Chapter 23
It was rare for Ducarius to be in a kitchen.
At home in Las Vegas, Victor made meals, and after they finished dinner, Brynnius bustled in to bake exquisite treats.
Except for taking care of his dirty dishes or stealthily sneaking a few clean ones into a cupboard before Victor noticed and shooed him out, Ducarius was content with the room remaining a mystery.
But Ducarius was far from home, and Adney could no longer resurrect.
He and Drexley had to feed Adney and themselves.
Ducarius could not starve to death, but he had lived as a skeleton for centuries and could easily recall the pangs of hunger that had tormented him.
That was not something he wished to experience again, nor would he allow Drexley to suffer.
For the past few days, they had existed on the stores of food the skeletons had left behind. But Drexley had brought the last hunk of bread and the last of the stew to Adney for lunch. Adney loved that stew so much that he was now refusing to eat much else.
Ducarius had to figure out how to cook and fast. It put him in a foul mood.
Alaric worked hard to ensure a wide array of classes were available to any sentinel who wished to learn.
But Ducarius had taken few of them. He’d had a myriad of excuses for why he wasn’t interested in each topic, and now he wanted to kick himself for being so stubborn.
Would it have hurt him to carve a few hours out of his week to learn some basic skills?
Ducarius had assured himself that he already knew what he needed and kept his ass planted at home.
What a damn fool he had been. Now, he was paying the price by being unprepared.
Ducarius bit back a curse once he sensed another sentinel nearing the kitchen.
Despite his foul mood, he smiled. That was the effect Drexley had on him, no matter his mood.
Ducarius turned to watch Drexley stalk into the kitchen with a tray of nearly full dishes, and drank in the delicious sight of him.
It was always a pleasure to be in his company, but Ducarius hated the deep growing shadows of grief and heartbreak in his soft brown eyes.
Drexley was panicking. Opening his arms to his mate, Ducarius sighed as he folded Drexley into his embrace.
“How is Adney?”
“He barely stayed awake long enough to eat anything,” Drexley confided. “I woke this morning wondering how many days we have left together. I should be counting hours instead.”
Words were incapable of bringing Drexley comfort, but Ducarius wished he could find something to say to ease his pain.
They had awoken to find chunks of Adney’s beloved library gone.
The future Drexley refused to face was racing to find him, and Ducarius was worried about nearly everything awaiting his other half.
“I wish I knew better how to soothe you,” Ducarius said, annoyed with himself for his inadequacy. Drexley was his gift from Fate, and it was his responsibility to take care of him. He feared he was failing.
“Stop thinking poorly of yourself. You are the one thing in my life that offers me solace.”
“I apologize, you have enough burdening your heart, the last thing you need is a cantankerous mate worried that he is doing a poor job of loving you.”
Drexley smiled and brushed their lips together. “Is this your clumsy way of telling me I have conquered your heart?”
“Yes, and it is now so awkward I hope it is the next memory to disappear from your mind.”
With a laugh, Drexley kissed him again. “No, this one I insist on holding on to for eternity.”
“While you refuse to speak your own words of affection?”
“Of course. We are standing in a kitchen with dirty dishes awaiting a good scrub. This is hardly the time or place to express what is in my heart.”
“I wish sentinels were capable of lies so I could look in your gorgeous eyes and tell you I wish Fate had offered me a better mate.”
Drexley rested his forehead against Ducarius’s, and their noses bumped. His fingers dug into Ducarius’s back.
“I love you, Ducarius.”
Tilting his head to press his mouth to Drexley’s, Ducarius took a moment to savor the joy bubbling through him. He was a lucky man in many respects, but Drexley was the best damn thing in his life.
“I love you too. But no more mushy words until we retire for the night. I want to hear your words of love as I slide into your welcoming body. That is a memory I plan to hold on to and pull out whenever my day grows tiresome. It will give me the strength to persevere and the power to keep from stabbing someone.”
As Ducarius intended, Drexley chuckled. “What do you propose we do now?”
“Is that a joke? These dishes will not wash themselves. And we are out of prepared food. We must figure out how to tackle these recipes Adney has left in here for his skeletons.”
After one last quick buss to the corner of Ducarius’s mouth, Drexley pulled away with a smile.
“I was taught to educate myself, and although Adney is insistent that a gentleman has no place in a kitchen, I spent many hours observing the skeletons as they cooked. I have no practical experience, but we are both intelligent men.”
“Never again will I refuse to attend a class at the Daray Sentinel Complex,” Ducarius muttered. “My idiocy has left me unqualified for life outside my family home.”
“What is the Daray Sentinel Complex?”
“It is an extensive structure of buildings where most sentinels live,” Ducarius explained as he went to work scrubbing dishes.
“One of the features of the complex is the wide variety of classes Alaric organizes. My family has taken advantage of many of them. But I was content to stay mired in what I knew. What use did I have of cooking when Victor or Brynn were in the kitchen? Why would I wish to learn photography if I did not want photos of myself? Dancing was useless as I lacked a mate. If I was invited to attend with a family member, it took me seconds to find an excuse not to go. I allowed my fear of failing at something to chart my path.”
“And the future scares me because I do not know how I will fare, so I pretend it is so far off that I need not worry about it yet. What a pair we are.”
“We are a well-matched one,” Ducarius corrected firmly. “You will be okay, Drexley. Whatever the future brings, you will adapt and survive. Plus, I will be at your side for everything.”
