Epilogue
ASHMEDAI
Because the paladins knew where Nicolas lived, they teleported some of his things into Ashmedai’s apartment in the days following the rescue of the Alvarez kids, who had been spending a lot of time at home while they tried to explain where they’d been to their father and the police and everyone else who’d been looking for them.
The official story was a kidnapping, and the kids claimed their captors had worn masks the whole time so no one could be identified.
Talon explained to Ashmedai that the manhunt for the supposed kidnappers would lead nowhere, and eventually it would be considered a cold case and dropped.
Nicolas didn’t want to get rid of Daniel’s belongings, so they remained scattered throughout the apartment, reminders of the soul they’d lost. The only thing they’d changed were the sheets and blankets on the bed.
Daniel’s deodorant remained on the bathroom counter.
His favorite drinks stayed in the fridge.
Nicolas said they could box it all up eventually, when it hurt less, and Ashmedai agreed.
There was no rush. They could take as long as Nicolas wanted.
The demons had laid down extra warding around the perimeter of the Rink, protecting not just the building but the property around it, including the parking lot, which made it safer for them all to return to.
The humans were still taking a break from their regular patrols, but their day job wouldn’t wait for them.
They had clients to see and bills to pay—that they insisted on paying for themselves, although as Ashmedai understood it, they didn’t have to.
Now, Ashmedai stared up at the slowly twirling disco ball as the conversation flowed around him.
Luke and Nathan were on laptops at the air hockey table, sitting on barstools they’d dragged over and talking about their most recent case.
Ira had gone to pick up the Alvarez kids after they’d received a text in the group chat asking for a ride.
No one was exactly comfortable with them going anywhere alone right now, even if it was only from home to the Rink.
Ashmedai had never expected to see so many demons rally together to protect a couple of young humans. They treated them like family.
It gave Ashmedai hope, a warm feeling he was wholly unfamiliar with.
When Ira arrived, opening the door and gesturing back to the kids with a grand wave of his hand, the whole room applauded as they stepped inside. Zachary looked bashful, and Angela beamed at them. Beside Ashmedai, Nicolas lifted his head, his distant gaze focusing on them with a weary smile.
That was something else that had changed in the days following Daniel’s death.
Nicolas was quieter, disappearing into his own mind.
Sometimes Ashmedai would reach for him, always comforted by the fact that no matter how far Nicolas’s mind wandered, he never turned away from Ashmedai’s touch, often leaning into him without consciously acknowledging him.
Like his body recognized Ashmedai even when his mind had drifted somewhere Ashmedai couldn’t follow.
His soul was darker, too. Still golden, still beautiful, but dimmed by grief and guilt. Ashmedai had hope that it would brighten again one day. Time healed all wounds, after all, and time was something they had in abundance.
“Thanks, everybody,” Angela said. “It’s good to be back.”
“I’m surprised you’re here,” Nathan said. “I didn’t think your dad would let you leave his sight quite so soon after your ordeal.”
Zachary winced. “The police have officially closed our case, since we said we couldn’t identify our captors, and Dad is… coping. With a bottle.”
“Ah,” Nathan said. “Well, his loss is our gain. We’re happy to have you here.”
“Hey, Ang, you should tell them about how you kicked that one asshole in the balls,” Zachary said, nudging her.
Malachi, standing beside the air hockey table, perked up with interest. “Ooh, yes, please do.”
Ashmedai tuned them out as Angela launched into the tale near the snack bar.
He settled an arm around Nicolas’s shoulders, drawing him closer and pressing his mouth to his unruly curls.
He hadn’t been taking the time to style his hair lately.
Ashmedai understood it was another way grief had seeped into his life, but he liked the wildness of it, the concentrated scent of him undiluted by product.
“I’m tired,” Nicolas murmured.
“You haven’t been sleeping much,” Ashmedai replied, fingers curling under his jaw and guiding his face up. Dark smudges beneath his eyes made them look hollow.
Nicolas shifted closer, curling up against his side. “I see him. Every time I close my eyes.”
“I suspected as much.”
“Losing my parents didn’t hurt this much. I keep trying to tell myself, ‘just wait until X amount of time has passed. You were okay by then with Mom and Dad.’ But it’s not the same. I still had Danny when I lost them.”
Ashmedai sighed. “I hate that there is nothing I can do to ease your pain.” He’d asked many times.
