Chapter Six #3
Both of them smiled. Nae’s curled to further amusement with Declan’s quick glamour of extra fabric for Antonio’s briefs, giving it the appearance of Faerie-weave, more billowing.
More privacy, for all that Antonio couldn’t see it.
Though he’d felt it, judging by the surge of acid in the bond. By all the stars–
Antonio leaned into him, just enough that their arms touched. Acid washed cool by blood. (And blood being cool, the copper sting something reassuring, that was new.)
“If there’s a ‘fad’ at hand, all credit goes to Everil,” Declan said with a smile. Faint and twisting, his usual public amusement. Declan leaned just enough to press back against Antonio in turn. I’m here. “Have you met his bond? Bo’s charming.”
“The little foul-mouthed human?” Nae asked, sounding delighted. “We’ve not had the pleasure. Saliese and Fiadh haven’t left their estate since that whole nasty trial business.”
“Declan stood as a judge,” Aisling said, somewhere between smug and defensive. “As did your cousins, Tsuri? From what I’ve heard.”
The smile on Tsuri’s beautiful face faltered, their eyes dropping to the floor in a way Declan knew well. “Family,” was likely to be the next thing from their mouth, quiet and resigned.
“Aunt Zenar wasn’t overly pleased,” is what they actually said, voice quiet, but not defeated. When they glanced up, their smile, small as it was, looked very nearly genuine. “We weren’t told the details.”
“Darling Kesk attempted to recruit the man for Zenar’s attentions.
” Declan refrained from repeating what Bo told him was said in return.
Not with Aisling there. He settled for, “Everil is quite protective of his bond, however. And Bo is nothing if not vehemently expressive in his opinions, especially when one is disrespectful. I find I sympathize.”
Antonio snickered quietly. Strained, thready, but it was there. Good.
Nae snorted, though she hid it with a delicate cough. She paused halfway through the pretense, eyes widening, green as grass after a rain. Declan waited, watching his words sink in. She always had been quick.
“Do you mean… Declan.” Her words a breath, and Tsuri, their slender brows furrowed, glanced at her.
“Allow me to introduce Antonio. My bond, as I am his.” Not a pet, Declan didn’t say.
But his smile showed teeth. His proper, real teeth that drew the dryad’s attention away from his bond.
“Antonio, this is Tsuri,” a nod to the kinnari, whose eyes went wide, then to the staring dryad, “and Nae. You’ve met Mother, I believe. ”
“So good to see you again, Antonio,” Aisling said in the sparkling way she had when making a point of how pleasant she could be.
Declan felt the tug of Antonio’s fingers, twisting in one of the straps of his jeans. He’d let him hold on for as long as he needed, grateful that the human had not yet run away to his bedroom, where Declan couldn’t reassure him that he was safe. That Declan would keep him safe.
“Hey,” Antonio gritted out. “Any friend of Declan’s…”
“Oh,” Tsuri breathed. They looked crushed, wings drooping to reveal the dark satin of the sampot they wore. “But, surely– Are you certain?”
“Pretty damn certain, yeah.” Antonio’s words came fast and bitten out, set warmth to Declan’s chilled core, the opposite of the flat way he’d offered his initial acceptance. “The oaths were a bit of a tip off.”
“Oaths. Declan…” That pretty voice almost broke on Declan’s name. “I– You know this was never my intention. For you to– Can I do anything?”
Aisling shot Tsuri a furious, sharp sidelong glare. One thankfully kept from the kinnari by their own lack of attention to her and the leafy riot of Nae’s hair. It took that glare for Declan to finally catch on.
He pulled his wings in tight, glad for the glamour that hid them and his own practiced neutrality. This wasn’t what he’d thought would happen, standing still and alone before Tsuri’s devastated gaze, the raw wound of their past set on the table, however indirectly.
“Tsuri…” Declan raked a hand through his hair, searching for words to soothe or stab. He settled for honesty. “You’d have made the same call as the Monarchs if you had known there would be Nae. I’ve had the luck to have a bond offered by someone with the freedom to do so. Someone I also wanted.”
It wasn’t a lie. Not truly. Declan didn’t need to go into details about why Antonio would look to bond a creature of death, the desperation behind it.
“That wasn’t– Declan…”
Declan shook his head and tried to offer a smile. “You asked what you could do for me? You can congratulate us both, Tsuri, and stop feeling guilty. I refuse to believe you truly regret the path you walk now. I certainly don’t.”
“Yes. I mean– Nae and I– Congratulations,” Tsuri still sounded somewhere between heartbroken and confused. “To you both.”
