Chapter 17
I’m Not Ready
Ican’t fall asleep.
Hex isn’t sleeping either. I know because I can feel him beside me in the dark, awake and still in the particular way of something that is thinking very hard and very quietly and has no intention of sharing any of it.
I don’t even know if he does sleep. I know alarmingly little about my situationship’s anatomy and physiology, other than he is very capable of rocking my world. But that’s an issue to lie awake angsting over another night.
Right now I’m not sleeping because every time I get close to sleep I think about a threat called Wraith, and remove the source, and the look on Hex’s face when Night said that Dis knew he was alive, and then I am very much awake again.
It’s four in the morning, and I think it’s time to give up entirely and make tea instead.
Hex follows me to the kitchen without a word, his silence is unusual enough that I don’t comment on it. We sit at the table in the dark with our respective silences and the Bristol night doing its quiet thing outside the window.
Eventually, I say, “You knew before Night and Dark told you.”
Hex wraps both hands around his mug. He doesn’t deny it. “I suspected. The shape in the doorway on Monday. I wasn’t certain.”
“But you suspected.”
“Yes.”
I look at my tea. “And you said nothing to worry about today.”
“There wasn’t. Not that day.”
“That’s a very careful way of putting it.”
He is quiet for a moment. Outside, a fox screams somewhere on the street, the way Bristol foxes do at four in the morning, completely unconcerned with shadow kings and exiled princes and the complicated business of telling the truth.
“I didn’t want to frighten you,” Hex says.
“I’m already frightened,” I say. “I’ve been frightened since you appeared in my bedroom. Frightened and in it anyway. There’s a difference between frightened and fragile, Hex.”
Something moves in his expression. “I know that.”
“Do you?”
He looks at me properly then, red eyes steady in the dark kitchen. “Yes,” he says. “I do. You held out your hand when you were frightened. You broke your own protections when you were frightened. You handled Peterson when you were frightened.” A pause. “I know you’re not fragile, Adam.”
“Then stop deciding what I need to know.”
He holds my gaze. “You’re right,” he says, and he sounds like it costs him something, like being wrong is not something he has extensive practice with. “I’m sorry.”
I drink my tea. He drinks his. The flat settles around us, creaking slightly the way old buildings do, as if the walls are adjusting to the weight of everything that has been said in them lately.
“Tell me about Dis,” I say.
Hex is quiet for a long moment. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything Night and Dark didn’t say in front of me.”
He almost smiles. Not quite. “That obvious?”
“You all went very careful and diplomatic when I asked who he was. Night and Dark don’t strike me as people you need to be diplomatic to.”
“They’re not.” He sets down his mug. “Dis is complicated. He was not born to royalty. He came from nothing in the Shadow Realm, which is not an easy thing. He was recruited young by the people who wanted my father gone, and my father was genuinely a bad king, so I understand why he believed in it.” His jaw tightens.
“But the regime that replaced my father is worse. And Dis has been their weapon for a long time now. He sits on my throne because they put him there and because he has nowhere else to go.”
I think about that. “You almost sound sympathetic.”
“I’m not.” The words are flat and final.
“He bound my powers. He sent me here to fade. Whatever his reasons, whatever his circumstances, he made his choices and I made mine.” A pause.
“But he is not stupid, and he is not simply cruel. He is dangerous in a way that is harder to fight than straightforward ruthlessness.”
“Because you can’t predict him.”
“Because he is capable of being reasonable. And reasonable enemies are the most frightening kind.”
I sit with that for a while. Outside the sky is doing the very first thing it does before dawn, not light yet, but a faint suggestion that light is a thing that exists and might eventually return. The fox has moved on. The city is as quiet as Bristol ever gets.
“You’re strong enough to go back,” I say. “Aren’t you.”
It comes out level. I’m quite proud of that.
Hex doesn’t answer immediately. That is answer enough.
“Night said as much,” I continue. “Not in so many words. But that’s what he meant. The reason Dis is moving now, is because you’re strong enough to be a real threat. You’ve recovered enough.”
“Yes,” says Hex.
“So you could go.”
“Yes.”
The word sits in the kitchen between us. Small and enormous simultaneously.
“Why haven’t you,” I say. Still level. I am extremely impressive, honestly.
Hex looks at his hands. Then at the window.
Then at me, and there is something in his face that I haven’t seen before, not in any version of him, not the goading Hex or the princely Hex or the terrifyingly powerful Hex that I haven’t quite seen but felt the edges of when he scared the thugs out of the coffee shop.
This is something underneath all of those. Something that doesn’t have a name.
“I’m not ready,” he says.
“Not strong enough?”
“Not…” He stops. Starts again. “There are things I am not ready to leave.”
I look at him. He looks at me.
The ring is on the table between us, glinting softly in the pre-dawn light. Neither of us looks at it.
“That’s not an answer,” I say.
“I know.”
“Hex.”
“Adam.” And the way he says it is different. Not the teasing drawl he usually gives my name. Just my name, very simply, as if it means something particular to him, something that he is not going to say out loud.
I am going to need him to say it out loud.
“Tell me,” I say.
He reaches across the table and his hand covers mine, and I go very still.
“You know why,” he says quietly.
“I want to hear you say it.”
For a long moment he just looks at me, and the predawn light is doing something to his edges, making him look more solid than ever, more present, more entirely and irrevocably here. Then something in him shifts, some last resistance folding away.
