You chuckled. “Not terrible at all.”
I was glad you didn’t rave about my performance. I’d have known you were lying, and that time at least, it wasn’t about being sexy. But maybe one day it would be. I hoped to crave the taste of you the way you did me. Your arm circled around me, and my cheek pressed against your pec. Your curly chest hairs reminded me of a tiny forest. I liked the way they felt against my cheek, liked to bury my nose in them and seek your nipples with my mouth like a treasure hunt. I loved every part of your body.
“Thank you,” I whispered. I didn’t want to explain it, but I could tell from your expression and your quiet murmur that you understood.
I wrapped your arm tighter around me and hunkered down. You turned onto your side so that my back pressed against your chest and your hips cradled my ass. That was my favorite position to cuddle. Sometimes I fantasized about you slipping your cock into me while I was asleep and waking up to us fucking. In my mind it was that easy—my asshole would just open to you. And you would fit so snugly inside, the piece I’d always been missing.
Then I thought about the morning after Roger died, how upset my mother was, and how bad I felt because I was glad the fucker was dead. I was fucking ecstatic. You were my guardian angel even before I asked you to be. Or in that case, my avenging one.
“I was glad when Roger died,” I whispered to you. I’d never said it out loud.
“You have nothing to feel guilty about,” you said soothingly.
I kind of did, though. I wasn’t sure how you’d orchestrated it, but even then, I’d figured it was because of me. You were the only one I’d told, and in my self-absorbed mind, I was the reason for his death.
“Did he deserve that, Henri?” I held my breath because I was scared of how you’d answer.
Your hand stroked my hair, such a warm gesture compared to your chilly tone. “Roger was a predator,” you said with indifference, “and he was eliminated by an animal more dangerous than he.”
You made it sound like a cosmic pest control service. Stone cold. I knew the answer already, but I had to ask.
“Are you that dangerous animal?” I glanced back at you and tried to read your expression.
You gazed at me with an uncharacteristic hardness in your eyes. “Yes, I am.”
You once told me I could ask you anything. It didn’t mean you would answer, but I could at least ask the question.
“Are you good or bad?”
You sighed with a deep rumble in your chest that vibrated against my back. “I’m both, Orlando. With you I can be very good, but with others, I can be very, very bad.”
You didn’t seem to feel any remorse. We were different, you and me. It wasn’t a culture thing or an age thing or even a life experience thing, it was much more than that. No matter how human you appeared, you’d always be something else.
“We’re not the same,” I said, which was obvious, but you never made me feel stupid for coming out with was on my mind.
“No, we’re not.”
“Do you wish I were more like you?”
Your breath tickled my neck when you said, “No, my darling, I wish I were more like you.”
That seemed ridiculous to me. I was ordinary. Human. There were billions like me on earth. But you were special and unique. I bet, even among your own kind, there was only one like you.
“Do you wish I were good?” you asked. Your voice sounded different. You were normally so confident and firm, but when you asked me that, you sounded uncertain. Scared, even. Your body stilled as you waited for my answer.
Was it bad that you’d killed Roger and cut off Derek’s finger? Yeah, probably, but I was glad you did it. So, no, I didn’t really wish you were good. And who was I to judge a demigod who had lived—and likely killed—for a thousand years?
“I don’t care if you’re good or bad,” I said and put your hand against my heart. “As long as you’re mine.”
22
Henri
Love made me reckless. In Xavier we’d found a way to be together on a regular basis. I’d never been so mindful of the passage of time as I was that spring, when I counted down the minutes until I met with you in human form again. I was better in my duties because I had someone to lift me up when my work became difficult. Knowing you’d be waiting for me at the end of a long ordeal helped me to endure.
Your career was advancing as well. There was a production ofRomeo and Julietpremiering that spring, and you and Bruno were in the corps de ballet with other minor roles as well. Rehearsing kept you busy, and I’d often pick you up from the studio in one of Xavier’s automobiles late in the evening. (I’d improved significantly in my driving.) Having to orchestrate such a large-scale production meant that Sergei’s attentions were divided, and he no longer seemed so singularly focused on your performance. This improved your spirits greatly.
Then, on the eve of opening night, which I was planning to attend, I was summoned to a domestic dispute that had turned fatal. A murder-suicide where the perpetrator’s soul had been claimed, but the victim’s had not. The scene was grisly upon my arrival. The woman had been shot twice, once in the gut and again in the heart. She’d collapsed in the kitchen and the inky pour of blood was still pooling on the linoleum beneath her. Her expression was one of surprise, as if she’d only just looked up to see who had arrived when her life was stolen.
