Chapter 2
two
DANTE
In the corner of the room, I can see Cielo sleeping.
His chest is rising and falling with a small tremble from the pain he’s in, but he hasn’t complained much.
I don’t know if it’s because he’s strong or because he’s afraid.
Or maybe he has no way to tell me how much it all hurts.
But whatever the reason, it’s killing me.
There’s a tap on my shoulder, and I look over toward my brother, Luca, who’s been watching him warily. We’ve both had dealings with the Vyastil before. Once the initial fear of them wore off and I believed they weren’t on Earth to hurt us, I was only slightly terrified to sign up at the clinic.
And granted, it wasn’t the greatest experience of my life, being tied to a chair while a very inhuman being sucked my dick, but I got used to it. And it felt pretty good. I mean, what guy would turn down a free weekly blow job?
I’m only human.
But after a few months of weekly sessions, they moved me to an as-needed basis. The sessions dropped from once a week to once a month, and now I’m lucky if they call me in more than a few times a year.
None of the Vyastil have ever been unkind to me. They rarely speak to me, and before Cielo, I had never been given the chance to speak to them, which is fine. The monsters at the clinic have never seemed interested in being friends, and I’ve had too much going on in my life to give a shit.
But the ones who live in town are a bit more friendly.
Luca and I inherited the triplex we live in and two commercial properties when our nonna on my mom’s side died.
My commercial property turned into my sex shop—my baby, my pride and joy.
Luca was not really interested in managing his own business, so when a Vyastil couple approached him about wanting to open a café, he was more than happy to sign that lease.
It’s allowed him to focus on everything else he’s wanted to do—mainly accessibility tech, which has kept him traveling to Deaf expos and things like that. It’s been great for me because he often sets up a little table, laid out with my current attempt at accessible sex toys.
I’ve gotten tons of business from it, and we’ve both lived peacefully and happily.
Until now.
I don’t want to say Cielo has disrupted the harmony of my home, considering I was the one who volunteered to take him in, but it’s been a complication I wasn’t expecting. And for me, complications aren’t easy to handle.
At least, not all the time.
‘Has he woken up yet?’ Luca signs.
I nod. ‘I gave him some of the herbs Everest gave me to help treat his wounds.’
‘Cum?’ Luca spells.
‘I offered him some, but he kind of freaked out,’ I admit.
It was weird. I figured he’d be eager to jump on my dick, just like the Vyastil at the clinic, but he looked almost terrified.
It makes me wonder if he was threatened into not accepting any, which seems like another form of psychological torture.
After what they’ve done to Cielo, I’m really starting to dislike the Vyastil elite.
‘I gave him some in a bottle,’ I add.
Luca frowns, so I mime jerking off, and he grimaces, flipping me off. ‘Don’t be gross.’
‘Just honest,’ I say with a small grin. ‘Accept.’
He scoffs, then peers over at Cielo. ‘He’s the one who doesn’t speak well, right?’
I’ve already told him about the first time I met Cielo and how quickly he seemed to absorb ASL simply from listening to the words coming out of my mouth and watching my hands move. If only humans could do the same.
It would have made my life a lot easier.
I insisted on learning ASL the moment my parents brought home a little baby who couldn’t hear, but it had taken forever for the language to stick in my brain, and I still sometimes fucked up when signing.
Luca sighed. ‘Maybe I should cancel my trip.’ He’s supposed to be heading to Vegas tomorrow for an expo and will be gone for a week.
‘I can handle this.’ I squeeze his shoulder. ‘He’s not a danger or anything.’
Luca nods, but I can tell he’s wary. He’s my little brother, but he’s always been overly protective, which probably comes from the fact that he outgrew me at thirteen and has a good thirty pounds of muscle on me.
Not that I mind. I’ve always preferred being soft. I was mocked relentlessly in high school for wearing makeup and being a little too femme for the small-town jocks—though half of me still believes they were angry because they were attracted to me and didn’t know how to process it.
But I do appreciate having Luca, who has never hesitated to throw hands when I needed him to.
‘Gia and Amara are here, too,’ I remind him, pointing to the wall behind me. Our cousin and her wife rent the third apartment in the triplex, and it has come in handy more than once.
Luca nods, his shoulders relaxing, then he stiffens and points. Cielo’s starting to move, and a second later, I hear one of his trilling hums. It’s hoarse and ragged, telling me he’s in pain.
I push past Luca, hurrying over, and drop to my knees beside him. He blinks, his rainbow eyes a little hazy as he turns his head to me.
