by Lee, A. H.
“Not if you were asleep!” exclaimed Mal. “Lucy can’t stay awake all night and guard you.”
“I wasn’t planning on asking her to,” snapped Azrael. “I’ll just set up some wards and cover the mirror.”
“What kind of shadow creature?” demanded Lucy.
“A faery monster,” said Mal, “something from Mab. Loudain thought it was old, that it had been hunting us for a long time, but that doesn’t mean it’s alone. And faeries can use things other than mirrors.”
Azrael glanced at Lucy. “You’ve had more experience with faeries than we have. What do you think?”
Lucy frowned. “Was the creature anything you’ve seen before?”
Azrael shook his head. “Something like a blanket made of shadow and covered in silvery eyes.” He glanced at Jessica and Mal, and then back to Lucy. “You think I would be better off in their cottage?”
“Our sofa makes a bed,” offered Jessica.
Mal wanted to add, “And our bed is huge!” But he thought better of it.
Mal was certain that Azrael expected Lucy to be dead against Azrael spending any additional time around Mal. But Lucy didn’t answer immediately. She stared off down the road for a long moment, her hooded eyes squinting in concentration. “Faeries like games,” she said at last. “Are you sure you know the rules?”
Azrael opened his mouth, but Lucy had made up her mind. “If you don’t know the rules to the game she’s playing, then Mal is right. Don’t sleep here where she’ll expect to find you, in a place she’s already entered. Have you set up wards around the cottage?”
Azrael nodded. “We’ve been at it all day. I think I probably pushed us too hard, but I wanted a safe place to work. At this point, the cottage is thoroughly warded.”
Lucy nodded. “Sleep there.”
Mal felt a flood of relief and something like gratitude. He almost said, “Thank you,” but thought maybe that would make Lucy change her mind. Azrael offered no further arguments. He went inside to pack his things and returned in minutes with an overnight bag. “The inn will deliver my trunk to the cottage tomorrow. I paid them for the week, so they’re amiable. They’ll also let me borrow a horse.”
“Money,” purred Lucy, smiling for the first time since her strange silence, “it makes everything so much easier!”
Azrael fished her bottle out of his coat pocket. “You want to ride in here? Ready to go to sleep?”
“I am,” said Lucy with a yawn, “but I think I’ll have a sniff around first in my other shape, see if I notice anything fae. Am I likely to meet anyone on the road?”
Jessica spoke up, “Not terribly likely, and you won’t meet anyone at all if you cut through the fields. Mal knows the way.”
Lucy gave Jessica a long-suffering look, as though to say, Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.
Jessica continued brightly, “And if you want to check out the wooded hills behind the cottage, Mal goes hunting there all the time!”
“Well, then I suppose I have a local guide,” growled Lucy.
“You don’t have to go sniffing around right now,” began Azrael, but Lucy shook her head.
“I’m afraid I do. Unless you forbid it. Faeries can’t just cross onto the mortal plane willy-nilly. If there’s a local weak spot, we need to make sure it isn’t near the cottage. I’ve got a better nose for faeries than Mal.” She said the last part without any hint of vanity, and Mal didn’t argue with her because it was true.
Azrael and Jessica went into the stables to fetch the horse. They came out riding double. “So you’ll both meet us back at the cottage?” asked Azrael.
Mal wanted to say, “No, I am not letting you out of my sight; there are faeries about.” But he was aware of the absurdity of this statement to the world’s most powerful sorcerer. I’ll probably be close enough for him to draw magic from the collar if he needs to. Probably.
He survived four months without you, whispered a voice in Mal’s head. What makes you think he couldn’t survive for the rest of his life the same way?
“Are you just going to stand there?” demanded Lucy. “Or are we going to get this done?”
“Sorry.” Mal led them down the road for a short stretch and then dipped into an alley between two buildings. He changed shape without speaking and Lucy followed his lead. At the end of the alley, a fence bordered a small horse pasture. They jumped the fence, crossed the pasture, navigated a series of hedges and ditches, and soon they were running through open fields beneath the harvest moon.
