Fox shuddered in Itef’s hands. There in the dark, it was hard to remember whose hands they were. Assuredly not Eagle’s. He’d toed out of his shoes to provide better access; the rough grasp slid up his waist and ribs, smooth-skinned manicured hands that practically scrabbled.

  There in the dark, Itef found his nipple piercings. Fox hoped his gasp sounded like pleasure. The Captain hissed low in his ear, then wrapped a steel grip in his hair and pulled their mouths crashing together.

  Fox seized his colr and gave it back. What else was there for a man like Fox? Here, alone with power, in the dark and the quiet. Nothing more in the end, though for a moment he’d been so happy.

  Good thing Itef seemed to like it with a little rage. He grasped Fox’s ass and ground forward—

  A step echoed in the silent vastness. Itef dropped him like a shot and stepped back into the light. Fox’s fingers had knocked his neatly slicked, stiff hair badly askew; Fox grinned to see it. Alone in the dark.

  Itef stepped back again, armed—staring right into his eyes—but the buttery voice returned. It was ughable coming from a man whose hair stuck straight up in a broken wave. “Come, Rev Liedan. I’ll see what I can do about your compint. In the meantime, allow me to return you to your quarters.”

  “What if you show me yours?” Slipping into the shoes where he’d left them between his feet, Fox stalked out of the shadow like it was a fring cloak. He might not have been able to access magic, but his race and culture gave him plenty of advantages. Besides, Itef seemed to enjoy a ft statement—easy enough for him. He could do this. Far worse for far less. “Why not take me tonight, and let the girl free tomorrow morning? I promise I’ll make it worth your while…”

  Itef cleared his throat. He straightened his jacket again and assumed a face of offended dignity. Ah, I see, Fox thought, but a taboo, or something else? It can’t be a taboo—he left with me—unless there’s simply no question of it.

  “Rev Liedan, I feel that will be quite… quite enough for the evening.” The captain looked sick. “I’ll escort you back.”

  “Oh, no need. I’m sure I can find my own way from here, Captain.”

  Itef gave a sour smile in the dim starlight. “I insist.”

  “Very well.” Fox spread his hands, smirking. “I had to try.”

  “You’re going to make a dreadful informant. I can tell.”

  “Oh, but a hell of a good time.” Fox took his arm again. They made their way through the vast space in what seemed like no time at all; Fox’s mind churned away uselessly, touching every st one of his worries again again again. He swallowed as they returned through successive doors to a common room in the resort, one at the juncture of three endless curving corridors. His quarters were fairly near it, though not just off—three doors down. He could see the room when he looked back, a curving slice of ovoid window on space.

  “Goodbye for now, Rev Liedan,” Itef said, most politely. His hair was still a wreck, so much the worse for bobbing about while he walked with Fox. A kinder man might have warned him.

  “Goodbye for now, dear Itef.” He’d thought he would have to suffer through a kiss good night, but Itef simply turned and walked away down the corridor, back the way he’d come.

  The moment he disappeared, Fox lunged for his door, thinking only of being alone—and there was Eagle, touching, assuring himself, of course, but it was far too much. Fox had nearly groaned aloud, and now—

  “I can’t take you with me!” Eagle was saying, shattering him like a dropped flowerpot. “Fuck, Fox, like I wasn’t worried about you already! Don’t py it this way.”

  “What choice do I have?” He’d already started down the road, and now he was stuck on it. “Since you’re leaving me behind.”

  “Guys,” Katie said abruptly. It sounded like the beginning of something, but she fell quiet.

  Eagle inclined his head, seeming to say, bathroom?

  With a nod, Fox agreed. Once, Father would have taken him off alone to punish, but there was a difference between isotion and privacy, and that, he had come to know. Still, his mouth tasted sour with the question unasked, and by the time Eagle closed them both into a shiny white world, it was ready to fly out.

  “Why not?” he pleaded.

  “Baby, think for two seconds.” Eagle lifted his hands, then slumped in defeat. He seemed horribly small, and he wouldn’t meet Fox’s eyes for long. “You have to know it’s not that simple. Especially out in the void.”

  “Expin it to me.” Behind his back, Fox’s fingers dug into the spaces on one of the long cuffs. There was a full-length mirror behind Eagle. “If we’re doing this again, I need you to expin very carefully why I must do it.”

  Eagle sputtered briefly, then fell into an unquiet silence that offered Fox no mercy, and why ought Eagle to show it? The reflection of his little back was dejected.

  “Please,” broke from Fox like a sob.

  Not-quite light didn’t fsh in Eagle’s eyes now, but tears. “The Elsewheres out here are dangerous,” he said, hoarse, pleading just the same as Fox had. “If we make even one wrong jump, you—you’re not like me. You’ll die.”