“Hi,” I tell him.
Beside me, Luca makes a noise and waves his hand at Cielo to get his attention. Cielo blinks at him owlishly, looking between Luca and me, then makes another noise of pain.
“Hey,” I say, and sign for Luca’s benefit. “You’re awake.”
Cielo hums softly and attempts to sit up, but I quickly press a hand to the part of his chest that isn’t covered in wounds. I’ve dressed them and whatever the herbs are that he’s taken—plus the cum—seems to be helping him heal.
But it’s still not enough.
“Hold on. You still need more of your medicine.”
He eases back down to the couch, and his long tongue flicks over his lips, wincing when it touches a split along the bottom right corner.
I feel a pulse of rage coursing through me at whoever did this to him. I don’t know how or why he was put through this. Everest gave me a vague run-down of what happened, but it was clear he wasn’t allowed to divulge much.
All I know is that Rathyn got in trouble, Cielo was caught up in it, and now he is banished from Erethar and forced to live here among humans.
I have no idea if that’s the worst kind of torture for Cielo or not, but he’s probably missing his family. The only comfort I have for him is knowing that Vyastil can survive perfectly well here on Earth.
Cielo looks at Luca again and makes a questioning noise, and I realize my brother wasn’t here when I first brought Cielo home.
“My brother,” I explain. “He lives next door, so you’re probably going to see a lot of him.”
Luca leans over my shoulder a little further and fingerspells, ‘Hi.’
Cielo blinks at him, then points to his face. It takes me a second, then I realize he’s pointing out Luca’s freckles. He has a ton of them. So many that it became his sign name when he was a kid.
“Oh yeah,” I say with a small grin. “You guys don’t have those, do you?” I reach up and poke Luca on the apple of his cheek, then sign and say, “Freckles.”
“Frehhhhkllll,” Cielo tries. He struggles with the word, but mimics the sign without error.
Cielo starts to shift again, but lets out a high-pitched noise of pain, and I quickly stand, my knees popping as I go. “Don’t move. I’m going to get the rest of your poultice, okay? Rathyn told me it’ll help.”
Cielo jolts at the sound of the other monster’s name, but after a second, he nods and settles.
Turning, I hurry into the kitchen with Luca at my heels, and he makes an impatient noise, grabbing my arm to get my attention.
‘I didn’t realize how bad it all was. Who did that to him?’
I let out a heavy sigh. ‘I don’t know. He was sent to prison in Erethar,’ I use the sign name Luca gave to the monster’s world—an E tapped on the forehead. ‘Everest couldn’t tell me much.’
Luca scowls. ‘Fucked up.’ He vocalizes that in his anger, and I don’t blame him. Luca has always been a caregiver. He’s always hated seeing anyone in pain.
‘I know. But I think if he takes a little more cum and lets these herbs do the work, he’ll be okay.’ I feel a twinge in my knuckles, and I try to shake my hands out discreetly, but of course, with Luca’s Deaf eyes, he notices.
‘Are you sure you’ll be okay while I’m gone?’
‘I’ll be fine. Trust.’ I finish mixing the herbs, then soak the bandages in water before adding globs of the muddy concoction to the center. It smells like ass, but that’s usually a mark of something that’s going to work well.
Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.
Luca lets out a sigh, then steps back. ‘I’ll go pick up something for dinner so we don’t have to cook.’
Normally, I’d be happy to whip up some pasta, but right now, I don’t have the energy for it. ‘Get something vegetarian. I don’t think the Vyastil eat meat.’
He nods and gives me a thumbs-up before snagging the keys to my car off the hook on the wall. ‘Text me if anything happens.’
I roll my eyes but nod and watch as he heads out the back door.
When he’s gone, I turn my attention back to Cielo, who’s managed to sit up a little, inspecting some of the gashes on his chest. I gently push his hands away and place the poultice on them, wincing when he does.
I hate that he’s still suffering even when I’m trying to soothe him.
I want him to gather more language so he can tell me what happened. I want to know who the fuck thought they could hurt him like this. Prison and banishment are bad enough. This is something else.
I want to know who is going on my shitlist.
I might be small, but I’m scrappy, and when it comes to people I care about, I don’t hold back.
“Oh, don’t move too much yet. I have something for you,” I say, and then rush to my room and grab the small vial sitting on my end table.
I managed to collect more cum before Luca appeared, and while it was weird to jack off into a glass bottle, Cielo needs it.
Plus, it’s really not a chore to give my dick a tug.