An Embrace of Citrus & Snow (Fallen for a Fae #1)

4. Bo

Chapter four

Bo

Water taken straight from the river, all clinking ice and the chill of winter on his lips and fingers. Grass gone short, frost broken or summer cut, fresh and sharp and not, all at the same time, crunching under boots and soft against bare feet. Dark shadows and old wood, unpolished and damp, air heavy with dust on that first step inside, disturbed for the first time in years.

A torrent of emotions. His. Not his. His? Guilt and desperation mixed with a deep, protective need .

The man spoke so softly, apologetic and grave. Awareness of the words came slowly, Bo still half-lost in the sense of ice water and shadow.

Hair falling in artful fucking strands across a face that’d gone pallid when the man collapsed into Bo’s arms. He looked better now. Better even than he had when Bo first walked in. Naturally tan skin and sad gray eyes. Soft apologies given in a vaguely British accent.

Emotions slid over Bo’s skin, flitted through his mind, slick and alien. He knew, he knew, they came from the man with the mellow voice kneeling at his feet. The man had leaned away, left Bo aching to be closer again, to curl up and sleep away the exhaustion settling over him. To make it not hurt .

“Did fucking something, alright.” Bo swallowed hard, tasting river water and the abandoned spaces he so often found comfort in. He felt it, that oil sludge of shame creeping between them. It wasn’t his, the crushing weight of it. Shame and guilt, all of it trying to disappear into cold and arms-length distance.

It tasted of ice .

Bo didn’t wander into people’s homes randomly. He wasn’t the sort to step inside and gawk at baubles on tables. So why had he? There wasn’t a fucking precedent for this. Broken floorboards, he knew how to handle. The time with the drug den, well, he’d gotten away. Left with some big fucking scars, stumbling through woods blind, but at least it’d made fucking sense .

Shifting to the edge of the couch and reaching for the guy didn’t make sense. Yet there Bo was, pushing hair back from the stranger’s face. Bare, pale fingertips on rich, warm skin. Sharp angles and generous lips. Freckles and more freckles.

Real .

Alive and leaning into Bo’s touch with a shaking breath. Bo’s hand lingered, his palm on the guy’s cheek, fingers webbed in black. The other curved loose by his jaw, thumb tipped to feel the flutter of his pulse. He could feel it, the man’s own hunger for closeness, mirroring his own. That itch to not let the stranger get further away, not– It sounded weird, that way. It wasn’t that way , no matter the guy’s face. (No matter how Bo touched him, gentle along a freckled jaw.)

The fuck was this?

“Fuck just happened?” His mind felt full of moss and the sound of water on rocks, but he could manage asking that much. Could work out where that guilt came from, unpleasantly sticky on his skin if he tried.

“I allowed you to touch me,” the stranger answered, all level calm. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry,” he said while Bo’s senses sang with quiet places and calm waters. Bo could almost understand that, dimly through the gentle haze of crisp grass and safe shadows. The nameless guy let Bo touch him. Maybe if Bo were that guy, he’d be sorry about it, too.

The man reached up and caught Bo’s wrist, gently pulling his hand away. Bo shuddered, as contact turned to nothing at all. It fucking hurt, pins and needles. Not as bad as when he sat back entirely, but bad enough.

But the guy didn’t let go of Bo or tell him to pull his other hand away. Something fucking weird was going on, and never mind that low, soothing voice that shook far less than it had. Not just the possible weird-ass psychic things or fucked up house. Something else.

That guilt, the shame and other shit that wrapped tight around ‘grave disservice,’ and it felt fucking wrong . The only thing that didn’t was a thin cord of something not unlike relief threaded through it. And fuck him, Bo couldn’t look away .

(He could all but hear his aunt, with her, “I swear, Bo, you’re like a damned cat watching a bird. Don’t just stare and twitch your tail, waiting to pounce. Go knock something off the counter already before I spray you with water.” )

“What–” Bo started before shutting his mouth with a click. There were too many questions, and still the itch in his palms to touch. He might have jittered out of his skin if not for the soft flutter of the man’s pulse against his thumb.

“Don’t worry. That bit passes.” He still held Bo’s wrist, glove muffling the heat of his fingers. “I’m going to sit down. Then I’ll answer any questions you have.”

“Good, ’cause I have a lot of fucking questions.” Bo’s attention trailed to the fingers wrapped around his wrist, then to his own thumb still resting against the man’s pulse. “I go by Bo. What about you?”

