by Robin Moray
He could not ignore the magic, could hardly help it when Kevin kept feeding it to him with his lips and his fingers, the heat spiralling up his spine and drawing him taut. He could hardly tell anymore where the pleasure of magic ended and the pleasure of Kevin's flesh began, and the whole of it was blinding, oh God, Peter had never felt anything like it. It bore him up, a wave building relentlessly and dragging him off balance and then, when he thought he could take no more of it, Kevin cried out, magic spilling from him like a fountain, and Peter drank it all. It overwhelmed him, carrying him up and over the edge, and drowning him in the sweetness of it until he was lost, nothing left, just Kevin to cling to until it ebbed away.
When he came back to himself he found he had sprawled gracelessly in Kevin's lap, the weight of a hand smoothing down the length of his spine, and Kevin grinning at him, lazy-eyed and sweatily sated.
"You okay?"
Peter opened his mouth but nothing came out except his labouring breath.
Kevin chuckled, wrapping his legs firmly around Peter's waist and twisting to press a damp kiss to Peter's temple. "Yeah, I reckon you're okay."
'Okay' was not the word for it; 'okay' was insufficient. Peter tried to speak, found himself incapable, tried to push himself up, found himself incapable of that also.
He felt replete. Good, in a way he had not felt good in so long, energized despite the lethargy creeping into his limbs.
"I," he said, but words were too difficult. He closed his eyes, turning his face into the welcoming hollow of Kevin's neck, breathing, just breathing, just for a little while.
Eventually, though, Kevin wriggled. "You're going to have to," he said, though his fingertips rubbed soothing circles against Peter's scalp. "C'mon."
"Would that I never moved again," Peter mumbled into his throat, and Kevin laughed, quiet and breathy.
"I'd get hungry," he said, and then he poked his fingers into the spaces between Peter's ribs until Peter reluctantly disengaged and rolled away. He took a moment to dispose of the condom and wash his hands and then flopped on his back, staring up at the ceiling. The light was … different. It glimmered, shimmering as it gilt the edges of things, rendering the mundane strangely beautiful.
He turned, and saw how the light gathered around Kevin's limbs, haloing his head, flickering and fissuring in a coloured overlay that … was that how it looked? Peter had only been able to taste it before, to smell it and feel it, but now he could see what could only be Kevin's magic, the very essence of him, misting on his skin.
Peter couldn't help it; he held out a hand, brushing his fingers over Kevin's shoulder, watching the play of light as magic skittered around his knuckles.
Kevin hummed, and his face when Peter looked up at it was thoughtful. "Hey. Look at you, all drenched in magic. You full, then? Feel good?"
Peter nodded, his mouth suddenly dry. "Yes. I feel … magnificent."
It made Kevin smile and shift close enough to prop himself over Peter's shoulder, hand trailing down Peter's torso in slow, possessive sweeps. "You are. Magnificent. I wish—" but he stopped, frowning a little.
Peter ran a hand up his arm, squeezing the solid muscle of his shoulder. "What do you wish?"
Kevin shook his head. "Nothing." But it did not sound like nothing. "Anyway. Now you're all witchy, I wanna try something." He took Peter's hand, lacing their fingers together, and then pushed a little magic around them both. It skittered over their skin, lacing them in glitters of red and gold, and it felt electric, warm but not hot, somehow energising. This seemed to be exactly what Kevin wanted; he looked pleased, untangling their hands and watching as the magic leaped from one of them to the other. "I figured. I mean, it's my magic you're full of." He sighed. "No problems linking with you."
"With me?"
Kevin made a face. "It's not really … it's weird. The more time I spend with you, the more it's changing. Becoming like you. Less like my," and he checked himself, obviously. "The others. Makes it harder to link with them."
Peter, with magic sparkling around his fingers, and good magic, unlike anything he'd ever known, found this difficult to comprehend. "Should you, then, be here with me now?"
"Nope." Kevin smiled, tentatively. "Wanted to, though." Then he wriggled his fingers, watching the light dance. "Anyway. It's not just me doing all this."
That didn't make sense at first, but Peter thought he understood a little. The skip of magic did something to him, under his skin, made him respond instinctively. He could feel it, how it flowed, winding around them like a bright snake. He felt like he could do things with it, so he did, pushing the magic faster, and it leapt, sparking in spirals between their fingers.
