“Agreed.We don’t even need to specifywhichfamily.It can be just the two of us, if Michael decides to be a bastard.”Declan pressed a kiss to the curve of his neck.Just to touch.So long as they had this, they would be okay.
“That’s a start.”Antonio curled in closer, and Declan followed suit.“Tomorrow the Council?”
Tomorrow, Declan would need to resist the urge to burn the whole of the Council to the ground.But, perhaps, that wasn’t the best thing to say to a man who’d just killed for the first time.Antonio took care of Declan so often.Declan would do whatever he could to offer the same in turn.
“Tomorrow, we speak with Wyte and his bond, Teth.”Declan slid his fingers under Antonio’s collar, tracing the lines of the horseshoe he didn’t need to see to follow.“They’ll speak for us; we have a precedent from Zyr.Once they do, we issue a formal request to the Council.Florian will deliver it.Then, we rest.Eat when we’re hungry.Retreat to our room.Sleep, and wake when we wish to.”
Smoke and leather.Bloody flowers.Declan didn’t know how he’d lived without the sun-warmed love in his soul, the lingering metal in his mouth and leather on his bare skin, the world filled with thumping bass.
“Wyte’s your buddy.Pretty dude with the ears?”
“Aye, that’s the one.He’s a bit cheeky.”
Antonio finally lifted his forehead from Declan’s neck.“Tell me more about him.You and him and Hyacinth go way back, right?How the hell did that happen?”
Tell me a story, Antonio didn’t say.Make the monsters go away.
Declan could do that.
He smiled wryly, curled his hand over Antonio’s cheek just for the pleasure of the man leaning into it.Taking what he could from the moment.
“Once upon a time, there was a pooka, a sidhe, and a sluagh.Two had an interest in bright lights, fun times, and big, strong men, and the third, a taste for chaos.”
He did what he could to take those monsters away.Told the tale of two young seelie and one unseelie who didn’t want to mope at home, stumbling together in the early nineties queer scene.Not quite accidents, wisps being wisps, circling toward one another in the mortal realm, and a Gate, wondering what a clump of them were doing together.
Parties and odd friendships and infatuations in a time that hurt as much as it comforted.The three of them hiding away from the lives and responsibilities that awaited them in the world they were born to.
Tomorrow, they would face the frightening weight of politics beyond Declan’s previous experience and Antonio’s worst fears.Before that happened, the least Declan could do was give him something sweet, murmured soft in the only place they wanted to be, and hold on to the knowledge that so long as they had these beats in time, together, they would make it out alive.
They could do this.Hecould do this.He would.
He needed to.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Antonio
“Thisway,”saidthesoft-spoken yuki-onna, turning down yet another winding hallway.
The Monarch’s palace was ridiculously huge, inside and out.Antonio was certain he wouldn’t be able to find his way back out if you paid him, not that he would have charged.He wanted to be anywhere else.
Dinner with the Monarchs.And he’d thought nothing could beat hosting Michael and Angela.
He hadn’t expected it all to move so fast.But apparently murder was a highly respected precedent, and they had Wyte and Teth on their side.Or, as Wyte put it,“they keep checking the fine print, but the bastards are getting nowhere.”
Antonio felt likehewas getting nowhere.Endless halls of alabaster and glass and he didn’t even know what-the-fuck else.Gold and sun motifs on every damn surface.Scurrying servants who didn’t spare them a glance.
Until, finally, the yuki-onna (dressed in white, of course) stopped and pushed open a gleaming golden door.“Through here, please.The Monarchs will join you shortly.”
White stone walls.A ceiling of fine gold metalwork.And … nothing.No table.No chairs.No fuckingfloor.Just open air and the abyss.Jagged stone far, far below.
Antonio took a stumbling step back.Grabbed for Declan’s arm.Couldn’t breathe.Couldn’t think.He’d played this game before.
“Do wait inside,” said the yuki-onna.
Declan’s anger lit through the bond, brushfire quick, there and gone.Replaced by a spread of measured calm, that tattoo-gun sharpness Antonio always associated with taking back control.
“Hollows do not see glamour.A moment.”Declan covered Antonio’s hand with his own.“There is a floor of what appears to be white marble, Antonio.It goes from corner to corner, with a thick gold rug where the table stands.No fires are lit.No additional walls.”
