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Sixteen
T his was usually when Slate retreated to his nest. But it was getting harder to leave his mortal after they had completed their stretching sessions.
He sighed, smoothing her long, dark hair away from her face. Then he pressed a kiss to the mark he had dented into her cheek with his skull mask and got up.
“I will be back before you wake,” he whispered.
He paused at the door, watching her chest rise and fall. He had remembered to place the covers over her this time. Mortals were so sensitive to the cold.
The portal only burned for a minute before Wick stepped into his void.
“Slate,” he said, his fiery eyes flickering with surprise as he stepped into the shadowy forest. “I did not expect to see you again so soon. How was the kobald?”
“Fine.” Slate licked his back teeth, where flecks of demon flesh still clung.
Wick nodded, looking pleased. Another thing Slate appreciated about him: he seemed honestly excited by others’ happiness.
“It is good to see you hunting again,” Wick told him. “I thought your fangs had dulled.”
Slate snorted. “You would know.”
Wick’s wings twitched. His eyes flamed even as he looked away, and Slate wondered if there had been another incident of blood frenzy. Wick had been careful to stay away from situations that triggered it, but there was no escape.
Slate opened his mouth to apologize, but Wick talked over him, alarmed.
“What happened to your arm? That was not the kobald.”
Slate raised his burned arm. “Malblossom. My attackers regretted it.”
“May you heal fast.” Wick bowed his head. “I’m glad you summoned me. I wanted to speak with you.”
Slate frowned. “You did? About what?”
Wick hesitated. “How goes training the human?”
“Fine,” Slate lied. Then he stopped, his tail lashing. “When you mated with them. How did you make yourself fit?”
Wick made a considering noise that sounded like flames crackling. “Mm. About that… I may have been exaggerating about mating with mortals.”
“What?” Slate barked. He imagined going back to Ruby and telling her that actually they couldn’t fulfill the ritual, that she would have to find some other magic-using creature to mate with her. “You said you could do it!”
“I’ve heard others say that, but I’m not dumb enough to—” Wick stopped, coughing ash into his fist. “I mean, they are very small.”
Slate growled, grinding his fangs together. That wasn’t so much of a problem for Wick, who was smaller than him. Most Skullstalkers were.
“ But ,” Wick said desperately. “That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. I was asking around, and there is a spell?—”
“Show me,” Slate demanded.
Wick’s wings twitched apologetically. “It is in the mortal realm. There’s a cave deep in the moors of Anderfel where one of our brothers resides.”
Slate grabbed his hand and straightened it into a claw, pointing it into the forest air.
“Focus on it,” he ordered.
Wick made a rumbling noise of confusion. But his fiery eyes drifted shut, and Slate channeled his power into him.
Wick’s wings flexed, his flaming eyes flashing open in shock as Slate used his finger to draw a portal in the cool forest air.
“ Oh ,” Wick whispered. He stared at the portal in disbelief, examining the flickering white hole in the middle of the forest. “I have never done that before.”
“And you will not again,” Slate said. He dropped Wick’s hand. “Come with me. If I am to encounter another Skullstalker, I may need to fight.”
Wick said nothing. For a moment, Slate thought he might have offended him, which was ridiculous. However Wick felt about his blood frenzy, it was useful sometimes.
Wick’s eyes focused on the distance as if he was remembering something he thought he’d forgotten. His eyes sparked, and Slate extended his claws even further than usual. He’d seen those eyes flicker that hard before; it was the only time he was truly afraid of his brother.
Then Wick blinked, and he was the mild-mannered Skullstalker Slate knew.
“Lead,” Wick said, turning to face the glowing white hole in the middle of Slate’s void. “I will follow.”
They stepped through the portal into a forest so dark that even Slate had to let his eyes adjust.
“Humans don’t venture here often,” Wick explained as Slate sealed the portal behind them. “For obvious reasons.”
Slate grunted. The darkness was so intense it swirled around him, thicker and heavier than the shadows in his own void.
He peered through the forest. He could hardly see the trees ahead of him, which stunk of sulfur. But he could see a tiny light in the distance.
“There,” Wick announced. “That’s the cave.”
Slate was thankful that Wick had placed them so close to it. If someone got distracted while making a portal, they could end up days away from their destination.
Shadows parted around them as they walked, dragging on their skin. Slate could feel his own darkness spasming around his skull mask, batting away the new shadows.
A gruff voice echoed through the dark. “Ho there, brothers. What brings you to this strange place?’
