Chapter Six #2
Stop it. Not the time. Not the tone, for all that Declan knew he focused too much on the sight of Antonio. On how he moved.
“Fine.” Antonio shifted in place, clearly uneasy. “I wasn’t– I should go change.”
No, please, you’re grand just as you are.
Declan kept that to himself.
“If that’s what you wish.”
But Antonio didn’t move, and Declan, helpless, took a half step closer. Antonio’s hand started to lift, then fell back to his side, dropping with his gaze.
“Can we…” Antonio’s words held every bit of that empty, urgent hunger that Declan felt in kind. “Look, I know I sound out of my head, but I need to touch you. Now. If, I mean, Jesus–”
Antonio had enough time to invoke his deity before Declan, patient, measured Declan, stepped in. One hand found Antonio’s, the other rested on the firm plane of the human’s chest. He all but fell into Antonio’s embrace, into that shock of relief and heat.
So much heat. Antonio’s blazing hand curled around the sharp jut of Declan’s hip, dragged him in closer.
Declan heard himself make a low, soft sound, as he pushed Antonio against the bottom rail of the banister even as he guided the man’s other hand up, under the hem of his shirt.
Didn’t stop until Antonio’s palm was pressed to his skin, his waist.
“Not out of your head.” Declan’s hand found the back of Antonio’s neck, the short, fine hairs soft, up on his toes to reach all of him. Bare skin against skin and skin and skin. “Been like ants all morning.”
Lost to it then, both of them. Antonio slipped his hand under Declan’s shirt to stroke the curve of his ribs and line of his spine.
Buried his face in the curve of Declan’s neck and inhaled, dragged him in closer.
Declan shuddered in relief, near choked on it, that lack of clawing emptiness he’d felt since he woke.
“Is touching you supposed to feel like taking a hit?” Antonio murmured the words against Declan’s neck, his breath and lips soft.
A bit like ecstasy, liquid and euphoric. Declan wanted to touch and touch, hand palming the back of Antonio’s head, keeping him tucked in against his neck. The man felt so bloody good, the weight of him along Declan’s body, pressed and held against the stairs.
He could pretend, for a moment, that there were reasons outside of their bond driving Antonio’s seeking exploration. Fae lied to themselves all the time.
“A post-pit hit.” Tempted by bare skin, and Declan weak, he, too, responded with lips to flesh. Firm, under the touch of unglamoured teeth, dimpled from fangs without breaking. No mark left. “Someone always shirtless and pinned. Shoes lost. Slams like a freighter.”
Usually, it ended with someone getting fucked to the ring of metal in the walls, lost to the beat of music and hands and heat into heat. Antonio probably knew that bit already.
“Something like that.” Antonio laughed, near soundless, pleased.
Just breath against Declan’s neck. That was all. That, and hands over skin. Hips pressed to hips, cocks hard, thighs trembling.
Just that.
“Hangover’s shit, though,” Declan mumbled, just for something to say.
It’d be nothing to sink into that shared bright want. So new. Intoxicating. Declan focused, instead, on Antonio's quiet laughter. It was a good sound. Hearing it had him smiling, satisfied, the way Antonio felt satisfied when Declan leaned into his touch.
Declan nuzzled against his shoulder, breathing Antonio in as surely as the man had him. Took what he could while he was still permitted. Before the high wore off.
Copper and rust and teeth buried into something to keep from making noise. The day dry and hot with no need for shirts.
“Do you, uh, mind taking your glamour off your hands?” Antonio asked as Declan stroked his neck and shoulder. “It’s like pins and needles. Never had a problem with nails.”
“Like this?” Declan dropped the glamour, quelling the flurry of anxious what and why in favor of dancing the tips of his claws along the back of Antonio’s neck.
“Yeah. That’s– That’s fucking incredible, actually.” Antonio's breath caught on the words, and Declan’d be lying if he said he didn’t like the sound.
Declan grinned. He didn’t even put the teeth away, just leaned into that ridiculously comfortable chest, Antonio’s face tucked against him, all of it right and good and settled, even if he refused to grind against the man.
“You may not think so if I weren’t a fan of cutting them.”
“You cut them?”
“Oh, aye. Proper raptor claws. Wickedly curved, razor sharp. Six inches, uncut.”
Antonio snickered, and, voids, the feel of his amusement mixed with the drag of his fingers over Declan’s spine nearly broke him. “How does anyone get anything done like this?”
“At a guess? They don’t spend near twelve hours apart from their bond of less than sixteen.
” Declan’s traitorous body curled closer, his jeans doing little to conceal his reaction.
