VACATION!!! Which means...

 I'm taking a break from posting until we get back from out trip. I know, I left things in an imperfect place with our lovely guys, but at least they're together again and plotting murder--that has to count for something! And when I come back, I'll be working on a new story as well for the blog: a cozy fantasy. Yep, I'm giving the grimdark and death a reprieve for something light-hearted (well, lighter-hearted). I hope to return full of energy to get back to my stories after a nice, long brain break.

Where am I going with the sweet fam? Allow me to post some creative-commons pictures as I don't have my own to share yet!

 

And maybe more! I'll let you know how it goes, darlins. I hope you're well--I love and appreciate you all :)

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Nineteen: Part One

 Notes: Let's talk...about VENGEANCE!!!

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Nineteen, Part One

***

Chapter Nineteen, Part One

 

 Photo by JR Korpa

“What? No.” Kieron reared back so he could look at Elanus in the eyes. “That’s not a good plan.”

“I beg to differ.”

Of course he did. Kieron should have known this was coming—Elanus didn’t believe in a proportionate response. The first person Kieron had ever known to cross him had ended up dying terribly in the middle of nowhere of radiation sickness, and that was far less dramatic than what Elanus had wanted to do to him. Elanus was incredibly logical in almost everything, except when it came to his loved ones.

Well, time to fight fire with ice and see if he could make a dent. “We’re not equipped to handle a group of nearly a hundred mercenaries who outclass us in terms of manpower, firepower, and general preparedness. We’d put ourselves at risk for no good reason.”

“You managed to deal with those negatives and triumph on your own, though,” Elanus pointed out.

“My escape was a fluke that was only possible because of my mother,” Kieron said evenly. Credit where credit was due, after all. She might have hurt him, but he couldn’t deny that she’d saved his life.

“You say that,” Elanus muttered. “But that’s not what your story sounded like to me.”

Kieron shook his head. “You don’t know enough about what happened to me yet to tell.”

“So tell me more, then.”

Kieron sighed. Just the thought of recounting it all made him feel tired, but he knew it was important to let Elanus know what they were up against. “Fine, but you stay through the whole thing and don’t interrupt me. Please.”

Elanus nodded slowly. “All right, but let’s do this with Catie too, so you don’t have to say it more than once.”

That was fair. “Okay.” Kieron moved to get up, but Elanus’s arms tightened around his waist for a moment. “You’re going to have to let me go,” Kieron pointed out gently. Elanus turned his face into Kieron’s neck, and Kieron’s will to argue vanished. “Babe.”

“Do you know how many times I’ve come close to losing you since we’ve met?” Elanus asked, his voice muffled. That sounded like a trick question to Kieron, but thankfully it was a rhetorical one as well. “Nine, and those are only the ones I know of, because I’m sure things have happened in the interim that you didn’t bother to share that could have ended with you dead.”

Okay, so he didn’t want to argue, but… “Nine seems high.”

“I’m actually downplaying some of the assassination attempts.”

“You yourself told me that those weren’t really meant to kill me.”

“I changed my mind.” Elanus’s grip tightened. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, I’ve been trying to adapt to the idea that I could lose you almost since I met you. I understand that there’s no point to trying to wrap you up and keep you safe; you wouldn’t let me. Even after you lost your memory—” he chuckled weakly “—and I count that as one of the near-misses, by the way, you were still so much yourself that you risked everything to kill Moreno.”

This was well-trod ground, and not worth the argument over it. Kieron stayed quiet, his arms around Elanus’s neck as he let his fiancé talk through what was bothering him.

“And it’s hard,” he went on. “It’s hard to know that I’ll never be able to control enough variables to keep you safe and healthy and with me. And you look at that and think ‘of course’ but for years, for years I had that level of control over my own life. Before I changed everything with Catie, before…and things are better now, I’m happier, but it’s still terrifying to lose that kind of control. But I’m working on it, because if I didn’t try to control myself I’d lose you anyway.”

Kieron wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t. He knew himself, and Elanus did too.

