by R Phoenix
Hadn’t Gideon made it clear to all of them that they weren’t supposed to come near this door? Hadn’t he made himself clear enough that— He paused his own thoughts, but his anger kept mounting. The only reason anyone had to be there right then was to steal his Kolt away.
“Where is he?” Leandro snarled, striding toward her.
He didn’t touch her. He wouldn’t sully his hands with her, but that didn’t mean she was safe. She wasn’t safe.
No one was safe. Not when one of them had to have taken Kolt, even if he didn’t know how.
“I-I don’t… I don’t know.” The usually self-assured woman cringed back away from him. “I just came to tell you that—” She broke off as the sound of sobs filled the air.
It took him a moment to understand that it was coming from him, that it was his face that was damp with tears, that it was his body that shook with the force of each one. It was impossible. He couldn’t be rendered into this… this thing, this mess.
He was fae.
“Where. Is. He?”
Arla had started to back away, and he thought he’d choke on his rage. He clenched his fist tight, and she grabbed at her throat as an invisible rope wrapped itself around it.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded. “Didn’t you come to see for yourself? To gloat?” he spat, tightening the bonds with a flick of his wrist.
His eyes locked onto her wide ones, and he was unimpressed when she shook her head. So frantic, so desperate, so insistent that she didn’t know. Ha! Why else would she have been there?
He released her just enough to allow her to take a breath. He repeated the question, and she repeated her denial. Another flick of his wrist — like he was the conductor of a symphony evoking her gasps and cries.
Leandro was viciously pleased to see her shaken like a rag doll by the air itself. He asked again and again, shaking her over and over until…
Until her eyes closed, and she stilled.
No. No! She had to tell him where Kolt was. She couldn’t die, not like this, not before she answered him.
Leandro rushed to her, but she was gone. Dead and soon to be cold, as empty as this room was of a soul. She was gone, just like Kolt was.
He straightened and kicked her corpse. She wouldn’t feel it, but he kicked her again, just because he could. Then again.
And again, the kicks becoming increasingly more vicious as he went on, aiming for her beautiful, filthy half-fae face.
When he blinked again, the wall was painted with blood. Dead blood, to be sure; it wouldn’t be his own — but then, there were bloody gashes along his arms, healing sluggishly but there all the same. His eyes darted to Arla’s unrecognizable body, on the opposite end of the room from where it had been.
It had been twisted unnaturally, leaving her corpse a mockery of life as it lay there. He had done that. He had done all of this, and still his rage rose and rose until he was screaming. It ripped from his throat, leaving him feeling raw and in pain.
He yanked at the top button of his shirt, the cloth parting but still not making it any easier to breathe. He, who had command of the air, couldn’t catch his breath. His chest heaved, and he struggled to draw in the air he needed. He had done this to Arla, and he’d do it again. When he found Kolt…
So help him, when he found Kolt, it wouldn’t matter that the incubus was a precious possession. It wouldn’t help him then like it had before. He would make Kol’tso feel this, this desperation and this… this…
He forced himself to calm as he strode into the main room of the casino, but he could see the alarm reflected in those present — not many, not at this hour, but enough. More than enough. He wanted to rip and rend, to snap bone and leave them screaming.
“Where is he!” Leandro roared, a cyclone tearing through the room on the heels of his words. Glass crashed and wood splintered; metal groaned and stone gave way to dust… and he was left panting, standing there in the middle of the remains of the main floor of the casino — his legacy devastated in moments.
Seconds.
Gideon stood first, facing him, and it was all Leandro could do not to lash out at him.
Leandro snapped, “Call for Ackerman. This is the Organization’s doing.”
“Everyone out,” Gideon said as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, and Leandro despised his calm. Had it not been for the fact that a little too much of the whites of his eyes showed, Gideon might’ve seemed unaffected.
And that… that wouldn’t do. He would be respected once again.
Leandro’s chest heaved as he struggled to pull in air, and he watched the patrons scatter. Good. He wanted them gone. There was only one person he wanted there, and one way or another, Kolt would be on his knees before him again.
