Chapter Five
Kilian slowed his strokesso Stephen could catch up with him in the water. The universe had an odd sense of humor. After years of running, Kilian had ended back in a pool with little Stevie Nguyen, although even without the demon Stephen was a different man. Despite Mia’s fears, Stephendidcare about people. His face had been etched with guilt over breakfast, and he’d offered Kilian the least bruised apple, the largest donut and the first cup of coffee. In the military, that was practically a marriage proposal.
However, he lacked the joy of the boy Kilian had known. That was fair. Life had carved away some of Kilian’s own. Now he just tried to find peace in a quality beer, a good meal, or in this case, a chance to exercise. Unfortunately, fifteen feet was not enough distance for Kilian to stretch his muscles without dragging Stephen through the water. Then again, it wasn’t enough room to do much comfortably. Last night, Kilian had been stuck sitting on the floor while his bones healed. The binding ring trapped him until Stephen had patched over the holes in his own psyche well enough to come out of the bathroom and pretend nothing had happened.
This morning, the proximity requirement on the spell forced Kilian to sit on Stephen’s bed while Stephen showered. Kilian found it disturbing to sit on another man's bed, especially with his enhanced sense of smell. Stephen must have been very bored and very willing to entertain himself with carnal pleasures. Since Kilian couldn't smell anyone else, he assumed that Stephen had developed a deep personal relationship with his right hand, or his left. Either way, it wasn’t something that Kilian wanted to smell.
Kilian grabbed the edge of the pool and waited for Stephen. “Do you want to do another lap?”
Stephen propped his elbows on the deck, water sluicing off his back as he pulled himself half out of the pool. “You don't have to swim with me.”
“I need exercise.” Kilian stumbled over the last word because he had been about to call it PT. Whatever he called it, Kilian did need to move. This base with its silent guards and alien stillness made him restless and uneasy in his own skin. Fear, like an itch, settled into his guts when he sat too long. “Besides, with the fifteen feet rule, I'm pretty sure that if you're swimming, I'm swimming.”
Stephen studied Kilian as if he were a odd life form he had just stumbled upon. “I don't know. The last guy walked along the side of the pool with a fully automatic weapon in hand. That satisfied the fifteen feet rule.”
Kilian tried to imagine swimming when someone was pointing an automatic weapon at his back. His anger stirred in his chest and he focused on the high windows with a view of a storm-gray sky. “That might explain the disembowelment.”
Stephen winced. “No, no, it really doesn't. But you don’t have to swim with me, although I appreciate the eye candy. Maybe you are lacking the Machiavellian skills to achieve true hotness, but you do have the abs.” Stephen reached out as though he might touch Kilian, but he pulled his hand back at the last second. Kilian was muscled, but his physique wasn’t remarkable compared to the werewolves he normally served with. Kilian suspected Stephen was comparing Kilian to his own emaciated body. Kilian wasn’t sure why the government was so concerned about Stephen getting exercise when he needed some high-calorie snacks and a month or two on the couch until he recovered some body fat.
“It’s disturbing how you associate assholish behavior with sexual attractiveness.”
“We’ve been through this. Manipulation is sexy. You are unschooled in the ways of American culture if you missed that lesson. Abs plus a tragic backstory with a healthy dose of manipulation is the recipe for sexy. Angelus was objectively hotter than Angel.”
Angel? Angelus? It was as if Stephen was speaking another language. “What are you talking about? Who are you talking about?”
Stephen shrugged. “It's an old show that my mom used to watch. She had a real thing for the villain, who was also the good guy, but she definitely preferred the villain because he exuded danger.” Stephen said the last two words in a mimicking tone. “But in case you haven't noticed, most people have a thing for bad guys. Give me abs, and I would be hot stuff, or the demon would be.”
“I'm pretty sure that's not the way it works in real life.” No one wanted to have sex with a creature who could lose control and eat them. No one. So Stephen could quote all the American culture he wanted—Kilian had experience with flesh-and-blood Americans with very little interest in anyone who oozed danger.
Stephen shrugged as if supremely uninterested and then slithered back into the water. He dog-paddled, the muted sunlight through the windows casting his shadow on the bottom of the pool, the water distorting his form. “You definitely have the body. With a little more of your own darkness shining through, you could make a run for supreme hotness levels.” Stephen let his fingers trail over Kilian’s arm on his next stroke.
Kilian glanced at the door where two werewolf guards listened. “Do you think maybe you can keep in mind that I knew you back when you used to poop in your pants?” Kilian was grateful for that history since it made it easier for him to convince his own libido that Stephen was off-limits. He would think that getting tossed around like a doll would have been enough incentive for his dick to remain offline, but apparently the stupid organ was ambivalent about the situation.
“Hey! No kink shaming.” Stephen poked Kilian’s chest. “Lots of people find poop sexy.” Stephen grimaced and then in the exact same tone said, “A few people find poop sexy. But still, no kink shaming. If you want poopy pants, I might be open to that experience.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
Kilian eyed the exit. “I'm regretting this entire conversation.”
“This conversation is what you regret? Really?” Stephen caught the pool’s edge with one hand and held up his binding ring on the other. “You’d regret all your life choices over the last twenty-four hours if you had the sense that God gave a tapeworm.”
“I thought that was a goose,” Kilian said, ignoring the quick jab of pain under his ribs. Of course Stephen was a believer. Hopefully he wasn’t one who used his god’s name often.
Stephen prattled away, his voice higher and faster. “Geese actually have serious common sense. And they’re mean as hell. I respect the fuck out of geese. Birds in general, actually. That is a genus that remembers that they used to be dinosaurs and are willing to go spinosaurus on someone’s ass. Now tapeworms, those are brainless idiots.”
Kilian was never going to win a verbal sparring match. “So are we getting out or doing another lap?”
Stephen flopped onto his back and spread his arms wide in an attempt to float. Instead he sank. In a second flat, he was flailing and grabbing the edge of the pool again. “Thanks for the rescue,” he said dryly.
