Chapter 15
Rory
It was already summer. August, to be exact. It would be a long time before it got dark, and the sun was still high in the sky when the meeting finished. There had been questions after the short talk, all of them condensed and translated either by Vergis or by Inkiri.
After the meeting, Vergis, Inkiri, and I stood around in the front of the auditorium, almost like we wanted to ask the teacher a question. The others were talking to Raikengana. I thought they were probably answering questions about Earth or about living with humans.
Vergis yawned and stretched. “I’ll go catch pigeons.”
I gasped. “For eating?”
He glowered at me. “Why would I eat them? They’re for magic.”
Obvious. Yeah, that was pretty darn obvious, actually. “It’s just that I thought—yeah. Magic.”
He shook his head. “I think you need to be turned off and then on again.”
Lissir ran down the steps and beckoned for Sonyo. “I’ve heard that reference before. You can take Sonyo to show him what to do and explain it to him.”
“I already babysit the twink more than anyone should.”
Still, Vergis crooked his finger for Sonyo to accompany him outside. The little bagu looked very excited. Clearly, no one had told him what they were about to do.
I caught sight of the campus outside as I watched them go, and it reminded me of the beginning of our trip when we’d come here, way back before the Stone.
“Can I wander around a bit?” I asked, accidentally interrupting Inkiri talking to two Raikengana. It was the two we’d met in the baths back on Aer. “Oh, sorry.”
“That’s fine, sweet thing. These are Hanakaris and Kumo. They wanted to properly introduce themselves.”
I gave them a wave before remembering to give them a small bow. They returned it and clicked back happily.
“You want to explore this house, sweet thing? The Physical Laboratory?” Inkiri frowned as if he didn’t like the idea.
“Oh, the outside, actually. I’ve been here. To Trinity College. Before the apocalypse, you know.”
Inkiri relaxed and nodded. “We should rest soon, but some fresh air will be good.”
Fellisse rounded the front row of seats from the other side. He caught my attention with a wave of his hand.
“Rory doesn’t have a sun hat. He cannot get sunstroke sickness if we are to close the veils tonight.”
I wanted to be annoyed, but instead, I felt all fuzzy and warm. “I’ll be fine for twenty minutes. Just a quick look around the place, I promise.”
Charles, still busy packing up his laptop and with a few makers looking over his shoulder, cleared his throat. I turned around to see him holding a ball cap out to me, a navy one with double cherries and a crescent moon embroidered on the front.
He winked. “I had a feeling you might need this.”
“Thanks.” I took the cap and put it on. Hanakaris and Kumo made appreciative noises.
Fellisse’s frown eased. “That will work.” He crossed his arms and gave me a hard look. “Rory, do not take it off. I know you forget you need a sun hat sometimes.”
I tapped the cap. “I promise. Cross my heart and all that.”
“I don’t know what that means, but I heard you promise.”
“You don’t mess with the healer, kid,” Charles said.
If I’d thought Fellisse’s concern was enough to make me feel a lot of feels, I’d been wrong. Charlie calling me kid rendered me speechless for a good five minutes.
Ten minutes later, Inkiri and I were walking along the paths next to what had been manicured lawns before. On the other side of the former lawn to our left, I spotted Vergis and Sonyo, Vergis explaining something to the kid with big gestures as the smaller bagu nodded with his usual eagerness.
Vergis was turning Sonyo into a killer of pigeons. Oops. Maybe I should’ve worried about that more than the drugs, but if this was only for one day, it was fine. Besides, the Dublin pigeons were smart and not to be messed with. It had cost me most of a fancy donut to learn that lesson.
“Look, I think that might be dorms up there.” I pointed at a building.
When I’d first visited here—before—I’d gotten a little turned around and ended up at the dorms. A friendly student had pointed me in the direction of the Book of Kells though.
Inkiri tilted his head. “Sweet thing, did you want my barb? You can just ask for that, even if there are other bagua around. Or…did you not like that I was busy, back on Aer?”
“What?” My cheeks heated. I hadn’t thought about his barb, but my brain lit up at the mention of it.
Inkiri leaned in close. “Did you feel neglected? On Aer?”
I shook my head. “No. Just… I mean, I wasn’t, erm, you know…
Asking for your barb. But if you wanted to give me your barb, I suppose the dorm is a good place.
But I don’t know.” I checked in with the land about any beasts nearby, but it shook its metaphorical head, then sort of relaxed out of my mind as if to say, go ahead, get yourself some barb.