This time, he wouldn’t leave. This time, Leandro would leash him properly, physically, if he had to.
He devoted another moment to surveying the damage, then he looked at Darcy. “Clean up,” he told her, still breathless but feeling calmer in the wake of his outburst.
She nodded once and left the room. Where she was going when the mess was in this room, he didn’t know, but he couldn’t bring himself to care or correct her.
Leandro glanced at Gideon. “Well?” he snapped.
Gideon shook his head, phone still in hand. “It says the number isn’t in service.”
Leandro glared at him. “Find his new number!”
“I’m not Google or a private detective. I’ll need time,” Gideon answered, his voice still far too mild.
Leandro searched his expression, his eyes raking over the man’s face. He nodded curtly. “Do it,” he ordered.
He glanced at where he'd come from, at the back rooms where his Kolt had gone missing. He had to find out how the incubus had done it. Kolt couldn't be allowed to escape him again.
The third time would have to be the charm.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Find him!” Gideon didn’t know how many times he’d heard those words snarled in Leandro’s office over the past week and a half.
Darcy immediately took off to do as he had said, or try to. She wasn’t normally easily spooked, but Leandro’s instability made everyone tense.
The fae looked ragged, and there seemed to be permanent marks on his knuckles from trashing things. It had started to feel like their positions were reversed.
All Gideon needed was to be sitting behind that desk instead of standing next to it.
“It shouldn’t be this hard,” Leandro hissed.
Gideon finished typing his message on his phone before looking up at Leandro, plastering a bored look over his face and sighing. “With Ackerman’s arrest, we haven’t got any leads, Leandro. We keep chasing our tails. Where do you want us to look next? Mars?” he asked sharply, earning himself a vicious look from the fae.
He ignored it. He’d dealt with worse.
“He’s out there, Gideon, he’s out there, and he’s mine,” the fae snarled, slamming both hands on the table — the snap of wind sending the papers that were on it flying and scattering.
“Meanwhile, your other businesses are sinking, over a slave,” Gideon said.
Leandro shot up. “My Kolt is not just any slave, Gideon,” the fae said through clenched teeth.
Gideon felt a caress of the wind along his cheek. He scowled and twisted away. “Right, sure,” he agreed, taking a disgusted step back. “He’s a shapeshifting slave. He could be anywhere now. He could be sitting in the casino, and we’d never fucking know,” he pointed out.
“You would know. Wouldn’t you?” Leandro said, speaking deceptively soft, and those words bordered on a purr. “You recognized him before, when he came back,” he continued, looking at Gideon through narrowed eyes.
“I guess,” Gideon said cautiously. Now wasn’t the time to be discussing his gifts and talents. Not after everything that had happened, and not with how things had turned out.
“How?” Leandro demanded shortly.
“Ange
lic ancestry,” Gideon said with a shrug. “Just like how your voodoo doesn’t really work on me, glimmers and passive spells don’t work on me either… It’s not reliable,” he clarified immediately.
Leandro scoffed and laughed, sounding a little maniacal. “What is reliable these days? At least you are still loyal to me. Aren’t you, Gideon?” the fae asked.
The line of questioning sent a chill down his spine. This wasn’t the fucking time to be questioned about his fucking loyalty.
“I’ve been up for eighteen hours straight looking for him. I need to go home to get some rest,” he said. “We can pick this up tomorrow, I guess,” he added with a deep sigh. “I like my job, Leandro. I’d hate to see it fucking disappear because of Kolt,” Gideon added, casting the fae a sidelong look.
The fae twitched — actually twitched, and Gideon quickly turned away, not wanting to antagonize him any further. It was hard enough to fly under the radar as it was without needlessly upsetting the unstable immortal air-bender and attracting his suspicion.
Just outside the casino, he ran into Darcy, who was clearly at a loss. He patted her on the shoulder and offered her a grin. “Just go to a bar and drink until you can’t think of incubi anymore. Put it on the expense account,” he told her, holding the black credit card out to her.