Kevin laughed. "There you go. Not so bad, is it? Magic, I mean." He sounded wry, eyebrows arching up.
Peter cleared his throat, feeling his face heat. "Do you practice magic with all your lovers?"
And that made Kevin start, fingers jerking away to let the magic fizzle out in the air. "I, um. No. I've never done this before."
It went through Peter like a jolt. God, had he …"Tell me I haven't just deflowered a virgin," he said, and then he winced because if he had that was possibly the worst way to say it.
Kevin looked wickedly gleeful, though, grinning like a madman. "Really? Really? You're asking that now?" He rolled up over Peter to rub noses, apparently hugely entertained by the idea. "You should see your face. No, anyway. What difference would it have made?"
"I would have been less hasty," Peter told him, wrapping him up in both arms to hold him still. "I would have made it special, if I could."
But Kevin turned shy, then, chewing his lip and lowering his eyelashes like a shield. "It was. Better than—" but he broke off, and then he had pushed himself up, kneeling between Peter's thighs with his head cocked back. A front, perhaps, to cover whatever he did not want to say. "You know, you should offer me your shower."
"Oh! Please, if you want, go ahead."
Kevin nodded, slipping off the bed. He swept up two of the abandoned packets, inspecting them thoughtfully. "Huh." He grinned, green eyes suddenly mischievous. "Waterproof lube?"
And then he sauntered into the bathroom, grabbing a towel off the dresser as he went.
Peter stared after him for the time it took for the water spray to hit the tiles, and then—oh. Well. With such an invitation, how could he refuse?
Chapter 14
The magic in Peter's blood held strong all through til morning, and when the sun first crept through the gaps in the blinds it sparked a golden glow on his skin that Kevin watched with quiet amusement. And amazement. It crept across him like wildfire as he slept, tiny little flares and bursts, evaporating into the light.
Eventually, Peter opened his eyes. "Mmm. Watching me?"
"Admiring you." Kevin propped himself on his elbows, unable to stop himself from grinning like an idiot.
"Been at it long?"
"Ages. There's a lot of you to admire."
Peter smiled, mussed and sleepy and a goddamn delight. "You flatter me."
"Well, I'm trying in get in your pants. Any luck?"
There, that smile, and that sigh. "Some, though some of that may be attributed to biology."
It took Kevin a moment, but then he snorted, stretching out to cover Peter's body with his own. He settled, belly to belly, knees wide around Peter's thighs. Huh. Morning wood. Okay. "You're so English," he mocked, shifting so nothing important got crushed. Peter's hands came up to rub along Kevin's thighs, sliding up to grope him shamelessly. "I thought English people were all 'no sex, please, pass the tea'."
"That's 'British', not just 'English'. In any case," and his smile turned wicked. "It's a grievous slander."
"Oh yeah?" Kevin slid down a little, tucking the beginnings of a hard-on up next to Peter's. "You got anything to back that up?"
Peter looked thoughtful, but then he rolled Kevin over onto his back, pinning him to the mattress in a tangle of bed-linen. "We shall have to find out," he said, ducking
his head to press a kiss to Kevin's jaw. "That is," and he looked up, mouth curved into a near smirk. "If your 'this once only' extends to the morning after."
And forever and ever, Kevin wanted to tell him, but he couldn't. "I might bend the rules, one time, for you."
Peter hesitated, and the thing that flashed in his eyes might have been sorrow, or maybe just worry. But then it was gone, and the hand that curled under Kevin's thigh pulled him up until he hooked his ankle around Peter's waist. "Kind of you," Peter said quietly, leaning in to nip at Kevin's lip. "Permit me, then, to take advantage of your kindness."
He kissed up under Kevin's jaw, teeth catching on his skin, and then moved down, trailing the wet press of his mouth over Kevin's collarbone, across his chest, to lick over a nipple. It peaked at once, Kevin felt it, firm in Peter's mouth, and Peter sucked at him, drawing his blood and his magic to the surface hard enough to make Kevin gasp.