“But please consider,” Elanus went on carefully, his lips whispering the words against Kieron’s neck, “what you’re asking for when you’re asking me to not even consider retaliating. To me, that’s not solving a problem, it’s perpetuating one. If I let the problems that affected me lie, I’d have lost Catie because it would have been too much work to go after her. I wouldn’t have dared improve Lizzie’s programming to the same level, either, because it would mean too much chance for heartbreak. We’d never have met, and even if we had, I’d never have chased you into space not once, but twice.

“People who hurt the ones I love are the sort of problems I can’t let go of.” Elanus finally pulled back far enough to look at Kieron. “And if you tell me not to think about how I can keep them from hurting you, or Catie, or anyone else again in the future, I’ll inevitably disappoint you. It’s too hard, especially here, where there it’s literally the only thing there is for me to focus on. I don’t want to make you unhappy or angry with me, but—”

Kieron cut him off with a slow, sweet kiss. He didn’t want to admit that Elanus was right about this, and yet…how could he not? Relationships were about compromise, weren’t they? Kieron was always going to be a self-sacrificing, danger-courting idiot of the first degree despite his best intentions, and Elanus was always going to be a mastermind control freak who had to get the last word, and pretending otherwise was just going to damage their relationship.

Well, fuck that. And fuck this place, and his grandfather’s willing followers. “All right.”

Elanus raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“I’m not giving you a blanket ‘yes’ to doing anything you want in the name of revenge,” Kieron clarified, “but I’m not going to say we should just find a cave to hole up in until we can escape from this place either. I’ll hear out any ideas you have, I promise. And you have to promise to share them with me before doing any of them, okay?”

The next kiss they shared was sweet, but not slow. There was heat there, desire present in the insistent press of Elanus’s mouth to his, the slip of his tongue and the way he ran his hands up and down Kieron’s spine before settling on his ass and tugging him in, hard. Maybe they could—

“Daddeeee! Kieroooon! I’m boooored!”

Kieron sputtered into laughter, breaking the kiss as he laid his head down on Elanus’s shoulder. “She’s just like you.”

“My timing is so much better, are you kidding?” Elanus finally let go of Kieron’s waist, though. “Fine, let’s go alleviate our daughter’s boredom by sharing your harrowing tale of woe and coming up with some feel-good vengeance plots.”

“I do love our family bonding time,” Kieron agreed, still laughing. In the distance, he saw Bobby rolling their way. “Later,” he promised Elanus.

“But soon.”

 

 

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Eighteen, Part Two

 Notes: Let's have some recovery, shall we?

Title: Hadrian's Colony, Part Two

***

Chapter Eighteen, Part Two

 

Photo by Brandon Stoll

Kieron woke up feeling like a blank slate, emotionally and physically. There was still an IV drip in his arm, one that had been going for a long time given how badly he needed to pee, but he didn’t feel the fog of Regen blanketing him anymore. Instead, as he gingerly shifted his limbs, Kieron realized that nothing hurt. Oh, there was still an ache in his arm and collarbone, and he was very aware of the emptiness of his stomach, but he didn’t hurt anywhere. Not even inside.

Well, Regen was a hormone stabilizer in addition to a healing serum. Small wonder he wasn’t in an active bout of depression after being asleep for…he checked his internal time sense.

Over twenty hours? Really? And Elanus was nowhere to be seen, although given that there was a glass of water beside him and a blanket smoothed over his body, he’d been here recently. Catie’s interior was dark, with only the emergency lights on, and rather than feeling abandoned Kieron just felt soothed.

He carefully got to his feet and walked over to the bathroom. Once he took care of things, he washed both his hands and his face—which was already free of dirt and blood, he noticed as he looked at his reflection. He was wearing a clean pair of loose pants, too, the ones he liked to wear back home for how soft they were but didn’t pack for this trip because he’d thought there wouldn’t be any point. When would they have time to relax, anyway?

But of course Elanus had packed some for him. Of course he had. Kieron smiled a little as he headed for the storage compartment and pulled out a matching shirt. “Catie,” he said quietly.

There was a faint hum that slowly got louder, then, “Keeee!” It was said at a lower register than Catie usually used, but was still enthusiastic. Elanus must have had a talk with her about being gentle with him or something. It should have annoyed him.

