Chapter Five
“It’s all right. I’ll be careful.”
Wes scrambled into his clothes, still damp after a quick scrub-down in the small building behind the alley. He was sore and loose-limbed as he always was after a stint in the sailor’s library, but his usual blissed-out haze was replaced by a sudden, burning need to flee to Katoikos.
He should have rung the bell the moment he heard Delauney’s voice on the other side of the wall.
That was what the bell had been for. But hearing the people goading Delauney on had sent Wes so far under that he almost hadn’t heard Delauney speak at all.
And his cock had felt so right, stretching him further than any of the others before him, and the way he’d taken Wes into his mouth only moments before still made him feel a little unsteady on his feet.
Then he’d started fucking him, and gods, Wes hadn’t been taken like that in years.
It felt as though an entire crowd was back there, urging Delauney to go harder, faster, to break him even as Wes fell apart with his palms scrabbling on the wall for purchase.
He’d almost come a second time, too fast on the heels of his last release, and Wes had hurriedly worked himself over one last time the moment he could wriggle out of the wall again.
He didn’t think that Delauney had recognized him.
He could probably keep it quiet so long as he refused to go back to the library again.
He couldn’t risk it happening a second time.
Even though the point of the library was for people to fuck each other without the inhibitions of knowing their names, it was still strange to realize that the man who’d ruined Wes for cock had been fucking Delauney de Mazet.
He could probably recognize that prick in the dark, now.
He’d already seen it once. He’d known how...
gifted... Delauney was. He should have guessed the moment he felt it sliding over his ass.
The librarian handed him a bottle of a sweet elderflower cordial and a book detailing the history of the Gerakian revolution, which Wes took silently as he staggered out of the alley.
The sun was already sinking toward the horizon, and Wes didn’t think he could meet up with the others after having his entire life shaken by Delauney’s gargantuan cock.
He couldn’t go back to the inn, either, because of course Delauney was there.
Wes may have been relieved of his duties for a few days, but he was still housed at the Lost Jester inn with Delauney and his officers.
He didn’t think he could sleep in the same room with Delauney after that.
He wasn’t sure if he could sleep at all.
Wes made his way to the beach at the far end of the docks, beyond the rocks where bull sharks scavenged for scraps from passing anglers. He sat down in the sand and pulled out the book, angling it toward the setting sun.
When the sky had darkened too much to read and the bottle of cordial was empty, Wes gave up the ghost and made his way back to the inn.
It wasn’t Delauney’s fault that he’d gone to the library for a bit of fun.
It wasn’t Wes’ fault, either. They were two full-grown men who had the right to have anonymous sex with a bevy of strangers if they damn well wanted to, and that didn’t mean anything had to change between them.
He tried to take his time at the inn’s kitchens, sitting in a corner of the dining area with a bowl of chickpeas and herbs, slowly dipping bits of bread in infused oil until he could barely keep his eyes open.
A chair scraped next to him, and Alain sat down, looking as worn-out as Wes felt.
“Still under the weather?” Wes asked. Alain nodded miserably, and Wes pushed his bread toward them. “Eat something. You won’t make them feel any better by worrying yourself sick, too.”
Alain picked at the bread. “Lord Peter sent us off the ship because we won’t stop moping about. He says we’ll upset the girls.”
“A member of your colony is sick,” Wes said with a shrug. “Which one is it? The painter or the one with the dog?”
“You remembered?” Alain asked. Wes didn’t mention that he was unlikely to forget the details of the first demonic hive mind he’d ever met. Alain looked so happy to be noticed that Wes just nodded.
He sat there for a while, listening to Alain babble on about their various colony members.
He realized that Alain didn’t seem to have anyone other than the colony to talk to.
The sailors on the ship were too unsettled by them, and Ned and Lord Peter treated them like a familiar but deeply eccentric servant.
Wes felt responsible for them, like a strange, ancient sibling who was both incredibly naive and older than anyone Wes had met before.
Unfortunately, Delauney was still awake when Wes finally made his excuses and dragged himself to their room.
“Hello, Wes,” he said, practically bouncing from the narrow desk by the bed. “Did you enjoy your trip to the library? Oh, you checked out a book!”
