by R Phoenix
Kolt didn’t dare say it, but a lump settled in his throat and refused to leave or even allow him to speak. He wanted to. Right then, right there, he wanted nothing more than to be able to leave. He couldn’t say it though. Leandro would surely hear somehow, and he’d be fucked. Even if Gideon didn’t sell him down the river, it would still get back to the fae.
“Do you think I like being practically whored out to whatever sleaze ball Leandro wants to butter up?” Kolt asked in turn, feeling like he was only answering questions with more questions. “Just because I’m an incubus, I’m supposed to take all of this in stride?” he added the much more loaded question before Gideon could answer the first.
There was something satisfying and disappointing about the way Gideon froze and went quiet. His eyes went to Kolt’s, but he didn't reply. Instead, he drained his drink in one go. Fucking coward.
“Yeah,” Kolt said flatly. “That’s what I figured. You all think that just because I’m…” He inhaled sharply. “I’m an incubus, I must like all of this shit: the blowjobs, the leering, the groping, the flirting.” His voice sounded odd, even to his own ears, and Kolt realized it was that fucking lump making it harder and harder to speak normally. “And everyone knows what I am. Everyone!”
It was as exhausting as it was unnatural. It was fucking impolite to ask otherkin about their heritage, and yet somehow, everyone fucking knew his. No one knew Gideon was a fucking nephilim, of all things. The only reason Kolt knew was because Leandro was terrible at private secrets and had told him in a childish moment.
“So I can’t fucking escape all these delusional ideas you guys have of me, and now—” His voice broke. “Now he’s made it so that I don’t get to enjoy any part of it. He thinks I fucked the cop because I was hungry!” All his outrage came flooding right the fuck back. He downed the drink in his hand, snatching the bottle from Gideon and pouring himself another.
“I thought…” Gideon trailed off, but he didn’t look away from Kolt. His eyes were intent upon him instead, gaze trained on him.
It was unnerving, the way he didn’t just look away like Kolt had expected him to. He’d expected him to get uncomfortable, to want to leave, to feel ashamed! Not whatever this was.
“I thought you two had an arrangement,” Gideon finally finished his thought.
Kolt couldn’t help the morbid, dark laughter. “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “He’d hide the body, and I’d be his. I wouldn’t have to worry, because he’d take care of everything,” he continued, still feeling angry. “Now he has,” Kolt concluded. He put the glass down on the bar with a loud clink, but he didn’t let it go.
Instead, he tightened his grip on the tumbler as he stared hard at the vile bracelet around his wrist. Pretty as it was, powerful and unique as it was, he hated it. He glared at it as if his sheer anger would suddenly make it unclasp and fall from his wrist.
Of course it didn’t, but the glass he was clutching hard with his anger cracked then shattered in his grasp. The shards spilled onto the bar, and the scent of blood was suddenly rich in the air as the broken pieces in his hand cut him.
It didn’t even hurt.
Gideon reacted immediately, grabbing a clean bar towel. Wordlessly, he took Kolt’s hand, and against all expectation, he started to carefully remove the broken pieces of glass from his skin. It felt odd, and Kolt almost yanked his hand away to stop him from being so nice all of a sudden. He didn’t get further than flexing his hand a little, though, and he watched apathetically as the other man got rid of the glass.
He even went as far as to tend the cuts, cleaning them out with careful ministration that seemed so unlike the brute of a man.
“He won’t let me feed,” Kolt said softly, at long last. “The bracelet, it keeps me from feeding like I normally would, on… on sex, I guess,” he admitted, speaking, perhaps even more softly now. “Now I need his permission. He needs to undo the charm, with a spell, I think…” He swallowed hard, once more aware of his bruised neck and throat.
Gideon’s jaw tightened, and he collected the shards of glass without looking at Kolt.
It was subtle, but Kolt was sure it was there, even if it was for just a moment. Maybe he was just imagining it, maybe he just wanted too badly for someone to give a fuck about what was happening, but he wanted to believe he’d seen a reaction. To have someone in his corner — and God, what kind of desperate was he that he was looking for it in Leandro’s most loyal soldier?
