Chapter 4 #2
Knox's hands are at his sides. His green eyes are fixed on a point somewhere above the succubus's left shoulder with the rigid thousand-yard stare of a man who is trying very hard to be anywhere else in the world.
Her glamour rolls off him, Dimitri can tell it's not working, can see the flicker of frustration in the set of her mouth, but she's giving it everything, pressing closer, bending to murmur something near his ear, her fingers walking up his chest toward his jaw.
Knox doesn't move. Doesn't flinch. Just stands there radiating discomfort so intense that Dimitri can feel it pulsing through the bond in waves.
And Dimitri's reaction to the scene is so immediate and so visceral that it takes him a moment to identify it.
It starts as irritation, which is expected.
Then sharpens into something hotter and more territorial, which is not.
He watches the succubus's fingers trace Knox's jaw and feels his own claws extend, just slightly, pressing into his palms, and the feeling beneath his sternum is not the bond pulling.
It is something older and meaner and entirely his own, and it says get your hands off him.
Then his next thought is the much more apt, What the fuck?
Dimitri recoils from the feeling so hard he nearly takes a physical step backward.
No. Absolutely not. He has known this man for less than two hours.
He does not get to feel possessive over an angelic Templar he didn't ask to be bound to, a Templar who tried to bless him to death, a Templar whose entire existence is an affront to everything Dimitri is.
The feeling is the bond. It has to be the bond.
Some residual territorial instinct hardwired into the connection, a side effect of the magic, nothing more. It is not his.
Knox casts a glance at him, confused, like he doesn’t understand the sudden irritation flickering across their bond. Dimitri glares at him, like it’s his fault, and the confusion deepens, which solves nothing. This is going to be a thing with them, isn’t it?
"There's a woman," Ruby says, drawing his attention back. "Calls herself Madame Vex. Runs an apothecary on the east side. She's old, she's powerful, and she doesn't ask questions." Ruby pauses. "She also doesn't work cheap."
"I'll manage."
"She doesn't take money, Dimitri."
"I said I'll manage."
Ruby looks at him with something that might be pity, which Dimitri finds more offensive than anything else that's happened tonight, and that is a competitive field. Then she shrugs one elegant shoulder and returns to her cards.
"Your funeral," she says. "Give Vex my regards."
Dimitri turns and finds Knox exactly where he left him, still enduring the succubus's attentions with the stoic resignation of a man being slowly killed by politeness.
"We're leaving," Dimitri says. "Unless you need another minute."
Knox gives him a look. It is withering, the kind of look that has been perfected over a career of dealing with difficult people and difficult things, the kind that could strip paint off walls, and Dimitri feels a flicker of reluctant appreciation for it.
Especially coming from someone who has to tilt his chin up to deliver it.
Knox turns to the succubus. "It was very nice to meet you," he says, with what appears to be complete sincerity, and gently disentangles her hand from his coat.
She blinks at him, momentarily stunned into stillness, and Knox takes the opportunity to step around her and fall into stride behind Dimitri.
They climb the stairs in silence. The music fades behind them, replaced by the ambient noise of the Old City, distant traffic, a dog barking, the hum of the neon sign overhead. Dimitri reaches the top of the stairs and steps into the alley, and the cold air feels close to freedom.
A figure steps out of the shadows at the mouth of the alley.
He's massive. Not just tall but built on a different scale entirely, broad-shouldered and thick-necked, with arms that could bend rebar and hands that could crush a skull without effort.
Two heavy curved horns jut from his temples, sweeping back over a shaved head, and his skin has the mottled, grayish quality of something that doesn't see much sunlight.
His eyes are small and dark and drunk and fixed on Knox with the flat, burning hatred of a creature looking at its natural enemy.
He makes Knox look like a child standing next to a monument.
"Well, well," the horned man says, his voice grinding. "A Templar at The Sable." He cracks his knuckles. The sound echoes off the alley walls. "You must be lost."
His hand shoots out and fists the front of Knox's coat, hauling him off his feet.
Knox's boots leave the ground entirely. The horned man lifts him until Knox is dangling at the tips of his toes, coat bunched up around his throat, his face level with a chest that could double as a wall.
The stench of cheap liquor and sulfur rolls off the man in waves.