Well, if there were no monsters, a dormitory, and a willing Inkiri, I really couldn’t say no, right? I had to say yes, yes, please more, not least because it was important in my quest for trophy mate-dom.
“Any place you feel comfortable is good. Water and power run in most of the city, Hove said. That helps with comfort, doesn’t it?”
I wasn’t sure there were any soaking facilities here, but I nodded, then remembered to practice my eyelash batting. Inkiri growl-purred and brushed the inside of my wrist with the tips of his fingers.
“I’m always comfortable with you,” I told him. “So will you give me your barb? Please?”
His slitted eyes widened. “Yes, sweet thing. Show me where you want to go.”
The dorm room we picked was simple, nothing fancy, but it was cozy and functional.
Windows across from the entrance made the single room bright, and a wardrobe divided the room into a tiny kitchen area with a hob and a mini fridge by the door, a desk by the window, and a bed set against the right-hand wall.
A door next to the entrance stood half-open to reveal a mini bathroom with only a shower. No soaking here.
It reminded me so much of before the apocalypse, but the overwhelming guilt that had haunted me wasn’t there anymore. Now, it was sadness, a sort of empty feeling. At the same time, a Raiken would be growing here, and I was still figuring out whether it was okay to feel hopeful about that.
Earth and Aer were closer than they had ever been. It had come at a hefty price, but like a wildfire, the sacrificial flames had burned, and all that was left to do was to look into the future and build new things on the ashes of the old.
The land certainly saw it that way. I knew it was delighted to have me as anointed, delighted I had my knights.
It had been interested in Sonyo coming with us, but if the kid became a prolific pigeon catcher, I had no idea how the land would feel about him.
I should probably make sure that didn’t happen.
I turned just as Inkiri ducked into the room after me in order to avoid ramming his horns into the lintel.
“It’s like I’m a college student again and you’re my hot boyfriend. Monster boyfriend. Visiting steaming-hot monster boyfriend. And getting me naked between classes.”
Inkiri tilted his head, looking at me with concentration. “Is that something you would like? Going to classes and learning more things?”
I grinned at him. “I think I would like to be seduced away from studying.”
The brain’s enthusiastic pleasure center supplied a scenario in which Inkiri was very corporate, some boss person—in a suit!—who stopped by campus during his lunch break and told me he needed to barb me before he started his afternoon meetings. It was weirdly hot.
“Seduce you?”
I shrugged. “You could…tell me what I should do. Because, uh, because you have places to be and important hot monster boyfriend stuff to do.”
That got him smiling. “Ah. I think I know what you need, my sweet human. Come here.”
I closed the distance between us, and he hooked an arm around my back, then lifted my shirt in the front just enough to get his other hand underneath it.
I let out a long sigh and relaxed into his touch.
“Do you like that? Are you feeling very sensitive today?” His fingers circled and squeezed my nipples like he’d read a handbook on the practice.
Did bagua have handbooks on how to handle nipples? If I could ever muster the courage, I’d ask him.
“Ink…”
“Yes, sadir?”
“I…it feels—nngh. It’s a lot.”
“Do you think my cock will make it better?”
Oh, fudge. He could be so dang hot when he wanted to be. He was even when he didn’t want to be, but when he tried, like now… It was the best. I felt spoiled.
I did my ultimate batting of the eyelashes for him. “I think it might help, actually. Do you think you could put it inside me? Barb me? Right now?”
Inkiri chuckled. “Always the eager hangu, my sweet human mate. If you want to get on the bed, on all fours, I can check if you’re ready to take it or if you need to be stretched more.”
Oh, he was an effing tease. Inkiri always stretched me more, and whenever I complained that it had gone on for too long, he would tell me I was a soft human and needed it.
And, okay, he was probably right about all of that, but sometimes even former theater majors just got too horny to handle the hurdle of prepping their ass for cock.
I started by pulling my shirt off. Inkiri watched and clicked appreciatively, then removed his swords and sash and undressed himself.
I was faster, only taking my time with my cat socks.
I always did, mostly because they reminded me of how I’d first met Inkiri.
He’d been so strange to me back then. I’d been scared he was a monster, like those humans at the religious compound, but there had always been something about him, something that had made me wonder, what if he’s not like that? What if he’s nice?
And to be fair, even back then, I had entertained some horny thoughts, but anyone would after two years of surviving the apocalypse.