Shane doesn’t mourn his foster family, glad only that he can stop healing himself in the middle of the night so Drake doesn’t ask where the bruises came from. He just worries about Drake, holds him and listens and doesn’t object when Drake needs to scream and cry and sometimes punch a wall that first week, though he settles down quickly enough.
At the end of that week, Drake says quietly, “I want to kill them. Every last one of them, every thing that attacks innocent people and makes ignorant people scared of magic and gives your kind a bad name and kills children in the night. I want to kill them all.”
Shane nestles against his chest, giving him a gentle kiss. “Okay.”
Chapter Eight
Drake dreams.
He dreams of meeting Shane, of fighting him, of learning what he’d done and the sick betrayal of it all. He dreams of the first time in his cheap old car, thrusting up between his boyfriend’s thighs because neither of them had any idea how two men had sex with each other.
The dreams swirl and evanesce, until they resolve into something a bit more solid, figures standing, talking, laughing.
“Champion.”
Drake turns at the voice, and a man stands there. very tall, much taller than Drake, and gorgeously imposing. He smiles, nodding his head. “I thank you for watching over my people.”
Oh shit I’m meeting God and I’m naked. “I, uh.”
“I’m not God.”
“Oh. Good.”
“I am the god that my followers created through believing in me, the one they believe you serve. It is I who chose you.”
So basically God.
Drake nods, forcing a smile. “Sorry about all the times I’ve messed up. Where am I?”
“Deeply unconscious. I thought it was necessary for you to meet some people.”
“Drake!” The voice is familiar, achingly so, and Drake turns just in time to be bowled over by someone a lot smaller than he remembers, a teenage girl with loose brown curls and a sweet, upturned face.
“Clara?”
His sister buries her head in his chest, and there’s no way he can hold her tightly enough, not as hard as he tries. It isn’t just her, but his parents, surrounding him, holding him, loving him unconditionally. “I—this isn’t real, I—”
“It’s all right.”
His father’s voice, after twenty years, sounds exactly the same. It’s enough to bring tears to his eyes, and that’s not even fair, he shouldn’t be able to cry when he’s some kind of incorporeal dream self. “Dad—Mom—Clara—god, I miss you guys so much.”
“Oh, sweetheart. We miss you too.” His mother smells the same, distinctive perfume and a hint of lemon soap. “We’ve been longing to talk to you.”
“This…what is this place? How can I be talking to you?”
Clara shrugs, brushing his hair back from his face. “You tell us, it’s your hallucination.”
“Well, yeah, but this can’t be heaven. Heaven can’t just be a place where dead people hang out, that’s ridiculous.”
The man he’d first met smiles at him. “Would you prefer rolling hills and harps? I think I’ve got that one ready at most times. Or possibly the darkness of the vastness of space, and your own molecules as stardust?”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s your Heaven, Drake. At least, it will be when you’re ready.”
Drake swallows hard. “Am I going to remember this when I wake up?”
“That answer will hardly help you now. There’s someone else who wants to speak to you.”
Another figure shuffles closer, and Drake’s heart clenches. There, with more color in his cheeks, more life in his expression than he’s seen in a decade, is Shane, smiling awkwardly. “Hey. I, uh, guess you’re pretty angry at me?”
Drake’s mouth goes dry, his face white. “You… you’re not dead. I just talked to you. You just hit me.”
“My body, sure. But most of me’s been gone for a while. You know that.”
It’s one thing to know. It’s another to see the soul of his lover up here with the other dead people he’s loved, hands in his pockets, tossing the hair out of his face. “Look, I don’t have much time,” Shane says, and Drake knows all at once that it’s true, can feel everything starting to melt away.
“No, I’m not ready!” He clings to his parents. He’s only said a single word to them, it can’t be time, not yet.
“Drake, promise me something, please.” Shane’s eyes are intense, confused and angry and urgent and pleading. “If you can’t save me, kill me. It hurts so much to be split like this. I can’t take another ten years, there’s no way, so just kill me, okay?”
