Epilogue
They part with Newt on the steps of the Hargrove mansion, which is as good a place as any for a goodbye that Dimitri doesn't want to be having.
Goodbyes imply attachment and attachment implies caring and caring implies that somewhere in the last miserable, world-altering, catastrophically inconvenient four hours of his existence, Dimitri has started giving a shit about an incredibly inept witch who can barely read Old Tongue and once accidentally soulbound a demon to an angel because he thought he was summoning a familiar.
He has. He's not going to say it out loud. But he has.
Newt stands on the second step with his spellbook clutched to his chest like a shield.
He looks happier than Dimitri has seen him, which isn't saying a lot.
It's not like he has a huge frame of reference.
But maybe having a couple of people in your life who care if you live or die makes a difference over zero.
He looks far younger than his twenty years, with those freckles and that disarray of red hair and the wide, earnest expression of someone who has stumbled face-first into a situation far beyond his depth and is determined to see it through anyway.
Behind him, leaning against the wrought-iron railing with the practiced disinterest of someone who has been alive long enough to find everything tedious, the incubus picks at his fingernails.
Dimitri stares at the incubus. The incubus does not look up.
He is offensively beautiful in the way all incubi are–built to draw the eye, to hold it, to make you forget why you were looking in the first place.
He is radiating a studied, deliberate boredom that Dimitri does not believe for a single second.
The incubus had looked at Knox during the summoning with an appreciation that went beyond professional curiosity, and Dimitri had nearly torn the circle apart with his bare hands, and the fact that the incubus is now pretending to be fascinated by his own cuticles does not mean Dimitri has forgotten.
Dimitri does not forget. It is one of his least convenient qualities.
He glares at the incubus. The incubus continues not looking up.
Good. Smart. Self-preserving. The creature has instincts, at least.
Knox is saying something to Newt. His voice is low and warm and Dimitri feels it through the bond like a hand pressed flat against his sternum.
Knox's concern is a physical thing, warm and heavy, and it pours through their connection with a steadiness that should be annoying and is instead, infuriatingly, one of the things Dimitri likes most about him.
Knox cares. Constantly, relentlessly, about everything, about everyone, about amateur witches who almost got them both killed.
It is exhausting and admirable and Dimitri wants to shake him and kiss him in equal measure.
"You have my number," Knox says. His hand is on Newt's shoulder, and the boy is looking up at him with an expression that makes Dimitri think of stray animals finding shelter for the first time. "If anything happens. If you need anything at all. You call me."
"I'll be fine," Newt says. He smiles, and it is shaky at the edges but genuine. "I've got a familiar now, right? That's what I wanted in the first place."
"That is not a familiar," Knox says, and his eyes cut to the incubus on the railing, and Dimitri can feel the very specific flavor of Knox's unease—the kind that comes from leaving someone vulnerable in the care of something dangerous and not knowing whether the danger is real or imagined.
"That is a demon who has a contractual claim on your future. "
"Which is basically a familiar."
"It is not basically a familiar, Newt."
Newt laughs. It's a small, nervous sound, but it's real, and he hugs the spellbook tighter to his chest and says, "You saved my life. Both of you. I'm not going to waste that by being stupid."
"You summoned a demon because you thought the incantation was for a cat," Dimitri says flatly.
Newt's smile turns sheepish. "I'm not going to waste that by being as stupid."
Knox exhales slowly. Dimitri can feel him trying to let go—trying to accept that Newt is an adult who has made a choice, that Knox cannot protect everyone, that some doors close and you have to trust that the person on the other side will find their way.
He feels Knox's chest constrict with the effort of it, feels the ache that sits behind his ribs like a bruise, and Dimitri reaches over and puts his hand on the small of Knox's back.
Knox glances at him. Green eyes bright with worry. Dimitri holds his gaze and says nothing, but he lets something steady through the bond and watches the tension in Knox's shoulders ease by a fraction.
