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  Bryce almost didn’t notice Lasair drawing his head down to rest on his shoulder, pillowed on all kinds of flowing blond hair. He noticed lips brushing his temple, though. Fae kisses were hard to miss. So was Fade-hound slobber soaking into one’s pants leg.

  “You fret too much, sumiúl, over things you cannot help.”

  “Only because you gave me the soul that makes me give a damn.” Bryce’s eyes abruptly watered, stung. There had been a time, not all that long ago, when the death of a world he’d never seen, and never would, would have been Someone Else’s Goddamned Problem.

  Not anymore. Because that was Lasair’s world, and fuck if he was going to let anything happen to it. Or to Lasair.

  “Does our soul cause you pain, lover?” There was a line between Lasair’s brows that hadn’t been there a few seconds before. “Would you give it back to me, if you could?”

  The question was like cold water flung over him; Bryce couldn’t breathe with the shock of it. He’d been stupid enough to try to reject Lasair’s gift, over and over again; he still wanted to curl up and die with the shame of it, when he remembered how one of his rejections had driven his Fae lover to try to flee back to the Realm. There was nothing inevitable about a SoulShare joining, and he’d damn near thrown the other half of his soul away.

  “Please, m’anam-sciar. Please don’t cry.”

  * * *

  Terry muttered to himself as he rounded the curve onto the north edge of the walkway around the National Mall. Cazzo road construction, maledette unmarked bus detours, mamma cazzo expired cavolo transfers. Somehow his Nonna Maddalena’s old-country curses made him feel better in a way nothing else ever did.

  Thankfully, his unexpected detour—courtesy of two blocks of torn-up sidewalks and re-routed city buses, with public notice of the same apparently disseminated via Ouija board—was almost over. Once he hit the northern edge of the Mall, behind the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial, he could cross over to 21st Street and catch a train home, hopefully before the crispy beef and the pork Masaman curry and the prik khing curried scallops with green beans got cold.

  Would you look at me, for the love of God? Actually, Terry was starting to get a little tired of that phrase, given the way it had been on an endless loop in his head since he’d realized he was going to have a half-hour wait for take-out at Sunan’s. Yeah, he was being domestic. Exactly what he’d been trying to avoid becoming, last night and again this morning. Because there was no point to being domestic, centering your life around someone else who was just going to leave, or show you the door.

  Terry heard the rhythmic clanking of a bike chain behind him just in time to step out of the way as a lithe young man in tight bicycle shorts sped past. Bet he’s cold.

  The guy was almost out of sight before Terry realized what he’d done. An incredibly aesthetically pleasing ass had just floated past him, clad in skin-tight spandex, and all he, Terry, had been able to think was bet he’s cold. Because he had an even more aesthetically pleasing ass waiting for him at home, and didn’t feel right about speculating about other asses under those circumstances.

  Would you look at me?

  Jesus. I’m pitiful.

  Terry tucked his head down and kept walking. Concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, and occasionally glancing up to make sure he was still going the right way and hadn’t wandered off down a side path, helped to keep his thoughts off his own dismal track record in relationships and why it was such a bad idea for him to even entertain the possibility of considering another one.

  I’m being ridiculous anyway. This is literally some homeless guy who was planning to crash in my dance studio until I caught him. Sure, he’d been an ass for bringing Maelduin home with him, but he supposed a guy was entitled to be an ass for a night or two. Especially with a man as gorgeous as Maelduin, and with appropriate precautions being taken. It was the daydreaming about more that was ridiculous. He knew better.

  “If you were Romeo, I would let you love me…”

  Goddamnit.

  A dog’s barking and whining dragged Terry out of yet another round of self-chastisement. Just past where the row of park benches along the walkway ended, two men sat on the grass, with a dog trying to wedge its way in between them, whining, tail wagging. One of the men had his head on the other’s shoulder. It looked as if he were being comforted by both the other man—a guy with long blond hair and the kind of wedge-shaped torso that belonged in fashion magazines—and the dog.

