Icebound

by Corinna Rogers

  He makes it to sixteen before Drake pulls out, slowly disengaging with a look of the most complete shame on his face. “I—I shouldn’t have.”

  “It’s okay.” God, it’s lingering, the feeling that he’s himself again, that he can have feelings besides resentment and aching, bitter longing. “I need to kill it, though. It’s not about rankings.”

  Drake’s eyebrows snap together, and he tilts his head curiously as he fumbles for his clothes. “It’s not? Then what?”

  “It’s a prize.” He swallows hard, almost not wanting to get Drake’s hopes up, but… “If I bag it, he gives me my soul back.”

  Drake freezes so suddenly Shane almost checks to make sure he hasn’t nicked the other man with his sword. “Is this a trick?” he demands, yanking his shirt over his head.

  “If it is, it’s on me.” Shane spreads his hands, shrugging. “I don’t give a shit about the rankings anymore, Drake. I don’t give a shit about anything except you.”

  “Don’t. You can’t.”

  “Just because the goddamn Ice King’s sitting on my soul doesn’t mean a damn thing to me,” Shane hisses, only now putting his own clothes on, flexing the new ice hand in disapproval. “All I know is that all my feelings were supposed to be gone nine years ago, and it still hurts to see you. Always. So you tell me what that means.”

  “I can’t. Maybe if you hadn’t sold your soul in the first place.”

  “Can we not start that again?” It’s not angry, not really, just a pleading question, and Shane sidles forward to nuzzle down into the other man’s chest. “Don’t wanna fight. Just want you.”

  “Can’t let you kill it. It stole my friend’s soul.”

  “Oh. Well, if that’s all, I’ll just get it out. Then I can kill it, yes?”

  Something that could be a smile hovers around Drake’s lips, and he nods before it can take hold. “All right. You sure you can?”

  “You think I can’t? Watch me.” In all honesty, Shane has no idea if he can, or what the process would even entail. Then again, what’s the worst that can happen? He’ll probably wind up killing the girl, and Drake probably doesn’t care that much about her.

  He can always apologize once he has his soul back. Then it’ll actually mean something.

  “Almost got it.” Fuck, this is a lot of trouble to go to just to keep one stupid girl from dying. “If I can just—”

  The girl’s presence vanishes, slipping through Shane’s mental grasp as if evaporating into a wisp of smoke. He curses, reaches for her again, but there’s nothing, less than nothing, as if she’d never been. “Lost her,” he admits, not terribly broken up about it.

  “That’s not all.”

  Shane opens his eyes to ask what the fuck Drake means by that, and it turns into a barrage of curses in every language he knows at the sight of the slippery, damaged, extremely empty alley.

  “What the fuck? Where did it go?”

  Drake grabs his shoulder, so tight he’ll leave bruises. “You tell me. Where did you send it?”

  “Me? Send it?” Shane swats away the hand, breaking the big man’s grip with a whack on the wrist. “I didn’t send it anywhere. I was trying to save some stupid mortal bitch that got herself snatched, but—”

  “Where did it go?”

  Just because Drake’s being annoying, Shane punches him, catching him hard on the cheekbone with his ice hand. “Blame me for goddamn everything. You sit here and pray or something. I’m gonna go find this piece of shit.”

  He stalks off, looking for something clear enough to take an imprint of, finding nothing but rocks and debris. Grimacing, he lets his hand melt onto the ground, trying to at least take a mental tracking of the Soul-Thief from the marks the acid had left on his flesh, but it’s no use. The ice’s work is long since done, eradicating all the acid from his skin.

  “Jesus! Your hand!”

  Shane shrugs, tapping his fingers against each other, hearing the bones click. It’s an odd sensation, long since frozen past pain. “When we find it, don’t touch its arms. Probably the body too, but I didn’t feel like checking.”

  “You have to get to a doctor! Doesn’t that hurt?”

  “Nah. Feels kind of good.”

  For such a big man, Drake can move quietly when he wants to, and Shane doesn’t realize he’s moving until warm hands close over the tattered remnants of his hand. That hurts, that sore little pain in his gut that he associates with Drake, with wanting so badly he can’t even breathe, can’t think of anything except the fact that he’d had Drake, had him for years, and can’t get him back. “Can you fix it?”

