Chapter Twenty #3
Near silence. The swarm of screaming bees muted to a dull, distant, nigh painless whisper rather than the bone-grinding shriek of a moment prior.
Quiet.
Still the road and Antonio, but his core no longer rattled in agony.
“Voids and starshine,” Declan breathed, blinking slowly.
“What happened? You alright?”
Declan looked at Antonio, nearly giddy without the drag of iron through his soul. He laughed, fingers running over a curve of the door that had burned the moment prior.
“I can’t hear the iron. Or, some, but distant. Like mild pressure. But I can’t hear the bloody iron. That’s–” Another laugh, a little wild. “How are you feeling?”
Antonio was grinning, when Declan looked next. His joy felt good in the way nothing else did. Reminiscent of a mad dash down a deserted alley, laughing and pissed, friendly taunts thrown, but more.
It felt like kissing him did.
“Good. Got you here, and you’re smiling. What’d you do? Hell, what was supposed to happen? Bo didn’t say anything about their bond insulating Everil. Not to me.”
“Nor I.” Declan continued to trace his finger over the sleek surfaces of the Mustang. “I felt for the bond, then past it, where it was just you. We’d not be able to bond if you lacked a soul to bond to.”
“I better have a fucking soul,” Antonio muttered. “Had enough people try to save it.”
“It’s a very interesting soul. Full of not-magic. And when I touched it, the iron all but stopped.” Declan drew a fingertip over the shiny metal of the dashboard, smiling. “No more bees.”
No more bees for Declan. Antonio, subjected only to one deathsight vision. Oh, yes, Antonio had something. A vibrant, brilliant something that left Declan giddy.
“I’m starting to feel jealous of the car, Murderpunk.” He flashed Declan a grin as he said it. His gaze, when he glanced over, lingered on Declan’s fingers.
“It’s strictly platonic.” Declan pressed a firm kiss to Antonio’s shoulder. “You’re still my favorite ride.”
Antonio laughed, surprised, though Declan felt the flicker of guilt and grief behind it. Declan knew how that guilt tasted, the confusion of joy in the aftermath of loss.
“How long do you think it’ll last?” He reached to run his hand up from Declan’s knee, squeezing as he went. “I like having you here. Can’t call myself a motorhead without a hottie riding shotgun.”
Declan watched the slide of Antonio’s hand, gold against black jeans. It rang through their bond, same as Antonio’s laughter had. He pressed his leg closer in return.
“I suspect it will last as long as I keep a hold of it. Perhaps I can tack it in place, like a glamour. It’s not a one-and-done bit of work, like creating a bond. Would you mind if I kept the connection?”
“Hell no. Told you, I like having you here.”
Thank the stars. Declan would need to keep the connection.
The slightest ease of focus turned the pressure of iron from a distant thing to a steady resounding pound that only escalated with each slip along the anti-magic.
Declan clung all the fiercer to drown out the drumbeats again, found his way to full silence.
The brush of his wings against the seat drew Declan up short. The fingertip trailing over Antonio’s knuckles drew a faint red line. Only a second, and he eased his grip, returning to where the iron still whispered but didn’t scream.
“It appears it goes both ways. Too much, no magic. Interesting.” Declan did as he said he would, tacking the anti-magic into place. As easy as his glamour.
“Shit,” Antonio said, his words carrying the curl of scorched leather under an unyielding sun. “Not much use for the fight then, huh?”
“Perhaps not for the duel. But it does mean I can sprawl about your shop and get up to all sorts of filthy trouble.” Declan smiled, all his teeth on display. “I plan to enjoy this gift of iron, Antonio, for as long as you wish me to keep it.”
There was no point in either of them bringing up that it might not be long enjoyed, should their bond end in an abrupt and bloody manner. No reason to admit possible defeat before faced with it in the moment.
So long as they didn’t speak of it, they would have Antonio’s rough grin and Declan’s trailing fingers. Enjoy the iron, their mingled laughter, this stolen time before it all came to a head.
Declan prayed to the vast blank darkness of the voids that there would be an after.
Antonio’s probation officer, Clara, arrived twenty minutes earlier than scheduled. Typical, according to Antonio. Declan preferred to use inconsiderate and irritating.
She was slight and put together, just that right kind of condescending to fit neatly into what Declan remembered of cops. They came in different shades, and he knew her sort. Not quite power hungry, but they enjoyed the control.
