Page 35 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

‘I’m not…sure…I don’t feel quite myself.’ Trepidation waltzed across his skin like a ballroom full of inept dancers.

‘Nor do you seem so.’ Pitch moved to his side, the buttons still undone on his shirt, firelight caressing his smooth chest. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing…a chill from the pond, perhaps.’ Silas shrugged off the half-truth. Pitch had been brutally honest with him, he deserved the same in return. ‘No, that’s not so. I’ve felt off for the past few days, a strange sense of…well, despair, if I’m honest.’

‘I doubt you are the only one feeling such a way.’ Pitch was subdued. ‘Does this mean you think this quest utterly hopeless?’

‘No, no, I do not. We have endured so much and still stand strong.’ He shovelled on the reassurances, sensing the prince’s fragility. ‘That’s the thing, you see. The feeling does not seem mine. I’m certain this dread…this hopelessness…does not come from me.’

‘Then who?’

‘I don’t know.’ Silas sighed. ‘Those teratisms I freed from the Fulbourn, perhaps? Maybe I have a connection with them now?’

An exquisite dimple formed in Pitch’s cheek as he wrinkled his face in consideration. ‘That seems possible, considering you said you were drawn to where they were in the Fulbourn. But how could they find the Sanctuary? We are in trouble if a handful of corpses have traced us.’

‘And that seems highly unlikely. Forneus would have let me know if they were about.’

‘Or he brought them here, so they’d be close to their master.’

‘Their master?’ Silas raised his brows in surprise as he realised who that master was. ‘Oh, me. Very strange all of that business, but even if I could be called their master, I’m not convinced it’s them. The feeling is different. It’s…’ He searched for the word. ‘Bigger.’

‘How eloquent you are.’

‘It’s hard to explain. But I suppose its as though the Fulbourn was a quartet and this a full choir.’ The rumbling erupted at his belly once more.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’ Pitch returned to his chair, pulling his mud-caked boots from beneath it and taking his socks from their place on the hearthstone. ‘You are completely ruining the ambience of this place with all the ruckus. Shall we find you something to gnaw on?’

‘It is probably best.’ Silaswasfamished, loath as he was to return to their troubles.

‘I believe Ronin should be sending those corsets for me today, at long bloody last.’ Pitch bent to tie his laces.

‘How wonderful.’ Silas scowled down at his own boots. He pictured the tsukumogami sorting through satin and lace and boning. How he might hold each design, imagining how it would suit the daemon’s body. A body Ronin may know intimately.

‘Ronin does have fine taste,’ Pitch said. ‘I’ll say that much for him.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’ Silas nearly snapped his lace. ‘So long as you are happy with what he sends.’

A good thing the tsukumogami wasn’t hand-delivering the goods.

He looked up to find Pitch regarding him. ‘You’d do a much finer job of dressing me, I’m sure. Perhaps, when this is all done with, a trip to Fortnum and Mason is in order.’ Pitch’s smooth, seductive manner was well-returned. ‘You can decide what I must wear. Seeing as you have found a fondness for ordering me about, Mr Mercer.’

With a gratuitous wink the daemon cast the coat over his shoulders, turned on his heels, and strode out the door.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PITCH REACHEDthe house with no sign of Silas behind him, even though he slowed to a near snail’s pace on the walk through the garden, waiting for the ankou to catch up. Pitch decided he must be ensuring every ember in the fire was out. It was the sort of thing Silas would worry about. And as the rain was incapable of letting up, Pitch kept on, holding the ineffectual coat over his head in a vain attempt to keep dry.

He was tired of being drenched this day, in all ways but one. He was decidedly damp between the cheeks and pleased about it, still floating on the high of being fucked by the ankou. Even if the encounter had Silas saying all kinds of foolish things. None of which Pitch could expel from his thoughts.

He bypassed the verandah where he’d met Tilly in the tree and continued around the side of the house to where a door would lead him directly into the kitchen. Going the other way would have meant walking along the corridor past the lieutenant’s room, and Pitch was not ready to have his day ruined again by that place. He was almost at the door when the thump of footsteps came from behind. Someone at a run.

Pitch tensed, whirling about, his pulse racing.

‘Just me,’ Silas called, the topcoat streaming like a banner over him as he moved. ‘Sorry, I should have called out.’

Had Pitch looked as concerned as he’d felt? Blast it, he could not be jumping at shadows like this. ‘I thought a bloody Nephilim had been set loose in the garden.’ He glowered through a poor display of nonchalance. ‘All that pounding about.’

It didn’t seem that great an insult really, but a pained looked swept Silas’s features and he was rather quiet as they stepped into the kitchen.