  “Maybe. Haven’t tried.”

  “Try.”

  “Later. After I catch it.” He curls his fingers as best he can, the bits of muscle twitching uselessly. “If I do. If I get it back. I know it’s a long shot, but if I do—”

  Drake kisses him. Not to shut him up, not hard and needing like last time, but a gentle brush of his lips, warm and soft. “Of course.”

  “Sentimental idiot.” The ice forms under Drake’s hands, slow and sticking this time instead of hardening, fastening onto his flesh and rebuilding it as he stands. He laughs, wincing as it tickles. “Reminds me of that maggot thing. The one who offered to pay us in health?”

  “God. I’d almost forgotten about that.” Drake’s grin is rueful, even as his eyes are fixed on the grotesque spectacle of Shane’s arm regrowing itself. “I thought you were going to cry.”

  “What, just because a cow-sized larvae was chewing off all my dead skin cells? Give me a little credit. It just tickled, that’s all.” He licks his lips, then offers, “I can’t get a good hit on it here. I was thinking of hitting up the old places, if you want…”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  Drake’s always been unreadable, even at the best of times. Even as a skinny teenager he had that serious face ready to drop into place at a moment’s notice, even before they’d come home to find his parents and siblings dead in their beds.

  Before, back when everything was good, Shane had respected that, respected Drake’s privacy. Now, he doesn’t give a shit. “Why? You want to help me, or you afraid I’ll kill your friend before you can stop me?”

  Drake sheathes his sword. “Can’t it be both?”

  Chapter Four

  It makes sense to go the The Symposium first. It’s the most well-known coffee house and bar in the community, serving the strangest customers that even downtown Sunrise City can muster up. It’s the perfect place to go to relax, to uncloak, to let the natural skin color show, and to gather information.

  That doesn’t mean Drake has to like it.

  “Been here recently?”

  “No.” He’s not nervous, he reasons with himself. It’s just…awkward.

  “When was the last time?”

  “Nine years. Or close enough.”

  Shane probably doesn’t know how creepy he is now, to anyone that knew him before, least of all to Drake, who knew him best of all. He remembers effortlessly how alive Shane’s face, his eyes, had been. A comment like that would have drawn a response, something guilty-curious-interested-ashamed-mocking-amused, because Shane’s always been one to feel a million things at once. Now, he just nods. “All right. Let’s get in there and see what we get. And then we’ll find the Soul-Thief and you can fuck me again.”

  “That all you can think about?” The words come easily to his lips, not condescending but from long habit, even now.

  Shane’s mouth turns up at the corners as he answers, as usual, “Only thing worth mentioning. Come on.”

  There’s always a sense of relief upon entering The Symposium, something palpable and contagious. A little group of Waterfae sits in the corner, veils draped over the chairs, conversing excitedly in Bubblespeak. The tendrils of their hair wave gently as they move, sometimes reaching to entwine with each other in blue-green waves, making the fae roll their eyes as they reach for special combs. Two amateur mages with probably a sneeze worth of power each s
it at a booth wearing too much eyeliner to ever be taken seriously, looking around in wide-eyed wonder, breaking the no-staring-if-you-want-to-keep-your-eyeballs rule. A mixed-bag group of Earthsprites, bounty hunters and Inferna play a dice game on the floor, arguing with the dice when they keep siding with the Inferna. A few more grizzled folk of indeterminate species and persuasion look them over as they enter, trying to decide if they pose a threat. One or two, a couple faces Drake remembers well, actually swear out loud at the sight of them. He hears the murmur go up, passing from mage to sprite to fae, that the Champion and the Vassal have entered.

  It’s silent by the time they reach the last step, even the dice falling quiet after the latest argument. Eyes of every color and shape fix on the pair of men, narrowing in distrust, in curiosity, occasionally in fear. Drake nods at a couple women he used to know, back from the old days. They don’t nod back.

  Shane surveys the surroundings, flexing his mostly-regrown hand, not terribly far from the hilt of his sword. “Quiet night. Maybe we can change that.”

