Chapter 12 Bonding
BONDING
Ozirax
Shoulders and hands aching, Ozirax leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He’d long ago gotten used to the smell of oil and leather, but now it was making his head pound.
Still, the repetition was good for his mind. The rhythmic motion of brushing armor clean and massaging oils into the creases to keep it from cracking. The thread of a needle to patch holes and plucking thorns and irritants from the inside layers.
Maybe one day he’d start trusting another squad to do these things again, but after what had happened to Kalypso, he wouldn’t be comfortable for some time.
Fuck, Kalypso. Surely it was the headache brewing behind his eyes that made it impossible not to think of anything else.
Like the lingering feel of her ass against his thighs, her flesh hot in his hands, or her hair wrapped around his wrist. How she’d ridden him into fucking oblivion as he obsessed over the slope of her spine and the grip of her walls around his—
A boot collided with his shin, much harder than a nudge, and he popped one eye open to glare at the offender.
Spicy curled her lip. “Oh, you’re alive. That’s unfortunate.” She glanced down at his lap. “Though that should have been a giveaway.”
He rolled his eyes, shifting his hips to adjust his cock, which was definitely not softening under her lingering stare. “Last I checked, you weren’t disappointed.”
“Well, your cock is only responsible for one of two orgasms, so that’s still debatable.” Kalypso folded her arms and looked around. “You done? It reeks of blood and day-old sweat in here.”
“Got somewhere to be?”
“Apparently we do. Tonomoch said the squad is going out.”
Ozirax stretched his arms overhead, groaning as his back popped. “And you agreed?”
“Wait, I was allowed to say no?”
He shrugged, standing to his full height. And maybe stretching a little more when he caught Kalypso’s mismatched eyes lifting to follow. “You’re allowed to do whatever you want. We usually go to the tavern closest to the barracks for a couple of hours.”
“And what happens at these… taverns?”
“Whatever you want,” he said, cleaning his supplies from the table to keep himself from too obviously studying her.
Something in her tone made him curious to dig, but he knew the moment he probed too far, she’d shut down.
“Dinner. Drinks. Sometimes there’s music, though don’t get Garion on stage.
He can’t hold a tune and always starts an octave too high. ”
“Hmm.”
Ozirax was well aware she had nothing better to do with her time, not that he’d say that aloud. But when she was still hesitating, neither dropping the subject nor pressing him to hurry up so they could catch up with the others, he realized the stalling tactic.
“I’m sure you’d hate it,” he hummed, putting the last of his tools away. “Having to look at my handsome face across the table, all those demons around you scenting your arous—”
“Go fuck your own hand, Ozzy. I wasn’t the one getting hard rubbing down leather and thinking of your ass.”
“But you are thinking of it?”
The glare she sent him definitely contributed to the stiffness he was trying to get rid of by not thinking of her.
“Come for a bit,” Oz said. “If you really do hate it, you can leave.”
Spicy’s eyes narrowed, and he could see her mind sorting through all the possible ways that might be a trick. He shoved his hands in his pockets—partly to help hide his hardness when he did eventually leave the room, mostly to pretend he truly didn’t care if she said yes or no.
“Fine,” she relented, storming past him. “But you’re paying for drinks.”
That was the least he could do, but by the time they’d spent half an hour settled into their corner table, the only thing he’d paid for was his own ale.
Rand, to no surprise, had shoved meat stew in her direction the moment she sat down, but she remained quiet on the edge of the bench, sipping her water as her eyes took in all the activity around them.
The stage was busy, though it was not an open invitation for participation.
The musicians played well, so their jaunty tune kept most of the patrons distracted with dancing and laughter.
Tables had been scattered in favor of a space to dance, and every time a drunk demon or a tail collided with a lantern, Kalypso flinched.
“Not a fan of taverns?” Tonomoch asked her.
She blinked, seeming to pull out of a daze. “What?”
The gold demon gestured around. “Is this not your scene?”
“I’ve been to plenty of taverns,” Kalypso said, which wasn’t really an answer. “Mostly working. But those weren’t this… friendly.”
She eyed a happy and very intoxicated couple that skipped past their table, no discernible emotion on her face other then observational curiosity.
Rand cleared his throat. “We could have picked another spot.”
At that, Kalypso’s eyes drifted back to the table, brow pinching. “Why?”
“Well, if you don’t like taverns or alcohol, we could go somewhere else. This is nearby, so it’s easy, but there are plenty of other restaurants we could walk to.”
Ozirax didn’t need his heightened gifts to know that wasn’t what had prompted the questioning look on her features. Tonomoch, however, immediately ruined it.
“Why wouldn’t we go somewhere else if you didn’t like it?” he asked, throwing an arm over her shoulders. “That’s what we do for our squad.”