“I could leave the rest for Arla to clean up, if you want,” Gideon said without inflection, shattering what little hope there had been that someone gave a shit as thoroughly as the glass.
Kolt pulled his hand away, grabbing another of the towels and wrapping it around the sluggishly bleeding hand. “I don’t care,” he snapped, turning away from Gideon and the mess he’d made.
He was quickly running out of places to go to avoid being near Leandro. Sooner rather than later, he would be expected to turn up in the fae’s bed; sooner rather than later, he would somehow have to pretend he was okay even though he was falling apart at the seams.
“Have a good night, Gideon,” he said, as he took his leave, to return to his master’s side like a good fucking slave.
“Have a good night, Kolt,” Gideon replied, his voice quieter than it had been. He didn’t look up. He studiously went back to cleaning the bar, scrubbing all remnants of the glass and Kolt’s blood away. And, so quietly Kolt wasn’t sure he’d heard it at all, “I’m sorry.”
It rang hollow, though. He didn’t need pity from a man like Gideon. He needed someone to give a fuck, someone like that detective to want to stand up for him, someone to be as outraged about this as he’d been — not to just… act like cleaning up the bar was more important.
He ignored the words, meaningless as they were to him. He left the casino, returning to his proper place, up in the loft to warm the fae’s bed like a good whore.
Chapter Nine
Bryce was starting to get his bearings around the building, which reminded him more of an academy like Quantico than a department of law enforcement. Solid security doors broke the monotony of the straight, simple lines of the vast hallways. He couldn’t even start to guess how many departments there were, but he was learning which doors he didn’t have clearance to enter. The loud buzzing noise the keycard made upon rejection made it abundantly clear that he was unwelcome in more of the rooms beyond than not.
He felt vaguely like Harry Potter in his first year at Hogwarts.
He knew the passwords, and he was starting to accept that some of his coworkers were… otherkin — which was the short term for anyone who wasn’t strictly human.
He’d also come to accept — more or less — that otherkin, and fae in particular, were probably responsible for the fucking disaster his life had swiftly become.
Okay, maybe not entirely. He had done a lot of damage himself. But after his demotion had led him to the Organization, he was pretty sure he could blame otherkin for his misfortune. After he’d overheard some of them talking about the Lucky Blight and what they were up to there, he’d gone there to see what they were talking about.
Harry Fucking Potter hadn’t been taken advantage of by an incubus, a fae, and whatever the fuck the guy who had beaten the living daylight out of him was. In a nutshell, Bryce wasn’t doing too great on his first week with the Organization.
If he’d thought the building was confusing and hard to navigate before, it was nearly impossible with a concussion, splitting headache, and an eye nearly swollen shut from bruising. He was a mess, and he had been told in no uncertain terms to find the medic at the Organization and get himself looked at. It was probably a good idea, but the trip there hadn’t been pleasant.
“You must be Bryce Ackerman,” someone to his left said, startling him.
With his left eye practically closed, he had a rather large blind spot, and he hadn’t expected someone to just pop up there.
“Yes,” Bryce said tightly, fumbling for h
is identification.
“No need for that,” the man said, gesturing at the next door. “I was just coming to find you. You’re late. I’m Percy, by the way.”
Bryce sheepishly followed his direction into the waiting room. “Why do you have a waiting room?” he asked immediately. He hadn’t expected a doctor working for an otherworldly police department to need one.
“So people can wait until I can see them,” Percy responded dryly.
“You see many people?” Bryce asked, more specifically.
“When they’re on time, yeah.” Percy opened a door.
It didn’t look much like a doctor’s office. There were no plain white walls with harsh lighting, no examination table, no tacky curtain, no—
“You’re not a doctor, are you?” Bryce guessed as he noted the complete lack of… doctor-y things.
“What makes you think that?” Percy asked.