It didn’t. He was just happy to hear her voice. “Hey, baby. Where’s your daddy?”

“He’s outsiiide, playing with his trebuchet.”

Is that what we’re calling it now? “What’s a trebuchet?”

“A siege weapon.”

What the ever-loving… Kieron pulled out a pair of slippers—he could feel that his feet were still sensitive and needed the soft fabric a while longer—and put them on, then turned to the hatch. “I think I’ll join him.”

“Okaaay. Blobby is there toooo.”

“Bobby, not Blobby,” he corrected absently.

Catie huffed. “Whateeever. I don’t like him. He’s a big show-ooooff.”

Kieron paused. “What do you mean?”

“All he wants to taaalk about is how braaave he was when you were captured, and how much you had to do togeeether, and how you love each other the very best. But you don’t love him the bessst! You love me and Liiizzie just as much!”

Ah. They were in for another round of siblings learning to live with each other, then. “I do love you all so much,” Kieron confirmed. “Bobby is still very young. He doesn’t know everything we’ve done together or how close we are as a family. He’ll learn.”

“He better,” she muttered. “Or Liiiizzie will short out every circuit in his booody.”

Well, that was…progress? “Let me out now, honey.” The hatch opened, and Kieron lowered himself carefully to the ground as he blinked against the surprising amount of light. No storms were centered over them right now, it seemed. About thirty feet away, Elanus was standing beside a device about half his height, two slender poled set two feet apart and a wide base to support them, an axis at the top that a much longer pole was connected to in the middle, and on each side, two boxes. One box looked to be solid, while the other—

Elanus pushed a button, the solid box fell, and the other box rose with a “twang” and released a load of pebbles at a shockingly high speed. In the distance, a swathe of sparse grass evaporated from the impact.

“You just can’t help yourself.” Kieron had meant to chide him, but it came out fond instead. He walked over and leaned in to Elanus’s side, wrapping an arm around his waist. Their height difference made this sort of casual embrace a little more complicated than it would be otherwise, but there was no one to watch them make a spectacle of themselves here. Unless… “Are you sure we’re alone?”

“Catie sent up a mini drone to check for incoming while the weather is cooperating, and we’re in the clear.” Elanus leaned down and kissed the top of Kieron’s head, then his lips as soon as he looked up. “And I needed a way to pass some time without tinkering on the bots.”

“Yeah, about that.” Kieron poked his side. “No more kids, okay? We’re going to have a hard enough time getting these three to get along.” He looked around. “Where’s Bobby?”

“Collecting pebbles. He’ll be back soon.” Elanus sat down and pulled Kieron down after him. He settled in Elanus’s lap, finally eye to eye. “How do you feel?” his lover asked.

“Better,” he said. “Less…” Hopeless. Hurting. “Dramatic.”

“I’d say you had reason to be a little dramatic, given everything you went through.”

Ugh. He didn’t know the half of it yet.

“Bobby filled me in some,” Elanus continued, and Kieron breathed a sigh of relief. “Only the parts he knows, which miss a lot of your interactions with your family, but I think I understand most of the action scenes, according to him.” His eyes went soft. “You spoke to Lizzie?”

“I did. She’s fronting a presence up there, but I wasn’t able to clearly ask her anything. I don’t know what she’s going to make of it, honestly.”

“She’ll come after us, of course.”

Well…yeah, that was probably true. Lizzie hadn’t wanted to be left out of this awful trip in the first place. The question was, would she come alone or with a pilot? “I hope she does it carefully.”

“She’s our most careful kid,” Elanus replied. “I think she will. It means we’ve got at least a potential rescue on the way, regardless of how long it takes her to get here, which could be weeks given what I remember of the gravity wave predictions.” Interstellar travel between Central System planets followed well-charted paths that accounted for the worst of the universe’s roadblocks, so to speak. Out in the Fringe it was harder to navigate the best route, and here? In practically un-charted space? It was slow and tedious even for the smartest ship.

“So we’ll be here for a while,” Kieron murmured.

“Probably.”

“We should find a more secure place to hide.”