Lucy could keep up with Mal on four legs, and she could see just as well in the dark. She was harder to hide, however. Her golden scales gleamed in the moonlight like beaten metal. He’d thought she might fly once they got far enough from human habitation, but she didn’t. Mal had to admit that a dragon silhouetted against the harvest moon would cause an unwelcome stir in Tanisea.
“The road is off that way.” He jerked his head to the left. “Azrael and Jessica are probably halfway home by now.”
Lucy said nothing, intent on evidence of faeries. She stopped at any suspicious standing stone or mound and looked for rings, but they found none. Mal didn’t smell anything unusual—just hay and night jasmine. They took their time, skirting the cottage over a broad radius. The wooded section took the longest. Mal could tell that Lucy was getting tired. She paused on a hilltop that gave a view of the cottage—toy-like in the fields below.
“Well, no faeries here,” said Mal cheerfully. “Now we can go back inside and watch Azrael fiddle with that map for half the night. Or I will. You’ll just go to sleep.”
Lucy said nothing for a long moment. Finally, still looking at the house, she whispered, “You’ve finally won.”
“I… What?” Suddenly he understood. “Azrael told you about the gate.”
Lucy nodded. Mal wanted to say, I always win; haven’t you been paying attention? But he was feeling generous after the inn, so he said, “I won’t eat him, Lucy.”
She was sitting with her wings hunched up, almost as though she intended to take flight, but now she turned and her long neck snaked out towards Mal, her eyes probing. Mal realized that she was looking at his aura. He could have tried to cloak it, in so far as he was able, but he let her look.
“You don’t think you will eat him.” She did not sound reassured. After a moment, she added, “You’ve never lost a master. Or if you have, you don’t remember. I have. I remember all of them. I’ll never have a better one than him.”
Mal stifled the retort that rose to his lips and stretched out on his belly beside her. He put his head on his paws. Mother-in-law? Seriously, Jessica? “But...he wants me.” Mal wasn’t sure how Lucy would respond to this argument, but he figured it was worth a try. “Every time I’ve gotten a glimpse past his wards…which granted, hasn’t been often in the last decade, but—”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Of course he wants you! You don’t need magic to see that! All you need is a little humanity.” She tilted one baleful, sapphire eye down at Mal. “He’s your summoner; you’re an incubus. You could not be anything except exactly what he wants. You’re the bait that’s supposed to lure him to his doom.”
“But I’m not bound,” said Mal, who felt as though he were talking in circles. Jessica, you owe me all kinds of favors for being patient with this conversation. “I know he’s got defenses in place now, but I could have killed him on the island after I came back from the astral plane. I shattered his wards! If I’m all bad, why didn’t I kill him then?”
“I didn’t say you were all bad,” muttered Lucy, “only mostly.”
“Aw, I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” Mal flopped over onto his side and stretched, his enormous paws fanning. “Jessica will be there. You like Jessica. Everyone likes Jessica!”
Lucy lay down on her belly with her head up and folded her wings more neatly. Mal had rarely seen her settle down this way at such a distance from her bottle. “You’ve been out a long time. Do I need
to go get Azrael to bring your bottle up here?”
Lucy snorted. “Don’t be so solicitous; it makes me uneasy.” Before Mal could say anything, she continued, “Jessica, yes, she’s a cunning little minx, but she’s mostly human, and she’s smart about people. You and Azrael have been circling each other forever. I thought you’d reached equilibrium. Then she came along, and everything changed.”
“In a good way,” said Mal firmly.
Lucy made a non-committal noise.
“But you see how it might be alright, don’t you? Maybe we’ll both get what we want, and nobody will die?”
A long pause. Mal thought she wasn’t going to answer. “Maybe,” she said at last.
Pinch me; I’m dreaming.
“He’s made up his mind anyway.” She stood, and Mal could see she was unsteady.
“Let’s get you home.”
“Stop treating me like an old lady.”
“You are an old lady!”
“I am going to fly and leave you behind.”
“No you’re not; your magic is too low.”