The stranger hesitated, unmoving. Bo didn’t budge either because moving meant moving away . And fuck him if the placid look in the dude’s eyes didn’t throw Bo through a fucking loop, contrasting with the torrent of shame and guilt that wasn’t fucking Bo’s.

Talk about a goddamn mindfuck.

“I’m called Everil,” the man said, soft as snow. Almost as cool.

And maybe someone who didn’t have a ‘Goodfellow’ or ‘Cedardusk’ in their family might have had something to say about a first name like ‘Everil.’ Bo was not that person.

“Hi, Everil,” Bo said, just as quietly, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He ought to let the guy, let Everil stand up. Bo ran his thumb up from Everil’s pulse to the square cut of his jaw. “Let go and move back a little for me?”

Everil’s grip tightened on Bo’s wrist. A feeling of bristling thinned out the oil-slick guilt and concern, emotional hackles raised at the mention of releasing him. Nothing aggressive. Desperate.

There and stifled, Everil leaning into Bo’s touch with a reluctant, “As you wish.”

He shifted back, letting go of Bo with a single, pained inhale, then locking his fingers around his own wrist, like he was trying to keep from shifting back in or taking Bo’s again.

As he wished, and Bo’d been right, the distance was fucking terrible. No more crisp winter mornings. Only a need to reach out. To touch.

Bo took a moment to tug off his gloves and let them drop to the sofa. His fingers didn’t quite shake. Bo blamed the sudden heaviness of exhaustion. Or hunger, maybe. He’d only eaten a couple breakfast bars. It couldn’t be because he’d stopped touching Everil .

He still slid off the cushions and onto the floor, using his now free hands to make sure he didn’t fall straight on his ass. Breaking a tailbone sounded almost as bad as Everil’s fingers uncurling had been.

It’d gone from cool water and crisp air to skin tight with sunburn. Bo fucking hated being sunburnt.

And there they were.

Everil, sitting back on his heels. Bo, legs on either side of the other man, knees bent. He reached out, fucking awkward as it was, and felt the line of sunbaked tension ease when his fingers wrapped around Everil’s. The discomfort settled, if only just, Everil’s hand a solid presence under his.

“You said you’d answer my questions,” Bo said, still gentle. This wasn’t shit he’d heard about, empaths or whatever the emotion-projecting people tried to sell themselves as. The physical contact didn’t hit the way touch would if he were cruising, either.

Wasn’t about sex. Just need and the sharp way Everil’d breathed when he let go.

Bo’s other hand was back against the curve of Everil’s neck before he realized what he was doing. Again, fucking again, his thumb on the gentle beat of Everil’s heart. Bo should be ashamed of this fucked up grasping , touching the strange man and resisting the urge to drag him closer. Somehow, this was real, and Bo felt zero shame about it, even with the taste of it thick from–

“What the fuck kind of psychic are you?”

“Psychic? I’m afraid not. Or at least, not in the sense you mean.” Everil closed his eyes, voice remaining level even as fresh guilt ran, slick as oil, over Bo’s skin. Fucking waves of it. Guilt and shame, powerful and powerless, and still that thin ‘ thank fuck ’ echoed through it all, lingering. “This isn’t me playing with your mind or some such cruelty.”

Bo didn’t flinch. He’d spent a long time learning not to flinch. Everil’s words didn’t even hurt so much as they surprised. Hearing a stranger who, from all fucking evidence, didn’t know him still call it cruelty.

“It’s an affinity bond,” continued Everil, quiet. “Complimentary energies. They’re not usually so unexpected or,” he opened his eyes again, studying Bo’s hand on his, still leaning into the slow trace of Bo’s thumb up and down the length of his neck, “intense.”

“Gotcha,” Bo murmured, looking down at their hands himself. “Right. Energy bonds.”

“It’s my fault,” Everil admitted, like he fucking meant it. Bo almost believed him. “I’m afraid I’m rather damaged. And you arrived with unfortunate timing. ”

Yeah, Bo could almost believe him.

Not quite, but nearly with the complimentary energies bullshit. The damaged part, though? Bo didn’t fucking doubt. He laughed, quick and unpolished, then leaned in more. Because no matter what the fuck it was, ‘intense’ was on that list. And he couldn’t quite help it. The leaning in until his forehead was pressed against Everil’s hair.

“I hate to break it to you, but we’re all fucking damaged. Even if you’re into woo-woo New Age twin flame bullshit.” Bo slid his hand further back on Everil’s neck, skin to skin, fingers splayed. “Good timing is only for movies.”

