Chapter 17
The Elven lord’s house was in the Upper City, and to Theo’s surprise, it wasn’t bile-inducingly ginormous.
It was big, sure, but no castle, despite the lord’s title.
Instead, the Victorian-style house with cream walls and lavender accents on the rafters sat on the elevated part of a colorful, wild meadow starting about two feet from the winding garden path.
Fruit trees sprouted in the meadow, and the tall grasses and flowers had been mowed only to create paths to those flowers, as well as to a thorny encampment of gooseberries, raspberries, and blackberries.
The other houses on this street were neat and manicured, and this wild thing—though it was a curated, calculated wildness—was a breath of fresh air that made a part of Theo feel incredibly gleeful.
“Your abode is small,” Cloudtree commented as Laurette led them up the garden path in long, quick strides.
Theo looked the still-sparkly Fae over. The end of the silver chain around his neck dangled over his shimmery chest, almost reaching to his navel. He didn’t seem to realize he was tempting Laurette to yank on it. “You don’t know when to shut it, do you?”
Cloudtree looked past Peter, who’d made sure to put himself between him and Theo.
“Shut what?”
Theo gave him a look. “Your mouth.”
“Oh.” Cloudtree looked as if that had led to an actual realization. “Is it not customary to comment on a noble’s home here?”
Laurette turned. “Don’t bother, Theo. Slighting Elves is as natural as breathing to a Fae.”
Cloudtree looked shocked. “Lord, I never intended to slight you! I simply meant that your home is small and in keeping with the houses around it. You have matched yourself to the human homes. You adapted. It is… I admire it.” He put a hand to his chest again.
“I tried myself with the clothing I chose before coming, but I am not sure that I succeeded.”
Theo snorted. Peter raised a sharp brow.
Laurette walked backward, twirling a strand of his hair around a finger. “This is new. Oh, my. Whatever am I going to do with a Fae like you? One who is sort of trying to be nice but so very bad at it?”
“I…would like to be neighborly.” Theo wasn’t sure, but it almost looked as if Cloudtree was blushing through the glitter. “I will lead all of us to Faerie and to where my stepbrothers reside.”
Theo tightened his hold on his bag and set his jaw. He was ready for that.
“Theodore.” Peter put an arm around him.
“You can stop right there.” Theo tried moving away, but it was a halfhearted effort at best, and also Carl was on his other side.
Peter stuck to Theo’s side. “I have decided I will come back to you without fail. That is easier achieved if you are here so that I know where to come back to.”
Theo snorted. “Yeah? Well, learn to read a map. Who says I care in the first place? Plus, this isn’t about you. This was never about you.”
Peter turned to him, and he had this stupid, soft, adorable smile on his face that made Theo just so…
He wasn’t sure. It was like the lunch—the carved banana and the artistic apple slices, the pithless orange that had been so perfectly sweet.
That smile did something to him, and he didn’t like what that was, didn’t want it.
I want to go home and catch up on what I missed today.
I want to go home and ask Peter if he can make me hot chocolate while I finish that stupid romance novel.
Then I want to get him to take me out to the movies and watch something boring so we can make out, or something really good so we can hold hands during and talk about it after. What the fuck is wrong with me?
Peter sighed. “Beloved.”
“Huh?” Is that…a Viking thing?
“You are my beloved.” Peter nodded as if he had to confirm this to himself. His lips pressed tight and his gaze hardened before he went on. “I know you’re worried. I don’t want you to be.”
Cloudtree had turned around, and Laurette was still walking backward, easily navigating the path as if he had eyes in the back of his head. Or as if he did this a lot. Gertrude was pointedly looking at her phone and ignoring the lot of them.
“Will you shut up already? I’m not worried.”
“I’ll bring them back. Michael and Corvin must have their happily ever after.”
“And I’m coming.”
“Theodore.”
Theo wanted to curse and vent his anger at Peter, but before that reaction could overtake him, he thought better of it. He remembered Celeste’s training.
“If you leave me here, you’re never going to touch me again.”
There was a gasp and an “Oh!” from someone in their odd little group, but Theo wasn’t quite sure who. He was too focused on keeping his chin up and his eyes on Peter’s. Fuck, but his eyes are so blue. Winter sky blue. Viking blue. I love that color.
“Theodore.”
“Don’t Theodore me. This isn’t one of your negotiations. You’re not getting any billable hours from me. If you want to make me crash on Carl’s couch, just keep it up.”
“I—I—!” Carl spluttered, and Theo felt mildly sorry. He swore to himself to buy Carl and everyone else lunch again once this was over, once they were back.
“I see.” Peter’s icy eyes looked past Theo and right at Carl. He was composed, friendly looking, even, but Theo didn’t think Carl would read it quite that way.
Laurette clapped his hands. “You two are like a spark and a firecracker! We haven’t the time for it though. Shame, if you ask me. And no one ever asks me about shame. It’s as if people know I have none. Into the house now, everyone. Theo, I’ll loan you a cloak.”
Theo perked up. “A cloak?”
“Theodore is staying here.” Peter sounded smugly final about it.
“The fuck I am. That’s no sex for a week for you, by the way.” Theo felt good about that, powerful too, especially when he saw Peter’s nostrils flare.
“Theodore. Please.”