“How will that help?” she asked tightly, but she took the card anyway.
“It won’t, but it’s the best way to pretend to look for him. If he asks, I heard telling there was a good-looking guy in that bar a few nights in a row, kept going home with random people,” Gideon said with a smirk.
Darcy seemed to relax a little. “All right, boss,” she said. “I’ll check out that lead.” She walked with him to his car.
“Won’t be your boss for much longer,” Gideon told her when they crossed the lot.
“He’s not going to fire you,” Darcy pointed out.
Gideon shook his head. “He’s not going to have to. I’m turning in my resignation. I…” He glanced behind them at the building.
“If you’re out, I’m out,” Darcy said immediately. “Bad enough working for that psycho while you’re still here to temper him, but he’s going to flip when you leave.”
Gideon winced, but he had to admit she was right. Without Kolt there, keeping Leandro in line had become harder, even for him. “Well, if you need a job rec…”
Darcy nodded, flashing him a tired smile. “Thanks, Gideon.”
He nodded, turning for his own car.
“Hey,” she said.
“What?” he asked, looking back at her.
“Heard you’re seeing someone,” she said with a smirk.
Gideon froze. “Where did you hear that?” he asked, trying to sound passive.
“Keith says he saw you. Plus, you’re on like cloud nine even with all this crazy going on,” she answered, and his jaw set as he scowled. “Hey, it’s cool. I just meant to say… good for you. If it keeps you sane with all this, you deserve it,” she added.
“Are you going fucking rom-com on me?” Gideon asked.
“Fuck off,” she answered and flipped him off, before getting in her own car.
Gideon breathed out heavily, before unlocking his car.
He didn’t live far from the casino. It was convenient to be close to work in case an emergency came up, though lately he hadn’t spent much time at home. He’d spent most of his time on a wild fucking goose chase, chasing after Kolt, who wasn’t going to be found. Not if he didn’t want to be found, and not if Gideon could fucking help it.
He stuck his key in the lock of his apartment door, unlocking it and shoving it open with his shoulder. In one practiced motion, he tossed his keys onto the table next to the door and kicked it closed with the back of his heel.
The lights were on, and the curtains were drawn even though it was ten in the morning, and a smirk drew on his lips.
“You put fucking candles in my house?” Gideon asked as he saw the glow of them coming from his bedroom. He walked down the hallway, sticking his head around the doorframe and looking in.
There were five candles on the window sill in front of the blackout blinds, two more on the nightstand, and another three on the floor by the full-length mirror.
His eyes settled on the man on the bed — naked but for one of his hoodies, dark auburn hair falling just over the bulky hood. The shirt was a little big on him, making him look small once again, but those long legs looked fucking great under the dark fabric…
“Fucking fire hazard,” he said as he looked into those amber eyes.
“You told me to treat it as my own,” Kolt said with a sassy smirk. “How was work?” he added the question sweetly, reaching a hand out to him.
“We need to be more careful. Keith saw us,” he said, narrowing his eyes.
“Hmm… or you need to just introduce me,” Kolt replied.
“Yes,” Gideon said with a slow nod, stepping forward to take Kolt’s hand. “I’ll just introduce my new boyfriend, who I found mere days after Kolt disappeared, who also happens to be named Kolt. I’m sure no one will be suspicious,” he said dryly.
Kolt smirked. “I never knew you had such a sense of humor. But fine, I’ll just say inside then, until Keith dies and stops spying on us.”
Gideon shot him an unimpressed look, but it didn’t last long. A smile crept back onto his lips despite the way he tried to fight it back. “Don’t get any ideas on speeding up the process,” he warned. He paused, stroking the back of Kolt’s hand. “You just want Leandro to see us together without knowing who you are,” he said.
“No,” Kolt said, but the smirk still lingering on his lips said otherwise. “I want to drink his eggnog at the fucking Christmas party, eat the turkey, and steal some shit, while wearing a horrible Christmas sweater with a reindeer on it without him knowing who I am,” he corrected. “I’m playing the long game.”