They’d walked most of the way down the hill and through the woods before Mal screwed up his courage to ask a question that had been bothering him for a while. Lucy’s feeling chatty. Why not see if she knows? “Lucy…did anyone ever…hurt him?”
Lucy stopped walking. She turned to Mal, her blue eyes glowing faintly in the dimness beneath the trees.
“I mean,” continued Mal, “he acts like people act sometimes when someone has hurt them sexually. He’d never tell me something like that, but…he might tell you.”
Lucy looked furious. A puff of smoke actually rose from her nostrils.
Careful, thought Mal, you’ll burn yourself out. “When people act like that, I usually just leave them alone,” he continued. “They’re too complicated for me. They taste wrong. But if he…if that happened to him, I need to know—”
Lucy erupted. “Can you really be this stupid?!”
Mal bristled to his tail tip. “I don’t know what—”
“You!”
Mal blinked.
“You hurt him!”
Mal was dumbstruck, then angry. “I am a bright magic incubus! I would never—”
“Ask him,” hissed Lucy. “Ask him what you did before you can remember.”
Mal swallowed. He felt suddenly sick. His own voice sounded small in his ears. “I couldn’t—”
“You couldn’t rape him,” said Lucy. “But I’ll tell you this: if Azrael is broken, if he can’t ever enjoy love or sex or intimacy…it’s because of you.”
Chapter 17
Jessica
Azrael didn’t say much on the ride back to the cottage in the brilliant moonlight. Jessica put her arms around his waist, rested her cheek against his neck, and was almost asleep by the time they arrived. Then there was plenty to do—making up the guest bed, laying out linens, and bringing in his things while he found a place to tether the horse.
Azrael came inside, looked at the guest bed, and thanked her. “There’s a small washroom and toilet through that door,” said Jessica, “but I’m afraid the only shower is off our bedroom.”
“That’s fine.” Azrael was already rummaging in his bag.
Jessica went into the bedroom to bathe and change. She was a little concerned, when she stepped out, to find that Mal still wasn’t back. The air had grown chilly. The cottage was intended as a summer vacation spot and did not include central heat. So, far they’d avoided lighting the fireplaces.
Jessica put on her silk and wool pajamas with long bottoms and sleeves and then padded back out to the sitting room. Azrael wasn’t there. Jessica wondered if he’d gone out to do something else with the horse. She felt a prickle of fear, remembering the pale eyes of the shadow monster. But he said the cottage was safe. He knows what he’s doing.
Jessica put on her slippers, opened the front door, and stepped onto the porch. She saw Azrael immediately, sitting in the swing. She relaxed. “Have Mal and Lucy come back?”
“No.” Azrael had unfolded the map across his knees. Jessica couldn’t imagine how he was reading the tiny script by moonlight.
“May I join you?”
“Certainly.”
She could tell he wasn’t actually paying attention to her. Jessica came over and sat a few inches further along the bench, making the swing rock gently. She saw that Azrael was writing on the map with something very delicate—a shard of bone, it looked like. There was no visible source of ink, but the strokes of the strange pen glowed blue for a moment before fading into the paper.
He’s putting magic into the map, Jessica realized. She watched for a while in silence. She couldn’t read any of the words, but the flow of glowing lines was mesmerizing.
After a while, Azrael sat up straight, laid down the “pen,” and rubbed his eyes. “I’d better not do any more until Mal gets back. I don’t want to distract him by pulling magic out of the collar if he’s dealing with faeries.” He folded up the map and tucked the pen away.
Jessica smiled. “You’re the artist. Mal is the paint.”
“That’s a nice way of saying it.”
“You could paint with me.”
She spoke playfully, and Azrael answered in the same tone. “You want to wear my collar?”
“Mal doesn’t seem to mind.”
Azrael raised one dark eyebrow. “You must be deaf to his near-constant whining.”
Jessica smiled. “He’s terribly proud of what you do with his magic.” She hesitated. “He does like making his own choices, though, and having his own life.”
Azrael nodded. “He seems happy.”
He could be happier. “Lord Azrael—”
“My friend,” he interrupted, “used to call me Ren.”