Kalypso quickly ducked out of his embrace, scooting away from him. “This is fine. Smells just the same as the ones in the human world, just with less questionable company once the sun—er, moon goes down.”
“I think that was a compliment,” Ozirax muttered, earning a grin from Tonomoch.
Garion pushed his ale aside so he could lean closer across the table. “Oh, yeah. Humans have a sun. Do you miss it?”
Kalypso shrugged, sipping her water. “I did most of my business at night and slept through the day. The sorcery sort of reset my sleep schedule, but it’s really hard for me to see a moon in the sky and want to sleep.”
“Don’t humans need sunlight? There was another one of you,” Tonomoch said, and Kalypso immediately focused on him. “The blue-haired one with the crutches. She looked really sick, but most of the sorcery was gone by the time she woke.”
Her shoulders sank, and Oz knew it was because she’d been hoping for something about her sister.
It didn’t stop her sharp tongue, though, as she held up a finger.
“One, she’s disabled, so that’s really fucking rude of you not to get her an extra blanket since you probably just stood there like a glaring creep.
Now I’m glad I knocked you out because you deserved it.
” She held up a second finger as Tonomoch’s cheeks darkened.
“Two, sometimes humans have nutrient deficiencies because of their bodies or because of their circumstances. So it’s possible she really was sick since there’s no sun here.
She’s probably having the worst time of all of us. ”
“She’s fine.”
Kalypso whipped her glare to Ozirax. “What?”
“Aofe, she’s fine.” He picked at the edge of his mug. “Her sponsor owns the greenhouse.”
Spicy’s mouth popped open, features softening. “Wait, a greenhouse?” He nodded. “You’re telling me in this realm of perpetual night, there’s a sun?”
Rand canted his head back and forth. “Well, sun-adjacent. That’s the alchemist’s magic, condensed to fit into the greenhouse, but it serves the same purpose.”
“Demons have adapted to this world with our own flora and fauna,” Ozirax explained. “But there are certain elements from the humans that serve better in potions and remedies and even food.”
Garion snickered. “Nerd.”
Ozirax shot him a deadpan glare. “Flora and fauna aren’t even big words.”
“Bigger than what his brain can process,” Rand teased, which turned into an exchange of elbows and spilled drinks and cursing.
“What about you, Kaly?” Tonomoch asked, surprisingly not participating in the jabs between the other two.
She threw her defenses back up, visible in the tightening of her shoulders. “What about me?”
“Anything. We know you can hold your own around us, but not much else. What did you do for fun?”
Ozirax tried not to give away his own curiosity for the chance of more details about her life, but his tail flicked under the table and grazed Kalypso’s ankle. He knew she felt it, considering she retreated slightly.
Spicy busied herself by taking a long drink of her water, and just when he thought she might set it down and call it a night, she surprised him.
“I was hired muscle, for the most part. It was the easiest and quickest way to earn enough coin. Whenever we moved cities, I’d find the local fighting rings. Show off a bit to get their attention, work my way under a new client, then balance jobs and nights in the ring.”
Garion and Rand were listening intently now, squabble forgotten.
“Obviously a lot of those deals happened in taverns, just a lot more shitty ones.” She shrugged, gaze not meeting theirs.
“I needed my wits in case things didn’t go as planned, so I never drank or lingered much.
Never took more time than absolutely necessary or indulged in anything…
fun. Too dangerous when I needed to make it back to Kat—”
Kalypso pinched her lips shut, eyes going distant. Almost as quickly, she blinked and refocused on them, features devoid of emotion. “Pretty boring stuff.”
“Well, now you’ve got us,” Rand said, slapping his hand on the table dramatically. “Never boring in our company.”
“Only when Tonomoch gives a speech on paper thickness to ink quality,” Garion added.
Tonomoch glared at them. “That is an art form, and you’re forgetting that quill point…”
It once again devolved into pointless argument, but Ozirax ignored them in favor of the human who had gone silent across the table. She hadn’t shared anything he didn’t already suspect, but the fact that she’d been willing to talk at all was impressive enough.
And maybe he was a little proud.
His tail flicked out, purposefully this time, and tapped Kalypso’s shin to get her attention.
“I can walk you back if you’d like.”
Her jaw worked side to side, fingers digging a little tighter into her cup. But she shook her head, no anticipation in her posture to jump up and leave.
“Or there’s a spot around back where you can grab my horns and ride my face for as long as you’d like while I bury my tongue between your legs.”
There was a chorus of fake gagging from the others, but Kalypso’s eyes darkened as she pushed her drink off to the side. “That option.”
Ozirax grinned at how quickly she stood from the table. Ignoring the jeers from the squad, he tossed a few coins on the table and followed Kalypso out back.