Bryce sighed. “I’m a detective. There are clues.”
“I have a stethoscope?” Percy gestured for Bryce to take a seat.
“It doesn’t inspire confidence,” Bryce said. He sagged down with a groan. The busted ribs made moving from standing to sitting a real pain in the… well. Ribs.
“You’re right, though. I’m not a doctor, not in the way you think of one,” he admitted with a smile. He sat down across from Bryce with nothing but a small — insufficient — coffee table between them. “I can still help you,” Percy assured him.
Bryce cast him a one-sided skeptical look.
“Not with everything,” the guy immediately amended. “I understand you had a run in with…?”
“A fae, I think,” Bryce answered.
Percy picked up a notepad, jotting it down. “Are you sure it was a fae? They don’t tend to be this kind.”
“Then no,” Bryce said with a shake of his head that he immediately regretted.
“Okay. Did anyone use any sort of magic on you? Did you hear incantations?” Percy asked.
Bryce frowned a little. “Ehm… I don’t think so, but I did pass out,” he admitted, which led to more scribbling.
“Okay, I need you to drink the potion,” Percy said. “And then I’ll get started.”
“What potion?” Bryce asked, only to have Percy simply gesture at the coffee table, which was no longer empty. Maybe he hadn’t noticed it before, but he was pretty sure the shot glass with a clear liquid in it hadn’t been there. Weren’t potions supposed to be like… neon purple or something? “What is it?” he asked.
“It will nullify any magic that was cast upon you and spells that are dormant, anything malignant waiting to pop up if I go to work on you,” Percy explained.
“Okay.” Bryce picked up the shot glass, half-expecting it to just be vodka and half-hoping it was. It did burn a little going down as he knocked it back, but there was the aftertaste of bananas on his tongue. “Banana?” he asked.
“People like it,” Percy answered, putting his notepad back down. “Okay, now I don’t heal visceral tissue damage.” He stood up. “But I can help with the concussion and the swelling in your face,” he promised.
“What do you mean?” Bryce leaned away from the man as he approached, trying to keep his distance.
“I mean that I will put my hands on you, then use my innate magic to take away your headache,” Percy explained with seemingly endless patience and a polite smile.
“...do I need to like… open my chakra, or something? Because I’ve never—”
“You’re a virgin, I know,” Percy cut him short, and simply grabbed a hold of Bryce’s face between both hands. His hands were cool to the touch, and he flinched when the man’s thumb brushed along the swelling in his face.
“How do you—”
“I’m a healer. It’s what I do. I manipulate biology,” he said.
“How?” Bryce asked.
“Magic,” Percy answered without missing a beat.
“Yeah, but how?”
“You need to stop asking that question unless you want to lose your mind, Detective,” Percy remarked stoically. “Humans are incapable of comprehending magic. Even if you witness it first hand, you are skeptics by nature. You crave explanations, whereas otherkin accept that some things have no explanation or won’t let themselves be explained…”
“Everything can be explained. You just have to dig deeper,” Bryce muttered, even if he really did feel skeptical.
“Then explain to me why you’ve slept with a stranger without even knowing anything about him.”
“He’s an incubus.” Bryce shrugged.
“Did he force you?” Percy asked.
“Well, no, not like that. It’s just… He… did something to me.”
“Yes. Magic,” Percy answered sweetly, petting his face.
“Booze,” Bryce retorted. “He plied me with booze.”
“Do you normally drink so much you lose control over your sex drive?”
“Well, no.” Bryce paused, then demanded with a frown, “How do you even know all of this?”
“I’m a telepath,” Percy answered.
Bryce stared dumbly at him.
“Only through diffusion. Don’t worry. If I don’t use magic on you, I don’t know what’s in your mind.”
Somehow, that wasn’t comforting in the slightest. He drew breath to say something, but he didn’t know what. “Can you just do your thing then?” Bryce finally decided to ask. “Instead of judging me for—”
“I wasn’t judging. Not many could stand up against an incubus. If you could, you’d be a lot more interesting.” It didn’t sound like a compliment or assurance at all. “And I’m already done.”