After all the tinkering with the contract, after the way Peter had gotten Theo to take that credit card, he should have expected him and his lawyer ego to pull this exact kind of underhanded shit.
It hit Theo right in the gut though, close to where that fear monster had lived, back when Theo had been on the run.
But this was different. Running then had been desperation born of the unspoken knowledge of what would’ve eventually happened if Theo had stayed with Bernard.
This fear was something else, and it whispered, What if he never wants to see you again, what if he casts you aside? Or worse, what if he’s hurt and doesn’t recover. What if he takes a stake to the heart and turns to ash, as if he was never really there in the first place?
Theo didn’t know if vampires turned to ash. He didn't know what kind of wound it took to kill one, and he didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know. But he knew that if Peter got hurt at all, he’d need Theo’s blood.
Glaring, he shoved Peter off the path. “Excuse us for a second.”
Peter let himself be moved, not stumbling but reaching out to lightly touch Theo’s elbow to steady him. Theo’s frown deepened.
When they were at least somewhat out of earshot and in the middle of the tall wildflowers and grasses, he got right up in Peter’s face.
“You’re not going to talk me out of this.
The only way you can ground me here is if you compel me, and it looks like Cloudtree has neighborly ambitions and would undo that so I can be super grateful.
“I’m coming, because if you get your Viking ass injured, you need my blood.
I’m not delusional, okay? I know I’m not someone who can…
tear off heads. Or pull out someone’s eyeball.
My unique and singular talent in this relationship is being your fucking blood bag, and I’m going to do that, whether you like it or not, are we clear? ”
Peter’s face was doing strange things Theo had never seen it do before. His eyes were stormy. Theo had read that often enough and had never really been able to make much of the descriptor, but a Viking vampire with feelings, yeah, that got you stormy eyes.
Very slowly, exceedingly gently, Peter cupped Theo’s cheek. “Theodore—”
“Stop fucking saying that.”
“It’s your name. It’s a beautiful name. You are many things already.
You will be many more in the future. You have never been and will never be my blood bag.
If anyone should ever say that to you, they will answer to me.
” Peter’s stormy eyes got stormier. “I love you. I love you so much. I wanted to wait to tell you, but you have to know. I love you, and if you can cherish the confession by staying here—”
“No.” Theo’s eyes were burning, but he was not going to let himself lose it.
He was not going to read anything into this, and he was not going to call it or think of it as a confession of love, and he was going to do all of that while ignoring how he was feeling about it, which was confusing at best.
Theo stood there a moment longer. He was sure he should say something, but his mind was blank, and he was shivering.
Peter smiled at him. “Back to the path, dearest. The high grass is dangerous. There are ticks.”
Theo nodded. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to talk.
A few more steps brought them to a porch.
The front door of Laurette’s house stood open, and with his hand on the small of Theo’s back, Peter ushered him through first. The interior was decked out in rich colors with pastel accents.
One side of the hallway was all mirrors, and the flower wallpaper opposite matched a carpet so thick and fluffy that Theo wondered how it remained clean in this part of the house.
“Which way?” Theo said, then cleared his throat when his voice came out raw.
“I’ve not been here before, but let’s follow the voices.” Peter closed the door behind them, and with a gentle push let Theo know which way to move.
At first, Theo didn’t hear anything, but then he picked up the indistinct chatter that Peter, with his vampire hearing, had gotten all along, then metallic sounds.
Meanwhile, he took in the rich plushness of the house.
It wasn’t exactly like the Boudoir, but there was a similarity here, maybe just an alignment of tastes between Celeste and Laurette.
“There you are.” Laurette waved at them from the end of an oval dining table in a room with French doors opening to a back garden. “Swords and things, and a hooded cloak.”
Laurette indicated everything that was laid out on the table.
Theo saw swords in scabbards of varying lengths, some curved and some straight, some broad and some needle fine.
Even as Laurette presented his collection, Gertrude came back, a morning star in one hand. “Anyone?” she asked, looking at Theo.
“I think I’m good.”
She nodded. “I’ll go get you a screwdriver.”
“Screwdriver?”
She shrugged and opened her own coat. “Fresh out of hammers.”
Theo gasped. She had a bunch of them strapped to her, but that wasn’t the thing that got Theo. It was that she had a harness for all those hammers, and Theo wasn’t so sure she was into home improvement exclusively. The thing looked pretty custom made, almost like the swings at the Boudoir.
Laurette covered his mouth with a hand as he laughed. “Gertrude is always enthusiastic. Peter, a sword for you?”
Theo snorted. “You’re a Viking. Shouldn’t you go with an axe and a shield?”
Peter gave Theo a peck on the cheek. “I’m not a Viking, dearest. And yes, a sword will be fine.”
Laurette nodded. “Pick any one. Let’s sketch out a rough plan before we head to Faerie, then.”
Cloudtree frowned. “I had not wanted to return so soon, but it must be done.”
Well, he should’ve at least brought a shirt that fit, then, Theo thought, then cackled to himself.
Of course, that attracted Peter’s concerned attention, but Theo glared at him before he could insinuate that Theo was too frail to come or suffering from a cold simply because his nose was still a bit clogged from very much not giving in to becoming emotional over a confession of love five minutes ago.
Fuck, that really happened. It’s not in the contract. I think I’m fucked.
Theo filed the thought away in his mind to examine at a later date. A much, much later date.