Steady words about drowning, blood, fish, and all the other shit on the pages Bo told Antonio to read. He still had his old books, packed away in storage somewhere in upstate New York. But, fuck, Everil took the sanitized tales and made them very fucking real. Bo wanted to see him by a river, in his element.
“I suggest you pick me,” Bo interjected. He managed to sound almost steady this time. It was easier to not want violence when the threat of death was a very real thing. “I’dpick me.”
“Antonio Silva Reis Junior.” The words were forced out through clenched teeth, Antonio somewhere between wide-eyed terror and defiance. “I swear, on my name, to never mention Bo’s family to him again.” He glanced toward Bo then, his expression shifting to something more in line with the defeat in his voice. “Not that I think I’d get the chance anyway. You’re making a mistake.”
“Are you satisfied, Bo?” Everil asked without releasing his grip.
Bo met Antonio’s look with one of his own, shoving his hands in his pockets. Ballsy fucker, tossing that last bit in there with Everil still close. “Yeah. I’m satisfied.”
Everil nodded, silent acknowledgment. The roiling ugly emotions from him didn’t quiet.
“That is one wrong addressed. I require a separate reckoning.” He reached up with his free hand, touched Antonio lightly in the center of his forehead. “Are you aware that you’re marked, Antonio Silva Reis Junior?”
“Happened a long time ago,” Antonio answered, trying, and failing, to draw back from Everil’s touch.
“I highly doubt that.” Everil tilted his head curiously, studying the man. “Protected from air and fire but not claimed. Not protected from the fae themselves.”
“He won’t care,” Antonio objected, still tugging fruitlessly against Everil’s grip. He should’ve been able to pull free. Everil held him with seemingly no effort. Slender and tall, far softer looking than Antonio, in his flowing clothes and hair loose down his back. “You can’t hurt him through me.”
“Oh, good. I have no wish to.” Everil pulled him closer, ignoring his struggles, and pressed his lips to Antonio’s forehead. “Friend of air and fire. Fitting. Be mindful of running water, Antonio Silva Reis Junior. You’ll find it doesn’t welcome you.”
He let go, and Antonio staggered back.
The kelpie’s anger started to clear like fog on a bright morning after he did whatever he did. Only then, with his own rage quieting, did Bo catch whispers of the other emotions lurking beneath the snarling.
Protective. Concerned. Tasting of dust and old wood, cold water on a throat parched by sharp winds. No desperate, clutching hands on Bo now. Everil’s gaze remained, unwavering, on Antonio.
‘Matters that things like that, they don’t fuck around.’
“Go home, Antonio,” Bo said, quieter, taking a step closer to Everil. They weren’t far apart. Bo was just… He was just. “You’ve said your piece.”
Antonio threw one last searching, resigned look at Bo, backed up, and left without another word. But hecouldleave. That, Bo’d managed. Everil might not like Bo, but he’d listened enough to not kill Antonio.
Bo’d take that. He had to.
Bo waited until thesound of Antonio’s car faded before he dropped his gear in the rental. Everil stayed near the tree line, off the sidewalk, his watchful gaze like a touch.
The fucking squall of the kelpie’s emotions left Bo feeling freshly scrubbed, skin too pink and sensitive. Goddamn whiplash, being left on his own for a few hours, Everil off with Talia, getting into it with Robin, and thenAntonio.
He needed a nap. The day’d been too long already, and he was done.
“C’mon,” Bo said once back in hearing range of Everil, the watchful. “Let’s head in.”
No protest, not that Bo expected there to be one. Everil nodded once, silent, and Bo did them both a solid by not heading into the denser trees for the third time that day.
“When you take the kid gloves off, you go fucking hard, huh?” The words came unbidden, and Bo … yeah, no, fuck it. Bo ran with it, his eyes forward and skin tingling at the nearness a bond kept just out of reach. The man had a personal bubble. Which was fine. “Not that I can say fuck all about it. Antonio probably thought I was a wholesome, misguided dude before this.”
Bo worked hard for that image, too, dammit.
“No,” Everil answered, once again quiet and the kind of level made to hide dust-thick guilt and the icy curl of need just below the surface. “He’s alive. That was me being gentle.”
Dude needed therapy. Self-loathing like a cloak, heavy on his tongue and shoulders. Fuck.
“I was surprised you showed up, gentle or not.”
Being an asshole helped with the itch to reach out and touch him. Some, anyway.
Everil slowed, let Bo get a step or two ahead. Which, fucking fair. Bo paused, turning to look back at him. Intense gray eyes met his own.
