“Fuck, yeah. Yes. Go for it. We cuddling?”
“If you’ll allow it,” Everil answered, pleased by the way Bo leaned into him. As if he was truly where he wished to be. “I could manage by simply touching your arm, but this is more comfortable.”
It was then that Talia stepped back into existence, separating from the veil. “That always feels kinda stretchy. Like being run through a cosmic pasta maker.”
“A pasta maker?” Everil asked, without shifting away from Bo.
”Acosmicpasta maker. Stretched out to infinity while you two were canoodling.”
“I see.” Everil indicated the grounds with little more than a tilt of his head. “I was merely endeavoring to help Bo feel more at home.”
“Sure.” Talia drew the word out, eyebrows lifted. “Magic canoodling.”
“You’re weird, kid.” Bo seemed utterly unruffled by Talia’s observation. “I mean that as a compliment. You going to begrudge a guy who might need to live in a pocket universe some magic canoodling?”
“Iam a timeless liminal being of inconceivable power,” Talia replied, with faux primness. “And maybe a little weird.”
“Undersocialized,” Everil murmured.
“That’s why we need Bo alive. He’s going to take me to a mall!” Talia’s grin was full of unrepentant enthusiasm. “So get it out of your system, both of you. We’ve got to go save the world.”
“The world?” Everil asked, with his own small smile.
“Myworld. As in, the mall. And my getting to go to it.”
“As someone also undersocialized as a kid and supremely weird, I stand by my statement.” Bo still sounded utterly unrepentant, and Everil took comfort from the way he continued to lean. “You let us get this out of our system before shit goes down and maybewe’ll be back to the mortal world in time to drag you Black Friday shopping. Humanity at its most interesting and chaotic.”
“One of you is a terrible influence on each other,” Everil said, settling his arms more firmly around Bo. “I simply haven’t decided which.”
“Oh, it’s definitely me.” Talia took a step away from them, surveying the landscape with melodramatic fascination. “Hey look, a shrubbery! Later, Dads.”
Everil watched her meander off before turning the entirety of his attention back to the man leaning warm against his chest. “Will you close your eyes for me?”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Bo answered, with a little laugh, his head tipped back against Everil’s shoulder. “Bring it.”
“In this case, the intent is foryouto ‘bring it.’ ” Everil pulled Bo in closer, his lips brushing the shell of his ear. “This isn’t about specificity, as it was at Brookhaven. Faerie responds more effectively to emotions than explanations.”
Bo shivered against him, eyes still closed. “Feelings, huh?”
So very tempting. Solid humanity surrounded by Faerie’s mutability. Everil leaned in, pressed his lips to the corner of Bo’s jaw while he slid a hand up, over Bo’s chest.
“These are my lands,” Everil murmured, allowing his blunted teeth to graze Bo’s skin. “Yours, as my bond.” Another kiss and the span of Everil’s fingers over Bo’s heartbeat. “If you’re pleased the lands will reflect it.”
He withdrew his power from the reaching magic surrounding them, filtering it through Bo, instead. It would take some time for the estate to know him. Everil wasn’t above helping it along. Whatever happened, he wanted to gift Bo this.
“I’m feeling pretty pleased, yeah.” And oh, but Bo sounded it.Feltit, his pleasure a sweet rush of vanilla over Everil’s tongue as he kissed Bo’s throat, then kissed it again.
And just like that, Faerie changed.
Desert gave way to old growth forest and the dry air turned heavy with heat and the scents of summer. The fireflies continued to dance among the trees, multicolored lights bringing more illumination to the scene than they ever would on the human side of the veil. Dim, not dark, and the silver of the moon filtered through the leaves, caught on Bo’s hair and his skin.
Faerie’s shifts weren’t often so sudden. But these lands had been starved without their sworn keeper. And who could resist such a fetching mortal? Certainly not Everil, open to Bo, pouring himself through him. Bo answering with delight and pleasure, the clarity of his emotions an unexpected, dizzying rush.
Light into heat. Honey-glazed fruit placed on a ready tongue.
Bo’s pulse under Everil’s lips while the nightbirds called above. Honeybees mingled with the fireflies, flickering like them, clumsy and ambling towards small gray flowers, almost invisible in the moss.
“Holy fuck,” Bo whispered, his voice a little shaky. “Holyfuck.Ever. Fucking hell.”