She seemed to enjoy having the authority to pepper Declan with questions, too. The new boyfriend with his adornments and artfully shredded clothing, looking for all the world the bringer of filthy trouble.
He could tell his answers didn’t impress her, Declan being little more than a man still living with his mother who happened to research old books for a living.
“Have you had any run-ins with law enforcement?” Clara asked.
“Shagged a cop once,” was Declan’s smiling reply. “Does that count?”
It did not.
The look on her face gratified him almost as much as the warm sunburst of amusement through the bond as Antonio trembled in his attempt not to laugh.
After she left, Antonio pinned Declan’s hips to the side of his car and sucked him off. The bastard hummed during.
Da da da.
Interrogations were apparently in season. Angela called the next morning to invite herself and Michael over to dinner at Antonio’s flat. Antonio stayed in the garage, wrist-deep in a car (“A quick job,” and he had looked so pleased.) while Declan wandered the nearby shops.
Declan rather liked being out and about with humans. They never changed. Wary, guarded gazes turned to an odd kind of relief when they heard him speak. One of those ah, just an odd foreign guy, not one of our boys gone funny looks. Then, they were perfectly polite.
He’d returned with food to stock Antonio’s bare kitchen and a bit of concern at how the man might react.
Humans were as funny about money as fae were about favors.
He hadn’t expected Antonio’s grateful smile, or to be kissed breathless when he explained that Hyacinth had taught him long ago not to pay with glamoured money. Declan wasn’t about to complain.
All in all, the day was grand. As was stealing handfuls of the man’s ass while he cooked, leaning against him and breathing in the rich scents of chicken, garlic, and onion.
The problem came when the cooking was done and Declan was faced with his least favorite members of Antonio’s family over a plate of galinhada.
Angela’s default Declan expression was a pressed-lipped smile that didn’t meet her eyes when she acknowledged him at all. Michael had the shitehawk smug look about him. Neither of them commented on the bruises Declan had carefully added to his glamour.
Talia would need to come the next time they had an Angela-and-Michael dinner. She’d love the soul-gratingly awkward experience of four people eating in near silence, the probing stares aimed at Antonio and sideways glances for Declan.
“Which end of the spectrum do you fall on the Jeep debate, Angela?” Declan asked. “Team Claudia or Team Antonio? Somewhere in the middle?”
“I’m on team ‘cars that break seem like a win for a mechanic.’ ”
Team ‘none of your business’ it was.
“Hear that, Antonio?” Michael asked, in that overly friendly, insincere way that screamed ‘my wife read me the riot act prior to coming here.’ “Need to start taking Jeeps. Modern cars. Make real money.”
Discomfort plucked at their bond. Leather cracked, brittle, under too much sun. “Modern cars run on computers. Need diagnostic shit I don’t have.”
“Do they, truly?” Declan asked. “That’s unfortunate. Doesn’t sound nearly as fun as working with cars like yours. Real, hands-on work. Not that I can say much, given my ‘hands-on’ includes dust and books.”
Antonio beamed at him and hooked Declan’s ankle with his foot. Declan couldn’t help but smile in turn.
“Yeah. Soon they’ll all turn into Apple. Everything proprietary and you gotta pay the company in blood for a basic fix.”
“My brother’s paranoid,” Angela said, with an unmistakable note of reproach. “Don’t get him started. So, Declan, does your business bring you back to Ireland often?”
“No way in hell. You’re not gonna be disappearing on me,” Antonio had said when Declan asked if he should be on better behavior this go about. “They’ll need to get used to me having a thing for mouthy, hot murder punks.”
What they needed to get used to was someone who wouldn’t allow them to call Antonio paranoid without comment. If Eithne said it to Declan, that would have been one thing. Declan didn’t sport a schizophrenia diagnosis.
“Paranoia would be expecting us to pay them with bone marrow. Blood’s just enterprising.
” Declan breathed in the burnished red sunlight of Antonio’s appreciation.
Steadied himself with it. “As for Belfast, not often. I only travel for work if it can’t come to me, and the vast majority of my attachments are in the States, now. ”
“Ah. Of course.”
Flint and steel, sparked hot, quick. Indignation like a cut lip.
“Could be nice though,” Antonio said, none of his firestarter indignation apparent. “You’ve always said you wanted Mara to see more of the world. Think she’d be interested in touring Belfast?”
Antonio was brilliant, and Declan loved him.
“That’s not–” Michael started before Angela cut him off with an unsubtle glare.
“I think, with … everything, you shouldn’t get your hopes up too high about traveling.”