“I can’t, I could never—”
Shane grabs his hand, kisses the back of his fingers, and he’s so warm, so gentle. “Do it, and I’ll be waiting for you. If you don’t, I’ll fucking haunt you, I don’t even care what the rules are.”
Everything starts to fade, and Drake chokes back a scream that it isn’t fair, he wants to spend more time with his family, with the real Shane, not just this teasing effervescent snapshot.
“Promise me!”
Drake wakes up.
For a moment, he has no idea where he is, or why he’s so uncomfortable. Then he remembers where he is, but damn, it still doesn’t make sense. “Um,” he calls, voice slurring a little bit, “Jiri? Can you hear me?”
“Oh, yes,” Jiri says from behind him, quite close by.
Drake tries to move, but stops quickly when that cuts off his windpipe. Damn it, he taught Shane these knots. He was an awful boy scout. “Um, sorry to impose, Ma’am, but would you mind helping me get out of this?”
She thinks for a moment, running one long claw up the metal chain, making it screech until Drake’s ears feel like bleeding. “Hmm. I suppose. But only because I don’t like the idea of carrying you out of my house. You’re very heavy, you know.”
“My apologies. I assure you, I don’t eat extra for your inconvenience.”
“Leave the comebacks to your partner,” she advises. “You stay tight. I’m going to go borrow a bonesaw.”
It’s a nervewracking few hours before the chains snap, the teeth of the saw grinding entirely too close to his skin in blind hands for Drake to be exactly thrilled with the arrangement. Still, help is help, and he stumbles gratefully to his feet, buckling his sword onto his back. “Thank you. Um, I don’t suppose you could tell me what you told Shane?”
“I’m not supposed to. Unless you want to pay my price again?”
Drake folds his arms, forgetting that it’s useless to try and intimidate a blind person with his size. “Ma’am, the deal was for three facts in exchange for one man’s seed. You got two, so at least tell me where the Soul-Thief is right now.”
Jiri glares at him. “Only because I like you, and because I don’t like the futures I’m seeing if I don’t. You’ll want the Frozen Court, young man. I don’t suppose you know where that is?”
A sense of foreboding settles over Drake like a thick blanket, dampening his spirits and filling him with unease. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I know where it is.”
Chapter Nine
Sometimes, it occurs to Shane to make a list, of all the things he’s going to do once he gets his soul back. He’s been at the Frozen Court when the idiot hopefuls come in, with an itemized list of everything they’re going to ask the Ice King for, certain they won’t miss their souls when they’re gone. Shane’s seen people trade for everything from revenge to a woman’s love to a billion tax-free dollars, from a perfect body to magic powers.
Sometimes, if he can work up the emotion, he laughs at them.
Usually, he doesn’t bother. Nothing amuses him as much when Drake’s not around. Drake brings that out in him, brings out the anger and the hunger and the laughter and the pain most of all.
Damned if some stupid Church bitch is going to take that away from him.
“Sneathen Asghar.”
Shane turns left. It’s not d
ifficult to find the Frozen Court. They’re not exactly hiding. They don’t need to, not when the only person who can challenge them in the city is—
“So, you’re going home.”
—is sitting in his passenger seat, for some reason. Shane raises an eyebrow, keeping his eyes on the road as he asks casually, “Did I fucking invite you into my car, Mistress?”
“This isn’t your car. You stole it twenty minutes ago.”
“Yeah, well, I still didn’t invite you.”
“Are you going to fight the Ice King?”
The thought hadn’t really occurred to Shane. “I’d be fucking stupid to do something like that.”
“Or desperate. And we both know you have nothing to lose.”
“With all due respect, lady, I don’t give a shit what you think, and I have no idea why you’re here. How about you talk if you’re gonna talk, and get the fuck out if you’re not?” He doesn’t bother with politeness. There’s no ritual, no custom to observe here. Even if there were, the Fire Queen’s minions are just as soulless as the Ice King’s. She’s got to be used to rudeness.