“Or fairytales.” Everil’s laughter was quietly bitter, tattered velvet. Fucker did have a sense of humor in there.

Bo’s fingertips pressed under the collar of Everil’s light sweater, slow and studious, while he breathed in the air of a house made safe by time. Everil swallowed hard, his hand tightening on Bo’s wrist.

“What are you, then? If not some psychic who got wrapped up in quartz and whatever else people who believe in mirror souls get wrapped up in, or one more conman with a mindfuck?”

“Affinity,” Everil corrected carefully. “Only that. I’m making no claims of being your mirror.”

Fucking hell, he did believe in mirror souls.

“As to what, that requires a longer answer. Could we sit properly, perhaps? I don’t generally entertain my guests on the floor.” That need, again, reverberating separately from the mess of other emotions. It felt like every time Bo had wanted comfort from the scary things of the world when he’d been young, knowing that the scary things were his to handle, trying to be brave. “It’s rude, and the house is bound to get irritated.”

They should sit like normal people. Fucking weird, down on the floor, his hand under the guy’s shirt, the other covering both of Everil’s. Shouldn’t be on the verge of clinging like a limpet at Everil’s talk of getting up.

Bo hesitated, lips parted in a protest or agreement that never came. Just, “It will?”

“I’ll stay close.” Softer, when Everil spoke again. Nearly whispering, and it was hard to say which of them he was trying to reassure. “You needn’t let go.”

But he did. Bo slid his hand further down Everil’s back, touching as much of him as he could, and they needed to get up. To not tuck in closer, even if he wanted to. Wanted it more with each passing second, matched with the tug from Everil that said Bo wasn’t alone in that .

“We need to let go for a minute.” Bo matched whisper for whisper, curled closer to say it against Everil’s ear. Wasn’t normal, his hands tightening, pressing down at the thought. Not normal, and he knew that, but he couldn’t find it in him to fucking care . “Just to stand, so the house doesn’t sic raccoons on us. Just a little. Staying close.”

Just a little, staying close, but his hand slid out from under Everil’s sweater, fingers dragging, needy, over his skin. And away.

Everil reached out, reached for Bo, and Bo felt an ice-sharp cut of some new emotion, there and gone again. Everil didn’t touch him. His hand found the table instead, and he pushed himself to his feet.

Panic. Everil regarded him with measured calm, but Bo was certain of it. That icy feeling had been panic.

“I wouldn’t worry over much about the raccoons,” Everil said, reaching down to actually grab Bo’s hand this time. “But the lights tend to flicker when it’s moody.”

Tightening his grip on Bo’s hand, Everil pulled him effortlessly to his feet. Bo wasn’t a big guy. That didn’t mean he was a frail thing, made of air and hollow bones. Usually, getting helped to his feet meant a little work on his part. But Everil, fresh from nearly fainting, took his weight without so much as a tensed muscle.

He’d think about it later when he stopped having the too-tight feeling everywhere Everil wasn’t.

“Your house having a personality have anything to do with why you’re hedging around telling me about what the fuck is going on?” He’d put fucking money on it, for all that houses didn’t actually do that shit. Woo-woo, New Age twin flame bullshit (and fuck him, Bo didn’t even care). He sat on the sofa and tugged once at Everil’s hand. “Or how. Why. What the fuck ever.”

Tell me why I want to wrap around you and never let go. Tell me what the fuck is in the air. Why things are fucking weird. How you made the box do the thing. Tell me the truth.

“I’m not hedging,” Everil objected, letting Bo pull him down on the sofa. He settled close, arm pressed against Bo’s. He didn’t pull away, either, kept Bo’s hand in his as promised. “It isn’t a simple thing to explain. But I can show you.”

“Yeah? Then show me.”

“Think of your favorite drink, please. Be as specific as you can. And in a cup, if it’s all the same.” Everil tugged lightly at Bo’s hand, holding it out between them.

“Alright.” Humoring Everil wouldn’t be the worst thing he’d ever done.

Bo conjured a picture in his head as requested and kept his fucking eyes open while he did. Putting his imagination to use was something Bo always did well, and this came with tastes.

Dark chocolate hot enough to burn the tongue, perfect for when it was fucking freezing, with caramel and sea salt. Bitter and sweet and rich with the cut of the salt, the sort you needed in a thick-bottomed mug to keep from burning your hands.