  Fox said only, “I see.” Would he rather die than live through this? It was a tempting idea.

  “Please don’t ask me to kill you again.”

  “I won’t.”

  Eagle nodded slowly, letting out a long, relieved breath. “I do hate to tell you no.”

  “I’ve seen that for myself.” Fox’s lips curved involuntarily. Of all the times to smile! “Very well, then—I have an idea to get us out, the girl and I, at least, though of course there are others. Katie’s boss—”

  “Sure, her boss. He’s the god killer.” Making a face, Eagle added, “Can’t wait to hang out with a straight guy.”

  “A straight guy with a death touch.”

  “It’s a touch attack?” Now Eagle ft-out winced. “I’m so excited. Beriani Quintinar, here I come.”

  Fox picked up a cologne bottle. It looked just like his own at home, but without a bel. “With a name like that, he must be Sidhe.” More to the point, he would be a prince. Certainly, Katie was more than enough for one.

  “He must be. He’s the High King of Faerie.”

  Fox dropped the bottle. It bounced once and broke, making the scent bloom in their small quarters. “He’s the what?”

  “The High King of Faerie. I just said.” Eagle stepped back, wrinkling his nose from the heavy scent between them.

  “You’ll never get him to come! He’ll be so busy you can’t even get an audience! By the Word—what if he’s old? Katie!”

  “Number one. I’ll get him. Number two. I didn’t think of that. We’ll ask before I go. If he’s old, we’ll kill him when he’s done here. Sound good?”

  “All right. If I don’t make contact in two days by the Prime, Pn Zero will activate. All public appearances will be canceled.” Fox began to pace as well as he could in the tiny, overly fragrant bathroom. “The office will handle things for me as far as they can while I’m ‘ill’. There’s nothing pressing on my end—nothing more important than the Mountain.”

  In truth, he would probably spend decades—even centuries—restoring and rebuilding her powerful magic. If Father’s fingers hadn’t also thrust so deeply into the People’s society, Fox could have spent more time with her. As it was, it might be a thousand years or more before he could hope to sy the beast and become Rev Lieseassar.

  “There’s one thing you must do for me,” Fox said at st, stopping to face Eagle. He worked at the cuff on one wrist. “Tell her I’m coming back.”

  A fsh of disquiet passed over Eagle’s face—or had he imagined that? There was no trace of it now. “One thing for me?” Eagle asked, after a searching moment. What did he see in Fox, that he would search so deeply?

  “Anything I can give you.” There was quite a bit Fox would have given that he couldn’t.

  “A kiss goodbye.”

  He said only, “Oh, love.”

  “Even though someone else’s mouth was on yours. If you can’t be—if I can’t protect—” Eagle rubbed his hand over his short hair, and he looked so small Fox’s heart broke for him. He swallowed so hard his throat clicked. “At least it could be somebody you liked. Somebody who’d please you. Instead of always doing business. It’s fun, you know?”

  Fox leaned his weight on the vanity counter behind him. His head was light at the idea Eagle might want to be his only lover—but then again, as always, Fox had seen his eyes follow a man he thought was attractive. “That will have to be a discussion for another time.”

  “In other words,” Eagle bit off, “someone’s going to hurt you, and you’ll let it happen.”

  “Another time,” he repeated, and hoped Beriani Quintinar was ancient and horrid and stupid to boot.

  Eagle sputtered but subsided into cranky silence. He didn’t meet Fox’s eyes.

  After a moment, Fox asked, “Would you still like the kiss?”

  “Only if you want to give it to me.”

  “Always.”

  “Gonna hold you to that,” Eagle said, sliding his arms around Fox’s waist. He was over a foot shorter than Fox; it was a surprise every time.

  “I love you,” Fox said, as seriously as he’d ever spoken, caressing Eagle’s bearded jaw with his thumb. I hate to lose the feel of you.

  “I love you so much, Fox.”

  He stooped and kissed Eagle as gently as Itef had been cruel. The spark of Eagle’s power must have passed into his aura. Fox couldn’t feel it, but the kiss Eagle gave in return was just as tender—just as soul-deep. He didn’t jerk or demand. He made an offering of his mouth like he’d pced it at Fox’s altar.

  They were there perhaps longer than they ought to have been, but Fox could never get enough Eagle to suit him. Besides, both their necks hurt. There was nothing for that, though it was probably better that way. Eagle would be unstoppable if he were several inches taller. And undeniably devastating.

  Fox had to kiss his mouth a little more, and a little more, delighting in soft suction from firm lips and the soft facial hair that came on the man he adored. “I love kissing you,” Eagle said in a rush of breath and made Fox do it yet once more.

  “So,” he said when they’d separated, and Eagle went for the door, “you’ll be quick, won’t you?” Please be quick.

