by R Phoenix
It was ironic that a nephilim, a being of celestial blood and angelic heritage, would feel so strongly for an incubus, of all otherkin — ironic, and delicious. It tasted of something vaguely blasphemous, giving an edge to what they shared… whatever it was that thrived between him and his very own savior of men.
Not that Gideon had ever been the knight in shining armor type, half-celestial or not. He was… real.
“Two hours,” Kolt promised. “Then we’ll leave.” He didn’t want to leave that soon, but it was probably wise not to overdo it. It soothed something innately restless inside of him to be amongst people, and this was something new and different for him.
Perhaps it was the fact that he’d barely left the fucking casino in God only knew how long, and even his newfound freedom with Gideon was still an adjustment. That, and he had never actually been to a party like this where he wasn’t a party favor to be won. It was exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time.
Gideon seemed to just know how the independence affected him. Kolt had seen the way he eyed him sometimes, as though expecting him to up and leave, or even bolt. He didn’t have any intention of doing that any time soon. Gideon’s new job paid well, and it had the added benefit of not being run by a psychotic fae.
Kolt now had the freedom he’d craved for so long without the fear of harming some unsuspecting mortal idiot because a nephilim could surely handle his appetite. He didn’t have to be afraid of losing himself to something that seemed greater than himself, that filthy little monster inside of him that had been shaped over the years in Leandro’s image.
Gideon went to speak, but he stilled, his eyes fixing on something just behind Kolt.
A chill went through him, and he shifted so that he could nip at Gideon’s earlobe most casually while he peeked at what had the man tensing up.
“Gideon,” a familiar voice greeted.
Darcy. Kolt didn’t understand why Gideon was acting like this was the end of the world. They’d always gotten along well, so unless Leandro was lurking somewhere....
“Hey, Darcy,” Gideon said, doing that stoic thing Kolt had learned meant he was trying to pretend he was relaxed, but was anything but.
“Who’s this?” she asked, her eyes going to Kolt. She offered him a smile and a once-over, but her eyes lingered on his amber eyes for a moment.
“My…” Gideon paused long enough to make Kolt take pity on him.
Sort of.
“Cousin,” Kolt supplied in the silence, extending a hand to Darcy. “Nicholas. Nicky, for short,” he introduced himself with the rehearsed fake name that Gideon had instilled into him before conceding to going to this party.
Gideon gaped at him, and Darcy hesitantly took Kolt’s hand.
Before he could embarrass the big bad security guard even more, the man spoke up. “No! No.” He cast a dark look at Kolt.
Kolt smiled sweetly.
“My— my boyfriend,” Gideon said, and the word made Kolt grin almost as much as seeing the blush on the nephilim. The flushed look suited him, but Kolt looked back at Darcy, cutting him some slack.
“Okay, so boyfriend then. Still Nicholas, Nicky for short,” he corrected, just tooth-rotting-ly sweet as he slowly let go of Darcy’s hand.
There was a bit of an awkward silence for a moment, but before Kolt could try to work them past it — having been the cause of it — Darcy proved not everyone working in private security was as socially inept as Gideon.
“What’re you doing here? Don’t tell me you became a fucking lawyer,” she said with a smirk, nodding at the party.
“Yeah, because me and the law have a great track record,” Gideon replied. He shook his head, then went on, “No. Head of security here. Thought I’d see what office parties are all about.” He cast a pointed, decidedly unimpressed look around him. “What about you?”
“I run security for the hotel,” Darcy admitted with a wince. “Pays the bills, and the humans don’t know, y’know?” She shrugged.
Kolt watched her for a moment, until he felt Gideon relax next to him — or as much as he ever would anyway. The small talk didn’t really interest him much, but he didn’t want to wander off and potentially miss the gossip. He nursed his drink, looking suitably like a housewife on her husband’s arm.
“I’m not sure I could work only with humans,” Gideon admitted, “but it could be worse.”