  Silence greets his words.

  “No? You’re gonna hurt my feelings.”

  One of the Waterfae snorts at that, and her comrades shush her violently, huddling together in anxiety. A nervous people, Waterfae, Drake remembers not unfondly.

  He clears his throat. “We’re looking for the Soul-Thief. Big black bug, pissing a lot of people off. Corrosive skin, stingers, moves in total silence. Anyone seen anything like that?”

  No one moves.

  Just as Drake’s about to thank them for their time, he feels a twitch of power from Shane next to him, lashing out into the crowd. “Oh,” he murmurs, quiet as a whisper, still heard perfectly well over the ringing silence, “Someone knows. Stand up, pretty thing. I can feel you lying to me.”

  “That’s not allowed in here.” A bounty hunter, hard-voiced and craggy-faced, stands up between Shane and the direction he’s staring in. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you can’t just—”

  One of the hunters at his table grabs him by the arm, yanking him back into his seat. Even at this distance Drake can hear a harsh whispered conversation taking place as Shane laughs unkindly. “You must be new. Sorry, you reminded me, I didn’t introduce myself.”

  “Shane, don’t!”

  Drake’s yell is too late, and a lance of ice lashes out from Shane’s outstretched hand, arcing towards the hunter faster than the eye can track, making unerringly for his heart. Only a split-second lunge keeps him from being impaled, and the lance continues right through the wall, leaving a ragged hole through which daylight peeks in.

  A couple of the cloaked figures hiss—probably Darkfae, poor things, Drake thinks in sympathy—before someone blocks the hole, walling out the light. The smirk on Shane’s face is sinuous, dangerous, and he purrs, “For those of you to whom I haven’t introduced myself, I’m Shane Conell, First Vassal of the Ice King. This is Drake Young, Champion of the Church.”

  “You don’t have to sound so damn sarcastic.”

  “Just be glad I didn’t use air quotes. Anyone in here see my bug?” After another moment of silence, Shane pulls out his wallet, of all things. “Look, I can feel that someone’s lying. Anyone like bribery? How about a hundred thousand dollars? American money, not Ice Chips. Anyone want to be rich?”

  From the back of the bar, one tiny voice says, “I-I might have seen.”

  A nearby cloaked figure hisses, “Shut up, idiot!”

  “Don’t tell me what to do! I saw it!” A little man, no more than three feet tall, stands up and scratches his nose. “I saw it, Vassal.” He eyes the wallet, obviously wanting what’s inside, but not daring to come any closer.

  Shane stalks over to him, deliberately counting out more money than Drake’s ever seen in one place, holding it in his outstretched hand. “Talk.”

  The little man licks his lips, turning an odd mottled blue color, and Drake places him as Charmelae, or at least half. To have ventured above the surface, this one must be brave indeed. “I-I saw a woman who—”

  Drake feels it the second before it happens, tackling Shane to the ground as he yells, “Down!”

  The blast that hits isn’t height-specific, though, and lying in a tangle on the floor does them no good when it hits. The blast is soundless, a thing of impact instead of heat or fire, and washes over the bar in a torrent of something as bodies hit the ground. He turns Shane onto his back, intending only to check him for injuries, and hisses out a sharp breath at the sudden arousal that courses through him, surprising and inappropriate and strong.

  “Oh,” Shane says slowly, shaking his head to clear it as Drake tries to remember why it’s a good idea to keep his hands to himself. “Yeah. Okay. That’s gonna be Astra.”

  “What’s Astra?” Drake asks, eyes never leaving Shane’s body, focused only on the way his hips twitch upward, shifting needy and sinuous underneath him.

  He’s not the only one feeling it. He can see Shane’s eyes wandering down his body, hovering at his groin, and Shane lets out a groan as he mutters, “Stupid bitch of a teenager who thinks she’s tough shit.”

  “Say that to my face.”

  Shane wrenches his eyes from the front of Drake’s jeans to a spot over his shoulder, sighing. “I’d rather tell you to take off your fucking spell or I’ll rip your face off your skull and shove it into your—”

  “That’s enough,” Drake says firmly, glaring down. He twists around, and stifles the urge to groan himself.

