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Chapter 11

Declan

A ugustine left Declan sitting on the beach, sunlight glinting off his silver hair. The muscles of his back were bunched, he turned away, walking back toward the cliffside. And that was it.

Exactly what Declan wanted. Freedom. Escape.

Was it such a bad thing, to want freedom? Freedom, trust, and love, actually. But none of those things were meant for incubi. He was a slave to his hungers, as untrustworthy as any demon, and love? Well, how could a creature ever love him? Not as a pretty trinket to drag around, but as a person who liked to watch movies late into the night on Netflix, who liked technology because electrical currents reminded him of the ocean and because the Internet seemed every bit as big as the Pacific. And yes, maybe sometimes as a man who liked beautiful things, so long as he wasn’t counted as one of them.

But as he watched Augustine walk away, a sense of loss chilled his bones, starting in his fingertips and toes and working its way up, till his heart felt like a block of ice in his chest.

He—he hadn’t done anything wrong. All he’d wanted was a swim.

Now, his eyes were stinging, his heart was heavy, and he felt sorry. Sorry he’d been born an incubus. Sorry he’d been born at all, when he couldn’t even get kidnapped right.

It’d been so much easier when he was mad at Augustine. Now, the ribbons of his torn longing trailed the dragon down the shore until he disappeared. It’d only been a matter of time before Augustine walked away, but Declan hadn’t expected it to hurt so much. He certainly hadn’t expected to miss the lost potential—good food, a smiling dragon set on charming him, lovely things and peace and quiet.

All Declan could do was sit there and wait for the chill to thaw, right where Augustine left him. His teal lashes fluttered, tears clinging to them, as salty as the waves breaking against the shore.

But the dragon was gone, and Declan was free, just as he’d demanded. In time, he gathered his discarded things in his arms. His phone, tucked into his own jeans pocket and left on the beach for more than a week, was dead. He didn’t bother to change, not right on the shore and while the sun was up.

He simply stuffed his feet into his own shoes and dragged them the short few blocks back to his building, hopped in the elevator, and rode all the way up to the penthouse.

When he got to his apartment, the door unlocked for him. The place was empty and cold, everything right where he’d left it. His laptop on the kitchen table, a frigid old cup of tea right beside it.

He plugged his phone into the kitchen island’s outlet and sat on one of the high leather stools to wait for it to turn on. Then, he saw a dozen text messages from his siblings. Jasper needed to talk to him, Sasha was worried, Malcolm said he’d better be on a fucking bender.

Declan sagged, dropping his head in his hand, and used the voice command to text Sasha back: I’m fine. I’m home .

Less than a minute later, there was a sharp knock on his door. He opened it to Sasha’s wide-eyed face. Her whole body tipped forward from the balls of her feet. Behind her right shoulder, Malcolm stood with his hands in the pockets of his tailored slacks, his chocolate-brown eyebrow cocked at him.

“Have a good time?” he sneered.

Sasha shoved forward and grabbed Declan’s shoulders in both hands. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Promise.” He grinned for her, let her inspect him head to toe. If he looked a little thin, well, that wasn’t uncommon when an incubus ate as rarely as he did.

“Where were you?” Malcolm demanded, shoving his way into the room past them both. “Father thought you’d finally lost it. Taken to the sea for good.”

Declan swallowed. The thought was tempting.

“I was . . . with a dragon.”

Sasha’s eyes widened. A laugh bubbled out of Malcolm. “Then what the hell are you doing here? Did he have a gilded cock?”

A memory of Augustine, sitting, strained and curled over, fisting his pretty cock, flashed across Declan’s vision. It wasn’t gold. It was prettier than that.

“No, but it was nice.”

Malcolm snickered. “Now that’s a catch. A dragon? Father will be thrilled. I thought they’d all died out. Slaughtered for their hoards.”

A shudder worked up Declan’s spine. Augustine was the very last person he wanted to expose to Elrith.

