Chapter Twelve
Declan
“I owe you an apology.” Too abrupt. No lead up. The words had been crowding Declan’s tongue since the breakfast table.
Antonio was little more than a riot of emotions. Some warm. Others acidic. A tether of leather strips and old chain, keeping him grounded on the desert floor. Hard and safe and still in need of care, lest the chain dissolve into rust and the leather snap.
“For what?” Antonio sounded so genuinely confused.
A fae would understand what he meant. Or they’d have framed the question to make it appear that they did. Voids, Declan was so very glad it was Antonio he’d bonded to.
“I should have considered the potential backlash to my finding a bond. I would have informed you before our oaths if I had. I am a … controversial … figure,” he said. “When we spoke of our situations, I told it as I knew it.”
There was more, of course. Apologies for not reacting as Antonio would have preferred, giving in to that quiet cold at the breakfast table.
If he allowed it to melt away, reveal the fear that lurked under, Antonio would have felt it.
And he already feared so much about Faerie.
Fae. Everything Declan was made of save for Declan.
“You talk a lot of bullshit sometimes, Murderpunk.” Antonio scoffed, even as Declan felt that fear ringing bright in his too-quick pulse. “It’s a big jump from getting snubbed at a party to murder.”
“For fae, it isn’t so shocking a leap.”
“Pretty sure they’re skipping some steps, leap or not. ‘Sides, it wouldn’t’ve changed my mind.”
“My duty is to be as pessimistic and dramatic as possible,” Declan said, prim as he could manage, and only partially joking.
Better to joke than to mope about, hoping Antonio would keep treating him as he had. With those touches and that rough, surprised laugh as he looked at Declan the way Declan had always wished to be looked at. Seen. The cracks and void of him.
“You’re a trip, Murderpunk.”
Club candy and a needle high. Hit like a freighter.
An allotment. With Declan’s head and Antonio’s captivity as the cost.
“The gravity of the situation may have finally sunk in.” Declan swallowed hard, his eyes studiously, firmly, on Antonio’s collarbone. “May I hug you?”
Antonio drew him in, just like that. A hand at the center of Declan’s back and pulling him flush to Antonio’s chest.
“Don’t gotta ask.” Antonio kissed Declan’s hair and wrapped his other hand around the base of one of Declan’s wings. Rather than a thrill up his spine, the touch thrummed through him, quiet and settling.
This was worth keeping his promise of four hundred years. This moment, here, and Antonio’s affectionate, unasked-for kiss, the bloody perfection of their bodies leaning together.
“It wouldn’t have changed mine, either,” Declan admitted into that broad, solid chest, arms wrapped firm around Antonio. Holding on. He needed it. “I liked you too much.”
“You’ve got shit taste.” But Antonio smiled when he said it. Declan heard it in his voice. “Think we’ve hit ‘get wasted together’ on the fucked up scale?”
“Oh, aye. More than. Only took us a week.” He tucked in closer, as close as he could, and felt Antonio relax in kind. “As a warning, I’m a cuddly drunk. And, it may shock you, prone to getting a wee bit assertive if I'm with a bloke I fancy.”
“Yeah. Shocked. Hooked up with a revolutionary murderpunk sluagh because I wanted someone I could push around.” Rough words, said with the sharp edge of a smile that was more than worth the mussed hair.
As was the kiss, where his smile had been, one work callused finger stroking along the bone of his wing.
“I’ll need to bring my most limpid gaze next time.” Declan pressed an idle kiss to the hollow of Antonio’s lovely throat, smiling when Antonio lifted his chin to grant further access.
“You already know what I like.” No laughter, now. Rough sounding, the way he’d spoken the night before. A tug, just barely, on his wing. “Said it, didn’t I? All of you.”
The sweet warmth in that trust ached. Throat bared for teeth made for destruction.
“So you did.” Declan breathed Antonio in, the summer-touched leather and old metal of him.
Let his eyes close. Took in what he could, how he could.
“I’m glad of it.” He squeezed Antonio around the waist, gentle as the hand on his wing.
“Outside of all of me, I’ve something for you.
In addition to, rather. Anything is in addition to. ”
“Long as it’s not more lube flowers.”
“Nothing quite so exciting.”
Declan hesitated, but only for a beat. Then he held his formerly empty hand for Antonio to see. Bracelets, thick metal things modeled from those Antonio had worn during their first meeting.
He’d asked Colm to do the work, and after some initial grousing, his brother had done a wonderful job.
He’d hammered each out to dull the shine, giving them the appearance of iron.