Gideon laughed, and it felt strange. It was all he could do not to crawl onto the bed, to kiss him — and fuck, it was a little sickening, how giddy he felt. “You go out today?” he asked, thighs pressing against the bed as he pressed in close.
Kolt tugged on his hand gently, biting his lower lip and shifting that knee just a little — to offer just a bit more of a view of that inner thigh and how the hoodie fell just over everything interesting. “Well, I sure as hell didn’t make the candles,” Kolt mused.
“Hey, you could have secret talents I don’t know about yet. Candle making. Cake decorating…” Gideon quirked a brow, letting himself be drawn in closer and nipping the tempting lower lip Kolt teased him with, only to have the incubus duck back and away.
“Didn’t know you hated candles, though,” Kolt responded.
“I don’t hate them. Caught me off guard, that’s all.”
Kolt’s smirk never wavered, but he chastely brushed his lips over Gideon’s. “The great Gideon, caught off guard. Suppose there’s a first time for everything, hmm?”
“Mm, you seem to have that effect on me.” Gideon rolled his eyes, taking a step back and taking the time to regain his self-control as he let Kolt’s hand slip from his gentle grasp. It was difficult, more difficult than he might have thought it would be.
Having Kolt in his apartment was a constant exercise in restraint, and it wasn’t even just the sex.
“You tired?” Kolt asked quietly. He put both his hands in his lap, pulling the hoodie down. Despite having put himself on display for it, the incubus wasn’t trying very hard to get into his pants.
“Been looking for you for damn near twenty hours straight. Bound to exhaust anyone,” he said. “Now that I found you…” All he wanted to do was kiss every inch of him in a silent, unspoken plea for forgiveness for every time he hadn’t been able to stop someone from laying a hand on him.
“Is he ever going to just give up?” Kolt asked, sobering a little, as he always did when they spoke about Leandro.
Gideon hesitated. “I don’t know,” he finally replied. He sat on the bed beside Kol
t, offering his arm out but giving the incubus the choice on whether to move closer — not that it would be distracting in any way, of course. “You’re not exactly the type of person who’s easy to let go of.”
Kolt hesitated, but after a moment, he moved. Not to sit with him, but to kneel behind him with a knee on either side of his hips and his warm hands coming to rest on his shoulders for a moment or two. Kolt pushed his thumbs into the muscle of his shoulders, kneading at the tension there with rigorous determination.
Gideon let out a moan, but as much as he wanted to relax into the touch, there was too much going on.
“Maybe we should fake my death,” Kolt said.
Without seeing his face, Gideon wasn’t sure if he was serious or not. He snorted in amusement regardless.
“You deserve a break,” Kolt added.
Gideon felt lips against the back of his neck. “So do you,” he replied, his eyes drifting partially closed as he tilted his head to expose more of his neck. “I thought he had too much pride to let his businesses suffer this much and he’d have to back off.” He shook his head. “He’s fae. Can’t predict them worth a damn. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m calling it quits.” He paused, then offered Kolt a wry smile. “Sorry, but you won’t have the chance to fuck with his head at the Christmas party.”
Kolt said nothing, going quiet as he tended to do as well, when they spoke about Leandro or Ackerman.
Gideon wasn’t sure what to make of that, but he tried not to bring them up too much — which was harder than it had seemed at first, so he stopped talking about it now too.
The massage didn’t stop, even if the conversation did. He could feel some of the tension get rubbed and massaged out of his shoulders slowly but surely. He got another kiss on his neck, then those hands slid over his shoulders and down his chest.
Kolt’s chest pressed carefully against his back. “Thank you,” he murmured against Gideon’s ear, pressing a kiss against it as well as his hands rubbed down and up his chest slowly. “Thank you for looking out for me,” he continued, ending with another kiss. “Thank you for getting me out of that room. I know what a risk that was,” he added, nipping at the shell of his ear, sending a chill down his spine for various reasons. “Thank you for giving a shit about me…”