All three of them were perfectly aware of just how much worse it could get. It hadn’t been easy to stay oblivious, and Gideon had said Leandro flipped out on Arla and killed her.
Not exactly employer of the year material.
“Oh!” Kolt said in the brief pause that followed, as if he’d just clued in and snapped to attention. “The psychopath! You worked for the psychopath too?” he asked Darcy, as if he didn’t know any better, but he was just glad to kick start that gossip mill. “C’mon… It wasn’t that bad, right? Gideon’s just making shit up? Even fae aren’t that deranged,” he nudged carefully.
It wasn’t the best place to have the conversation, admittedly, but people were drunk and chatting happily, with Christmas music playing in the background — and no one looked twice in their direction. And Kolt wanted to fucking know.
Gideon snorted, but he looked expectantly at Darcy. “Yeah, Darcy. Tell him it wasn’t really that bad,” he said dryly, though he pressed a kiss against the side of Kolt’s neck before adding, “besides the murder, insanity, slavery, cheating, and obsessiveness. You know.”
Kolt shivered, and he pretended it was because of the lips against his neck.
Darcy laughed in that way that she did that wasn’t real laugher. “Oh, your boyfriend doesn’t even know the fucking half of it,” she said with a scoff. “After Gideon left, shit really hit the fan because of what he did to Arla. Shit, son.”
She laughed again, still without humor.
“We all quit, one by one,” Darcy continued. “Keith stuck around longest ‘cause he needed that job, but even he bailed, man. Leandro lost his fucking mind because of that incubus.”
She leaned against the standing table they were near.
“Guess he didn’t find him then,” Gideon said, like he didn’t have his arm around that very incubus.
“He tried. He had everyone looking for him, like you’re going to find an incubus that doesn’t want to be found,” Darcy muttered. “And then between the Organization wanting him for what Kol’tso did, and the fae court wanting answers about Nero and the disaster with Arla...” She didn’t finish that sentence, shaking her head and giving Gideon a sidelong look.
Kolt felt a little nauseated, but he wanted to know more. Not that he could just ask, though. Not without arousing suspicions.
“Fuck. I bet the Organization didn’t really like being overridden by the fae, but who’s going to tell them no?” Gideon shook his head. “They’re brutal, but they’re usually pretty tolerant of their own. What happened with the court?”
“The Organization is still pursuing him for the incubus drama, just not for Nero or Arla. The fae took care of that, and that’s where the real crazy started, man,” Darcy said with another incredulous shake of her head.
“This wasn’t the crazy part?” Kolt said dryly, trying to look just neutrally amused, as if he wasn’t invested.
“I heard this from Keith. I was gone by then,” she forewarned, looking from Kolt back to Gideon. “He can never go back to their realm. They banished him,” she said.
It felt like a decidedly weak punishment. It wasn’t like Leandro had ever been eager to go back. Not when Earth offered him everything he needed.
“No, you don’t understand,” Darcy said when she got no reaction from either him or Gideon. “Really banished him, like cut him off completely. No more fae magic for him,” she said, stressing the point a little more.
Kolt’s heart briefly stopped beating.
That time, Gideon did react, his stoic demeanor dropping for a moment as he gaped at her. “They… What?”
&
nbsp; The idea of the fae deciding to completely cut off one of their own…
“Not that I don’t think he deserved it, but they let their own kind get away with worse all the time. How’d he manage to push them that far? Is it temporary?” Gideon asked when he gathered himself a little.
“I don’t know, man,” Darcy said, throwing her hands up. “Nero had a lot of friends in the realm, apparently. Influential bloodline,” she pointed out. “Even if it’s temporary, he’s still shit out of luck. He doesn’t exactly have many friends left, and his glamours are fading fast.”
Kolt had wished it upon him. He’d even told Leandro as much in a heated moment of anger, but to have it actually happen seemed impossible. “So… he’s— he’s like human now?” he asked slowly, trying to see if he grasped the magnitude of the punishment.
