Clayton didn’t need to worry about those last two. He would have noticed if Mal were one of those. Everyone in the Guard had been trained to be able to identify nightmares and demons. They were the worst of the worst and had to be killed on the spot for the sake of the Real and the ‘Scape.
When too much of one side interacted with the other, it caused the veil to go wonky and unstable. Dreamwalkers were the sole exception. Nightmares were spawned in the ‘Scape, and it was up to dreamwalkers to keep them there.
Vis—the patron deity of the Guard—had created their race specifically to maintain the balance, so dreamwalkers could go back and forth between the Real and the ‘Scape as often as they bloody well pleased.
“Well?” Clayton demanded, raising a hand threateningly to show that he had no qualms about killing another innocent slice of pie to get results. “Why did you come here?”
Mal cradled his pie and his soup protectively. “I’m not going to talk to you if you keep hurting my food.” Then Mal cocked his head to the side as if something occurred to him. “Unless you want to take its place.”
“You wish,” Clayton snorted. If a tiny jolt of electricity went through him, it was no one's business but Clayton’s. “I’ll leave your horrifying food alone as long as you talk. Start with why you called me, and why you’re here.”
Mal scowled. “I already told you why I called you, you little chaos magnet. I don’t know anyone in Boston but you, and I can’t think of anyone else on the planet who could divert an airplane on its way to China. I’m tired, hungry, irritated, hungry, and—why are you only wearing a tiny robe? Most people wear clothes in public. Do you think you’re special or something? There are perverts all over the place.”
Clayton made a show of glancing around the tiny galley kitchen inhishome and allowed his eyes to land on Grampy, a wizened kirian whose hunched, tiny form was about as threatening as a piece of toast. Grampy gave him a kindly smile and held out a slice of pie for Clayton.
“Thank you, Grampy, but I’m still too dizzy from the spell patches to eat. And, Mal, I’ll wear whatever the bloody, buggering hell I want in my own home, you absolute doorknob.” Clayton was planning on working himself up to a glorious rage, but was cut short when a large hand took him by the wrist.
Mal had put down the soup and was inspecting Clayton’s arm. Then he set the pie on the counter so he could pull back the sleeve of the robe. His thumb stroked Clayton’s wrist softly as he examined him. Clayton froze, and his vision went hazy and soft-focused. Mal frowned as he took in the extent of the damage to Clayton’s arm.
Without asking, he pulled open Clayton’s robe and smoothed his fingers across the dozen or so spell patches plastering his torso.
“You—you—” Clayton sputtered, face going hot and skin likely turning splotchy and red from anger.
“You seem to be in good hands here, Clayton,” Grampy said, placing down the pie he’d been trying to offer. “Take care of our boy, Mal. He’s had a rough day. Don’t worry about the kids. Eira and I will get them in bed.” Grampy gave Mal a friendly pat on the shoulder and squeezed past him, leaving Clayton half-naked and alone with a near stranger.
“How bad is it?” Mal asked softly.
His eyes were solid black, and it made him seem less expressive, so it was difficult to guess what he was thinking or feeling. Was he sad? Did he feel bad that Clayton had gotten hurt?
“It’s… pretty bad. You should feel terrible,” Clayton whispered. The feather-light touches on his chest were incredibly distracting.
Mal turned his attention from Clayton’s chest to his face and reached up to trace the spell patch on his cheek. Clayton winced because it was covering a deep gash, and his heart raced from the pain. There was another brief flare of light in the black depths of Mal’s eyes.
Mal’s eyebrows went up, and he pulled his hand away.
“It’s okay. It didn’t hurt,” Clayton lied. It had hurt, but pain was such a non-event in his life that, unless it involved a missing limb or a squirting artery, he didn’t get upset by it.
When he had ample sources of magical healing available, what was a little bit of damage in the grand scheme of things?
“Didn’t it?” Mal asked. There was an odd tone to his voice, and Clayton was too busy trying to figure out what it meant to realize Mal was lifting him onto the counter until he’d already done it. “Where else are you hurt?”
“My leg…” Why was Clayton allowing this to continue? Was Mal really interested in Clayton’s injuries? Or was he so concerned about perverts in Clayton’s kitchen that he’d decided to be the biggest one ever to scare all other potential ones away?
Something about that line of thinking didn’t make sense, but horny Clayton wasn’t the smartest version of himself. While pain didn’t upset him anymore, it had started to do other, more interesting things as he got older. The more Mal touched Clayton’s injuries, the faster the blood in his body relocated to his dick.
Mal kneeled down and pried Clayton’s thighs apart. The thin silk of his robe did nothing to disguise the raging hard-on Clayton was sporting, and shame colored his face further when Mal snorted. Clayton tried to cover himself, but Mal stopped his hands.
“No. I need to see everything.” There was a rough quality to Mal’s voice, and it echoed inhumanly. A thrill of lust shot through Clayton and Mal’s eyes flashed with light once more.
Clayton’s hands braced on either side of him as he allowed Mal to expose him fully. His robe was little more than an accessory at this point, and Clayton briefly wondered how he’d gone from yelling to DTF so quickly.
“This is what you were trying to cover?” Mal’s mouth was so close, Clayton could feel his hot breath ghost against his cock. “What a waste of energy. There’s almost nothing to see.”
Mal’s humiliating words had Clayton so hard it hurt. He whined and bucked his hips up to get Mal to touch him. Mal’s eyes flared brighter this time, and the effect lasted longer. As it faded, the man groaned like he was eating a five-star meal.
“I see no point in touching that,” Mal scoffed with a smile. “And I don’t think you need to either.” Mal gestured, and Clayton’s hands were stuck fast to the counter.
“Wha-what?” Clayton was dumb from lust, and the man had barely touched him. He should feel disgust and anger from the awful things Mal was saying, but instead, Clayton felt like his dick was about to erupt without any stimulation at all.
