“Shane! What the hell!”
“Acceptable.” Jiri nods, and there’s a hint of finality about it, something almost magically binding. “I’ll be in the next room taking my skin off.”
“Well,” Shane remarks as she waddles away, “if that doesn’t get me in the mood, I don’t know what will.”
As soon as the door shuts, Drake grabs him by the collar slamming him into the wall. “Oh,” Shane remarks dryly, wiggling a little in the hold, “you want to do it this way, huh?”
“Dammit, don’t just promise for me like that! I don’t want to have a child running around!”
Shane blinks at him, nonplussed. “Why not?”
“Because I care what would happen to it!”
“You do? Why?”
There’s that look again, like he’s done something he never would have years ago. As usual, Shane has no idea what it is. This time, he doesn’t even bother trying to figure it out, shrugging and twisting in Drake’s hold. “Look, this isn’t gonna get any different like this. Just let go of me and we can jack each other off and leave. We’ll find the Soul-Thief, you can get your friend back, and I can get my soul back. You want me to be that guy again, right?”
The kind of pain he sees on Drake’s face is the kind he usually only sees in the mirror, and something about that feels oddly good. At least he’s not the only one suffering. At least he’s not the only one who still cares. “More than anything.”
“Cool. Get me a cup out of the dish drainer.”
“This is all kinds of wrong and unsanitary.”
“Stop complaining, that’s my job. Do you want to save your friend’s life or not?”
Instead of answering, Drake shoves him against the wall, back colliding hard with knick knacks, a clock, probably something horrifically ugly. “Damn it,” Shane pants, for all that he spreads his legs, “you forget all your other tricks? Or have you just been thinking about fucking me like this for so long you can’t remember how to do anything else?”
Drake’s eyes blaze, and he lifts Shane with one hand, yanking him around until he’s bent over the sink. It’s uncomfortable and cold and demanding, and Shane laughs, nodding approval as Drake strips him from the waist down, leaving him shivering and ready, so ready.
“Not inside,” Shane gasps, even as Drake rubs the head of his cock over his hole, growling with how ready he is, and Shane doesn’t even try not to think that’s funny. “You can never goddamn remember to pull out in time, so not inside. She needs it.”
“I don’t want her to have my kid.”
“Too fucking bad, big man, unless you want your friend’s soul to rot. Or me to stay like this.” Shane arches his back, amused at the way Drake’s hard already for all his protests, rubbing against his ass as if mesmerized, hypnotized. “Sometimes I think you do. Your life is pretty slick now, huh? Don’t need me around fucking it up.”
Drake’s hands grab his thighs, but instead of wrenching them apart as Shane’s expecting (and to hell with Jiri, they can always jack off again later), he smashes them together, holding them tight. “Keep ‘em like that. And if you have to talk, don’t talk so much stupid nonsense.”
Shane gasps out a laugh as Drake’s cock slides between his thighs. “F-fuck, baby, what—”
Drake nips at his ear, harder than usual, slick cock dragging back and forth, and somehow it almost feels more obscene like this. Shane drops his head, feeling himself harden as he watches the head peek out from between his legs with each thrust, simply making use of him, and damned if there’s not something hot about that.
It sort of reminds him of something, but his head is a bit fuzzy, and nothing seems to make sense. Instead of thinking about it, he just ruts back into the touch, arching his hips in a slow, sinuous rhythm. “Fuck, baby, good, gonna make me come so hard, love it when you just fucking use me like I’m just here to get you off.”
“You are,” Drake purrs in his ear, and one of his hands lands a hard smack on Shane’s ass, making him jump with the force of it. “You can take that, right, you whore? Gets you off, doesn’t it?”
With how much his cock jumps, it’s impossible to deny, not that he’d want to. Shane shivers, moans, thrusting his ass back, begging with words and with his body for more. “Yeah,” he pants, “yeah, yeah, it gets me off, do it again.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. You’re topping from the bottom, needy slut.”
