“Are you worried?” Jason asked.
“Maybe a little…” Falk stretched out beside him on the divan. “Mostly about rolling off this thing.” He pulled a crooked grin.
But Jason could tell he was lying and Falk seemed to realize as much because his expression sobered.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Falk admitted. “But that’s life. Sooner or later everyone loses something or someone.”
“It’s not like I’ve never lost anyone.” Jason searched Falk’s angular face. He didn’t know how he could look so rough and handsome at the same time. Like one of those tough-guy detectives from an old-time movie: the kind that talked mean and then sacrificed everything to save some hapless heroine in the end.
But Jason wasn’t a heroine and he wasn’t hapless. And most importantly he wasn’t going to let fear of an unknowable future keep him from embracing his freedom now.
“Look,” Jason said, “I can’t promise that I—or you for that matter—will be safe and sound for all time to come. But we’re here together now. And this is good, isn’t it?”
“It’s very good,” Falk admitted. The smile that curved his mouth this time was genuine.
“Then let’s enjoy now,” Jason suggested.
Falk kissed his brow lightly.
“If we’re going to keep enjoying ourselves, I need to get something out of my coat pocket,” Henry informed him.
Jason guessed that even magicians needed lube and condoms.
When Henry returned, he lay down behind Jason. His hands felt hot as he stroked the muscles of Jason’s bare back and traced curling designs down the length of his spine.
“Is this all right?” Falk asked.
Eight hours ago it might not have been, but now Jason nodded.
He relaxed, allowing Falk to arouse his languid body, while he built a song of passion and rapture in his mind. Falk shifted them both up to their knees. Jason’s skin shivered with delight at the sensation of Falk’s hair brushing over his back and buttocks. The heat of Falk’s skin and the smell of his sweat filled Jason’s senses as his hard width filled Jason’s body.
Falk moved so carefully, easing into Jason as if he were delicate beyond imagining and in response Jason whispered the first notes of his longing. He felt Falk’s entire body respond. His hands dug into Jason’s flanks and his hips rocked deep and strong.
Jason’s breath caught.
“Don’t stop,” Falk groaned into Jason’s shoulder. And Jason realized that Falk was in his power in this moment and giving himself up to Jason’s longing.
Jason called out in the rhythm of desire and coupling bodies. Falk answered him with a primal drive, pinning Jason hard and fast to the power of his own demands. They rocked and thrust, both caught up in the possession of yearning.
Shaking, as ecstatic sensation rushed through his body, Jason whispered only for more, plunging them both deeper into his song of ecstasy.
At last Jason’s voice broke in a hoarse moan and Falk called out with him.
Jason collapsed against the cool silk of the divan and Falk fell beside him, breathing heavily and shining like the sun. Jason thought he could feel Falk’s heart beating against his back.
“I can die happy now,” Falk muttered. “My God, you’re…fucking amazing.”
Jason grinned. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so utterly pleased to be so spent. His eyelids drooped and he nearly dropped off to sleep right then. But he realized that he ought to say something.
“You were great too,” Jason mumbled. “Amazing fucking.” Falk gave a dry laugh and Jason let himself drift into a contented doze. Falk shifted beside him, but Jason didn’t open his eyes. He barely felt Falk’s fingers caress his brow.
“Sweet dreams,” Falk wished him, and Jason thought he felt Falk’s lips graze his feverish skin. He drifted but then came near waking as he felt Henry’s hands lingering on him.
“Lend me the grace of his form,” Falk whispered as if offering up a prayer. “Let my coarseness keep him from harm.”
It seemed an odd thing to say, but Jason could hardly keep the words in his mind. In moments all he recalled were soft comforting sounds floating at the edge of his awareness. He felt Falk spread his tattered trench coat over him and wish him safe dreams and a deep, deep sleep.
***
Jason wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It seemed like only minutes, but a particular feeling of warm sunlight dancing across his closed eyes undermined his certainty.
He managed to crack one heavy lid, but his vision seemed hazy and his sluggish mind felt too slow to respond to anything he saw.
Beams of bright morning light revealed a circle of sharp-featured, stately men dressed in leather and green silk and holding ivory spears. Their features struck Jason as unnaturally handsome and cold. Their skin shone like polished brass. Falk stood before them—
And Jason knew he was dreaming then, because Falk stood barefoot, wearing only Jason’s jeans and yellow T-shirt. He held Jason’s red hoodie in his hands.
Jason sensed other people there as welclass="underline" grim men and women in black uniforms standing far back in the shadows. Jason thought Gunther hunched among them, his terrible goblin face distorted further by anger. He couldn’t see that, but he sensed it in the way of dreams.
Before him, Falk held out his hands. One of the men in green encircled his wrists with iron chains. Then the rest closed ranks around him and they led him away.
Jason wanted to sit up and call out. He tried to shout, but Princess crouched on his chest. She bowed her scarlet face close to his.
I am sent here to hide you until the regent’s guards have taken the bait and flown home like so many swallows carrying poison back to their nest.
Sleep.
***
Jason woke suddenly and with a cry of alarm. Princess startled off the divan and Gunther—with a cigarette in his ragged, toothy mouth—glared at him.
A dizzy, unreal feeling moved through Jason as he attempted to work out what was going on. Bright afternoon light poured in through the windows of Phipps’s shop. Empty beer bottles and the remains of a chicken dinner lay a yard from the divan where Jason sat naked.
Falk’s trench coat lay across one of his legs.
“This has got to be a low point—even for you,” Gunther growled at him. “How could you let them take him? You know what they’re going to do to him when they get him back to the sidhe realm.”
“What—” Jason began, but Gunther cut him off.
“They’re going to cut him up with rusty razors and shove his remains through a fucking sieve until they find the damn Stone of Fal.” The phone in Gunther’s pocket sounded, but he ignored it. “If you were going to go ahead and let him get diced, you might as well have handed him over to our people. At least the guys in R&D use anesthesia. At least they would have tried to keep him intact…”
Jason just stared at Gunther, trying to understand what he was talking about and feeling disturbed that he just allowed his phone to keep ringing.
“Where’s Henry?” Jason asked.
Then it was Gunther’s turn to gape. His phone let out a last tone, then went quiet.
“What did you say?” Gunther moved closer and instinctively Jason grabbed Falk’s coat and pulled it around his naked body.
“I want to talk to Henry. Where is he?” Jason asked again.
Gunther narrowed his red-slit eyes, dug into his suit pocket, and pulled out what looked like a small flashlight. He shone it on Jason and then swore in a crackling, grumbling language that Jason didn’t need to know to understand.
“Doesn’t work. Must be a glamour. A genuine faerie dust glamour. Damn it.” Gunther flicked the light off and considered Jason. “If you’re here, then who—” Realization showed on Gunther’s face and at the same moment a terrible knowledge dawned upon Jason.
Falk had asked for three pinches of faerie dust from Buttercup. He’d used the last two on Jason and himself last night while Jason had dozed.