Wes glanced down at the book. He wasn’t entirely sure if Delauney was pretending not to know what a sailor’s library was, or if he just happened to stumble across it by accident. “Ah, yes.”
“What’s it about?” Delauney asked a little too brightly.
You sucked my cock less than four hours ago, Wes thought. “History. Gerakian.”
“Oh, I don’t think I ever studied that.” Delauney opened his bag to pull out a change of clothes, and Wes immediately looked away.
“How was...” Wes tried not to choke on his words as he heard the shuffle of clothes being discarded and picked up again. “How was the Swan’s Crown?”
“Enlightening,” Delauney said.
“Good.” Wes thought of the way that Delauney’s cock had felt pressing against him and climbed into bed, pulling the covers over his head. “That’s good.”
“Are you quite well?” Delauney asked. “You just got into bed in your day clothes. And boots.”
“Fine,” Wes said. His voice almost cracked. “Good night.”
“But it’s so early! You must have had an exhausting day at the library, then.”
Wes covered his eyes with both hands and tried not to scream.
He lay there for a while, waiting for Delauney’s inevitable probing questions.
When they didn’t come, he tossed off the covers just in time to spot Delauney slinking out the door in the least convincing disguise a noble could throw together.
Delauney stared at him with the agonized horror of a dog stepping on fresh laundry, tucked into a massive jacket with a hat that did nothing to cover his hair or face.
“Just stepping out for a drink with Ned,” Delauney said.
“Ned’s on the ship.” Delauney’s rictus of a smile faltered, and Wes got up. “You can’t sneak out looking like that. Take that hat off and put the jacket away.”
“I did tell you that you don’t have to act as my valet,” Delauney said, sheepishly letting Wes pull off his jacket.
“This is a matter of professional dignity,” Wes said. “Not as a valet. I used to slip out of my parents’ house all the time, and they had eyes on the back of their heads. You had to be dedicated to get away with petty crime in my household.”
“I doubt you committed any actual crimes,” Delauney said. “Petty or otherwise.” When Wes just stared at him, he sighed. “Captain Lennox notwithstanding.”
“I wasn’t a criminal by a magistrate’s standards,” Wes said, handing Delauney a simple gray shirt from his bag. “But according to my mother? I was one step away from murder. You can imagine why I learned how to sneak out quietly.”
“What were you doing?” Delauney asked.
“Consorting with fellow commoners,” Wes said in a scandalized whisper. He rolled his eyes. “As though shipping me off to the navy fixed that.”
He swallowed an unpleasant memory, old wounds threatening to claw their way up from the depths like one of the sea creatures that tangled themselves in nets sometimes.
Wes had seen one once, a pale squid with lifeless eyes and a bloated body, already dying as it drifted up from the dark.
Some things needed to stay in the world below, and Wes’ departure from home was one of them.
“You should be less conspicuous now,” Wes said at last. “Walk like you know where you’re going and no one should follow you.”
Delauney hovered anxiously in the doorway, his cheeks pink. “Would you like to come?” he asked.
Wes took a step back. “I don’t know if I should go to a late-night meeting.” Not when he was still trying to suppress the desire to feel Delauney’s mouth on him again.
“It isn’t that,” Delauney said. “I hired someone to make something for me. You just have to promise not to laugh when you see it.”
Wes had never seen Delauney look so anxious, even when he’d been digging through the piles littering his room. “I suppose I could use a walk. I might be slow, though. I’m a little sore.”
Delauney flashed him a true, earnest smile, and something strange wobbled in Wes’ stomach. “It must have been all that walking in the library tower.”
It was mostly being admired by a long string of strangers for hours and taking Delauney’s cock through a wall, but he wasn’t about to quibble over the details. “That’s right. Walking.”
The people of Hekate’s Eye were incapable of quiet, even with a tower full of librarians to judge them for it.
Most of the eating houses stayed open all night, and the pleasure district was alight with lanterns, torches, and colorful banners.
Wes eyed Delauney as they passed the sailor’s library and thought he caught a flush on his cheeks, but it was hard to tell.
Delauney was so pale that he tended to wear every emotion on his face for all to see.