“We will, once the drones come back with their topographical reports.”

Kieron raised an eyebrow. “More drones? Are you trying to give us away?”

“Just taking advantage of the weather,” Elanus assured him. “They’re designed to go inert at the first contact with sufficiently advanced technology. No one will be finding us with them.”

Eh, it would have to do. “All right, then—”

“And since we’re not in a hurry, I think we should take some time away from the kids to talk.”

Well that sounded ominous. “About what?” Kieron asked apprehensively.

“About how we’re going to ruin the fuckers who took you captive before we leave this place for good.”

 

Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Forty

 Notes: Aaaand that's a wrap for Lord of Unkindness! Omigosh, thank you for reading along with me. I know it's not perfect, I've made mistakes here and there, but I hope you enjoyed the ride. We've still got Hadrian's Colony going, and I'll come up with a new story to torment--I mean, share and make you happy with--soon enough!

Title: Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Forty

***

Chapter Forty

 

Photo by Daniel Lincoln

“Fetch.” Ciro throws the ball to the far side of Angelo’s warehouse space. “Go get it, Chiffon. Fetch!”

A dog runs to fetch the ball. The dog is not Chiffon, who puts tiny paws up onto Ciro’s knee and gives him a sweet, innocent look he absolutely doesn’t believe.

“You don’t fool me,” he tells the pup, scratching Chiffon behind the ears. “I know you’re smart enough to do this. You’re smart enough to do whatever Angelo asks of you; you can fetch a damn ball.” Said damn ball is dropped at Ciro’s feet by one of his dogs.

Well, all right, it’s not exactly a dog. This particular familiar is the result of three months of intensive work at integrating his inherited power, weekly sessions with Annette on expressing that power, and a shit ton of therapy. Ciro didn’t even know there were therapists who specialized in fuckery like he was going through before this, but between Angelo and Annette they have him covered.

This dog, at a distance, looks like a regular dog—some sort of mutt, maybe a Labrador retriever blended with a Spanish water dog. Cute, but not remarkable. It’s only when you get closer that you notice the hairs are actually feathers, glinting blue and black in the sunshine. This dog has no teeth, but a muzzle with serrated edges like a beak had a baby with a bread knife. This dog’s eyes are completely black, and when people reach their hand out to pet it, it only gives them a single glance’s warning before it tries to bite. Ciro stopped taking it out in public for walks after it almost took a toddler’s hand off—the kiddo was fine, but Ciro wasn’t.

Honestly, from the moment he manifested this chimera of a creature, he’s been unsure of it. Part of him wants nothing to do with it, wants it gone, but his mate won’t have it. “It’s you,” he explained gently one night as Ciro lay in bed beside them, after waking both of them up from his nightmares. The damn dog was right there, staring at him from the spot it had claimed on the floor. “It’s a part of you now, and I love all of your parts. Even the hard ones.”

“It’s violent, it’s unnatural, it’s evil—”

Angelo’s hand stroking his face had stopped his diatribe before it really got started. “Nothing about you is evil,” he insisted. His familiar—because that particular raven is never joining the flock again, not when it’s been singled out as Angelo’s favorite—perched on his head, preening at Angelo’s thick black hair. It felt like Ciro was touching him, through the bird, a calming feedback loop he gratefully fell into. “You have more power than you know what to do with, that’s all. Some of it’s strange, but that’s just because it’s new. You’ll figure it out, baby. I have faith in you.”

I have faith in you is a cheat code, as far as Ciro is concerned. As soon as Angelo says it, he has to at least make the attempt to figure his shit out.

He reached down and picks up the tennis ball, neatly halved thanks to the dog’s sharp beak. “You broke it,” he says sourly. The dog tilts its head at him. “This is bullshit. You need to learn control, because I’m not having custom balls made just so you can—”

“Mini Boss!” Maria runs in through the large open doors at the back. “We’ve got an issue!”

Ciro stands up, his magic circulating through him like an electric current. “Don’t call me that. What kind of issue?”

“Gang fight, they got their familiars involved. Two of them are fucked up pretty bad.”