“You know you can’t possibly hope to defeat him. No human could.”
“Who said I was human? No one else seems sure of that.”
“You are unusually powerful for a mortal. Then again, magic is so young. Perhaps soon they will all be as you.”
“And what about you, huh?” Shane asks, curiosity temporarily overcoming his apathy—something else she’d burned back into him, apparently. “What the fuck are you?”
“I?” The Fire Queen blinks, a couple sparks flying off her eyelashes. “I am. I wasn’t, and then I was, and so was he. Now I am, and so is he.”
“Wow. What a boring fucking story. Why are you here?”
“I just said, I—”
“No no, not existentially. In my car. Why are you here?”
“To help you. Or, alternatively, to stop you.”
That warrants a pause. Shane drives for a few moments, tires crunching over the falling snow, trying to figure out what she means. “Okay. I’m not really getting this. Do I get the choice?”
When she smiles, he feels the heat like standing too close to the oven, like a sunburn he can feel just starting. “I like watching you, and I have few amusements. Fight my first Vassal. If you win, I’ll help you defeat the Soul-Thief and give you leverage on my brother. If you lose, I’ll stop you from confronting him.”
“I don’t understand. Why would you stop me?”
“Because I, too, have made the occasional appointment with Madame Jiri. I know that if you confront my brother husband without my help, you will surely die.”
Shane takes a corner too fast on purpose, skidding a bit and correcting with a lazy shove of magic in the opposite direction, getting himself back on all four wheels again. “That’s bullshit. I only get maybes and probablies.”
“I’m very convincing. She always does her best work when I ask.”
“Shit, that’s unfair. Next thing you’ll tell me you didn’t have to jizz in a cup, either.”
“Do you only make predictions when you’re already certain of the outcome? Are you truly a betting man, Shane Conell?”
The hint of a grin tickles Shane’s mouth, and shit, he’s glad he’s still able to appreciate situations like this. “Sure. What are the odds?”
“Two to one.”
“For me?”
“Against you.”
Shane snorts. “That’s bullshit. I’m better than any human mage that’s ever lived.”
“Well, then. It’s a good thing my first Vassal isn’t human.”
That changes things a bit, and that’s not the only thing. The road changes as he drives, scooting around underneath him as he allows his hands to fall off the wheel. “You must really have a bone to pick, huh? If you’re willing to help out a mere mortal.”
“Who can be our deadliest enemy but our greatest love? The Ice King is everything to me, as your man is to you.”
“Drake isn’t my enemy,” Shane snaps. “At least, he wouldn’t be if your brother hadn’t gotten involved.”
“He—oh.” The Fire Queen’s eyebrows raise, and she gives a little shrug. “Never mind.”
Just as he’s about to ask her what the fuck she means by that, the road explodes, the car hurtling through the air fast enough to stun even Shane’s reflexes, landing before it hits the ground, frozen in a whirlpool of ice. The Fire Queen, predictably, is nowhere to be seen.
Groaning at the impact, Shane flexes out with his magic, trying to banish the pain of the crash, trying to see what’s got his car, but everything hurts.
Metal screeches, filling the air with the scream of it when the top of the car is peeled off to be discarded into the street. Implacable and unshakable, the Ice King stares down at him, disappointment radiating in chilling waves.
Shane stares up at him, trying to figure out how the fuck to get out of this one, wondering what the Ice King is even doing here, and how he could have hoped to do anything about the Soul Thief when his master was the one holding the reins anyway. “Um. Sorry I can’t bow, I’m a little stuck at the—”
The Ice King reaches out and grabs his shoulder, and even the cold Shane lives with every day does nothing to insulate him against that pain. He arches under it, back bowing as far as it’s able, and everything goes white-blue.
When his vision clears, it’s not much of a surprise to find himself in the Frozen Court. Men and women and other litter the place, some long since frozen solid, others lounging apathetically, a few drinking and partying even this late at night. When the Ice King surveys his surroundings, everything stops. Slowly, every eye turns to stare at the pair of them, at Shane clamped into a kneeling position, at the Ice King holding him there.