Peter lifted his head to examine his handiwork, seemed satisfied, and bent to do the same the other side, his teeth sharp and demanding, his tongue soothing after. Then he slid down, nose warm against Kevin's belly, nuzzling as he went, leaving quick, light kisses in his wake. When he reached Kevin's cock, better than half-hard now, he smiled, tilting his gaze to meet Kevin's eye.
"Will you stand up for me?"
Kevin sucked in a breath, shuddering from head to toe. "How about you make me?"
Peter's smile broadened, and he pressed a kiss to the head of it. "I shall endeavour."
And then it hit. There was no warning this time, just the smash and shake and shudder of the world tearing in two. Kevin jerked upright, panic sweeping over him, but Peter came up on his knees, one arm going around Kevin's shoulders to pull him in, the other loose, bearing a fist as though he meant to defend them both with his bare hands. His aura, too, spread out like wings, tasting the air like the tongues of snakes, sliding over Kevin like a shield. It felt … all right. Good. Safe.
"That. Again. She's close." Peter turned to him, pressing his fingers against Kevin's shoulder too hard for it to be comforting. "Stay here."
Oh. Yeah. Right. "Hell, no." Kevin slithered away from him and off the bed, looking for his pants. Great. Most of a hard-on and sweats with no underpants. That was just excellent.
"Kevin, she is dangerous, and I will not—"
"You don't get a choice," Kevin snapped, finding one of his socks and yanking it on.
"You can't come with me!"
Kevin rolled his eyes. "You can't stop me." Peter stared at him and, oh, he was handsome and vibrant and naked and had such an affronted look on his face that Kevin reached up to pull him down for a kiss. It only made Peter look more affronted. Kevin smirked at him. "So get dressed. And lend me a shirt, all right?"
* * *
The fallout was still condensing in the air by the time Kevin stopped in the street outside to work out which way they were going. "It's somewhere close," he told Peter, who still had pillow-creases on his cheek but had managed to find pants and a shirt for himself, a t-shirt and sweater for Kevin. It was cold out, bright and crisp but glittering with dark, awful magic like black mica.
Peter nodded, frowning over his shoulder. "She'll be at the nearest nodal point—something like the Stone Garden, or—"
Kevin cut him off. "I know. Um," he thought for moment, then jerked into motion, heading across the road. "The cemetery."
"You should stay behind me," Peter insisted, jogging forward to match step with him. He looked grim, mouth thinning down to a stern line that he probably thought made him look authoritative.
"Uh, no?"
"Kevin," Peter insisted, catching his arm. "Listen to me. If she gets her hands on you she'll drain you."
"Like you did in the shop?"
Peter looked stricken, as if he'd forgotten about that and didn't like the reminder. "… no. No, not like that."
"How is it different?"
"I can hurt you, but I can't kill you that way," he said quietly. "She can."
"And how are you going to stop her?" Kevin gave him a skeptical look.
Peter made a complicated gesture. "I can cauterise it, so to speak."
"You mean burn her out?" So that was it. He'd wondered. And he opened his mouth to ask more but there came again that familiar tension in the air, and he hardly had time to breathe in before it hit.
The aftershocks made his vision blur, and he staggered away from Peter, reaching for Bella's wards. It took him a moment to figure it out but then … whoa. It was like a web and he was a spider, and something huge and rancid was writhing in it, not far away, definitely in the cemetery.
"Come on!"
"Wait!"
Kevin didn't, though; he ran, fingertips tripping along the woven wards—if he tweaked them like this he felt them twitch right back at him, from a distance, and that was Bella, it had to be. Good. She'd find them.
The cemetery looked deserted, but there was magic all over it like ash settling after an explosion.
"Please don't run ahead," Peter said in a low, serious voice. "I can't protect you if you do."
"Maybe I'll protect you," Kevin snapped, and Peter looked shocked. He opened his mouth, and Kevin knew he was going to say it, he just knew and he couldn't bear to hear it again. "She won't hurt me," Kevin lied, because she could, and maybe she would. "She's afraid of my coven."
Because, Peter had said it and Cordelia had said it; whoever protected Haversham had to be strong, and they were. Even if Kevin was the weakest link, the others would come for him. And if Cordelia hurt him? Bella would destroy her.
Peter just stared at him, but then he nodded. "As you say."