  That was something real. Not the kind of ‘relationship’ he was trying to conjure out of thin air.

  Terry couldn’t even make himself feel jealous, not really. Yeah, he wanted what he saw—someone to care about him that much. More than that, someone he could care about that much. But he’d already dumped someone he’d cared for—and who had cared back—in favor of an unmitigated cold-hearted son of a—

  Holy fuck.

  The blond was kissing the other man’s forehead, palming away his tears. And Terry recognized him, not to know his name, but he’d seen him a few times at Purgatory. The other man wasn’t looking at Terry—his eyes were all for his studly blond boyfriend—but Terry would know Bryce Newhouse anywhere, in profile or otherwise, in broad daylight or under the streetlights of the National Mall, flickering on in the gathering dusk.

  Even unmitigated cold-hearted sons of bitches had better luck with men than he did.

  Maybe the blond was more lovable than Terry was. Or maybe all it took to turn Bryce human was the right guy, who obviously wasn’t Terry.

  Terry clutched the handles of the take-out bags, his knuckles as white as the bones under the skin. Neither man looked up as he strode past. Which was just as well—he had a farewell dinner to serve at home, and didn’t have time for any interruption.

  Chapter Nine

  The apartment seemed very quiet when Maelduin pushed the button and silenced the spirits. He wondered where they went, when darkness fell over their prison, the trapped spirits with the strange names—HBO, Food Network, Animal Planet, SSTARMAX, National Geographic. Perhaps they appreciated not being forced to entertain any longer at the whim of the one who held the flat black rectangular key to their prison—or sat on it, as he had done initially. It puzzled him that none of them attempted to escape—none of them listened to his exhortations, although he supposed he understood, as whatever channeling kept them imprisoned kept them from hearing or seeing him—but surely they wanted their freedom? Yet instead of attempting to flee, or planning escape, they persisted in creating food out of ingredients even a Fae found peculiar, engaging in palace intrigues and debaucheries that were nearly Fae in their complexity and the rhythm of their speech, whispering to cats possessed by demons, and attempting to sell him Medicare supplement plans, whatever those were.

  At least the spirit named Gordon Ramsay had taught Maelduin the proper use of a stove, assuming it would ever be safe for him to be around open flame again. And thanks to the talkative spirits, when Terry returned, Maelduin was fairly sure he would be able to say whatever he wished.

  What did he wish to say, though?

  Maelduin lay back on the sofa with a sigh, dropping the key on the floor. The spirits had offered a great deal of advice—most of it on subjects in which he had no interest other than the acquisition of vocabulary. Not one of them had had anything useful to say on the subject of the seduction of an outwardly enthusiastic but inwardly reluctant human male. Well, one had offered some insights into changing the human mind, but Maelduin had no can of whoop-ass to hand to implement any of that spirit’s suggestions.

  And, unsurprisingly, none of them had been able to help him know his own mind.

  Have I lost my purpose? Forgotten my task? Maelduin shook his head, mildly irritated with himself for asking the question. He could no more forget his reason for coming to the human world than he could forget to be a Fae.

  Remembering his purpose and being physically capable of carrying it out, however, were cockatrices so d
ifferent it was impossible to believe them hatched from the same clutch.

  I have to join with Terry, to have any hope of regaining my skill with a blade. Or even being safe to walk across a room without causing some kind of catastrophe. Yet physical joining moves him not at all. This morning’s sex certainly had done nothing to help Maelduin’s cause, in any event—all he had to do was close his eyes, to see again the total failure of his channeling, magick itself shriveling and crumbling away, failing to find anything to hold onto.

  He had not thought to look last night, to see if the same thing had happened then. But he had not regained what he had lost—obviously—so his efforts had likely fallen short then as well.

  Did seduction require something more?

  Maelduin shook his head. This should be simple. Humans were prey, had always been so. Though an individual Fae might once have treated an ensnared human well, if the mood struck him or her, there had never been anything complicated about the glamouring.