The smacks of his broad hand send sparks of pleasure-pain ricocheting through Shane’s body, making his cock so hard he’s dripping against the sink, rocking into the cool metal with every brutal thrust of the man behind him, with every crack of flesh on flesh.
“Done this before,” Shane grunts, slamming back into every assault, begging and writhing under Drake’s strong hands. “We have, haven’t we? F-fuck.”
There’s the slightest break in Drake’s rhythm, but he recovers quickly. When he speaks again, the words are biting, savage, and his hand comes down harder, enough that he’ll leave bruises instead of just reddening the skin. “You don’t remember.”
“I don’t care,” Shane whines, and squeaks when one of Drake’s hands comes around his throat, using it as just another handle, just another way to control him, yanking him back, leaving off spanking him to pound harder between his thighs, slick now with his fluids, and Shane’s close at the feeling, so close, he can hardly breathe—
Drake pulls away from him, tossing him to the floor as he grabs the cup and finishes, snarling in anger, eyes bright as he pumps his hand over himself. Breath ragged, he passes it off to Shane, turning away to lean on the sink. “Do it.”
“I—finish me off, please.”
“No. Do it yourself.”
He doesn’t know what he’s done now, or how he managed to piss Drake off so much while taking his cock, but he does as he’s told, jacking off into the cup, sort of fascinated by the look of the resulting mixture. Slowly, he gets to his knees, then his feet, careful not to spill the cup. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Just give that to Jiri so we can get our information. I just want to get this over with.”
Shane rolls his eyes. “Pissy bitch. Have I ever told you that you suck after sex? You’re always good during and then you get all angsty and lame.”
“Don’t talk to me right now. Just go.”
Shane twists his neck, working out some of the kinks before setting off to knock on Jiri’s door. “Come in,” she calls, and he does, unfazed by the appearance of a squat lizard about five feet tall, lying on its back on the tacky bedsheets. “You have it?”
“As promised.” Shane passes over the cup, unworried that she’ll take the offering and deny his price. Jiri’s always been prompt with her payments.
Nausea aside, he does look away when she fertilizes herself, doing his best not to hear as much as he can’t see. There are some things man just isn’t meant to know, and he keeps his eyes pretty tightly shut until she says, “There we are. Perfect. Now, which would you like first?”
“Present. Where is the Soul-Thief right now?”
Jiri narrows her eyes, something rather more effective when done by a giant lizard. “You’re supposed to ask for past first. There is a ritual involved.”
“Then why didn’t you just tell me past first?”
“It’s a ritual, I can’t just feed you the answers.”
“Fine. Past, please.” Vaguely, he wonders if the tacky bedsheets are as flammable as they look.
There’s a sense of power gathering around the creature, palpable if nothing Shane’s used to manipulating. He thinks, in as much as he can convince his brain to remember the past, that he’d been interested in this sort of thing once, before making his bargain.
When the lizard opens her eyes, they shine, swirling with a million possibilities, certainties, probabilities, ephemera made air and light whirling behind her eyes. “The creature has a master, and the master has many creatures. Many of them have shaped your life. The master of the Soul-Thief is
the master of the creature who possessed your father twenty-five years ago and forced him to murder your family.”
Shane nods. “Okay. Present next.”
Jiri blinks her lizard eyes, but continues. “Right now the creature is probably with his master, in the Frozen Court.”
That gets a reaction out of him. “The Ice King, huh?”
“Probably.”
“Okay,” Shane says, standing and adjusting his sword belt, only asking about the third for the sake of form. “Future please.”
“If you rescue the girl, it is possible that the Champion of the Church will marry her next year.”
Shane freezes. “How possible?”
“Difficult to say. It’s the most probable of possibilities right now.”
Shane’s lips tighten, and he gives the odd creature a bow. “My thanks for your aid, Madame Jiri. Take care of those eggs.”
He leaves the room, giving Drake a little smile as he nods to the door. “Ready to go?”