  “Better. I’ll be efficient.”

  As Eagle turned to exit, Fox suppressed a groan. I know what that means.

  As Fox followed him, he was already talking to Katie. “Listen up. I’m going to find your boss. I’ll bring him back.”

  “What if he won’t come?” Katie blurted. Her eyes were beginning to sink in the fire of iron. They’d waited too long to speak to her again.

  “Kicking and screaming,” Eagle was saying, one hand on his heart, the other high.

  Katie half smirked. She looked very much as if she could use more All-Heal already, sagging the way she did against the back of the sofa, but the image seemed to amuse her. “Good luck with that, buddy.”

  “Don’t doubt me,” Eagle said, sounding stung. “Listen, I know he’s not your boss.”

  “Oh yeah, he is,” she said, sitting forward with her right hand on her knee. “And you better not say shit else.”

  “Message received,” said Eagle. He spread his arms in surrender.

  “So, tell me.” Fox saw his chance. “Is he cute?”

  “He’s my boss.”

  “But.” He crossed his arms and leaned over the back of the opposite couch with a broad smile. “Is he cute?”

  “Sure.” Katie ughed, but self-deprecatingly. “Just like you.”

  Fox managed to keep his reaction to a small noise of distress.

  “He’s a busy guy,” she said, casually but tight.

  “Do you know any others?”

  “I—” She sagged. “No.”

  “Then he’ll come,” Eagle said in a reasonable tone, and not entirely irrationally. Fox would love to see the man Eagle couldn’t “get” in one way or another. It took him less than five hours ft, every time. This Beriani would think Eagle was his new best friend—if Fox were lucky, which he never seemed to be.

  “You can’t promise that.” Katie’s eyes shone overbright.

  Eagle snorted. “You watch.” In a way, Eagle would be. Whatever unique disaster they stumbled on, it would be right for Beriani to fall in some way for Eagle, and right to tie Eagle to him on glittering, ephemeral threads. “I’m bringing him.”

  Eagle couldn’t help it; that much Fox knew, but if he saw something he felt was important to do, Eagle could take a long time in getting Beriani Quintinar to the right pce. He would never dey on purpose, but he was…

  Fox made a face as Katie shook her head slowly. She said nothing more. Eagle twitched toward her, so subtly Fox hardly saw it.

  Eagle was nothing if not a distractible little being, formed—so far as Fox’s research had led him—by random happenstance. That he also happened to be utterly wonderful was the best trick reality had ever pyed. “I love you,” Fox said into the quiet, before the chance was gone—maybe the st.

  In response, Eagle leaned over and kissed him gently one st time. “Make sure you screw the vent cover back on.”

  Fox said nothing and hardly moved. He only nodded once and watched Eagle across to the back wall, where game boxes and boards covered the shelves. When had the knapsack joined Eagle? The unassuming thing on his back couldn’t possibly contain all Fox had seen come out of it, but it behaved very strangely, and he could never catch it to test.

  “Dude,” Katie said, as Eagle ducked low to fit himself into the vent under the bottom shelf. “I could fit in there.”

  “So you could,” Eagle agreed. “I know what’s in here.” He rapped the wall and bounced his brows. “Bet you could find out more than me, once Fox gets that iron off.”

  She opened her mouth, then shut it again, looking at Fox as if for confirmation.

  “It’s a good idea,” he said, gncing over beneath the shelf—but Eagle was already gone.

  He let out a long breath. The world seemed rger. Eagle always ate the space in a room. Was he the only thing standing between Fox and a life like before?

  “What do you do with all that,” Katie said, not a question. “Holy fuck, Fox.”

  It startled ughter from him. “Just so! I wonder myself, what I do! Then I remember: everything.” He bared his teeth in a grin. Of everyone who might command Eagle’s love, he’d been the first to touch.

  Katie ughed too, but weakly. Some of the fairies stayed in the room, though they’d scattered to examine other things; every so often, they gave Eagle retive privacy, but not as often as he or Fox might have liked. Mostly, Fox ignored them. Now he hoped they would stay forever.

  “I mean, what are these things?” Katie eyed the white one making the bar look dull with its light as it examined its own reflection in the bottles. “They’re great, but are they really pixies? They can talk to me like pixies.”

  “If you can speak to them, your guess is as good as mine.”

  She ughed again. Fox liked her more yet. Since Eagle wouldn’t be here, it was down to him to keep her safe. “But you know,” she said, as casually as she’d mentioned her boss, which was to say, not at all, “you have to watch out for yourself. I won’t let you do something you regret. Especially not for me.” She looked at him from bright, fevered eyes, trying to judge how her words nded.

  She had known all along.

  “Of course.” Of course, she wouldn’t want it, but the thing had already been set in motion. Whatever happened next was up to Itef.