“Well, still fae, still not human, but he’s vulnerable and mortal.” Darcy nodded. “From what I heard from Keith, anyway, it did not help him get more stable. The Organization isn’t any happier about that, so they want to get him off the street, asap.”
Kolt stared, forgetting for the moment that he wasn’t supposed to be invested in this. He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. His master, who had done those terrible fucking things to him, who had deprived and starved him, was as vulnerable as any human now. It was almost too exciting, and he glanced at Gideon — partly concerned the nephilim would see a future in which he acted upon the impulse he’d just had. If he acted though, he’d be certain he’d never be fucking found by the fae.
Gideon’s hand slid to the small of his back, fingers running along the fabric there. He didn’t look back at Kolt, keeping his eyes on Darcy. Either he saw nothing, or he was ignoring it. “All of that over an incubus?” Gideon asked. “I mean, Leandro was a fucked-up psychopath, but he was at least… functional.”
Kolt didn’t think Darcy would be able to notice, but he could tell that the incredulity in Gideon’s voice was feigned. The nephilim knew what kind of damage he could do.
“Apparently they felt he betrayed the fae in favor of a low born otherkin. It’s not something they take lightly, I guess,” Darcy replied.
“Fae don’t take lightly to any slight against their own.” Kolt said, his voice sounding surprisingly neutral, even though he was feeling anything but. “Or so I hear anyway,” he amended, perhaps a little too hastily.
Gideon cut in before Darcy could address Kolt, “So you paid attention to some of what I said. I knew it.” He smirked, but it faded. “I know His Royal Highness saw me leaving as a slight, but I guess I don’t have to worry about it biting me in the ass anymore.”
“I don’t know,” Darcy admitted. “I quit, and I have no reason to think he’ll come hunt me down. It’s not like I was his favorite.”
Kolt felt a shudder claw up his spine, and only concerted effort kept him from visibly reacting.
Gideon rolled his eyes. “Been hearing rumors that the Blight is… well. More a blight than anything these days. Guess that’s because of all this crap.”
“The casino is… well.” She shrugged. “It’s a casino. It’s mainly humans playing the slots now. No otherkin will go in there now that he’s been excommunicated. Too afraid to piss off the other fae.”
“Is he still on his wild goose chase?” Gideon asked, fingers tightening slightly on the back of Kolt’s shirt, slightly out of view of Darcy’s gaze. “The incubus, I mean. Fucking stupid to think he could still find a shapeshifter who doesn’t wanna be found, but…”
He let the words trail off, their meaning more than clear: but this was Leandro they were talking about.
“Not sure. He was still mooning over fucking Kolt when I left. Keith said he was too, but I heard someone else say they saw him getting his freak on with some guy.” She smirked, the judgment between her words not hard to read.
Kolt knocked the last of his drink back, suddenly ready to go home.
Gideon shook his head. “Poor guy,” he said. “Maybe the Organization will manage to get Leandro on something. It’s not like it’d be hard to find something worth locking him away for.”
“Yeah,” Darcy said slowly, looking back at the party goers around them. “Harder to believe they can’t make anything stick when you look at how fucking drunk and stupid his lawyers are getting,” she remarked dryly.
“Just a matter of time,” Gideon said evenly. “He’s been fucking up for years. Just a matter of them finding the right pieces…” He trailed off, following her gaze before casting a questioning look at Kolt — not for long, just for a split second.
The nephilim was getting uncomfortable, Kolt realized, and not just because of their surroundings.
“I’m getting bored,” Kolt said — sounding a little more sullen than he’d intended. He briefly met Darcy’s eyes again. He offered a faint smile. “Not that you’re not a riot, but it’s all work talk. I’ve been hearing it all night,” he said with a grin to smooth over his words, but the way she held his gaze sent a chill down his spine.