  The girl standing there, hand on a cocked hip, hair dyed a startling shade of bubblegum pink, can’t be more than sixteen, and she’s obviously rebelling. Piercings stud her ears, nose, and eyebrows, and the nose of what’s obviously a hummingbird tattoo peeks out from her low-slung waistband. On top, she wears little more than a bra, no matter the chill of the weather, and her shoes are sandals. Platform sandals, no less.

  She smirks, and the sheer emptiness of it tells him instantly that this is another of Shane’s underlings, vassals that don’t come anywhere near him in power, but constantly attempt to overtake him in the rankings anyway. Usually Drake only finds out about it because in trying to best him and each other, they consistently destroy large chunks of the city, sometimes leaving many people dead. He’s fought a few of them, gone toe-to-toe and never found them any real difficulty, far from being in the same weight class as a mage like Shane.

  Then again, maybe this one’s got more power than he gives her credit for after all. Everywhere he looks, he can see people lying on the ground, looking shellshocked and confused, some of them wrestling with the impulse to simply jump on each other and start rutting. A couple of them look close to blows, and Drake demands, “What did you do in here?”

  “It’s a stupid spell,” Shane mutters, but the girl cuts him off.

  “It’s a really good spell,” she snaps, folding her arms in a transparent attempt to push up her breasts, something that has little to no effect on either Drake or Shane. “I made it up myself.”

  He hears Shane snort, and has to agree. “Miss, I don’t know who told you that was an original idea, but I’m pretty sure there have been lust spells around since the turn of the century. Shit, it’s the first thing any new mage tries when they’re a teenager.” It’s way too easy to remember Shane’s experiments with exactly that, back before it had become so obvious that neither of them needed, would ever need, such a thing.

  “Whatever, this one’s good. And it has range. And punch.” She smirks, looking around in satisfaction. “The best part is, the more you try to distract your mind, the more your body reacts. Cool, huh?”

  “It’s stupid and you’re dead.” Shane moves to strike, but Drake expects the motion this time, moves in enough time to hold Shane’s wrists down to the ground before he can lash out with a bolt of ice. Even that much contact is too much, and it nearly burns when they touch. It’s too easy to remember the man Shane used to be, and god, he’s still lovely, with that glossy dark hair against hi
s pale skin, the sharp-edged features, prominent cheekbones, sinfully full plush lips. That’s all the same, oddly the same, because while Drake looks every day of his thirty-five years, Shane hasn’t aged in a decade. Frozen, Drake’s mind supplies, even as his hands urge to just wander a bit.

  Astra strolls past them, picking up the little man from a pile of the Waterfae who are either more susceptible to the spell than the rest of the patrons, or just see no reason not to drop trow in public. She holds him aloft in one hand, asking sweetly, “Where’s the Soul-Thief? Tell me the truth and you can put your face in my boobs.”

  The little man looks around, vaguely panicking, looking for all the world as if he’d far rather have the money Shane was tossing around earlier. Nevertheless, he stammers, “Saw a w-woman who summoned it. She led it around like it was a pet by some jewel thing on a bracelet. They ran off South, on the lake side of Downtown!”

  Astra drops him, stopping on her way to the door only to lean down and press a kiss to Shane’s cheek. “Later, boss. But, you know, not. Because you won’t be my boss anymore. So just…later.”

  She blows out the door, leaving it rocking off its hinges, vanishing into the early morning. A few Darkfae shriek again, this time abandoning the bar in favor of a nice hole in the ground, leaving few traces of their presence.

  “I’m actually gonna wait to kill her,” Shane remarks, hips rubbing up firmly against Drake’s thigh. “I’m gonna wait until I get my soul back, because I want it to really be fun.”

  “You don’t like killing. Not when you’re you.” It’s getting more and more difficult to think through the spell, and every time he tries, it just makes him harder, just makes him ache.

  “Really? Huh. I’d kind of forgotten that. Fuck me.”

  “It’s the damn spell. Can you get rid of—”

  “Yeah.” Shane smirks, licking his lips. “But I won’t.”

  “Dammit.”

  “Blasphemous talk from a man of God.”