Mal’s arrogant laughter followed him as he went.
Chapter
Fifteen
MAL
Mal hadn’t lied to Clayton. What had just happened between them was definitely new to him.
Mal liked new. After enough years piled on, new things became scarce, and he’d just discovered two new food sources in a single day after an endless lifetime of nothing but pure fear.
One of the new sources was far more enjoyable than the other. Grampy’s questionable food would be useful in an emergency, but Clayton… Hmm. Clayton wasn’t going to be a one-time buffet as he’d originally planned.
Mal had been so hungry that he’d fully planned to eat Clayton’s fear until there was nothing left and then make a graceful exit before his family found out what he’d done. However, once he’d been left alone with the man, something entirely different occurred.
Clayton hadn’t been afraid of Mal. There wasn’t a mote of fear energy in him to be found. But the second Mal had made contact with his skin, Clayton had begun to churn out the most intoxicating energy Mal had experienced. It was heady and delicious, and Mal couldn’t get enough.
He saw deep inside Clayton’s soul and knew exactly what he needed to do to get Clayton to make more. If that hadn’t been amazing enough, Mal actually liked doing it.
It was natural, the easiest thing in the world to play with Clayton’s mind and body like that. Now Mal was bursting with energy for the first time in his life, and he’d only had to torment and delight a fussy little man to get it.
Clayton was fun. Clayton was interesting. Clayton was… Mal’s.
Clayton wasMal’s.
Well then. That certainly made Mal’s life about a thousand times more interesting.
He took in the tight set of Clayton’s shoulders as he all but sprinted away from the kitchen and the scene of the crime that stripped away the young man’s thin veneer of civility and decorum. Mal grinned and followed him out to the living room.
Mal couldn’t sense Clayton’s thoughts or emotions now that he was no longer in feeding mode, but Mal still knew to his core exactly what Clayton was thinking. He was mortified that someone had seen through his illusion of propriety.
Poor baby. Mal was going to strip away so much more before he was done with Clayton.
He was going to take everything. Everything Clayton was, everything that supported him, and everything Clayton cared about, Mal was going to take from him to bind the man completely to the most feared nightmare in the Real.
“Mal?” There was a tug on his sleeve, and Merry held up a tattered doll. “Do you want to kiss Princess Stinky goodnight?”
“Princess what?” Mal’s mind fumbled as it tried to go from malicious plotting to pretending not to be terrifying.
Clayton skidded to a halt and turned to look at him. “She’s Merry’s sole source of comfort and sense of control in the world. Youwillnotinsult her.” His cheeks blazed red, not from mortification like before, but from sheer papa-bear intensity, and it was no less captivating.
Mal turned his attention back to Merry and the doll she still held out for his inspection. It began to glitter with a faint hint of red essence, and it floated a few wobbly inches higher.
Sigh.
“She’s… lovely,” Mal said flatly. When Clayton kicked him in the ankle, he added, “The orange crayon really brings out her… eye.” At least Mal thought it was an eye. It could have been an ear. The doll really was in sad shape.
“She needs a kiss goodnight,” Merry said urgently, and the magic around Princess Stinky flared like he needed help being able to see her.
He didn’t. From her massive mop of wild brown and green curls to her half-melted face, to the pungent smell she surely got her name from, Princess Stinky was an unignorable force to be reckoned with.
He gave Clayton a quickdo I really need to kiss that horrible thing?expression and was met with Clayton’s irrefutableif you ever want to come near any part of my body again, you will kiss that fucking doll goodnightface.
Mal kept his sigh internal and his face neutral as he caught the doll just as Merry’s shaky control over her magic collapsed. He scooped Princess Stinky into his arms and pressed a kiss to what he hoped was the doll’s cheek. “Goodnight, Princess, sleep well and have wonderful dreams about rainbows, unicorns, and…” What was another nice thing? “...crossbows.”
He looked down at Merry to see if he’d gotten it right, ignoring Clayton’s snort of amusement, and he saw the little girl’s eyes wide with excitement. “Clayton, can we get a crossbow?!”
“No!”