And Angelo was off tending to a kelpie on someone’s private property today. Shit. Well, if there’s anything good about having a shit-ton of magic at his disposal, it’s the ability to fix things he otherwise wouldn’t be able to. “I can probably stabilize them.” Put them into stasis, at least, until Angelo gets back. “Tell their witches to bring them in.”

“Um.” Maria wrings her hands together. “The problem is, they’re from opposite sides. Angelo’s worked with both of them before, he wouldn’t turn them away, but…they’re already beefing with each other, and they arrived outside at almost the same time. I’m afraid they’re gonna start fighting here.”

Oh, hell no. Ciro isn’t putting up with that sort of shit. “They’re out front?” he clarifies as he heads for the door.

“Yeah.” The rafters overhead rustle, but Ciro ignores it as he walks out into the hot California sun, Chiffon on one side, his weird new dog on the other. Two different muscle cars are taking up the entire driveway, and there’s a whole fucking menagerie of animals around the people who are shouting.

On one side is a heavyset man with a red bandana and a woman whose eyes are glowing—a bruja, for sure. She’s got a fucking harpy eagle perched on the car behind her, while the man is standing in front of a panting, bleeding familiar in the shape of a pit bull. On the other side are three men, all of them white and wiry, one of them showing the gun at his hip like he’s going to pull it at any second. Behind them are a limping doe, a cat with black fur, and—

A Siberian tiger. Holy shit. That’s a hell of a familiar to be carting around LA.

“All of you shut up, please,” Ciro says in a clipped tone as he gets close to them. The man with the bruja looks tense and furious, ready to start yelling, but she immediately sets a hand on his shoulder and he swallows whatever he was going to say.

The guy with the Siberian tiger isn’t as smart. “Who the fuck are you? Where’s Fabroa?” he demands.

“Not here. I can help you, though.” Ciro turns to the man with the doe familiar, but the tiger’s owner decides he doesn’t like being ignored and pulls his gun.

“I’m fucking talking to you, bitch! I don’t work with people I don’t know, and I—”

Ciro tilts his head and his dog darts forward, leans up, and neatly bites the gun in half.

A steel ball won’t be tough enough, Ciro thinks even as the little fucker stares at his piece with wide eyes. Everyone goes silent.

“Bring them inside,” Ciro says like he was never interrupted. “And I’ll see what I can do while we wait for Angelo to get back. It’s going to cost you for bringing your trouble to our place, though. Or,” he continues, “you can leave right now and never come back, and my familiar probably won’t hunt you down.”

“She’s bleeding really bad, man,” the guy with the doe familiar whispers. “I can see her guts. She needs help.”

The bruja whispers something in her companion’s ear, and he nods. “No disrespect meant,” he says, raising his hands. “You say you can help, I believe you. No need for Poochie there to bite me, eh?”

Ciro smiles. “No need at all. Bring them in.” He leads the way into the treatment area. It’s dark, even with the big windows and the lights going, and it takes everyone except the bruja a while to figure out why. She’s already looked straight up, one hand going to the eagle sitting on her gloved arm in a warning gesture.

“Madre de Dios,” she whispers as the ravens covering each and every rafter on the ceiling shifts like a flock of starlings or a school of fish, wings flapping in tandem.

“Holy shit,” the guy with the Siberian tiger says with much less calm. “What the fuck is going on here, man? When the fuck did Fabroa get a bunch of guard birds?”

“Since I moved in with him,” Ciro says. “Put the deer here, please.” He gestures to the table and the witch who belongs to her lifts the doe tenderly and sets her down. She’s panting, with deep damage to her right foreleg and belly. Ciro doesn’t know enough about healing to help her, but he does know how to stop time.

Crazy that it’s easier to stop time in a localized area than it is to fix something. Maybe someday he’ll have more confidence in his understanding of anatomy, but right now he leaves that to Angelo. He calls down a bird, transforming it into a silvery bubble of light just a foot over the deer, who goes perfectly still. Her witch shudders. “I…can’t feel her the same,” he says slowly. “I mean, I see her, I can tell she’s alive, but our connection is…”

“It’s paused,” Ciro explains. “Just for now. I’ll remove the spell when Angelo gets home and he’ll fix her up the right way, but until then she won’t get any worse, and she won’t feel a thing.” He turns to the man with the bandana. “Let’s see your dog, then.”