A braided chain of the same material looped around them, with a leather cord threaded through as the third braided section.
Whatever Colm had made them from, they sat heavy, hooked over Declan’s fingers.
A catch of breath, and a ring of stunned stillness along their souls. But not distrust or suspicion, thank all the glittering stars of the voids.
“My bracelet didn’t quite match your style,” he said, sounding nervous, as he never did. “So I… Colm, he works with metals. Not magic. And while they aren’t iron, they– The chain is there in case you prefer something to worry in hand.”
Wonder. Disbelieving wonder, twined with emotions Declan couldn’t name. The kind that tightened his throat, even by proxy.
“Jesus.” The warmth of Antonio’s touch left his back, fingers brushing Declan’s as he took the bracelets in hand. “Shit, man. I–”
“I intended to do this yesterday, but we became distracted before I–”
A drag at his wing, that thrill and heat mingling with the cool bite of metal at his chin. Antonio tipping his chin up from hiding.
Declan caught a glimpse of Antonio’s flushed cheeks and dark eyes before faded red lips covered ink black, careless and urgent. That something again from the bond made physical, heated in a way that dashed away Declan’s twisted worrying over how Antonio might react.
Want, an unintended and utterly welcome consequence. He hadn’t meant them as a lover’s token. But he wouldn’t object to Antonio accepting them as such.
Declan nipped into the eager, seeking kisses, chasing the flick of tongue, the taunting almost-taste that settled in him like a sunbeam through cloud cover. Strength under his touch, mortal muscles, and a man who didn’t mind pushy. Something bright and good to make sense of a morning that hadn’t.
“Hopefully this is your way of saying you approve,” Declan murmured, rasp gone ragged and horribly pleased with himself. “Otherwise you’ll be subjected to my best attempt at a pout. It’s horrid. I make sure of it.”
Antonio pushed off the door. Or, rather, he tried to do so, only to twist his hand in Declan’s shirt and clutch at his wing with the other when the sluagh held him fast, dark eyes gone darker.
“See,” and, ah, his voice was unsteady, sun-warmed leather sliding through the rush of more, “now I’m tempted to say no. Hate to miss out on something you’ve worked so hard on.”
Gratifying, to know he truly didn’t mind Declan getting pushy. How he shook under the touch, minutely. Not prey, waiting to see if Declan would do something to flinch at. Looking for more, even as Declan kissed him again, drank sounds from his lips with the faintest hint of a smile on his own.
“I’ve worked much harder on things you may miss out on with a no,” he said by way of reassurance, half a laugh on his lips. “But I am glad you like them.”
“Let me put ‘em on, and we’ll go see this library fae.” Another kiss, as Antonio was a generous, wonderful man.
“He’s a beithir. A dragon.” And Declan kissed back because, of course, he did.
“Library dragon.” Antonio amended. “We’ll decide about where to go, after. Still not sure you’re not safer here.”
Declan reluctantly loosened his hold. They did have places to be.
“Mother and I do tend to scare away the door-to-door salespeople. I’m quite intimidating.”
Antonio snickered. “You’re a damned miracle, Murderpunk. C’mon.”
“Very well.” Declan sighed and stepped properly back, though he hooked his thumbs in Antonio’s front pockets. “Dragon first. Decisions, and this, after.”
All they had to do was not steal from the irritable, isolated beithir. And, ideally, survive the day.
Easy. He did the latter all the time.
Never let it be said that Declan alone, among the fae, held a flare for the dramatic.
Zyr’s allotment was a rocky, windswept moor, blanketed in fog.
Lightning rent the sky, followed by long, rolling growls of thunder.
Harriers shrieked in lightning-scarred trees while red deer moved through the mist, more shadow than form.
A single hill, rocky and steep, held Zyr’s small, thatched stone cottage.
The last time he visited the lands of this House, it was to Hyacinth’s parcel for a party. The setting had been significantly more hospitable.
Declan eyed the front door, a beaten-looking thing, hinges rusted from too long in salt air. When the two of them moved closer, it swung open without sound. Declan tightened his arm around Antonio’s waist for a beat, then stepped inside with only the scroll now in his arms.
The door didn’t see fit to close on its own, mind. Declan did that for it once Antonio had followed him into the little cottage.
And wasn’t it funny, to glance around at the lived in, nearly cluttered space of dark, comfortable-looking furniture, full of books and carved bones, worn sculptures, and wreathes of woven heather, and think of his early days in the mortal realm? “I can’t believe it! It’s bigger inside than out.”