You had a friend? “Oh! Well, that’s very…personal. Thank you.”
He laughed—really laughed until his shoulders shook.
“Well, you don’t say things like that very often!” exclaimed Jessica. “I’m flattered. May I actually sit next to you? I promise to respect your boundaries.”
He nodded and even held out his arm. Jessica moved down the bench until she was right up against him, and he folded his arm around her. She could feel his warmth through his waistcoat and her soft pajamas. “I am surrounded by servants,” said Azrael, “who are kinder than I deserve, but...”
You don’t need another servant. You need friends. “I am your friend,” said Jessica aloud. And along those lines… “Ren. Did you ever have a boyfriend before Mal? Or a girlfriend? Anyone?” You were fifteen. You could have had someone.
He shook his head.
“So,” Jessica pressed, “you never had feelings for anyone?”
Azrael considered. “I had a crush on one of the grooms.”
“But you never told him?”
“That would have ended badly.” He hesitated. “Same-sex relationships were considered grotesque in that time and place.”
Oh, dear. “I’m sorry.”
She was lost in her own thoughts when he said, “Jessica…this thing with Mal, is it…is it about revenge?”
Jessica was startled. “No!”
Azrael turned to look at her, his face very close in the moonlight. He didn’t blink or look away, but after a moment, Jessica did. “Alright, if you want the complicated answer…not exactly? He certainly wants to dominate you a little. He wants to know for certain that you desire him.” He wants you to love him as much as he loves you. Is that revenge?
Azrael was still watching her. “And for you?”
Jessica blinked. “Me?”
Azrael took a deep breath. “When we met, I… As you put it, I cut off your clothes and fed you to Mal.”
Jessica smirked. “And you ran your finger up my thigh.”
Azrael shut his eyes. She could tell he had forgotten that part. It was nothing to you when I was a stranger, when you were wearing your power like a mask. But now that we’re friends, you’re horrified. Before he could r
ecoil in shame, Jessica said, “Do you want to know how I think of it?”
He looked at her with a wince that said, Do I?
“It was the three of us,” said Jessica, “that very first time. It wasn’t just me and Mal. It was me and Mal and you.” She leaned a little closer and murmured, “You ran your finger up my thigh, and I came so hard on Mal’s tongue, I saw stars.”
She could feel the change in him—a faint loosening of his posture, the way his mouth went soft, the sinewy ripple of his throat as he swallowed. Fuck boundaries; you need this. “I want to kiss you,” she whispered. “You can say no.”
He didn’t say no. He didn’t say yes, either, but he gave the faintest nod.
Jessica tilted her head and kissed him. She’d done this before, in the Shadow Wastes, but her heart had been breaking then, and Azrael had tasted like tears. He’d been too stricken to even react.
This time was different. He was as tense as a frightened cat, but underneath his anxiety, she sensed his curiosity. Like this, she thought and moved her mouth, coaxing. Relax. Yes, like that. She didn’t try to put her tongue in his mouth or run kisses down his throat. She did put one hand on his chest, where she could feel his heart beating like a frightened rabbit.
He hadn’t shaved in a day or so, and the prickle of the fine, dark hairs made a pleasant contrast to his warm, smooth lips. Jessica finally let her tongue brush his, and he gasped. She backed off a fraction, and, to her delight, he followed her, bringing one hand up to cradle her face, his thumb feather-light against her brow, his long delicate fingers fanning over her cheeks and jaw. Jessica giggled and leaned into him again, opening her mouth more. He was curious. He was also making her wet. Mal is right; it’s hard to stick to necking when you’re accustomed to all the rest.
Azrael was being a perfect gentleman where his hands were concerned—one on her face, one around her back. Jessica had a hand buried in his hair and the other still over his heart, which had settled down to a hard, fast thump. I want to crawl into your lap. I want to put my hand down your trousers. But she didn’t. I suppose I am being a perfect gentleman, too.
Azrael jumped when the door slammed inside the cottage—Mal coming in through the garden. “Azrael! Jessica! Lucy needs her bottle!”
