Page 34 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

They could not avoid the house and its occupants forever, but what was a few more moments?

‘Might I stay here with you?’

He could not read the look on Pitch’s face as he nodded.

For a while they remained in comfortable, and mostly naked, silence. The rain continued to fall outside; there seemed no stopping it. The sun might as well have packed up its bags and headed to the continent. It was only when Silas’s stomach made an impolite growling sound that either of them stirred.

‘I’m rather hungry.’ He patted his belly. ‘What about you?’

‘Not really.’ Pitch handed over his trousers, the material warm against Silas’s fingers.

‘Thank you.’ Silas shook them out, balancing on one leg as he dressed. ‘I suppose you are quite filled to the brim in all manner of ways, after what we’ve just done.’ He grinned, expecting something lewd in return.

‘I am not a parasite.’ Pitch was sullen, working upon his own trousers with his flame-warmed hands. ‘I did not feed on you while we fucked.’

‘I’ve never considered you a parasite. And I have no qualms with you seeing to your incubus needs with me, you know that.’

The daemon scowled down at his clothing. ‘I had no interest in gorging on you in that way.’

‘Do I taste unpleasant?’ Silas tried for lightness.

‘Being death and all? Surprisingly, no.’ Pitch ran his hands along the length of one trouser leg, a light steam coming from the dampness meeting the heat. ‘Your kisses taste like iron at times, loam on the odd occasion. And your spend is much the same but with an added saltiness that wakes the senses. You taste sublime.’

The daemon’s bluntness still caught him off guard. ‘Right…flattering certainly but not quite what I asked. As an incubus, I understand you need to take–’

‘I didn’ttakeanything from you, Silas.’ Pitch’s irritation strangled his words. ‘A feed and a fuck do not need to be one and the same thing. I’m not a whimpering babe that needs a tit every five minutes to survive –’

‘You know that is not what–’

The prince waved an imperious hand. ‘Sweets and liquor do just fine in the right quantities.’

‘But you’re not eating very much of late.’ And he’d not been drunk all week.

‘Because I’m not fucking hungry. What is this interrogation in aid of?’ A rather large flame erupted from Pitch’s forefinger, catching on the hem of his trouser leg, setting the fabric alight. ‘Fuck, gods fuck it.’ He jumped up from the chair, dropping the burning material to the floor, stomping on it. ‘By Enoch’s balls, I’ve never seen a man so eager to be treated like a milking cow. If you wish to find a daemon to hold you down and drain you dry, then go and find the Morrigan. They have just the bitch for you.’ His voice broke and he coughed, patting at his chest as though there lay the problem. ‘Fucking smoke, getting to me.’

Silas could have wept. He was light-headed with realising why Pitch refused to feed from him. Totakefrom him.

Her name was Onoskolis.

‘I have been an ignorant fool.’ He could not say how sorry he was. Pitch would despise it, and rightfully so. ‘I should never have pushed you on the matter.’

‘Forget it.’ Pitch kept his eyes down turned, fixed on the trousers. ‘You weren’t to know I’d still be carrying on over such a matter.’

Carrying on? He’d been violated and abused, left black and blue, inside and out.

‘It was a grave matter,’ Silas said quietly. ‘And cannot be set aside easily. I am here for you, just know that, Pitch. And when you are ready, I am willing. You can’t steal anything from me, for it is already yours.’

The prince turned away, his shoulders tight. Silas feared he’d said too much, yet again.

‘You talk such nonsense.’ Pitch pulled on his trousers, and though he did so quickly, it was clear his hands were shaking. ‘But thank you, Sickle.’

The moment was so very delicate, until Silas’s stomach growled once more. ‘Oh, bloody hell.’

But the ruckus spliced the tension nicely. Pitch scoffed as he made his way over to where his shirt hung. ‘Go and get some damned food, man.’

‘Perhaps I should.’ As Silas bent to reach for his own shirt, the room seemed to tilt. A shiver ran its way down Silas’s spine, as though the last drop of pond water slid from his hair. He clutched at the mantel. Christ, he was practically on top of the fire, how was such a coldness possible?

‘Silas, are you all right?’