Antonio’s gym shorts certainly didn’t. Not then, and not when Declan tangled his fingers in Antonio’s hair and tugged at some of his curls.
Tugged again. Each answered with an eager twitch of the man’s cock and another hitching breath.
“I’ll be the first to admit I’d rather not try the twelve-hour separation again for at least a couple days. To see if it settles.”
“I could bunk with you for a bit?” Antonio offered. A note of pleading in his voice. A flicker of dread in the bond. “On a cot or something, I mean.”
“I would like that,” Declan agreed, propping his chin on Antonio’s shoulder, eyes closed. Every bond needed to touch. It wasn’t true interest. Declan wouldn’t take advantage. “Stars and pitch, if the best Faerie can muster is a cot, we’ve bigger problems than the Council.”
They’d have a world collapsing around them, was what they’d have. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. There were other things to worry about, such as the rising sound of conversation nearby. Aisling and two others. Her business, no doubt.
Declan, grumbling, started to pull back from Antonio enough to not be grinding on the man in the presence of his mother, not to mention whatever fae she decided to allow in the library.
“Mother has visitors, it seems. Prepare to hear me called ridiculous things.”
The voices stopped abruptly, as did the footsteps.
“Good afternoon, boys,” said Aisling, her voice faint.
A soft, whispering giggle, unwantedly familiar, followed her words. Nae. That meant–
“How sweet,” Tsuri said, their voice liquid and musical. “But perhaps we shouldn’t interrupt.”
Nae and Tsuri. And Aisling–
Antonio froze, bloody near shook. Panic crashed through their bond, scraped raw and bitter. Curdled, twisting, iced-over terror.
He was to protect Antonio. That was the deal. It was what Declan wanted to do. Allowing him to be damaged again through his fear was harm, too.
“You’re safe,” Declan whispered, voice gone quiet, near silent. His arms tightened on Antonio, unwilling to release him just yet. Not when the man breathed easier when held close. “I swore it. I swear it again. On my name, Antonio.”
Antonio didn’t respond. Not verbally. Just a small, tight nod. And he breathed, finally, if a bit unsteady.
“Has he ever brought one home before?” Nae asked, presumably to Aisling.
For the love of– No. No.
“Tsuri,” Declan said, calm as he could make himself, which was very calm indeed. “Nae. What a surprise. Mother didn’t say you were the business she had this afternoon.”
“Nae’s been scheming. The minx. And I snuck along.
” Tsuri had always had the most beautiful voice.
When it curled with fondness, as it did when they spoke of Nae, even more so.
Something sickly twisted through the bond, risked taking root.
“Introduce your human? He’s lovely. Just in time for Yenah and Charil’s biannual too, you’ll start a fad. ”
As far as the first of those in Declan’s sphere to meet Antonio went, Tsuri and Nae were among the better options.
If nothing else, Tsuri had been pleased at the idea of bonding Declan, before their family interfered and paired them with Nae.
And Declan had long suspected Nae of being a touch more radical than Tsuri’s Monarch cousins would approve of.
Her friendship with Hyacinth, Tsuri’s non-monarch cousin, spoke to that.
All that did nothing to quiet Declan’s irritation at Tsuri’s words, nor at Nae’s answering, “Especially with those tattoos. You don’t see those here.”
Supportive in the way of their kind. It rankled. Had Everil felt the same cold, violent anger in those first days, when people talked around Bo? Declan imagined he must have.
“I’m fine,” Antonio said, as he pulled his hands from under Declan’s shirt, leaving only a pathetic yearning in their wake. “Can wait in the room while you catch up with your friends.”
“Freedom of movement between realms and within them,” Declan reminded him, equally quiet. Leather, there at his fingertips, offered from the hide of a rabbit cornered, with only the rock to hide behind and a hard place at its back. “With status no lesser than my own.”
Reluctantly, Declan turned to face the three fae.
Aisling, her huge dark eyes carefully neutral, watching the whole scene play out. Nearly human to look at, if not for the split of her too-wide mouth on that plump cheeked face and her deep-set black eyes taking up the majority of the rest.
Tsuri, a riot of brilliant, iridescent feathers all down their arms and mixed with their dark hair, their wings curled comfortably around their waist like a feathered, rainbow skirt, setting off the sheen of their pearlescent skin. Most fae had their wings near the shoulders. Not kinnara.
And Nae, dryad. Patterned dark brown skin and red-gold-brown leaves that tumbled like curls down her shoulders and back set her off finely against Tsuri. As tall as her bond, and soft where they were lean.