“My First Vassal thinks well of himself.” The Ice King’s voice isn’t loud, but it carries, and there isn’t a person in the Court who doesn’t hear. Shane wonders, vaguely, whether the past Vassals can hear it as well, even though some of them haven’t moved for a century. “He thinks to go against my wishes, to work with my enemy and destroy my creature. He thinks very well of himself.”
A lot of the other Vassals are smirking. A couple are young enough to still show eagerness behind the cold dead façade, rubbing their hands together in excitement. God, Shane hates them all. He looks for Astra, but she’s nowhere to be seen, not even with hair that stands out as much as hers does. At least that’s a mercy.
The Ice King doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to. The second he releases Shane’s shoulder, every creature in the room surrounds Shane, moves to him, eyes alight and hungry.
Shane snarls. There’s no I There’s no way he’s come this far, that he’s given up so much of himself only to end like I He’s seen it before, participated in it when it’s been someone else. Some of the statues are still littering the Court: there’s a man with his legs spread wide, a girl on her hands and knees, a young couple holding hands on their backs.
There’s no way that’s going to be him.
He turns before the first man gets within arm’s reach of him, drawing his sword and striking faster than an eyeblink, leaving the other vassal to scream and twitch on the ground. Before he’s completed the turn he gathers as much power as he can, every part of his mind focused on the Ice King, only him, because damned if he’s going to go out without taking his greatest enemy with him.
He lets loose, channeling the power down his arm, down his sword, arcing toward the Ice King in a strike that could level half the damned city if he lets it—and he just might—to incinerate the smug frozen bastard where he stands.
At least, that’s what was supposed to happen.
The Ice King blinks, and the power evaporates, leaving Shane shaken and off-balance, as if he’d thrown a punch at someone who turned to thin air. A split-second later, a bolt of power like he’s never felt slams into him, knocking him flat to the ground, holding him there for long enough for the hands to take
hold, tearing off his clothes and forcing him to his knees.
He can’t see the Ice King, but he can feel his gaze on him anyway, the way he always does whenever he’s in the Frozen Court. The Ice King doesn’t need to list his crimes, to itemize insubordination, to tell everyone that this is what you get for working with the Fire Queen. No one cares. All they want to know, these dead-eyed Vassals of an uncaring creature, is that no one cares how much they hurt him.
Shane tries to strike again, but the Ice King’s power weighs heavy on his, draining every surge of power before it can be anything physical, until he’d be unable to kill so much as a flea with all the magic he’s got left. He feels that, the draining, just as one set of hands—human, at least—grabs his hips after shucking his pants. “Been wanting to do this for years,” an unfamiliar voice grunts in his ear, and the blunt tip of a hard cock nudges at his ass.
Shane twists violently. Not now, not his choice, he only fucks other people to make Drake angry. But without his power, without anything that makes him dangerous, makes him special, he’s just a man. He’s strong, but so are the people holding him down, grabbing his hair, forcing his legs apart as the first man’s cock shoves inside of him.
Whoever the man is, he’s not that big, not as big as Drake, something Shane takes savage pleasure in telling him. The man punches him in the kidney before grabbing his hips and rutting in harder, and even if he’s not that big, it still aches, he’s still not ready.
There’s a woman’s hand on his cock, stroking him to hardness, and damned if he wants to like being raped on the floor. He feels the tears making their way down his cheeks, and he lets them freeze. Maybe it’s easier, in the end, to feel nothing after all.
Something nudges at his mouth, and he blinks away the frozen tears, looking up at—”Roy!”
His second grins down at him, shifting his form to one of the largest men Shane’s ever seen, a ruddy-faced man who looks like he should be crewing a Viking ship somewhere. “Hey, boss. Open your fucking mouth.”
“Bastard, I’ll kill you for—”
That’s all he has time to say before Roy slides in the head of his cock, holding his mouth open with a strong hand as he slides all the way in, cutting off Shane’s air.
Icebound Page 9