Knox turns back to Newt. He squeezes the boy's shoulder once, then lets go.
"Be careful," Knox says. Simple and quiet and carrying the full weight of everything he can't say.
Newt nods. He backs up a step, two, and glances over his shoulder at the incubus, who has not moved and does not appear to have noticed this entire exchange is happening.
Which is an act. It has to be an act, because no creature with that much power is that oblivious, and Dimitri should know because he invented being menacing while appearing disinterested.
Dimitri steps forward.
The incubus finally looks up. Purple eyes meet red, and the studied boredom cracks just enough for Dimitri to see what's underneath—intelligence, calculation, and a wariness that borders on respect. Good. He should be wary. He should be fucking terrified.
"If anything happens to that boy," Dimitri says, voice pitched low enough that only the incubus can hear, "I will find you."
The incubus holds his gaze for a long moment. Then the corner of his mouth twitches into something that is not quite a smile and he inclines his head by the barest degree.
Dimitri turns away. He takes Knox's hand and walks down the steps without looking back, and behind him he hears Newt say something to the incubus, too quiet to catch, and the incubus's reply is a low murmur that Dimitri doesn't try to decipher because it's not his problem anymore.
It is not his problem.
He repeats this to himself as they walk down Thornfield Row, past the antique bookshop and the wisteria-draped brownstones and the diamond-paned windows of the Violet Corridor.
He repeats it as they turn onto the main road and head for the train platform.
He repeats it as Knox's hand tightens in his and the bond between them hums with a warmth that is new and whole and unbroken.
The boy will be fine. Probably. And if he isn't, Dimitri will deal with it.
Not because he cares. Because Knox cares, and Knox is his, and the things that matter to Knox matter to Dimitri by extension.
That is the deal. That is the arrangement.
That is what it means to be bound to someone soul-deep, and Dimitri has made his peace with it, or something approximating peace, which for a creature of chaos is close enough.
They don't speak on the train ride home.
They don't need to anymore.
***
Knox's apartment is quiet when they step inside.
It is, horrifyingly, starting to feel like home.
Dimitri shuts the door behind them and leans against it.
Knox releases his hand and moves through the apartment with the easy, automatic grace of someone navigating a space by muscle memory—hanging his mace on the hook by the door, setting his blessing rings on the small dish on the hallway table, rolling the tension out of his shoulders as he heads toward the bathroom.
He pauses at the doorway and looks back.
"Shower?" Knox says.
Dimitri pushes off the door and follows him.
The bathroom is small enough that two people shouldn't fit in it, and certainly two people where one of them is six-foot-two with horns shouldn't fit in it, but Dimitri will be damned if he's not going to make it work.
Knox turns on the water and adjusts the temperature with the patience of a man who has opinions about exactly how hot water should be before he is under it.
Steam begins to fill the room, curling against the mirror and the tile, and Knox reaches for the hem of his shirt.
Dimitri gets there first.
His hands find the fabric at Knox's hips and pull it up, slow, dragging the cotton over the flat plane of Knox's stomach, the lean lines of his ribs, the smooth expanse of his chest. Knox lifts his arms and lets Dimitri pull the shirt over his head, and the steam curls against his bare skin and the amber light from the small window catches the edges of him and Dimitri's chest does something that he would call painful if he didn't know better.
The bond between them is whole. He can feel it in a way he couldn't before, settled deep in his bones, no longer a chain or a pull but a current.
A river running between them, steady and warm, and for the first time since it was carved into his flesh in that warehouse, it doesn't hurt.
The hooks are gone. The barbed wire is gone.
There is only this—the quiet, constant awareness of Knox in every cell of his body, and the knowledge that it is permanent, and the staggering realization that he doesn't want it to be anything else.
He is so fucked. A thousand years of existence and he's been brought to his knees by a five-foot-eight Templar with a ponytail and a pathological need to be kind to things that could kill him.