“Yeah,” Drake mutters. He turns to pick up his sword and belt. “Just let me—”
Shane blasts him with enough power to send him through the wall, and reinforces said wall at the same instant. He watches as Drake crumples, pulse steady under his skin, and conjures the most awkward, uncomfortable chains he can think of, looping them between Drake’s legs, behind his back, around his neck, before locking them shut. “She’s just a friend, huh?” he asks the unconscious man, jerking the chains tighter. “You just don’t want to let her get hurt? You’re just being the proper little Champion? You still want me?”
He jerks on the chains, watching Drake turn a bit purple before releasing them, hearing him choke and gasp in his sleep, and lays a bit of magic on, sending him into the deepest trance he can muster. “I’m gonna go fix things, baby,” he murmurs, running a long finger down Drake’s jaw. “I’m gonna get my soul back and you’re not going to care about anyone else ever again. I’ll apologize then, okay? Otherwise it wouldn’t mean anything.”
“Sorry about the mess,” he calls to Jiri, but he isn’t. He steps out of the tacky patchouli-scented house, a destination and murder on his mind.
Fifth Interlude
Nineteen Years Earlier
“Let’s get out of here.”
It’s always on his lips, but usually he keeps it back, knowing how it upsets Drake. After a night like tonight…Shane drives with one hand, the other on Drake’s thigh, thumb tracing lazy circles through his jeans. “Just you and me and your cheap-ass car,” he says softly, knowing Drake’s on the sleepy side of drowsy. “We’ll just go. Hit the road and pretend we’re eighteen and not have to worry about high school bullshit or curfew or anything.”
“What about school?” Drake mumbles, turning to bury his head in Shane’s shoulder.
“Fuck school. We could be anywhere. We can find an apartment with a welcome mat and a window garden and everything. And we wouldn’t have to drive your car out to the woods to have a fuck.”
“The woodland creatures can be a bit off-putting.”
“I mean it.”
Drake kisses his shoulder through the shirt, eyes closed. “I’m sorry your foster family sucks. It’s only a couple more years. Hey, turn off the light, we’re almost there.”
The street is silent when they turn the corner, gliding in near-silence as Shane turns off the engine with long practice, gliding up into the driveway. He adds a bit of magic to give it an extra boost, but as usual, Drake doesn’t notice. He unlocks the doors, pulling Drake in for a last kiss before he leaves. “Hey, wanna skip third period tomorrow and hook up in the bathroom?”
“Go to class and I’ll meet you at lunch.”
“You drive a hard bargain.” A smile tugs at Shane’s lips as he murmurs, “I love you. See you tomorrow.”
He’s just scaled the fence, scrambling up a drainpipe and hopping onto a latticed edge to swing into his window, when he hears Drake scream.
He doesn’t bother climbing down the whole way, lashing out with his power to carry him over to Drake’s doorstep in one flying leap, no matter how the impact reverberates through his body in shock. He throws the door open, yelling, “Drake! Drake, where are you?”
Drake doesn’t answer, but neither does he stop screaming, and Shane takes the stairs four-at-a-time up to his room. He can’t remember afterwards if he’d flicked the light on or just rammed electricity into it by magic, but it flickers until Shane can see Drake clutching his sister Clara to his chest, shaking her by the shoulders, tears streaming down his face.
The bottom drops out of Shane’s stomach.
He staggers out the room into the master bedroom, hoping against hope—but no. Mr. and Mrs. Young lie just as still and motionless as Drake’s older sister, their sleep apparently undisturbed through whatever had taken place. Shane tries to catch his breath, grabs the doorknob to steady himself, and then he sees it.
At first it looks like a cloud, a wisp of black smoke hanging lazily over the bed. Shane stares at it, focusing on it with his senses, trying to sense something, anything about what had happened.
The cloud blinks at him.
“Shit.”
Shane bolts back into Drake’s room, trying unsuccessfully to pry his boyfriend’s hands off his sister’s body. “Drake, baby, I’m so sorry, but we have to get out of here. We have to go, now.”