“My love,” he breathes softly, and he leans across the table and kisses me.
Not the way he usually does. Not the deliberate, devastating, I have all the time in the world way, that he usually deploys when he wants to make me lose my mind.
This is quieter than that. Softer. It is a kiss that has something to say and is saying it the only way he apparently knows how right now.
I lean into it and let him.
There is urgency in the kiss. A hunger. But also a careful reverence. Hex always kisses me carefully. As if kissing me is a great honour and something special.
I am finding it quite addictive. This level of attention is doing things to my ego. At this rate, I’m going to become as insufferably bigheaded as he is.
But much more concerning than that, is the fact I’m not quite sure how I am ever going to be able to kiss anyone else.
However, that’s a problem for another day. Right now it is four in the morning and the sun is thinking about rising, and a shadow prince is kissing me in my kitchen as if I’m someone worth kissing.
Hex’s lips are soft. Commanding. He takes control of the kiss with a calm, steady confidence that is doing terrible things to me.
Terrible things like filling me with a need to let him do whatever he wants to me. Several times. And then again for good measure.
I pull away from the kiss.
“Bedroom,” I say. Possibly in a sexy rasp, probably in a hoarse croak.
Hex grins at me. A huge, broad grin. His red eyes glow even brighter with sheer and utter smug delight. His whole demeanour perks up. I swear it’s the shadow man equivalent of a peacock prancing around with all its feathers on full display, and it really is insufferable.
Sadly, it does absolutely nothing to quell my arousal.
This is a terrible state of affairs. I initially agreed to feed him to help him. To be the good guy that I am. It was never supposed to turn into me needing him. It definitely was never supposed to turn into him being so very pleased about this.
Huffing softly, I grab his hand and take him into the bedroom. He follows me eagerly.
As soon as we cross the threshold, my pyjama trousers are pulled down. Shortly followed by my pyjama top ripping open with enough force to send all the buttons pinging across the room.
Hex is still kissing me, so my mouth isn’t free to voice complaint. Besides, these pyjamas are only from Primark. It’s fine. It’s worth it. One day when I’m old, I will be able to reminisce about once having such passionate sex that my pyjama buttons turned into bullets.
The back of my knees hit the bed. I start to fall backwards, but then Hex moves and somehow when we land on the bed, he is beneath me and I’m on top.
He smirks up at me. Eyes glowing. Lips curled up in a ridiculous grin in his absurdly handsome face. He knows exactly how much I want him. He also knows how annoyed I am by this. And he is obnoxiously pleased by both of these things.
A brief thought flickers through my mind. A temptation to wrap my hands around his throat and throttle him. But I can just picture him grinning even more and possibly saying something like, Oh you want me so bad. So, I restrain myself and don’t strangle him.
Instead, I lean down and kiss him. And time and perception disintegrates. Everything is lips and tongues. Teeth and hands. Touches and caresses. Our bodies tangle together and create something new.
Then reality reforms, and I’m on all fours, with Hex kneeling before me.
His red eyes looking down at me and glowing in a way I haven’t seen before.
It’s mesmerising. I’m caught helplessly in his gaze, even though I’m aware that he is naked and through the swirling shadows I can see a very nice six-pack. I really should be looking there.
Hex’s hand runs softly through my hair. I whimper and my mouth falls open. Jaw stretching wide.
The light of his eyes intensifies, and then I’m being fed shadow cock.
It’s heated and heavy enough to feel divine. Smooth and incorporeal enough to feel very unhuman. Apparently I don’t care. Sucking Hex’s cock is wonderful. My new happy place.
My eyes close, and I moan around his cock. My tongue and throat work, and my mind rolls away on the sheer bliss of having him in my mouth.
Hex makes a deep rumbling sound of pure pleasure. The pitch is mostly too low for me to hear, but I feel the vibrations of it in my bones and in my soul.
I moan in return and suck harder. My cock throbs, leaking and heavy.
Shadows brush over my ass. They caress my hole. Other shadows gently twist over my cock. My nipples are flicked and twisted.
Hex is touching me everywhere. It’s incredible. He is wrapped all around me and nothing has ever felt more intimate.
Shadows gather tightly around the tip of my cock. Tight and soft. An opening.
Shadows gently ease into my hole. Stretching and filling me. Hex’s cock slides further down my throat.
My body vibrates with euphoria and ecstasy. A thousand simultaneous sensations swirling together to create a storm of pure rapture.
My hips thrust forward, burrowing my cock into the tight opening in front of it. Soft silken heat envelops me. Hex gasps, and then shudders.
Oh my god. I’m sucking, fucking, and being fucked. All at once. It’s mind-blowing.
It’s too much. My orgasm slams into me with no warning. Scattering my thoughts. Setting my veins on fire. I’m screaming and bucking and emptying my load with frightening force.
The next thing I know, it’s all over. I’m lying on my side in the bed, Hex curled tightly around me, making me the little spoon.
“Welcome back, My Love,” he rumbles. “I told you I’d be very good at making you scream.”
“Shut up,” I groan. “Or I’ll make you sleep under the bed where you belong.”
He chuckles and plants a soft kiss on my temple.
I sigh. My bones have turned into wet noodles. I suspect I’m going to be very sore in the morning, when all my problems will come rushing back.
But right now I don’t care, because right now, at this moment, I’m happier than I have ever been. And I’m going to savour it.