"You've got a lot of nerve," the horned man growls, "walking into our territory wearing that coat."
Knox wraps his hands around the man's wrist, not pulling, just anchoring himself, and glances sideways at Dimitri.
Dimitri is leaning against the alley wall with his arms crossed. He projects amusement through the bond, lazy and unbothered, and makes sure Knox can feel it. This is not his problem. This is the Templar's problem, and Dimitri is going to enjoy watching it unfold.
Except there's something else. Something small and irritating prickling at the back of his skull, needling at him through the bond or maybe through something worse, something that feels uncomfortably close to guilt.
The horned man has Knox off the ground. Knox weighs maybe a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet.
The man holding him could break him in half.
And Dimitri is standing here with his arms crossed doing nothing, and the prickling won't stop, and he resents it with his entire being.
He ignores it. He's good at ignoring things.
"You know," Knox says tightly, "if he breaks my nose, you feel it too."
Dimitri tilts his head, considering. "Worth it. I'd take a little pain to see someone wreck that pretty face."
The horned man grunts and swivels his massive head toward Dimitri. "Stay out of it, demon. Or I'll pulverize you next."
Dimitri gestures magnanimously. "By all means. He's all yours."
Knox sets his jaw. Something shifts in the bond, a cold click, the feeling of a man's patience arriving at its terminus, and Dimitri barely has time to register it before Knox moves.
"Like I need his help," Knox scoffs, and drives his knee up into the man's groin.
The effect is immediate. The horned man's grip spasms, his eyes bulge, and a sound escapes him that is less roar and more wheeze, a high strangled note that doesn't suit a creature his size. He drops Knox.
Knox hits the ground, rolls his weight onto the balls of his feet, and pulls the mace from his hip in one fluid motion.
Before the man can straighten, Knox swings in a tight, vicious arc and connects with his ribs.
Blessed iron meets flesh and bone with a crack that echoes off the alley walls, and the horned man staggers sideways, one massive hand clutching his side.
He roars, properly this time, the sound rattling windows in the buildings above, and lunges. His arms sweep wide, trying to catch Knox in a bear hug that would probably crush every bone in his body.
Knox ducks under the grab, pivots behind him, and kicks him square in the back. The horned man stumbles forward, momentum working against him, and hits the opposite wall hard enough to crack the brickwork. He spins, snarling, one hand swiping blind.
Knox dodges around the hand and finds an opening with the mace.
The blow catches the man across the jaw with the full weight of Knox's swing behind it, and the crack of impact is enormous. The horned man's head snaps sideways. His eyes roll back. His knees buckle.
He goes down hard, hitting the alley floor with a thud that Dimitri feels through the soles of his boots. He does not get back up.
The alley goes quiet.
Knox stands over him for a moment, breathing evenly, then hooks the mace back onto his hip and straightens his coat.
He tugs the hem down, smooths the front where the man's grip wrinkled the wool, and pulls his ponytail back over his shoulder.
As though he's just tidied up after a minor inconvenience and not dropped something three times his weight in under thirty seconds.
He looks up at Dimitri.
Dimitri is still leaning against the wall, but his posture has changed and he knows it and there is nothing he can do about it.
The lazy amusement is gone. In its place is something he's trying very hard to suppress, but the bond doesn't lie, and he can feel Knox reading whatever is bleeding across from his side of the connection.
He watched this compact, pretty, absurdly polite Templar take apart a creature that outweighed him without breaking a sweat, and Dimitri's mouth has gone dry and his pants are strangely tight and the part of his brain that catalogues threats has quietly reclassified Knox from nuisance to dangerous.
Dimitri is not going to think about it.
"This witch," Knox says, as though nothing happened. "The one Ruby mentioned. Where do we find her?"
Dimitri blinks. Pushes off the wall. Clears his throat. "Not far. Few blocks east."
"Then let's go."
They walk.
The Old City unfolds around them in narrow streets and leaning buildings, lit by the intermittent glow of streetlamps and neon signs.
Knox keeps pace with Dimitri, which requires him to stretch his stride to match Dimitri's longer legs, and they settle into an uneasy distance, close enough to satisfy the bond, far enough to maintain the pretense that they are not together.
Dimitri watches him.