. It was what made this whole thing so difficult.
He watched Zyr’s eyes and felt the electric snap of his hope. The smooth chocolate of valued. Valued, there, kneeling for Robin, tucked close enough to press cheek to thigh. Warm and familiar.
“I don’t want to ‘unknot’ anything.” Simple seemed like a good place to start. “You’re mine.”
Unless that had changed. But, no. Robin could feel that it hadn’t. And Zyr was at his feet, where he’d wanted to be.
“I would be yours, regardless. Bonded or no. I cannot be stopped from loving you, Treasure. That’s my choice alone, and I have made it.”
Loving you.
Until Zyr, only Bo and Jan had ever told him they loved him without Robin feeling sick. It still made his stomach twist, but not so much he couldn’t handle it.
Zyr loved him, but he had liked him first. Treasured him because of it. Break the bond, and Zyr would still like him. Still love him.
There was safety in that. Power, something that could be abused, but Zyr hadn’t let him overstep. Wouldn’t give Robin everything. There were always boundaries.
Robin would have loved him for that alone, eventually.
“You terrify me, beithir,” he said, all sweet nothings. “Most people get attached, I cut and run. With you, I start to think getting out, and instead, I go looking for a book I think you might like or rope to match your scales. I ask my brother about bonds. Try to figure out how to get more time.”
“We have time, now.” Zyr sighed, his eyes ghosting briefly shut. “If I have a fear in this, it’s the granting of years you didn’t ask for. Survival changes you. Time isn’t a gift, nor a curse. It simply is.”
Robin stroked Zyr’s horn, back and forth. Zyr’s breath caught, shivering, and Robin loved him so much it fucking hurt.
“It’s not ‘forever.’ We have a time limit.
You’re not immortal anymore. And I stopped wanting to die ages ago.
” Therapy. Medication. Working on himself.
“My fear is one day my medication will stop working, with nothing to replace it. And I didn’t ask for anything.
” Robin trailed a finger along the angle of Zyr’s cheek, rough and warm instead of the cool and smooth of his horn. “You offered. I took you up on it.”
Zyr trembled, the purr of the bond growing to a rumble of thunder between them.
“You did, clever bird. Bent Faerie itself with your reason,” Zyr said, with open admiration and pleasure. “As to your medicine, the danger exists as it always has. And while humanity’s path is wending, it is generally forward. There will be new medicines, and likely better ones.”
“You’re my favorite person, Dhanra.” Robin pressed his thumb against the dip of Zyr’s lower lip. “Even when I’m in the middle of a panic attack and don’t want you to talk or touch me. Feeling your emotions throws me off, some. But not so I want it to stop.”
“It becomes less strange, with time. Like a book read and reread. The words never lose their beauty, but the tension eases.” Zyr leaned into Robin’s touch, as his tail curled under the cuff of Robin’s jeans, seeking skin. “You’re my favorite person, as well.”
If there were ever a time to put his cards on the table, this was it. Robin itched to reach for the vastness of Zyr, for the lightning that threatened to overwhelm him. As nerve wracking as the thought was, Robin wanted to push it that much further.
Anything worth doing probably came with a panic attack, at least the first time.
“I don’t want to break the bond.” Robin pressed his leg toward Zyr’s tail, both hands once again on Zyr’s horns. Parted his knees so he could drag him in. And, maybe, Robin’s hands shook a little. He was allowed. “I want you, Dhanra. My beithir. Tell me if you understand.”
“I understand.” Zyr’s voice was rough with wonder. No. More than that. Awe. “I am yours, as I have been. The bond doesn’t change that.”
Electric want, and that Robin understood. But with it, the image of fluttering pages endlessly turning in a sharp sea breeze. Pages stained with ink. With blood.
“Whatever you’re thinking you might want to say, Dhanra, say it.” Robin squeezed, for his pleasure as much as anything. “I want to know what you’re thinking.”
“I keep seeing it.” Zyr swallowed, his breathing gone unsteady and tail that much tighter.
“White marble and sunflowers. Treating a sacred rite like shame to be hidden beneath silk and fine perfume. I don’t wish to be in that room, anymore.
Would you bring me back to myself, Raven-Robin? Sacred Dark.”
Robin dragged him in, kissed him with a pull of horns and a lean, for that slow, purposeful claiming that tasted like quiet, comfortable afternoons and hurricanes.
His beithir, asking to be returned to himself. To be taken from the stark white, sanitized nightmare the now-Monarchs made. Trusting Robin to care for him, to create a space where Zyr could be present.
Sea salt and spiced chocolate. Soft pages protected by sun-warmed cloth. Destruction on the horizon, the flash of lightning, and the bite of morning heat on the tongue.
“I like how you asked, the way only you do,” Robin said, surprised by the roughness already in his own voice.
The bond sparked with strange intensity, bright and sharp and perfect in a way that was theirs.
“Close your eyes. Tell me how far into that sacred dark you’re willing to go, Dhanra.
I can go so far as to leave you a pretty beithir with only his tail free. ”
Robin bit Zyr’s lower lip, gentle, then less so. Kissed it better, after. “Beautiful no matter what. Tell me.”
Zyr shuddered, sucking at his lip, like he could taste Robin’s kiss still. Robin waited, patient, smiling a little.
“As far as there is, Raven-Robin. Please.”
Every touch crackled. Every emotion echoed. The bond craved contact and time simply was.
Not a curse, nor a blessing. It just was.
Zyr, though. Zyr was a wonder. Large and strong and eager to whimper, to shake. Asking for it. Saying please.
“Bedroom,” Robin murmured, lips brushing over Zyr’s. “We’re going to count.”