Warnings and Enticements: Spoilers, slash, knifekink
Disclaimer: Characters and world belong to Sarah Rees Brennan. Buy The Demon's Lexicon!
The wards brushed Gerald's cheeks like cobwebs as he entered the mansion. He closed the door on the last stars of the graying morning sky. Out all night, again, but he didn't mind. Compressing his essence into the frail body of a sparrow, perched high in the swaying willow, was such an amusing irony when his motives were anything but benign.
He spared little attention for the enchantments and trinkets that filled the hallways. Years ago each could have captivated him, but now the ornaments were as familiar as the sensation of feathers itching into his skin.
Wonderful, but not astounding.
The sinfully deep carpet reminded him of the pillow awaiting his weary head, but Gerald had a report to make. Padding up stairs and down corridors, he stepped quietly out of habit rather than consideration for his sleeping fellows.
He found Black Arthur talking with Anzu. The demon took an avian shape, as usual, with furious orange feathers and rustling wings. The mirrored eyes gleamed. As Arthur rehearsed the plan yet again, Anzu paced the confines of his circle. His spindly legs had all the grace of a heron, though the quick movements of his sinuous neck rather suggested a serpent. Arthur kept talking unperturbed—though Anzu feigned inattention, the demon was bound to pay heed.
"And, you must be at all times careful—Gerald, wait in the library, across the hall—to use a more human voice…"
Gerald departed amidst Anzu's discordant cackles and obeyed Arthur's directions. Leaving the library door open behind him, he settled into an armchair to wait.
This, of all rooms in the mansion, lay empty. Arthur had decided to leave the bulk of the Circle's literature at the primary lair, under suffocating wards. Books of magic were far too precious, too dangerous to transport lightly, so they had only brought those books necessary for retrieving Hnikkar. A sensible decision, Gerald agreed, but one that left the library feeling skeletal. The shelves curved like naked ribs along the walls.
The creak of Arthur closing the door behind him drew Gerald's attention away from morbidity. Closing the door—unless Arthur had sensitive information to impart, that could only mean one thing. Gerald resigned himself to postponing the rendezvous with his pillow.
"What do you have to report?"
"Nothing novel. It stayed out all night, practicing swordplay." Gerald did not mention the midnight dalliance with that pink-haired girl, as he rather thought Arthur would not care.
Black Arthur sneered. It suited his brutal mouth. "Of course, it doesn't yet know that its true power is not dependent on flimsy toys. Anything else of note?"
"No. The kids just stayed inside. Everything looks good for the plan." Gerald knew that looking good did not necessarily translate to going well, but he kept his reservations to himself. So long as he maintained his own health and power, he would go along with Arthur's single-minded scheming.
"Excellent," mused Arthur. His eyes took on that familiar gleam, sunlight gilding a swift river. The magician twisted his neck in a chorus of popping vertebrae and crept closer. "It's been rather stressful, you know, the past few days. I'm not immune to tension." His lips twitched into a suggestive smirk, presumably in fear of being too subtle.
Little chance of that.
Gerald folded his arms and shifted against the plaster. "I'm quite excited, myself. Like a kid at the county fair."
Arthur laughed. "You're certainly no child, Gerald." A slight purr around the name and a beckoning in his eyebrows. He lifted his right hand, fingertips hovering centimeters from Gerald's jaw.
Gerald chuckled along with him. "I would hope that you wouldn't be doing this if I was." He dropped his arms and leaned forward away from the wall.
Arthur's fingertips under Gerald's chin were warm and his lips were snowflake-gentle, as if to distract as his other hand slid around to press into Gerald's spine, to pull him closer until closer was impossible. Gerald felt the rapid thudding of his pulse against his own, four beats for every measured movement of his lips. He retreated to lean back on the wall again, and Arthur followed. The right hand danced from Gerald's jaw to his hair and the fingers braided together with the sandy locks and twisted. Gerald bent with the pang until his neck curved into a position that would require chiropracty if maintained for long.
This was more foreplay than he usually got. Gerald relished the extra caresses.
Gerald sometimes wondered if Arthur had been so rough with his Lady Livia. Unlikely—from the brief glimpses he had caught, she looked too imperious to permit such frequent bruising. The aches were worth it, though—he had not slept his way to the top of the Circle, but sex made handy cement to his position in a volatile industry.
A harder bulge dug a bruise into Gerald's hipbone. He diverted his attention from Arthur's neck and reached for the knife hilt. Shoving his tongue deeper into Gerald's mouth, Arthur captured his hand and whipped it around to the wall. Plaster bit his knuckles. Gerald tried to pull away to protest, but Arthur twisted his hair harder. Teeth scraped into the kiss like cat's claws unsheathing. Gerald let himself whimper. Arthur liked that.
The pressure eased. He gulped a full breath as Black Arthur's lips retreated. The strong hands released him and he massaged his neck, then stepped forward after Arthur, but Arthur did not seem interested in continued kissing. He wanted more.
Arthur slouched into the armchair, his dark curls spreading on the creamy brocade. Hands dangling from the armrests, he waited, smirking, like a king expecting tribute.