“Good, because I will need your help to prepare something for us to eat later. There was always stew being made as it is Adney’s favored meal.
We should try to cook that. He prefers it with a hunk of bread.
I do not know the steps for that from start to finish.
It may be quite involved. Do you think we should try it? ”
Ducarius was fond of bread, and Brynnius was excellent at baking it, but he had never watched the other Skeleton Lord go through every aspect of his recipes. The one thing he recalled was that it had to sit for hours for some inexplicable reason.
“I believe we should try one thing at a time,” Ducarius decided. “Stew is hearty and full of vegetables. Those are good for you.”
Ducarius knew that because Chander was always being goaded into eating them based on that premise despite the Arch Lich’s insistence that they were disgusting and he did not have to eat them. Chander was wrong. They were tasty. But Ducarius was not about to fight with the Arch Lich about it.
Once Ducarius had set aside the last bowl to dry, he plucked the stew recipe out of the small stack Adney had created for the now-missing skeletons.
“Where did the food come from?” Ducarius asked as he read the recipe. “Was there a farm while the land was more plentiful?”
“No, everything was created by magic.”
“That explains the flat taste,” Ducarius muttered. “The bad news is that the food could vanish like everything else is randomly disappearing in the castle.”
“Yes, that worry crossed my mind. I will give up my portion if necessary to ensure Adney has something in his belly.”
“No, you will not. I have experience with hunger pangs, and you do not. If anyone must skip a meal, it will be me.”
“Why would you have experience with hunger pangs?”
“I was a skeleton for centuries.”
Drexley frowned. “Yes, of course, I recall learning that. I have forgotten nothing about you. Or at least I hope I have not. Maybe I have. No, I suppose I had thought that without a stomach you could not starve and therefore would have no hunger.”
“Do not ask me how it works as I was given no concrete information despite surviving it myself, but I must assume that because I was never supposed to be a skeleton, my body went on craving the normal things it should have.”
“That makes sense, I suppose. Magic is a strange thing.”
“As this crumbling realm can attest,” Ducarius grumbled.
He still hoped to whisk Drexley and Adney to the Council and allow them to have some sense of security as the necromancer’s life ebbed away.
But the only things that remained strong were Adney’s stubbornness and his insistence that he die in his own realm.
And nothing would sway Drexley from respecting Adney’s wishes.
“Should I find a carving knife for the vegetables, or would you prefer to cut them with one of your daggers?” Drexley asked cheekily as he handed Ducarius a handful of tubers.
“My daggers are weapons, not kitchen utensils.”
“As our supply of lit candles dwindles, I have grown grateful for the poisonous glow around your blades,” Drexley mused. “But the green and black offer a rather spooky ambiance.”
“You have lived with a necromancer for five centuries; many would define this entire castle as spooky.”
“Such a fuss being made over sorcerers who raise souls from the dead.”
Ducarius chuckled as he took a large knife from Drexley and went to work cutting vegetables into reasonably the same size as the recipe stated.
Thankfully, Adney lacked respect for the former chefs of the castle and had broken every detail of the recipe down using simple language.
It gave an inexperienced sentinel with no skill in the kitchen some measure of comfort as he went about his work.
“As one of those souls walking among the living, I am grateful for necromantic magic.”
“Yes, the alternative would be loving you on the other side of the veil.”
“Where you would lack the ability to climb into my bed and demand satisfaction,” Ducarius said. “Lovemaking in the physical sense is impossible.”
“Not that I wish to insinuate that lovemaking is the most important aspect of our relationship, but I am keen on having you inside me.”
“I know. I was exhausted last night, but still I had to strip off my clothes and please you.”
Drexley laughed so hard he had to brace a hand on the long table in the middle of the kitchen where they were steadily chopping. “I barely had a toe onto the mattress before you were yanking at my dressing gown. It was you who were insatiable last eve, not me.”
“I hate your dressing gown.”
“It is perverse of me, but I like the frown on your face whenever you see it. Even if you pass it to grab a cloth to clean up our mess following our lovemaking, you sternly glare at it. It never fails to amuse me.”
“You are a strange man, Drexley.”
“Then you must be the oddest man alive since you are the one who loves me.”
“As I have explained to you, being odd is a beautiful thing. I rejoice in my strangeness and my love for you.”
“Ducarius?”
“Yes, love?”
“There is a great deal of darkness in my life just now, but you offer a ray of light that beckons me. Whenever the pain grows too difficult for me to bear, I can settle in your arms until my heart can bear what lies ahead. I am grateful to have you. I wanted you to know that.”
Ducarius set his knife down and cupped Drexley’s jaw. “You offer me the same lovely glow. It burns brightly in my soul and spreads each day as we grow closer. I am grateful to have you too. I will ensure you never forget that.”
“I was right.”
“You are right about many things; could you be more specific?”
“The kitchen is a stupid place to discuss love. I want to be held, but I have turnips to chop.”
“I do not even like turnips.”
“A ridiculous fault, but I love you anyway.”
“Kiss me and keep chopping,” Ducarius ordered as he leaned in close to Drexley and relished the slight tickle of his facial hair. “And do it quickly; I want to make love to you before dinner.”
“My dressing gown will be sad to miss it, but I am most eager to have your hands on me.”
Ducarius winked at his mate, planted a firm kiss on his mouth, then snagged his knife from the table.
“As long as we do not burn the stew, I will consider this entire day a rousing success.”