Kevin led him into the cemetery, and hesitated among the long rows of graves, casting about for the warlock he knew was here. He tested the wards again; there she was, just over … . there. Kevin ducked behind a statue, peeking around it to see her, standing apparently alone at a crossroads, hunched, her head moving from side to side as though seeking something out.
And then she stopped, threw out a hand, and—
"Do you feel that?" Magic was swelling up like … holy hell, like a tsunami, pouring out of everything to pile together in one giant wave.
This was the closest he'd ever been to one of these; it was only instinct that called up his shield in time, and he had to draw hard on the cemetery's power to make that shield strong. It would have shredded away to nothing if he weren't standing in amongst the graves of his ancestors, generations of long-gone Mallorys scattered about like wildflowers, but it held, and Kevin could not shake the image of all those skeletal hands sheltering him. Maybe that image ought not to have been comforting but somehow it really was.
The rush of it nearly pulled Kevin off his feet but Peter had his arm and he held on, and then it hit. Standing in an oasis as the shockwave of magic streamed past, he finally got to see exactly what happened when Cordelia struck.
Her attack had felt like dark lightning, striking down hard and fast and meant to kill, but it hadn't been the attack itself that made the air shudder and shake with noise. In the moment it struck it exposed her target, the other witch, hunched against a tombstone under a shield like a damn bomb-shelter. He'd never seen anything like it, less a shield and more a carapace, but when Cordelia struck the whole thing exploded into light and there, where the bright light met the dark, that was the epicentre of the blast.
Just like Artie said, Kevin thought, two spells, causing a reaction.
And then the kid was up and running, his shield crackling, flaking away but repairing itself, and he flickered like a bad projection before vanishing again.
"Holy shit!" Kevin had never seen anything like it. There was something familiar in the cloaking part of it—Bella's spell, that Artemis learned and did that one time in the Stone Garden, and, what, the kid had seen it and just incorporated it into his own? How was that possible? How could anyone do that?
"Kevin!" Peter squeezed his arm. "Can you … is it possible for you to hide me from her
like that?"
Kevin blinked. "Maybe?" He'd been linked with Bella when she cast it the first time, he could remember the shape of it. "I can try."
It was clumsy, working the spell by himself, and it felt like it was too slow, too awkward. He was vaguely aware of Cordelia in the distance; she was stalking through the cemetery, zigzagging between the headstones, and she'd see them in a moment if she hadn't already. But then the spell snapped into place; Peter vanished as though he had never been there at all.
Now what? Kevin crouched down behind the corner of a raised concrete bed, keeping it between him and the warlock. "So I guess … okay, it's just me." Because Peter was probably gone, already, looking for an opening. Fuck, Kevin didn't know what he was supposed to do. And if Cordelia mistook him for the witch she was hunting … well, even if she didn't she might just strike him down for getting in her way.
So why was he bothering to hide?
He stood up and stepped out into the open. "Hey! Cordelia!"
She was about a hundred yards away, and when she turned her eyes blazed with magic. She didn't look particularly surprised to see him, but then again she didn't look particularly annoyed, either. "You again. And you know my name. Should I be flattered?"
"I dunno. Should you?"
She propped a hand on her hip. It was oddly normal on someone who was bleeding tainted magic into the air and dressed like a parody of themselves. "You're trying to distract me. It won't work."
"Oh, good." He took a breath. "Look, though. You can't just come in here and eat people. This place is protected."
She laughed. It wasn't a bad laugh, it was almost pretty, but it was the sort of laugh Kevin had heard before in school, and he didn't like it. "You know you can't stop me alone. And the rest of your coven's nowhere to be seen."
Kevin put his hand down on a headstone, leaned on it, felt the power underneath twitch like a well-trained dog just begging to be let off the leash. "No, I mean this place. This exact place. Because this is where we bury our dead. Not just Haversham's dead, but our dead." He took a breath, not sure if it counted as bluffing when he wasn't even sure if it was true. "You don't know my name, but it's Mallory. This is a Mallory grave," and he patted the gravestone by his side. "So's the one you're standing on. There's eight generations of us in the ground here. So if you killed me, in among the graves of my ancestors, do you really think magic would let you walk away?"