  Yet I do not wish to glamour him.

  This was, possibly, why the matter was not simple. Maelduin remembered the human’s laughter. Remembered his small gestures of thoughtfulness, and the unexpected joy of waking from nightmare to the strength and shelter of a freely offered arm. Such things, he suspected, would be lost if he blatantly seduced Terry—and they were things Maelduin wished to have, with the single-mindedness of any Fae.

  But did he want those things more than he wanted the rejoining of his soul? More than he wanted release from the stumbling prison of his own clumsiness? The death of his father’s murderer?

  Impossible.

  If he cared, he might have such desires. If he loved. But Fae did not love. Especially not the Fae of the Cursed House, House Guaire—

  A key turned in the lock; the door swung open, and Terry was preceded into the apartment by the scent of food, savory enough to tempt even the most jaded Fae palate.

  And another scent. Tears.

  By the time Terry was turning the locks on the apartment door, juggling the sacks from which the wonderful smells were emerging, Maelduin was on his feet. Resigned to barking his shin on the small table in front of the sofa, he refused to wince as the table legs screeched across the wooden floor and his shin reminded him that even his comhrac-scátha had done it less damage overall.

  Terry winced enough for both of them. “Still having one of those days?” He shook his head when Maelduin extended a hand, offering to help with the bags. “That’s okay, I’ve got it.”

  Maelduin followed Terry into the kitchen, his frown deepening with every step. Tears, yes, definitely, there was no mistaking the scent even mingled with meat and fish and spices. He wondered if Terry—if any human—would expect him to notice such a thing. “Terry, are you—”

  “Could you reach us down some plates?” Terry pointed with one hand toward a cupboard. “Carefully?” The human’s voice caught, edged with an odd harshness.

  Maelduin arched a brow, opened his mouth to reply, to defend his ability to remove plates form a shelf without inviting disaster… but something caught his attention. Pain. Sorrow. Instead of snapping out a retort, he turned to look at Terry. And saw red eyes, the tracks of tears incompletely scrubbed away.

  Fae did not love.

  Perhaps, then, his desire to put an end to Terry’s pain was something other than love. It had to be. Because it was something he wanted, and a Fae would not want love.

  But he was a Fae, which meant he would have what he wanted, whatever that was.

  Instead of doing as Terry asked, Maelduin rested a hand on Terry’s arm, slowly turned him away from the bags on the counter, looked into his eyes. “What has made you sad?”

  “I’m not—”

  “You are.” And I want it to stop. “What happened?”

  Terry’s mouth opened, closed. His gaze slanted away, then back again, then down. “It’s nothing. Really. I just… ran into an old boyfriend. With his new boyfriend.”

  Maelduin frowned. Jealousy was something any Fae could understand, and jealousy was surely called for in the circumstance Terry described, though he was not certain of Terry’s feelings. “Do you want someone hurt? I could do that.” Assuming I can walk down the street toward the one who wanted hurting, without being hit by an out-of-control truck.

  Terry made a sound in response; Maelduin had no idea whether it was laughter, a groan, or something else altogether. “I kind of believe you.”

  “You should believe me.” Such a statement, from one Fae to another, would be cause for peals of musical laughter. In this instance, though—just this once—Maelduin meant every word.

  Terry shook his head and looked away, leaning against the counter and staring at the gray stone between the heels of his hands. “Would you quit being so fucking perfect?”

  Maelduin had hoped for something that would make him feel less confused, rather than more. “If I am perfect, why would you want me to be less so?”

  Terry had beautiful eyes, even when he was regarding Maelduin with an easy-to-read you make as much sense as an inebriated Sibyl expression. “Because then your leaving wouldn’t suck quite so badly.”

  Maelduin’s stomach felt as if someone had dropped a stone into it. Or perhaps a block of ice. He could not leave. Not now, not yet. Not without the half of his soul incarnate in the human.