The man takes a step back. “Hey, he’s not that bad off, you know? Just a few missing teeth, a—”

“His jaw is broken,” the bruja interjects. “If you want him to be able to eat, you need to let this man do his job.”

“But mija…”

“No,” she snaps at him. “You say you want him fixed, I tell you where to go. You don’t back out now just because you’re afraid of some deep magic. Forgive him,” she says with a curtsey to Ciro. “He doesn’t understand.”

Ciro isn’t entirely sure he understands either. He’s been getting this reaction from a number of traditional magic users ever since joining Angelo back in California. There’s some aspect of his power that they seem to comprehend better than he does. Now’s not the time to admit that, though. “It’s fine. I’ll make sure he’s taken care of,” he assures her. “Get him on the other table, please.”

The pit bull is reluctant, though, whimpering and whining in a true reflection of its witch’s doubts until Chiffon steps forward and barks at it, once. Just once, and then the dog settles and tucks its wounded face between its paws once it’s up on the table. Another raven-turned-time bubble freezes it, and then there’s nothing to do but wait for Angelo. Which…

“Boss is on his way,” Maria says, cell phone in hand as she darts back into the room. “He just finished up the other job, he should be here in less than an hour if traffic doesn’t fuck with him.”

“Good.” Ciro turns to his guests. “The witches who these familiars belong to can stay. The rest of you have to leave until treatment is finished.”

“What if he tries to fuck with our guy?” Half-Gun demands.

Ciro arches an eyebrow. “Do you really think I’m going to let that happen?”

“I mean…”

“Understood.” The bruja bows, and so does her eagle. To his surprise, Ciro’s dog inclines its head to her. “Raoul, I’m going to ask my mother to get the kids from daycare and take them for the night.” She says something to him in Spanish then that makes him laugh, then flounces back out the door.

The tiger and cat bros are less inclined to leave, but after a few more minutes of bluster they go, eyes darting up at the ceiling and back down compulsively as they step out. Ciro waits another minute, then turns to the witches left behind. “You guys want something to drink?”

“Wouldn’t say no to a beer,” Raoul says.

“Vodka,” the doe’s witch says, then nervously adds, “Please.”

One beer and one shot turn into two, then three, and by the time Angelo gets home the witches in question are both a little drunk and feeling a lot more gracious toward each other. They’re hashing out the details of territory and don’t even realize Angelo is there until Ciro gets up to greet him.

“Hey.” He leans in and captures his lover’s lips in a soft kiss. Everything has been soft with Angelo since Ciro has gotten here, and it might get old someday, but not yet. Not by a longshot.

“Hi.” Angelo looks curiously at the tables. “Time suspension?”

“Yeah. I figured it was the safest way to go.”

“Good call. Hello, darlings,” he adds, scratching Ciro’s evil dog under the chin, then doing the same for Chiffon. His raven caws as Ciro rolls his eyes. “Right, then.” He smiles at the witches. “Let’s get your familiars all healed up, shall we?”

Ciro has seen this spell dozens of times by now, but watching Angelo’s golden threads knit flesh, settle organs, and set bones never fails to amaze him. He does it all while the time spell is going, one more sign that they’re mates—otherwise he wouldn’t be able to effect any changes while the spell was in place. This way, the healing is as close to instantaneous and painless for the familiars as possible. When Ciro finally releases his spell, both familiars are slow to get to their feet, the memory of hurt still strong in them, but some gentle touches from their witches are enough to set them to rights.

“Hell of a job,” Raoul says.

“Yeah, thanks man.” They both pay the exorbitant rate Ciro has set without a word of complaint, then head out to reconnect with their crews.

Angelo watches them go, then turns to Ciro. “I was given to understand that we were almost in the middle of a gang war, and then I come home and find everyone calm and quiet, drinking together.”

“I’m not a liar!” Maria calls from deeper inside the house.

