Everil clutched at Bo, incautious of his strength. But he didn’t press the man down onto the waiting moss or capture his lips with the river’s ceaseless hunger, drinking his breath. For the moment, that was all the control he could manage.
“You’re fucking awesome,” Bo whispered, with a tug at Everil’s hair, a sure, drawn-out pressure that only tempted him further. “Fuck, Everil. Did good. Everything’s okay.”
Ridiculous, this human’s myriad expressions of rough kindness. The way he seemed unaware that the bond was a whip, one he could easily use to punish Everil for his greed and nature and pathetic grasping. Instead, he soothed with gentle reassurances, letting Everil’s control return slowly, instead of slamming into place like a cage door.
“I begin to fear you might have a somewhat skewed view of appropriate behavior.” The faintest hint of wild laughter lingered in his voice. “ ‘Awesome’ not being a generally accepted interpretation of an attempted drowning.” And now he’d made a joke of it, which was certainly worse. “That was ill said. I–” He pressed his forehead more firmly against Bo’s shoulder, the noise in his throat somewhere between a laugh and a curse. “I may yet need to collect myself.”
“Take all the time you need. We’re good. That was funny,” Bo replied, laughing in turn. Like he meant it. “And you were fucking awesome, Everil. Nothing ill said or done.” His lips brushed Everil’s temple, a kindness that threatened to draw a whimper from him. “You splashed at me twice, and I told you I wasn’t going near the river. Called you a cheeky fuck.”
“I believe your sense of humor matches your survival instinct,” Everil murmured the words into Bo’s shirt, his bare skin aching for further touch. He should dress, but the stallion of him had no respect for propriety. “Call itintendedif not attempted, then. I’m grateful you stayed out of the water.”
“No shit, you were intending to drown me if I went splashing about. You shouldn’t have to apologize for that. Certainly not to me.” Bo’s fingers stroked down Everil’s neck, so very gently. “You’re akelpie. Huge. Fangs. Fucking ink black. Dangerous. Playful shithead. The most beautiful fucking thing I’ve ever seen.” Wonder in his words and that continued, tempting touch. “How much do you remember? Because if two splashes and a noise is an attempted drowning, I’m going to start doubting the ‘murderous’ part of your murderous, flesh-eating stallion claim.”
When had Everil last been subject to such soothing attentions? Lawrence, perhaps. But in so many ways, the man Lawrence had loved hadn’t been Everil. He’d kept himself locked down. Presented a version of himself that a delicate, soft-spoken human wouldn’t run from.
Bo stroked his neck and called himkelpiewithout the least recrimination in his voice. And it felt so good and so very, very strange. He didn’tdeservethis.
“Remembering isn’t the same as understanding. The stallion is me, but a different … pattern, one that’s hard to hold onto once I’ve left it. I grasp it in pieces. You were too amusing to eat.” He absolutely shouldn’t have said that. “It may be best that I shut up now.”
But Bo still refused to reach for the whip, petting Everil’s neck with a light, intoxicating tenderness.
“I’ll tell you what I told you before. In case you didn’t get a grasp on it.” Bo’s words were murmured, close. So very close. “I hope you know this fulfills any fucking obligation you have toward me. I’ll say whatever words need saying. Pulling me from the brink wouldn’t come close to measuring up to this. That’s just a life.”
“Perhaps.” Everil wouldn’t argue. Couldn’t if he tried. Instead, he forced his fingers open, stepping back despite his desire to hold on and on and on. “For now, I’m clear-headed enough to recognize that I’m in no state to discuss obligation. If I might have my clothes?”
“Cat free.” Bo’s eyes were red, his voice rough. “And in case you’re the sort to spend loads of time between now and the obligation discussion building your case, do me a favor and don’t? Not until you hear my reasons?”
“Declan would appreciate your skills. He tells me he’s having trouble with cats.” Everil stepped back into his pants, then slipped on his shoes. “And I will grant your favor.”
It would go ill between them when the conversation happened. Others might intuit and offer conversation off the cuff. Everil tripped and stumbled and embarrassed himself. But perhaps it was better that way. The river had made him foolish. It always did.
Sometime around midnight, Everilfound himself in the lobby of a hotel, his head pounding from hours spent in the hellish prison of Bo’s iron car. Talia, who’d hardly noticed, wandered the lobby like it was an art exhibit while Bo made disappointed noises at the woman attempting to assist him.
“I’m very sorry, sir,” the woman said with chirpy enthusiasm. “There’s a cheerleading competition going on at the convention center. We’ve a double, but it’s on a separate floor from the other rooms.”
“Cheerleaders?” Talia looked up from the faded posters she’d been studying, hurrying to Bo’s side. “Like in the movies? Oh, Everil, please? I’ve never met one before.”
“They’re not toys.” The sigh was more for his headache than the request. It wasn’t Talia’s fault she thought the human realm more like a stage play than a place. “Leave them be.”
“They actually have competitions?” Bo asked, reaching into his wallet and handing the woman a rectangular piece of plastic. “Like in the movies.”
“Cheerleaders like in the movies,” the woman agreed. “Two adjoining rooms it is.” To Talia, she added, “They’ll be down here in the morning for breakfast, dear, if you’re curious to see them. The convention center lets them in at seven, so we open the breakfast area early at five.”
“Five,” Talia echoed with a quick nod.
Everil made a mental note to keep her in her room until at least seven. He didn’t need her, insisting that she wanted one as a pet. For one thing, that would mean a companion in the back seat.
“You should be here the weekends we have comic conventions and the cheerleading competitions in the same building. It’s a riot. They don’t know what to make of each other. Sir?”
Fresh plastic rectangles exchanged hands, one of which Bo immediately offered to Talia. Everil, apparently, wasn’t to have a rectangle of his own.
“Thanks,” Bo said as he scrawled his signature on the bill.
“Third floor, the first two doors on the right out of the elevator.”
“C’mon,” Bo said, picking up his backpack. “We’re taking the stairs. Stretch our legs and all that.”
As Everil could think of few ideas less appealing than entering the elevator, he nodded, following Bo and Talia up the stairs.