  Not without seeing Terry smile.

  “I am not going anywhere. Not yet.” Hesitantly, he rested a hand over Terry’s.

  I am too tentative. During his long training, this sort of indecisiveness would have resulted in his death on the blade of his comhrac-scátha. But perhaps this, too, was his curse at work.

  Terry was staring at Maelduin’s hand. “No. Not yet. I’m not the type to put someone out on the street before dinner.” The human’s smile seemed forced, his gaze hooded. “Sorry, I’m being a bitch.”

  The human probably thought his voice gave nothing away. To Fae ears, though, it trembled, carrying the weight of some deep human emotion barely kept in check.

  Any such emotion stood between Maelduin and what he needed. That was why he had to draw Terry out. The only reason a Fae would ever do so. Of course.

  And what would the whoop-ass healer spirit say? “Talk to me, Terry. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Terry laughed, a harsh grating sound. “Please don’t pretend you give a damn. That only makes it worse.”

  “Why?” Maelduin caught Terry’s hand as Terry tried to pull away. “Why does it make it worse?” Fae relationships, such as they were, layered pretense on top of artifice, as any Fae would expect of that most capricious of art forms. Humans must be very, very different.

  Terry huffed out a sharp sigh, but the slight catch at the end of it betrayed something more than mere exasperation. “Look, we both know you and I were a hook-up. A mind-blowing hook-up, granted, but still…” Terry pulled his hands away, opened the paper sack, and lifted out one container after another. “You’re breaking the rules. You do know the rules, right? Pretending to give a shit about your bedwarmer is gauche. You just say ‘thanks for the great sex,’ and in this case you say ‘hey wow, thanks for the amazing dinner,’ and then you move on.”

  The smells coming from the containers made Maelduin’s stomach rumble. He ignored both smells and hunger, and caught Terry gently by the wrists. “If you think I care about rules, you know nothing of me.” He smiled as Terry’s eyes went wide—though the redness of those eyes caused a muscle to jump in his jaw. “And this knowing nothing of me wants fixing.”

  “I suppose I should have guessed you don’t give a damn about rules. After all, we met while you were breaking and entering.”

  “Breaking, yes.” Maelduin could not help wincing at the memory of the long-handled implement, and the crunch as it had impacted his nose. And the blood. Noses always bled copiously, so he had learned. “The entering came later.”

  Terry’s laugh sounded reluctant, but genuine enough. He turned his hands under Maelduin’s, and took Mael
duin’s hands in his own. And Maelduin wondered at the racing of his heart.

  Something is happening. Something I cannot allow.

  Yet Fae cared nothing for rules, for what was allowed.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a bitch. But I told you, I ran into an old boyfriend on my way home. And his new boyfriend. And they were both getting on perfectly well without me. You know what I mean?”

  It was as he had suspected. “You are jealous. This is normal,” he added reassuringly; stating the obvious seemed a safe enough gambit to comfort the distraught male. And it was as if a weight slid from his shoulders—at least now he understood something.

  “Jealous?”

  The crack in Terry’s voice, and the way he snatched his hands away and balled them into fists at his sides, made it clear as living Stone that Maelduin understood much less than he thought he did.

  “… not jealous?”

  “No.” Terry’s voice was as dull as lead. “There’s nothing there to be jealous of. I was an idiot, I dumped a good man for Bryce. And then Bryce and I… well, we didn’t work out.” Terry slumped against the counter, and now Maelduin could see that his face matched his voice. “I have epically lousy taste in men. No offense, I’m sure you’re an accident.”

  Maelduin felt his face grow hot. “No offense taken.”

  Terry said nothing. And, having never experienced an awkward silence before, it took Maelduin a moment to recognize what was happening. “I said something wrong. What can I say to make it right?”

  “There you go, being perfect again.” Terry glanced up, driving home the difference in their heights, then down again. “It’s like you studied to know exactly what to say.”