“I owe you a grave debt, Bo. And you have good intentions, however ill-conceived and undeserved.” Everil’s lips tightened, studying Bo for a beat. Something that sounded like hurt tinged his next words. “Why would you expect me to leave you to face harm?”
For all that Bo felt its sincerity, the question was almost funny. Everil didn’t want Bodead, but he also wanted him gone. Not around. Broken away and tucked somewhere else despite that pesky “soul” business.
“You might’ve liked him, is all.” Bo shrugged, shoved his hands in his hoodie pockets. “Same message and all. ‘Leave.’Yougave me a specific name before you fucked off, though; Antonio was against the whole species.”
“Wise of him,” Everil said, tone begrudging. “But beside the point. You thought I’d leave you to harm?”
“I generally take fucking off as a sign that dramatic acts of saving someone from punching a very strong jaw are off the table. I appreciate it, though. The dramatic swooping.”
Everil’s lips parted, then closed. The silence stretched. Bo waited, trying not to let his jaw set. He wasn’t mad at Everil. Not really.
“Allow me to be direct,” Everil said, at last, dragging his gaze away from Bo. He started walking again, his hands folding behind his back, probably clutching at his wrist again. He looked as he had in the living room, holding himself while Bo pawed and clutched. “You felt it, at the start. The drain on you?”
“Yeah.” Bo’d felt it. Though mostly, he’d been focused on clinging to Everil, petting at him like a goddamn creeper.
“That was me, taking what was not mine to ask. I was not well.” Everil licked his lips, his gaze fixedly aside still. “I am still not well. And our bond makes it all too tempting to repeat that mistake.”
“To… take my energy?” The heaviness, the feeling of studying too long, eyelids weighted but body still able to push further.
“You could call it that. Energy. Magic. Yours is very,” a flicker of pink tongue over full lips, “sweet.”
Bo laughed, startled out of the tangle of his own mind. “Sweet? That’s one fucking description no one who knew me ever used. Fuck. What do I taste like? Guessing not grass, water, and houses.”
A shiver of surprise ran through their bond, laced with something Bo couldn’t place.
“Like a confection,” Everil offered quietly, a sigh on his lips. “Vanilla and citrus. Honey. Summer, as the sun sets.” He kept his gaze pointedly on the trees. “It’s quite pleasant.”
The word brought to mind the fancy bakeries and candy shops, the sort where they sold only things made in-house. Nothing pre-packaged. Bo’s eyebrows rose as he studiedthe man who so fucking firmly did not look back, despite boring holes into the side of Bo’s face a couple minutes earlier.
“ ‘Quite pleasant’ is also not something I’m usually called by people who know me. I’ll take it.” Bo offered him a crooked smile, not that Everil saw it. Confections and summer sunsets. Summer, when Everil lingered on Bo’s tongue like a crisp winter morning. “Fae can taste people’s souls, then?”
“Not precisely. Intermingling energies so closely influences one’s perceptions. Tastes, colors, sounds, scents. But it requires a bond.” Everil looked at him at last, a quick sideways glance. “You need not fear any other fae will be so … tempted.”
“Good to know I’ll probably not have many wanting to lick my energy.” Bo didn’t know who thefuckallowed him to make words. He had no excuse himself, except that he was trying. “You’re, uh, more like a winter morning.”
Everil glanced sharply at Bo, expression openly confused.
“That isn’t how I’ve heard myself described.” A softness made its way into Everil’s voice. A crack in the mask. Confusion and a touch of warmth.
No negative feelings coiled in the moment and Everil slowed to a stop, reaching out to touch the trunk of the nearest tree.
“Cold water?” Bo offered, slowing to a halt again, his eyes on where Everil’s long fingers rested against the bark. “Grass. Sometimes frozen. Cut. Old places.” Freedom. Safety. “Ones with history.”
The maple Everil touched curved towards him, and the other trees shifted in restless accompaniment. The creak and groan of branches nearly drowned out Everil’s quiet, “I see.”
Bo glanced at the trees, rustling in a wind that existed nowhere except in the branches. He’d thought maybe he’d imagined it with Antonio. He wasn’t imagining this.
“You good?”
“I will be.” Everil took a slow breath, a splash of red against his cheek. A leaf. “There’s something you need to– That I wish to explain to you. If you’ll allow me.”
“Sounds fucking ominous.” Bo rocked back on his heels, hands deep in his pockets, while Everil cuddled into the trees’ reaching branches. “I can’t promise to keep my mouth shut if you get mean, but you haven’t done that yet. So, I think our chances of me keeping quiet are good.”
Everil shook his head so slightly Bo would have missed it if not for the shiver of theleaves.
“I’ve no intention of being cruel. Only honest. Sometimes, it’s difficult to distinguish between the two.”
“Okay,” Bo agreed, already uneasy.