Bo tasted water fresh from an iced-over pond, instead. The brush of grass and whisper of new air in empty halls at his neck, in his veins, singing clear and bright, and, as if it’d been there all along, a ceramic mug sat steaming on the table. Wide and thick at the bottom, with a frothy deep brown cap of hot chocolate and half-melted marshmallows.

Everil’s hand was in his, and Bo’s drink was there, on the table.

“There. That is an affinity bond. Complimentary energies. Two magics, working as one.”

The world faded to a murmur, nothing more than a backdrop for Everil’s smooth, soothing voice, no longer shaking, and Bo’s heartbeat in his ears. Cool droplets and winter-shorn lawns and safe houses, Everil’s pleasure clear through their hands, through their– Through this , feeling natural and good and fucking wrong.

Funny, how he’d thought he’d never feel the world fall apart again. He’d made it nearly twenty years since the first time in his parent’s attic, seeing the supplies they used to twist him into believing in shit that didn’t exist laid out, to use him and sell his belief for profit.

Bo’d forgotten how quiet it felt.

“Tell me what you are, Everil. Fucking say it .” His voice came from very far off, low and clipped and fierce. Angry. Bo didn’t feel angry. Anger didn’t crush his throat or make his hand squeeze, desperate hard, at a stranger’s as an anchor, because otherwise he might float away. He’d not be concerned about Everil’s feelings if he were angry. Everil, who had felt real . Real as the fucking mug on the fucking table Bo couldn’t look the fuck away from. “I will leave right now if you don’t. I fucking swear I will.”

“What answer do you wish?” he asked quietly, unflinching under Bo’s clinging hold. And, fuck, the concern twisting through the– Their– Fuck .

“The truth .” That’s all the answer he ever fucking wanted.

“For the last hundred years, the locals have said I was a ghost,” Everil said after a moment. “For a time, there was a story that I was a dullahan. Your people have called mine the gentry, the good neighbors, the yaksha, the mogwai. Spirits. Fae.”

Fae.

They’d always been his favorite. Ever changing and dangerous and kind depending on their moods and your actions. He’d known to the fucking marrow when he was small, with so many similar tales throughout the world. Things left for him. Bread eaten and tidy circles of mushrooms in a clearing and the whispers of the wind at night.

His parents had lied to him. Twisted things. Used him. But it existed anyway.

Everil was one. Shame twisted with that earlier worry, both eradicating the temporary pleasure. Just shame on top of itself, multiplied. Because of–

Fuck. Bo was a goddamn idiot.

If he could feel Everil, if they both felt that needing pull, Everil could fucking feel his emotions too.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Bo snapped, even as he threaded his fingers between Everil’s. He could feel it, that shame again, how it slid back into place over the caution and happiness of before. He better not fucking dare , and Bo could breathe, even if each breath shook and broke around his words. “I told you. We’re all fucking damaged. You don’t get to take the blame for mine. And you–”

Bo rubbed his face with his free hand, leaned down as he broke off, propping his elbow on his knee. And he kept going, thinking out loud because if he tried to keep it in, he’d scream. “The horse. The fucking horse. You’re an each-ui– No, shit, a big black be fucked stallion by the stream. Kelpie. A fucking kelpie .”

“Yes.” Still soft and quiet, a gentle winter murmur. “A kelpie.” He lifted his gaze from their hands, looked at Bo directly. “You may go if you wish. But there is more at play here than just my nature. If you’ll allow me, I intend to redress my trespasses.”

Despite seeing a mug of salted caramel hot chocolate materialize like some late nineties magic in the street show, Bo half expected Everil to deny it. “No, of course, I can’t be a kelpie,” or “Why the fuck would I let myself be seen in horse form if I were a kelpie,” or maybe “Ha! You fell for it? Idiot. I watch your channel all the time.” Something like that. It’d make more sense than the quiet agreement.

“Fuck leaving,” Bo muttered the words into his hand before finally looking up at Everil. “ Redress my trespasses .” Fucking hell.

Bo leaned over enough to grab the mug of hot chocolate. He took a drink before shifting back toward Everil, curling in closer. Shoes on the furniture would be rude, but he could do his fucking best.

“I’m not agreeing to think about allowing shit until you tell me what’s going on, the conditions, and what’ll happen. No promises I’ll say ‘yes, go for it’ even after hearing you out, either.” Because this was fine, with sugar sweetness on his tongue and the familiarity of damp wood and new things to learn around him. Everil warm and solid and real, confused and not repulsed by Bo and everything that went with that. “But I’m listening.”

Listening, because what the fuck else could he do?