“He didn’t have anything worth killing over,” Declan muttered. He was beyond ready to change the subject. “Where’s Jasper?”

Sasha grinned. “With his boyfriend ,” she practically sang. “He found a bear out in the woods. He’s not starving himself anymore.”

Malcolm rolled his eyes. “I should hope not. Settling for a feral beast, he ought to get something out of it.”

Declan blinked. “He’s... they’re together? As in settled down? Happy?”

Sasha was nodding so fast she was at risk of taking flight. “Yeah. I think he’s happy, Declan. Really happy.”

More than any other child of Elrith, Jasper had struggled with the idea of being an incubus. He’d been uncomfortable in his skin, afraid of damaging the people around him. Because of it, he’d been slight, at risk of wasting away. Declan had been mere days from hiring a whole party of sex workers and locking Jasper alone in a room with them until he fed.

Which was, when you looked at it clearly, not all that different from what Augustine had tried to give him when he’d been hungry. A misguided attempt to try to save someone he cared about.

Declan inhaled slowly, trying to mask the way his breath caught in his chest. Jasper, the jumpiest of all of them, had settled down. He’d, for lack of a better term more acceptable to incubi, taken a mate.

“That’s wonderful. I’ll have to meet this bear of his.”

Malcolm rolled his eyes dramatically. “Indeed. We’ll all have merry holidays out in the woods with a dirty old bear. Are you hungry? I want to go out.”

That had always been Malcolm’s solution to everything—go out, get drunk, feed and forget.

Declan shook his head. Hungry as he was—just a taste of Augustine’s ample energy hadn’t been enough to sate him for long—the idea of going out was distasteful. Forgetting Augustine’s taste, the smoky sweetness of it? Impossible.

“No, thank you. You two have fun.”

Sasha scowled at him, but with another nod, she loosened her shoulders and slung her arms around him. “Don’t go disappearing again.”

“Not my intention,” he promised her, pressing a kiss to her halo of dark curls.

They left Declan alone in his apartment to recover, but where it’d once been his haven, now it was too quiet. Too lonely. Maybe he hadn’t forged a deep and joyful bond with Augustine right off, but he missed knowing someone was there, having his day broken up by August’s hopeful face and most recent offering.

Declan had too little to offer him in return, but?—

Well, he couldn’t just sit there. So even though he was behind on his contracting work and certain he was the most ridiculous creature to ever wander the face of the Earth, he put on his Speedo and a rashguard and set out for the shore. He wanted to talk, and, well, being clothed to some degree would help him keep his head clear.

He didn’t know what he was doing, precisely, but he didn’t have Augustine’s phone number. Hell, he didn’t have the slightest idea how to contact him at all. But if Augustine said they were mates, if he meant it, then he—he would just know that Declan wanted him.

If not, well, then Declan would satisfy himself that he’d been right all along, and that there was nothing between them but lust and desire.

He stood at the edge of the shore and looked up toward the cliff face beyond the bay. Though he was sure Augustine had taken him somewhere there, he couldn’t see anything on the cliff face. No large window off the main room, no lights beyond.

He was lost.

But never mind that. The first time Augustine had found him, he’d been swimming, so he tried that instead, slipping past the breakers and into the sea. The sun had gone down again, the water cold, but Declan dived beneath it and surfaced farther out, where his toes couldn’t touch the ocean floor.

“Augustine?” he called.

There was no response. He let his arms float out and twisted in the water.

“I want to talk to you. Please. I think—I think we should talk.” To what end, Declan didn’t know, but he didn’t recognize the sorrow in his chest, and if he did not see Augustine right that moment, he feared it would consume him from the inside.

“August?”

Nothing. He twisted again, looking up at the cliff with tears in his eyes, hidden behind the water dripping down his face.

Only there, on the cliffside, he saw flashlights. They weren’t Augustine’s, but—but they’d show him the way, he was sure of it.