“One more for the naughty list,” he murmured.Declan had missed that velvet voice.“We’ll save on the Christmas cards this year.”His eyes fixed on Antonio then, and he extended a hand.“Antonio, correct?I’m Orrim.Declan’s done well for himself.”
Antonio kept his surprise from his face, though it flickered through the bond readily enough.Still, he shook Orrim’s hand without hesitation.A far cry from the first morning, his panic when faced with Aisling, Nae, and Tsuri.
“Good to meet you.Think I’m the lucky one, though.”
“Luck, you’ll find, can run in multiple directions.Take good care of this one, Declan.”
“I’ve done my best,” Declan replied with an easy smile.“To prevent you from wasting time on season’s greetings, if nothing else.”
“You actually do Christmas here?”Antonio’s thumb traced a warm line over Declan’s arm, inviting him to lean in closer.So he did.
“Nah,” Hyacinth answered, with a loose, easy shrug.“Something sneaks down your chimney in Faerie, it’s best to shoot to kill.Winter Solstice, though, some of us get a bit wild.”
Antonio smirked, throwing Declan a sideways glance.“That’s what I hear.”
“You might say some get downright possessed,” Declan added with a snicker.
Banter with friends, and Declan with sunshine in his arms.It was a moment to tuck away and selfishly keep to himself.Hold close when the thoughts in the night grew too close and Antonio so far, everything hurting.
“That sounds like a story to be told over drinks,” Orrim said, all smiling amusement.“Next time.We’ll let you two make friends.Hyacinth, if someone doesn’t make use of the dance floor soon, I intend to break something.”
“A few thrown bottles might add to the atmosphere,” Hyacinth responded, turning away with barely a flick of his hand in goodbye to Declan and Antonio.He tucked a wing around Orrim and sauntered leisurely away.
“I asked him once if they were fucking,” Declan murmured, watching them go.“Hyacinth laughed in my face.”
“Really?Dude’s hot.Think it’s the web wings.”Antonio leaned in, lips brushing Declan’s ear, flirtation offered with a kiss.“Maybe he’s not into unseelie.”
Declan shivered, his eyes sliding shut.
He remembered the one time Hyacinth had seen him without glamour, in some little back alley while they put the fear of every God known to man and myth into a bare-knuckle brawler Wyte had taken up with.Prick liked Wyte as arm candy, expected him to sit down and shut up.He’d not liked Wyte off dancing or drinking with his own friends.
Hyacinth’s eyes had gleamed with something almost like interest, keen and curious, when he saw the gaunt, sharp-edged version of Declan, claws and wings and crocodile teeth.
“I don’t think that’s it,” Declan said, squeezing Antonio’s waist to keep him close.Stars, it felt so good.Side by side and held.“Orrim’s been with him since Hyacinth was around Dulce’s age.”
“How old’s he now?”
“Hyacinth?”Declan considered.“Under a hundred.Around Wyte’s age, I believe.Age is different for fae, though.Hyacinth at thirty was considered more of an adult than, say, Calloway now.”
“Fucking fae.”Antonio smiled when he said it; the bond lit with the soothing caress of leather and sunbaked earth and metal.“Guess it’s time to play nice?”
“I suppose we ought.”
Declan waited for Antonio to drop his arm and fall back a step, as he had every other time they needed to ‘play nice’ around other fae.For that distance heknewwasn’t rejection, and yet felt very much like it.
Instead, the man straightened, rubbing his thumb over the sharp curve of Declan’s shoulder, and tipped his chin toward the crowd of laughing, dancing, drinking fae.“Lead the way.”
The way, it turned out, included a wealth of unfamiliar faces.People he knew by name alone or hadn’t spoken with since very young.Others were new all around, including the selkie at the wardrobe room who waved them over.The man had a messy tumble of black hair and softly textured golden-brown skin.He wore his pelt as a stylized leather bomber jacket with a fur collar.
Sellain, he called himself.The newest addition to Hyacinth’s little group.
Sellain, who unabashedly said he hada guyon the other side of the veil, who was, in his words, “really great, but not really hyped to visit Faerie even for something like this.”He pointed out Hyacinth’s little brother–actual, blood-related, human brother–whosomehowDeclan hadn’t known existed.
The brother, Leo, proved friendly enough.He was mainly interested in Antonio’s tattoos and how Declan’s wings worked when they were only bone.Then he introduced them to the seelie about him, those invited as Hyacinth’s part of the deal, and they played nice.All of them.Even Antonio remained amused and content and, stars, Declan couldn’t bring himself to drop his arm.
More people.Faces, names.The weight of Antonio’s loose embrace, hisvoice, actually speaking to others.Jotunn, piskie, kinnara, kitsune, a flirtatious gargoyle, and even a wisp or two.
When Wyte arrived, looking like he’d stepped out of one of Declan’s photographs, he insisted on a round of drinks for them all.Teth, looking puzzled but game in a denim jacket anyone else could have worn as a dress, was made to fetch them.
