Antonio snickered.“You’re a damned miracle, Murderpunk.C’mon.”
“Very well.”Declan sighed and stepped properly back, though he hooked his thumbs in Antonio’s front pockets.“Dragon first.Decisions, and this, after.”
All they had to do was not steal from the irritable, isolated beithir.And, ideally, survive the day.
Easy.He did the latter all the time.
Neverletitbesaid that Declan alone, among the fae, held a flare for the dramatic.
Zyr’s allotment was a rocky, windswept moor, blanketed in fog.Lightning rent the sky, followed by long, rolling growls of thunder.Harriers shrieked in lightning-scarred trees while red deer moved through the mist, more shadow than form.A single hill, rocky and steep, held Zyr’s small, thatched stone cottage.
The last time he visited the lands of this House, it was to Hyacinth’s parcel for a party.The setting had been significantly more hospitable.
Declan eyed the front door, a beaten-looking thing, hinges rusted from too long in salt air.When the two of them moved closer, it swung open without sound.Declan tightened his arm around Antonio’s waist for a beat, then stepped inside with only the scroll now in his arms.
The door didn’t see fit to close on its own, mind.Declan did that for it once Antonio had followed him into the little cottage.
And wasn’t it funny, to glance around at the lived in, nearly cluttered space of dark, comfortable-looking furniture, full of books and carved bones, worn sculptures, and wreathes of woven heather, and think of his early days in the mortal realm?“I can’t believe it!It’s bigger inside than out.”
No passed drinks or mocking laughter at the telly, but Antonio hadn’t started to squint as if surrounded by blinding amounts of magic.So perhaps just as real as memory, if far more hunting lodge-esque.
The beithir, Zyr, was a hulking blonde man in a sweater vest, comfortably settled on one of the large chairs.A third entry for Antonio’s hot, blond, white guy scale, as he admitted to dubbing Wyte and Nimai.This one came equipped with a set of curling silver horns and metallic blue scales down his neck and over his shoulders, punctuated with a barbed, snakelike tail.No fluffy ears or insincere smiles.
In fact, the beithir made no noise at all.Merely kept his eyes on his book.Declan exchanged a look with Antonio, an eyebrow arched.The silence stretched, taut and near deafening.
“Well?”The beithir hadn’t looked up.His voice was a low rumble, like the thunder outside.He turned a page in his book with a surprisingly careful claw.“Did you come here to stare or do you want something?”
“A bit rustic, precious,”Aisling had said back at home, pushing an old, warded scroll wrapped in oilskin at him.“He’s not a people person.A little brusque.Be polite.Don’t touch his things.Zyr isn’t afriend, hummingbird.He’s a colleague.Don’t treat him as one of your peers.”
“Mother raised me with a healthy respect when it came to interrupting someone with a book,” Declan said, ignoring Aisling’s advice.He stepped around a sculpture and a small side table to be within reach of the man, offering him the scroll.“She sends her regards and appreciation for speaking with us.”
“Ah.A bribe.”Zyr raised his gaze at last, setting his book aside.A worn, old pulp novel with a garish cover.A silver ship.A leering monster.A screaming woman clutched in its grasp.
He took the wrapped package, uncovering the scroll without opening it.A sigh, somewhere between awe and regret, before he rewrapped it and handed it back to Declan.
“Aisling must be fond of you, pup, to call in a debt while inviting another.”
“I go by Declan.This is Antonio, my bond.”Declan gestured to Antonio, and the human stepped closer, his shoulder bumping Declan’s in solidarity.
His approach must have caught the beithir’s attention, because Zyr looked away from Declan–or, more pointedly, the scroll–to focus on Declan’s bond.Lightning danced in his pupils with the study, nostrils flared.
“Didn’t come tobestared at, either,” Antonio said into the too-long silence, short.His fingers chased the shape of a bracelet, following it around his wrist.
“How interesting,” Zyr murmured, sounding as if he spoke mostly to himself.“You reek of iron.Iron and glass.”The beithir shook his head, looking between them.“What idiot promises led you to bond your soul to a sluagh, Hollow?”
Antonio bristled, his indignation a coarse, sweet burn in the bond.When he spoke, the hostility in his voice was clear.“Ones I don’t regret.”
It took everything in Declan to not reach out and drag Antonio into a kiss.Inappropriate, when face-to-face with a prickly unseelie almost as old as the convergence itself.
And yet.
His fingers nearly twitched with the want of it.Antonio, fierce and spiky on behalf of Declan and his own decisions.Declan warmed with it.Sun scorched iron and bold, even when afraid.
It was…
He couldn’t name it.The only thing Declan knew was that defensive lack of regret, and he needed to hold himself back from beingridiculous.
“Nor do I,” he added, the only answer he could give.“Antonio knows his own mind and business.As I do mine.”