Why, by all the stars and black pitch of the voids, was Tsuri so distraught by his bond to Antonio?
At least Aisling’s earlier bristling made a sort of twisted sense.
Tsuri had never appeared so concerned about Declan’s well being before, when rejections by word or silence sounded.
Not even after their family vetoed the match with Declan when they were well into negotiations.
So lost in his own confusion, Declan didn’t immediately clock Antonio’s sunbright indignation. There was heat in the back of his mind, a lessening of pressure on the strap of his jeans, then Antonio’s solid presence beside him. His arm a heavy weight over Declan’s shoulders.
The comforting taste of leather, desert sun along his skin, bright on his back.
Nae froze mid-congratulatory murmur, the words dissolving on her lips in shock. With Antonio holding on to him as if he wanted to do so, Declan understood why. He, too, was unsure of how to respond.
“Thanks,” he heard Antonio say, with blood, there, in his smile.
The promise of it, even if not in violence.
“You must be one of the potentials he mentioned. I guess some of them were afraid of the whole ‘deathsight’ thing. Unbelievable, right? But that’s fae, I guess.
Immortality and all that. We humans, we’re used to death. Can see the value in it.”
Tsuri opened their mouth and said nothing.
Antonio’s words hurt the way his kindness had, back in the garage.
A sweet blow, knife dug in slow and kind.
A rush and need that had nothing to do with lust nor the bond.
Antonio talking as if he wanted him, Declan the sluagh.
Wanted, even though the same magic Antonio hated and feared made Declan, too.
Value in death, Antonio said. That much was true. And perhaps one day, Declan could be to Antonio what the human pretended he was now. A sought-after companion, worthy of wanting around.
“As I said, Antonio initiated the bond,” Declan said, once he had his voice under control. Once he wasn’t melting into Antonio, but merely leaning some, arm curled hesitantly around the man’s waist. “And I am more than content with what we’ve forged.”
Silence hung heavy in the room. Even Aisling, known for disrupting tense moments, remained quiet. It was Nae who stepped in at last.
“Congratulations, Declan, truly. And you, Antonio,” she said in her gentle, rustling way. Practiced and placating. “Unfortunately, Tsuri and I have a standing obligation later that we need to attend to. I’m afraid we’re not able to stay long.”
Aisling smiled. It was a little warmer than the conversation strictly called for. “Would you like to return another time? I have no intention of sending the piece you wanted elsewhere.”
“Perhaps. Tsuri? What do you think?”
Tsuri didn’t answer right away. They watched Antonio and Declan, their gaze lingering where Antonio’s bronze, tattooed arm draped over the skinny, partially covered expanse of Declan’s shoulders.
“I think that I’ve made a fool of myself.” They took a single tentative step closer.
Declan settled his hand on Antonio’s side in return, held the human as the human held him. “Oh?”
“I– Yes. Antonio,” a shift of their lovely gaze to the human in question, “I’ve met barely a handful of humans in my lifetime.
I made … assumptions. It won’t happen again.
And Declan…” Another pause. The same pause that’d been there every time they spoke to Declan after the negotiations failed.
“I feared you had … sold yourself short. I should have known better. And I am happy for you.”
Tsuri was a terrible seelie, a truly wretched example of an uptight, static fae stuck too hard to their pride and tradition. Their step up. Their step closer. Addressing Antonio by name and in apology. Declan, too. Having worried for him.
Declan did so like his worst seelies. Kinnara, sidhe, pooka, he’d take the bunch.
“Less of a fool you may have been a moment ago.” Declan’s smile no longer bore teeth. “Have you been concerned all this time?”
If his hand settled a little more on Antonio’s waist, cautiously familiar, one couldn’t fault him for finding comfort where offered.
Voids bless it, but Antonio relaxed, his partial embrace turned companionable rather than protective.
And he felt so very good like that, with or without the dizzying high of need.
“Of course, I’ve been concerned. You’re– I was planning to bind my soul to yours. Despite … the complications,” they said, a touch of embarrassment to their musical tones. Antonio stroked Declan’s arm. The world warmed. “I didn’t speak to them for a decade after they interfered.”
“You didn’t speak to the Monarchs?” Declan asked, startled. “For a decade.”
“It wasn’t fair,” Tsuri said, a flush decorating the topmost curves of their cheeks. “But I told myself you’d find someone better suited. Like I did. Another sluagh or,” they glanced toward Antonio, then lowered their gaze, “someone braver than me.”