“Didn’t say you were,” Angelo calls back, “but seriously, Ciro…”

“They decided discretion was the better part of valor after my evil dog bit one of their guns in half.”

Angelo laughs despite himself. “You can’t keep calling him ‘evil dog,’ that’s not a name! I vote for Darling.”

“I’m not naming my evil dog ‘Darling.’”

“Well, I’m not calling him ‘Evil Dog’ either. That’s not something we can shout at a dog park without attracting attention.”

“We can’t take him to a dog park! Because he’s evil!”

Angelo sighs. “I think he’ll act a lot better once you calm down about him, sweetheart.”

Ciro brushes the comment aside. He’s been alone all day, minding the home front and missing Angelo, and it’s past quitting time. “What do you want for dinner?”

“Don’t pretend like you’re cooking,” Angelo replies, letting the change in subject go as they head back into the house. Ciro feels a susurration go through his ravens, and glances upward comfortingly. Soon, he tells them, then follows Angelo into the kitchen, where Maria is pulling a casserole of some kind out of the oven.

“I’m cooking,” she says imperiously. “And you better appreciate my mother’s world famous nacho casserole. This is from the old country.”

“Your mother lives in Santa Barbara,” Angelo says.

“And her nacho casserole is legend there too!”

It’s delicious, actually. Ciro even has seconds, which makes Angelo smile; he’s been trying to fatten Ciro up since he came home with him, but it’s an uphill battle. Ciro feels so full of magic all the time that eating food on top of that tends to make him feel ill, but he’s slowly getting better.

Everything is getting better with Angelo, Maria, and Annette to help ground him.

Maria leaves after dinner, and once the leftovers are in the fridge, Angelo takes Ciro’s hand and pulls him back to their bedroom, which is deliciously cool compared to the rest of the house. They take a quick shower together, and then Angelo sets up incense, music, and gets Ciro to lie down on his back before massaging a healing ointment into his hands.

They’re improving, slowly. He still can’t feel his fingertips, but the more control he gains over his magic the more the numbness recedes. Being around Annette helps; his father hadn’t lied when he’d taunted Ciro about being with his own kind. He could fly back to the east coast and hang out with his family for a few days—he likes their new setup, an expansive estate in the country, and most of them aren’t so bad—but he’s only been twice in three months, and primarily for work.

Because nothing, and no one, is as good for him as Angelo. His kinnara, his lover, his mate. Ciro is as good as married now, connected to this man for life, and he couldn’t be happier about it. It’s something he never thought he’d have, and when he bows at his mother’s tablet—which they brought with them, of course—and speaks to her, he lets her know not to worry about him. He’s going to be all right now.

Angelo’s roving hands range beyond their initial boundaries, up Ciro’s arms and over his shoulders, down his chest and sides, smoothing and soothing with every step. Ciro, blissed out, spreads his legs eagerly when Angelo touches his hip, welcoming him close to his body.

Predictably, Angelo loves it. If Ciro was inclined to name the thing they’ve got going on, Angelo would be a service top all the way. There’s nothing he likes better than to spoil Ciro and be appreciated for it. “What do you want, baby?” he asks. “I could stroke you off…I could blow you…”

“Fuck me,” Ciro murmurs, eyes on Angelo’s hard cock. “I want to feel you inside me.”

“I want that too, but you had a big day.”

Ciro arches his back and smiles. “Not anything I couldn’t handle. I’m in the mood for a challenge.”

Angelo smirks. “And you think that’s me?”

The challenge is getting you to let go. “I know it is. C’mon, fuck me. Put your fingers in me, get me all nice and wet for your cock.”

“Dirty mouth,” Angelo chides, but Ciro knows he loves it by the way he scrambles for the lube. He slicks his fingers, then smooths the pads of two of them over Ciro’s hole, softening his entrance. “Let me in, baby.”

Ciro throws his head back and groans as Angelo presses two fingers inside, slow and steady. He loves this part, loves the prep, loves being touched like he’s something special. Sex was always so rushed before this, secretive and hurried, something to be ashamed of. Angelo takes his time now, and Ciro never asks him to go faster, only slow, slow, slow. “Harder.” Well, that too. He’s learning a lot about his preferences since getting together with Angelo, and Ciro is surprised to realize that while he likes soft, sweet kisses, he still enjoys a rough, hard fuck too.