“You’re the one who thought I was exaggerating,” Gideon replied, smirking at Kolt — though his eyes drifted to Darcy when he saw the way she was looking at the incubus. “Now you know I’m not. Do I need to hire someone else to back up what I’m saying?” he asked.
“You two make a cute couple,” Darcy said. “Already sound like an old married one.”
Kolt glanced at Gideon. Part of him was certain she’d somehow recognized him, but he wasn’t sure how. His eyes…? They were still the same amber shade Leandro had liked—
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Kolt said with a bigger grin. “You should come for dinner sometime.” Not that he wanted to invite her over, but it was the thing you did when you met friends of the person you were dating. “I’ll cook. You two can catch up.”
“Yeah, sure,” she said. “I’ll let you guys get back to your party,” she conceded and rapped her fingers quickly on the table before straightening up. “I should get back to work anyway.”
“Good seeing you,” Gideon offered a bit clumsily, but Darcy of all people would know the nephilim well enough to understand that they were more or less at the end of his social skill limit. “Hope the rich drunk people don’t cause you too much trouble.”
“I’ll just hold you accountable,” Darcy said with her familiar smug smirk and a quick wave as she went about her business.
It wasn’t until she was several steps away that Gideon turned to look at Kolt, the eyes he was getting so familiar with searching his own expression. That silent question remained, even as the man’s hands slid to his waist and urged him in closer. His thumbs rubbed Kolt’s hips, so lightly that it seemed like Gideon expected Kolt to push him away.
“What?” Kolt asked shortly, wanting him to say the words, because he’d prefer to avoid this subject.
Forever.
If he dwelled on it too long, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t do something truly drastic, like look for the powerless fae and see how he liked having his limits tested…
“Wouldn’t really be worth it,” Gideon remarked, his voice bland. “Yeah, nice at the time, but it’d be pretty quick. Think how long eternity would feel without being… what you are.” He shrugged. “Not that I think he’ll last that long.” He paused, then locked eyes with Kolt, falling silent.
“I deserve to make him feel like that,” Kolt said, and that was rather the heart of the matter. Even if Leandro would suffer — and maybe for a long time at that — he felt like he was missing out on his opportunity for his vengeance. He took the glass from Gideon’s hand without asking, tossing it back in one chug before handing it back.
“You do,” Gideon agreed, taking the glass. He took a step back, and for a moment, Kolt didn’t know if he was being rejected, or… “Do you want to?” he asked, as though they weren’t talking about revenge and death.
“Yes,” Kolt said, his voice clipped, still feeling the hangover from the time he’d spent in that isolation room. It had only been a
day, according to Gideon, but it had felt like so much longer. “But then the Organization will be on my ass again.”
Gideon’s expression didn’t change, still that same unreadable look he’d gotten so familiar with back at the Blight. “Leave the Organization to me. Three days,” he promised. “Then you can make him pay any way you want.”
Kolt stared at him, his breathing suddenly coming hard as his heart pounded hard in his chest. “You would do that for me?” he asked, incredulous at how willing the nephilim was, how utterly prepared he was to do this with him, for him, when he’d always tried to avoid violence.
“He took away your free will,” Gideon said, speaking the words with more conviction than Kolt had ever really heard. “You deserve that, and more, if you want it.”
“How you tempt me…” Kolt murmured, his lips breaking in a wicked grin as he leaned forward to claim a sloppy kiss from his boyfriend.
Gideon smirked. “I get that from you.”
THE END
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About Morgan Noel
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Fluent in sarcasm and double entendre, devourer of cookies and champion pizza consumer. Pantser who doesn't play by the rules. The Kraken has been released, so long and thanks for all the fish!
About R. Phoenix
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R. Phoenix (code name: Raissa) has an unhealthy fascination with contrasts: light and dark, humor and pain, heroes and villains, order and chaos. She believes love can corrupt, power can redeem and that the best of intentions can cast shadows while the worst can create light. She agrees with those who say that the truth is best told through fiction — even though fiction has to make sense while reality can be utterly baffling.