“What?” Bryce answered, not feeling very intelligent.
“I said we’re done.” Percy said, petting his cheek again.
It occurred to him that it didn’t hurt that time… just like it hadn’t last time.
“Jesus Christ. What?” he asked again. He lifted his hand and touched his face, suddenly aware that he could see out of both eyes again.
“It’s still a little puffy, but that should fade soon. You’ll have to deal with the blackness from the bruising and the cuts. I don’t do blood.” Percy grabbed a mirror from the coffee table.
This time he was sure of it. That definitely hadn’t been there when he’d sat down.
“But your concussion is gone. You just have to take it easy for a few days while your brain adjusts to the rapid change, okay?”
“...What?” Bryce asked for the third time, like that was going to get a different answer., He still didn’t feel like this was really happening, even as he took the mirror and looked at his own reflection.
The swelling was gone, though there was a dark streak of bruising under his eye and his lip was still split. His nose was still a little swollen, and the yellow on his jaw wasn’t gone either. The cuts on his eyebrow and in his hairline were still there, too, but he wasn’t nearly as much of a mess as he had been.
He sucked in a sharp breath and released it right away in bewilderment as he realized his ribs didn’t hurt anymore. “What the fuck did you—”
“Magic,” Percy said again, with a deadpan smile.
“Why doesn’t everyone—”
“Because you can’t even believe it, and you’ve seen it, and everyone is afraid it’ll cause cancer,” Percy answered his question before he had even finished asking it again.
“Does it?” Bryce asked.
“Of course not,” Percy scoffed.
“Are you—”
“I’m not reading your mind. I’m not that kind of telepath. You’re just very predictable,” Percy assured him.
That wasn’t reassuring at all. He didn’t want to be predictable. He’d never been predictable, and— Did that mean there were telepaths like who could read his thoughts?
“Tell me about the incubus,” Percy said, sitting back down.
“Why?” Bryce asked.
“I’ve always wanted to study one, but they’re very elusive. We’ve a
lways known Leandro has one, but it’s not like he’ll let us borrow him for study.”
“When you put it like that, I wonder why not…” Bryce scoffed. “I don’t remember much. I was very drunk.”
“You were under the incubus’ influence. It’s not uncommon to feel drunk.”
“I had a bottle of whiskey and half a bottle of champagne in under an hour,” Bryce said.
“...Okay,” Percy said, taking a note. “So you were very drunk.” The man made a gesture for him to continue, but Bryce wasn’t sure what to continue with. He’d said about all he was going to.
“What are you?” Bryce asked instead.
Percy looked up at him, a little offended. “...did you not get briefed?” he asked.
“Yeah, of course I did,” Bryce said.
“So you know how rude it is to ask that sort of thing?”
“Of course,” he said with a nod, even though he had no clue what had been said during the briefing. Everything after ‘the fae realm’ had pretty much been a blur. What he did know came from reading case files on the intranet and the occasional entry in the database. Like the one on incubuses… Or was it incubi? “I’m just… curious,” he admitted.
“You’re a detective. Of course you are.”
“I can always read it in your personnel file,” Bryce added as an incentive, because he was going to figure it out one way or another.
“Detective Ackerman, do you know why it’s so impolite to ask?” Percy asked him, leaning forward a little.
“I figured you were all prudes…” he muttered, which earned him a look that made him think he was going to break the other man’s patience with him.
“It’s about survival, Detective. If everyone knows what we are and what we’re capable of, how would we protect against… the fae, for example?”
“But everyone knows what a fae is, right?” Bryce asked with a shrug. “And who they are?
“Because the fae don’t feel the need to hide what they are. They are immortal, and practically all-powerful. They’re the superior beings among otherkin,” Percy highlighted.
It all just sounded a lot like racism to Bryce. Still, he let the subject go for now, figuring he could just look it up anyway.