Gerald toed off his shoes. He held Arthur's gaze as he unbuckled his belt, then pushed his trousers and pants to the floor in a graceless mockery of a striptease. Arthur chuckled. Socks muffling his feet against the hardwood, Gerald sauntered forward to loom over his leader. He crouched between Arthur's knees, but Arthur seized his hair and pulled him up onto the chair while unfastening his own trousers with more finesse than Gerald would have managed.
Arthur pulled a bottle of cream from his pocket and squirted some onto his fingers, another glob for Gerald's palm. Gerald braced himself for the lick of cold lubricant against his ass, but flinched anyway as a broad finger eased inside him. Wrapping his own hand around Arthur's cock, he slathered on the lube as quickly as he could because, judging from the pace of that finger's twisting—both fingers twisting—Arthur was not in the mood for waiting.
Removing the fingers with a pop, Arthur used his dry hand to pull Gerald down for a kiss. Gerald held Arthur's shoulders and hovered over the head of Arthur's cock.
Gerald had asked, years ago, if they should use condoms. Arthur agreed to the precaution, if Gerald would prefer, but said also that he hadn't had sex since Livia fled over a dozen years previous. The self-imposed near-chastity made Black Arthur easier to manipulate, Gerald thought.
He sank slowly onto Arthur's cock, as much to tease as to avoid pain. Arthur permitted him scant moments to adjust the angle before hands against his ribs urged him upward again. He rose until he nearly slipped off, then plunged back down before Arthur could pull on him. The force of the fall made his head spin. He continued the deep, steady rhythm, ignored the demanding hands that slid from his ribs to his hips, reveled in the friction of Arthur's cock in his ass and his own cock rubbing in the folds of Arthur's shirt.
And then Arthur drew the knife, a black gleam in his white fingers. Gerald's pulse skipped forward with what might have been fear.
Might have been.
Wasn't.
It was a long blade, for a knife, certainly not legal to carry without a permit, straight as a pin and far sharper. Even with the constant rocking of Gerald's hips against his, Arthur held the knife steady to Gerald's neck, up under the chin where he might nick himself shaving.
Because Black Arthur was thoughtful like that.
Panting, Gerald ground down hard on Arthur's cock, and bucked against him as wildly as the confines of the armchair permitted.
Arthur curved up into Gerald, dropping the knife back to the arm of the chair. The hand on his hip wrenched him down. Gerald could feel his skin purpling under those brutal fingers. A few snarled syllables escaped from Arthur's throat, the same thing he growled every time, but Gerald still could not divine the meaning of the word. Two shuddering breaths later, Arthur melted back into the chair, relaxing his grip to stroke the red weals. "Good boy," he crooned, voice as easy as ever despite his heaving chest. "Very good boy."
Gerald smiled as if the condescending praise pleased him. Pulling up from Arthur's softening cock, he murmured, "My turn." He knew Arthur would not reciprocate unasked.
Arthur laughed and slid a heavy hand over his cock.
For all the lack of love, the touch was familiar in its deftness. The semen leaking from his ass provided all the lubrication Arthur needed, and his fingers traced sensuous runes onto every centimeter of flesh.
Gerald groaned and grated, "More," then whined a please to shift the command to a plea. Arthur must have complied because heat coiled deep in his belly, the coiling of wings before flight. He trembled on the precipice and could scarcely see the earth below—his other senses overwhelmed his body.
Then the knife bit his skin, the point creeping down from the hollow of his throat and over his collarbone and down his chest until it caught against the top shirt button. Blood welled up and spilled from the shallow cut, trickled hot and over his skin. More blood rushed in his ears. His joints burned and his spine arched and he crumbled into a sticky puddle on Arthur's chest.
Flecks of sweat dotting his freckled brow, Gerald pushed away from Arthur's smirk and slid to the floorboards. Trying to regulate his gasps only made oxygen that much harder to capture.
Arthur stood, the armchair sighing behind him. "You stained my shirt." He gestured to the semen glistening down his front, the handprints of lube on his shoulders.
Gerald wheezed a laugh and tugged at his bloody collar. "Eye for an eye, Arthur." Licking the red from his fingertips, he stood and stretched for his trousers.
When he finished redressing, Arthur had already neatened himself up and was twirling the knife. "I can't sheathe it with blood on," he explained, so Gerald took the slim handle.
Gauging the lazy lust in Arthur's eyes, he lifted the glossy blade to his lips and snaked his tongue carefully along the edge. He flipped it and offered the hilt back to Arthur.
"So bloodthirsty," Arthur said as he slid the blade back into his belt.
Gerald shoved his hair off his forehead and stumbled over to open the door. He could already feel the aches that would no doubt plague the next few days. "That is a terrible pun. So terrible that I'm leaving for bed now."
"You were out all night, weren't you?" Arthur remarked, voice oozing sympathy, as if he hadn't been the one to order Gerald out in the first place. He ambled to the door as well. "Get some rest. You'll want to have your wits about you later." He gave Gerald a paternal pat on the shoulder, then strode down the gloomy hall. A delicate chandelier of bone and aluminum clattered with the breeze of his passing.
Arthur's room was just a few doors away, but Gerald would have to ascend two flights of stairs with blood on his shirt and the reek of sex clinging to his skin. He hurried lest anyone else woke.