Terrified…
And Declan, he’d at leastlistened.Backed off, when Antonio asked him to.It was more than Calloway would ever do.
Still shaking, but at least able to breathe, Antonio stayed on the floor, thoughts spinning instead of spiraling.
How thefuckdid you find a sluagh?Fae were never around when you needed them.
This was a stupid plan that wouldn’t work.But if it was going to work, it would only worknow, before the sluagh made a pact with someone else.Like Declan had said, Antonio was only special to him if he said yes.
Shit.He’d have to say yes.
He wouldn’t.Hecouldn’t.
Then what?Calloway?Suck on a tailpipe?
“Declan?”he tried, tentative and hoarse, because who knew, maybe the fae was watching.Calloway sure as hell had been.“You listening?”
No gaunt, bone-winged fae materialized from the shadows.No black lips twisting in a thin, sad smile.No odd, lilting rasp, vibrated deep through Antonio’s chest.
Fuck, this wasn’t even a stupid plan.It wasn’t aplan.Just Antonio talking to himself in a dark room.
Poor crazy Tio Tio.
He didn’t know how you summoned the fae.He didn’twantto know how to summon the fae.That was more of a Bo thing.The kelpie fucker had a summer house in Faerie.
Bo.Had a summer house.In Faerie.
Antonio had Bo’s number.
His phone was right there, sitting on the floor where he’d dropped it.He should think this through, but there wasn’t time.He picked up the phone instead and scrolled down to Bo’s name.Two months since they’d last talked, apparently.
Fuck it.
It rang long enough that Antonio started to rehearse a message, and then Bo was on the line.
“Antonio, hey.What’s up?”
“Bo?”Did he sound as shaky as he felt?“Shit, man.I need a favor.”
Chapter Four
Declan
Howstrangeitstillfelt, to sit across from Everil again.To see him bonded and safe with an adoring man.Everil lookedhappy, there in his little two-story home with his family, making tea by hand while Bo flittered off to do something else.
“The man declined your offer, and, in turn, you would like me to remove the curse?”Everil asked, his always pleasant voice tinged with the barest brush of curiosity.The gossip.
“There are worse ways for your chit to be paid, my friend,” Declan answered, his cup of tea halfway to his lips, an eyebrow raised.“Itwasyour magic I felt on him.So what if he turned me down?He heard me out.”
“And so endeared himself to you?”
“His rejection was kind enough,” Declan said with a rise and fall of one shoulder.“Doubly so, all things considered.”
Kindly done, that talk of luck with those other nine.The advice offered with the twist of a knife the human doubtlessly didn’t know he held.Soft encouragement and kindness offered with rough words and coarse phrasing, and each sweet blow squarely landed.
Antonio had pressed the blade deep, tender with the action, dug into all the unhealed parts Declan tried to forget, those shut doors and well-mannered refusals.
Only Tsuri had seemed keen on the idea.Kin to the Monarchs, a favored cousin.A soft-spoken and sad kinnari, blunted sweetness with a sharp sense of humor and sharper mind.A brief chance of a bond wholikedDeclan, dismissed before final negotiations could begin.