“When I think you’re ready.”

“I’m ready now…hnn.” He starts to pant as Angelo presses against his prostate. “Nn, ah, ah…”

“Good,” Angelo says, staring at Ciro like he’s his whole world. It should be too much—it was too much before. Now Ciro relishes the attention.

It’s okay to be loved. It’s okay to crave affection. It’s okay to desire intimacy beyond anything he’s earned. He can’t earn this thing between them; it’s just given. It’s a part of them. All Ciro can do is accept it, or hurt his mate.

He’s done hurting Angelo. Hopefully Angelo isn’t quite done hurting him, though. When he finally slides his cock inside, Ciro clenches down while pulling Angelo in tight with his legs. “Don’t be gentle,” he begs. “Not tonight.”

Angelo makes a wounded noise, but he manages to nod. “Not tonight,” he says, then pulls back so slowly that Ciro can feel every inch of his cock as it stretches his hole. It’s delicious but not enough, and then—Angelo slams back inside, jarring Ciro hard enough to make him cry out, and that?

That’s perfect. Angelo keeps the heavy, hard pace, making every thrust into a fucking stab, and it feels so good Ciro is seeing stars from it. His cock is dripping precome onto his stomach, so hard it’s almost touching his abs. One touch from either of them will set him off, and he doesn’t want that. He wants to draw out the pleasure, the pain, the ache he’s going to feel, but there’s only so long he can go without coming.

“Angelo, I can’t—I have to—”

Angelo kisses him, soft lips a chaotic counterpoint to the pounding his body is taking. “Come for me, baby, let go. Just let go.”

One quick pump with his hand is all it takes. Ciro comes, pleasure and magic lighting up his entire body. Evil dog howls, Angelo’s raven caws from its perch in the corner, and inside the warehouse a thousand dark bodies take flight, soaring out of the open windows and into the night like an avian tornado.

He’s got to be more careful about that. Local ornithologists are beginning to show an interest.

For now, though, Ciro feels nothing but sticky and sweet, released from the tension of the day and his own magic. “’ngelo,” he slurs. “’love you.” That’s all it takes for Angelo to tip over the edge, thrusting hard enough that Ciro can practically feel it in his throat as he comes deep inside of him, lighting him up with golden threads.

They come down together, panting kisses into each other’s mouths until Angelo finally softens so much that he slips out with a sigh. Usually they would clean up immediately, but tonight Ciro holds on to his lover when he makes to leave the bed. “Not yet.”

“You’ll regret it when you wake up sticky,” Angelo warns, but he settles back down next to Ciro and pulls him in close. Ciro closes his eyes and just listens to his lover’s heartbeat, the more beautiful thing he’s ever heard. Hmm…

“We should call him Ventricle.”

Angelo stirs out of his peaceful state and stares at Ciro. “What?”

“Evil dog. He looks like he’d make a good Ventricle.”

“Nobody makes a good Ventricle.”

The hell they don’t. “We can call him Ven for short,” Ciro offers. “But I like it. It’s creepy enough to remind me of where he comes from, but still friendly.”

“Right,” Angelo says sarcastically, “because naming pets after body parts is so friendly.”

“You named your dog Chiffon, you have no room to speak.”

Angelo sighs and lets his head fall back on the pillow. “Fine. Ven it is.”

Ciro beams at him. “Thanks, babe.” He kisses Angelo’s shoulder, lips lingering on his smooth skin. A few golden threads stir into existence, reaching toward Ciro like magnets. He smiles at the sight of them.

He’ll never wonder whether Angelo loves him or not. Never have to fight for acceptance, not of his magic and not of his sexuality. He’s finally with the one person who takes him as he is and only tries to make him better when it means making him healthier and happier.

And Ciro couldn’t be happier than right now. He closes his eyes, curls in close to Angelo, and lets his mind wander until he’s sleeping, and flying, and seeing through the eyes of all his ravens, an unkindness that has been so good to him.

He’s free.