‘What can I do?’ ‘How can I help?’ ‘What do you need?’ Each time had left them both feeling unsatisfied, because the answer was always the same.
Ashmedai could do a great many things, but he couldn’t help this.
He couldn’t make it stop hurting. He couldn’t speed up time.
He couldn’t bring Daniel back. Nicolas would have to slog through the pain of missing him every single day until the edges of the wound healed on its own.
And even then, the scar would always remain.
“Being here with you is all I want,” Nicolas said. “I don’t need you to do any more than you already are. You’re here for me, and I love you for it.”
“Always,” Ashmedai swore. “Always here for you. Always love you. Want you. Need you.”
Nicolas smiled. “I also really like when you start losing words.”
“Talking hard,” Ashmedai teased, and Nicolas chuckled. For just a moment, his soul flared like the sun, and Ashmedai’s breath was stolen from his lungs. It was a shred of evidence that Nicolas’s soul would brighten again one day.
If getting him to laugh could brighten his soul like that, Ashmedai would spend the rest of eternity trying.
Helpless to resist, he leaned in and captured Nicolas’s smiling mouth with his own.
Nicolas sighed into it, opening his plush lips to let Ashmedai’s tongue inside to taste him properly.
A soft, barely-there moan got caught in Nicolas’s throat, and his hand slipped under Ashmedai’s hood to cup his face.
They had spent almost every moment together since Daniel’s death, but in the days that followed, sex was the last thing on their minds.
Even though Nicolas—and therefore Ashmedai—rarely left the bed in those first few days, neither of them moved to initiate it.
Ashmedai held Nicolas through countless tears, fed him in between bouts of rest. It was there, in the darkness of the bedroom, plastered together under the blankets, that Ashmedai understood true intimacy.
It wasn’t sex. It was being there for someone in their most vulnerable moments, being the one they relied upon to keep them from falling into oblivion.
Now, Nicolas shifted restlessly against him, his mouth hot and hungry, chasing Ashmedai when he tried to pull away.
“Home,” he rasped.
Nicolas nodded, panting for breath.
Ashmedai slipped his arms under Nicolas and picked him up as he stood, grinning under the dark shroud of his hood when Nicolas yelped dramatically at the treatment. It drew the attention of the others, who glanced over with various looks of amusement and, in Julian’s case, relief.
Ashmedai wasn’t the only one who’d been worried about Nicolas’s downward spiral.
“Leaving,” Ashmedai called to them.
“Okay, have fun you two,” Julian said.
“Oh my God,” Nicolas groaned.
“Will you guys finally tell us what all we’ve missed?” Angela asked. “How did those two meet?”
Ashmedai heard no more as he carried Nicolas into the dark med room and disappeared.
In their new bedroom—which had once been Daniel’s and, before that, Julian’s—Ashmedai laid Nicolas on the bed with care and crawled on top of him.
“How do you want me?” Ashmedai asked.
“I want…” Nicolas was pliant underneath him, his legs parting for Ashmedai’s hips to slot between them.
“I want you to…” His cheeks colored. “I want you to claim me. Take me over. Make me feel nothing but you and us, together. Exhaust me so I can sleep, and make it so good that when I sleep I dream about you.”
Ashmedai licked into his mouth and pushed his shirt up under his arms. “Gladly, my light.”
First, he stood, pressing down on Nicolas’s shoulders to indicate he should stay on the bed as he was.
Then he grabbed the post of the bed and slid it into the middle of the floor, turning it sideways so it was parallel with the mirrored wall.
Nicolas raised up on his elbows to look around the room at the new angle, and he broke into a smile when Ashmedai crawled back onto the bed with him, laying back and inviting him on top of him once more.
Ashmedai shed their clothes piece by piece, slapping Nicolas’s hands away every time he tried to help.
Nicolas wanted to be claimed, owned, taken so thoroughly that there was no space left for his grief, and Ashmedai was happy to deliver.
When the last of their clothes were tossed away, he forcefully rolled Nicolas onto his stomach, pried his cheeks apart, and licked into him with his long tongue.
A stuttered moan escaped Nicolas, and then he was pushing his hips back to meet the slick thrusts of Ashmedai’s tongue, the narrower tip sinking deeper and deeper inside as Nicolas’s body loosened.
“Oh God,” Nicolas groaned as Ashmedai sealed his lips around his entrance, his tongue deep inside his tight channel. “Oh God, it’s been too long. I’m gonna come.”