Drake blinks in confusion at him, obviously not registering the words. “I…Shane…what the…what happened?”
“There’s a thing here, it killed your family, you have to get out of here before it gets you too. Just trust me, and we have to go!”
“I’m not going anywhere!”
Something flares, some presence behind him, and Shane swears, turning just in time to put himself between Drake and the thing coming in. “Then stay behind me. And if you get smart, run.”
That’s all he has time for before the thing lunges for him, and he’s left to fight the monster with a small nightstand and whatever raw power he can summon. It’s powerful, but Drake is counting on him, and whatever the fuck the thing is it’s not going to take the one good thing in his life.
It dies hard, and Shane’s twitching and injured by the end, a sprained ankle and a gash in his shoulder not too high a price to pay. The thing coalesces as it dies, forming into a small, hard-bodied creature that bleeds all over the carpet.
Shane pulls the tattered remains of his t-shirt together, wincing as he moves, wiping sweat-slicked hair back from his face. He doesn’t dare look at Drake. “I’m sorry about your family. I…I know how that feels.”
“You…what did you just do?”
“Magic.” Shane shrugs, trying to look a little less terrified than he is. “I’m a mage. Sorry. It’s okay if you—if you don’t want to be my boyfriend anymore.”
Strong hands grab his shoulders, spinning him around and shoving him into a nearby wall. Copper fire blazes in Drake’s eyes. “You just saved my life. You just killed the thing that—why wouldn’t I—”
“Some people don’t like magic.” Shane tries to sound like it’s no big deal, because this isn’t anything Drake needs to deal with, not now. “Why do you think I got bounced around to so many foster homes?”
“That thing. What is it?”
“I don’t know, I’m not trained that well.”
“There are a lot of things like that? Things that go around and kill innocent people? I mean…” Drake swallows hard, obviously looking for something, anything to latch onto that isn’t his family dead in their beds. “I knew there was magic and stuff, but I never thought there’d be any here. That’s the kind of thing you hear about in like, big cities. Or in Europe.”
Shane gives him a wan little smile. “That’s me, defying stereotypes. And yeah, there’s plenty of stuff that’ll just straight up kill you, that’s what happened to my family.”
“You never told me that.”
The memories come back, of feeling that thing in his house, of seeing his mother screaming as
it latched onto his father’s head, watching him pick up the gun—just a regular ordinary pistol, nothing special—and put a bullet in his mother’s head. Then the girls, all three of them. Then the boys, six of them dead. Then seeing the bullet come at him, some instinct making him twitch to the side, leaving him with the world’s worst pain and a bloody scalp but alive. Then, last, his father had turned the gun on himself, and the thing had grown fat and bloated and pleased, fleeing out a window, leaving Shane alone in a house of bodies. “Don’t like talking about it. Besides, it was years ago, I was just a kid. Look, come to my house tonight.”
“No.” Drake lays his sister down, closing her eyes and arranging her into something resembling sleep. “Let’s go. You and me and my shitty car. Or better yet, we’ll take my parents’ car. You—in the car. Will you tell me more about this?”
Drake’s not making good decisions right now. Shane knows it, it’s obvious, and no matter how much he wants to just say yes because it’s what he wants, he’d like to at least be a better boyfriend than that. “Baby…your family…maybe today you should—”
“Then I’m going alone. I…” Drake’s hands start to shake. “I can’t stay here, I can’t, I can’t.”
“Okay, okay. Let’s go.”
Shane doesn’t bother getting anything from the Nelson house. He just helps Drake pack a single suitcase, stuffed with clothes and memories and a few books, and get it into the trunk of his parents’ station wagon. He drives, because Drake is shaking too badly to operate any machinery, and pulls over so he can kiss Drake’s hair, pull him close and listen when he cries. Later, they hear on the radio that everyone on the entire street was found dead the next morning, and a carbon monoxide leak is given the blame.
Icebound Page 8