The lights ahead of them multiplied. It wasn’t a torch like Slate had assumed. They were eyes, beaming through the darkness.
Their surroundings came into sharper view with each step. By the time Slate arrived in front of the Skullstalker, he could see the cave behind him, huge and cavernous.
The Skullstalker looked… old. Older than Slate, which was impossible. He knew all his older siblings, and this was not one of them. But he couldn’t find another explanation for the chipped, aged bone over his face, or his cloudy eyes, or the skin sagging off his limbs.
He was dressed in odd human clothes, bones hanging from a chain around his neck. They all looked like jawbones, but the teeth were nothing Slate recognized.
“Brothers,” the Skullstalker said, his voice so quiet Slate had to lean in to hear it. “I welcome you into my void.”
“This is not a void,” Slate pointed out. “You are in the mortal realm.”
“My void-away-from-void, then.” The Skullstalker’s black eyes glittered. “What do you wish of me?”
The words were a surprise. Skullstalkers were not a helpful species. Other than Wick, who was an exception to the rule. This Skullstalker’s voice might be soft, and his skin was sallow with age, but Slate was still fighting the urge to crouch in preparation for a fight.
“I have a mortal,” he said slowly. “I need to… fit inside.”
He expected surprise. Or at the very least, amused laughter. But the Skullstalker only bowed his head, a shocking risk when encountering two unknowns. The back of his neck was completely exposed.
“We can do that,” the Skullstalker said plainly. “Come with me.”
He turned and walked toward the cave. His gait was slow, almost a waddle. Slate exchanged a confused look with Wick, who looked back like he expected Slate to tell him what to do next.
The Skullstalker twisted to beckon him in. “There are no gnashing jaws waiting to devour you. Come.”
Slate took a cautious step toward the cavern, tail swishing suspiciously. “I will stay. Whatever is required, I will do it from here.”
He waited for the Skullstalker to stop, for his eyes to gleam threateningly. For the Skullstalker’s lips to peel back from his fangs and a snarl to rip through the cave.
But the Skullstalker only waved a dismissive hand, barely visible in the gloom. “The oil is not heavy. I can deliver it to you.”
“Oil?” Wick whispered beside him.
Slate didn’t answer. Wick’s magic was so weak it might as well not exist, and he did not study theory. It made sense he would not know much about anointing oil.
The Skullstalker shuffled back into view carrying a pot of black oil. He dipped a finger in, grunting with effort as his claws retracted. It took several seconds longer than expected for the claw to slide back into his hand.
He pressed his dripping finger against Slate’s skull. Slate tried to pay attention to the patterns, but they were strange and nothing he recognized.
“What will this do?” Slate demanded.
The Skullstalker hummed, smoothing a line over his collarbones. “When you push into her, her body will shift to make room for you.”
Lust curled in Slate’s stomach as he imagined sinking into Ruby’s hole all the way to the hilt. Feeling her body clench, his cock nudging the end of her wall, then feeling it stretch ?—
He forced the lust down and met the Skullstalker’s cloudy eyes. “Will it harm her?”
“No. But the spell will consume a portion of your essence.”
“Slate,” Wick whispered.
“Essence,” Slate repeated, sending Wick a look to quiet him. “What do you mean by this?”
“Your magic will weaken. And you will age faster.”
His heart raced. “How fast?”
“You would only have a few millennia left.”
A few millennia. Slate fought down a shocking wave of disappointment. Part of him had hoped—just for a moment—that it would narrow his lifespan to a truly pitiful amount of time.
Like a human lifespan.
“That seems a steep cost,” Wick said. “Slate. Are you sure this mortal is worth it?”
Slate didn’t look at him. He was thinking back to Ruby asleep in that castle bed. How she had asked for his nest before she fell asleep.
“She has bound me,” he said. “I must complete the warding ritual, as is her wish.”
The Skullstalker hummed, interested. “A binding? What will you have of her when the ward is complete?”
Slate frowned. “Does it matter?”
The Skullstalker smiled, exposing several missing fangs. “I talk to so few people. Let alone, my brothers. Indulge me with stories beyond this forest.”
Slate shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t want to talk about this, least of all with two brothers listening. But the Skullstalker was granting him a great boon so he could, at least, provide him an answer.
“I want her to stay,” he admitted, his voice raw. “I want to make her stay.”
The Skullstalker rumbled as he ran a black line down Slate’s chest. “And will you?”
“I… don’t know.” Slate averted his gaze to the huge, formless darkness of the cave. “She cares for her town. For her realm. Even though they have given her no reason to.”