The Stars Over Bittergate Bay

Chapter 26

26

T he head butler at Elmmond House, Verne, had been employed there for longer than Jonas had owned the property. He was supposedly a human, though Jonas was almost certain that someone somewhere along the line had either gifted him a preternaturally long life or he had dealt for it. Verne was a small man with salt and pepper hair and a straight line for a mouth that never betrayed a single errant thought. He was a consummate professional, and Jonas was very intimidated by him.

Jonas stood at the servant’s entrance to the kitchen, down a narrow ramp on the northeast side of the house where they took deliveries. Sidney had gone back to the cottage at Jonas’s insistence, so Jonas stood there alone, facing Verne’s judgment.

“Thank you, sir,” Verne said, as he looked down at the wood-filled wagon beside Jonas. His expression was entirely impassive, and his voice didn’t betray a single emotion. Jonas felt judged anyway.

Jonas wasn’t the sort of employer Verne was used to. A disgraced duke who lived in an outbuilding on the property and didn’t even come to his own parties? Who insisted on doing his own groundskeeping? Who gave blow jobs in the woods behind the house? He was a disaster. Normally, that didn’t matter to Jonas. But sometimes he felt like maybe he should be doing something else. Playing his part better. Trying to impress.

Of course, Sidney hadn’t been impressed by who Jonas had been. He didn’t know Duke Rookwood to be impressed by him, and Sidney liked Jonas as he was. Which, excepting that he wasn’t human, was a truer version of himself than he’d ever been before.

To people who had known Jonas as Duke Rookwood, he was diminished. To people who hadn’t, he’d tried to become as standoffish and strange as possible. Keeping everyone away had been his primary goal, but it hadn’t worked on Sidney. And now that Jonas had decided he did want Sidney around, he was at a loss for how to keep him interested.

Jonas didn’t know much about romance. By all accounts, every attempt he’d ever made at it had ended poorly. But he thought he understood what Sidney wanted. And there was only one avenue for navigating that at the moment.

“Is Asterion in?” Jonas asked. Verne stepped aside immediately at the barest indication that Jonas would be coming into the house. Jonas did come into the house, inhaling the warm air of the kitchen, trying to pick out what was for dinner amongst all the delicious scents.

“His majesty’s entourage and personal effects have arrived,” Verne said, holding his hand out for Jonas’s coat. It took Jonas a moment to realize that’s what he was doing, but the two-hundred years of aristocratic training won out in the end. Jonas handed his coat to Verne. “I believe his majesty is due later this evening. But we’ve put him in the gold suite, per your standing request.” It had been a grand joke for nearly a quarter of a century. Asterion swore gold clashed with his hair.

“Thank you,” Jonas said. “I just need to leave him a message.”

“I’d be happy to take something up for you, sir.”

“No, that’s quite alright.” Jonas moved to step off the mat, and then remembered to wipe his boots off first. “I’ll see to it myself.”

“As you wish.” Verne nodded, with no indication that this was highly irregular. Jonas was going to have to give him a raise.

Jonas had arrived before most of the guests, and as such, he encountered no one in the halls and stairways leading up to Asterion’s suite. He could hear people. There were murmurs, quiet movement behind closed doors. But he saw no one, thank the Gods.

The halls were as pristine as ever before the grand event. Everything had been polished and even the dark wood of the walls shone. The plush carpet muffled the heavy step of his boots as he made his way to the east wing of rooms.

The gold suite was so called because of the extreme, almost tasteless, amount of gilding on every fixture and piece of furniture in the room. Jonas had never had an eye for aesthetics, and when he’d bought the house it had almost seemed like sacrilege to make any changes. He winced at the high shine on everything from the drapes to the carpets. If he was ever going to move back in, he would have to redecorate.

“Ellery?” he called. No response. He’d never known what she got up to when Asterion wasn’t around to need her minding. She was organized and clever enough to overthrow realm governments, and Jonas thought they were all very lucky that she chose court machinations and colluding with Asterion instead.

“Ellery?” Jonas called again, making his way to Asterion’s bedroom. The door was ajar, but he tapped on it anyway. With Asterion, one could never be too sure.

The room was empty and had slightly more muted gold tones mixed in with amber and dark wood. Overall, it gave the impression of falling asleep inside a caramel chocolate bar. Two large navy trunks sat in the corner. The first was locked, which was deeply unfortunate. Jonas bit his lip as he frowned down at the latch.

Asterion wasn’t here and Jonas needed to get into his trunk. He didn’t want to have to share with anyone why he needed to get into Asterion’s trunk, but he needed to get into it all the same. He pursed his lips and tried to decide what would be more humiliating: pulling rank to get someone to unlock the trunk for him or having to ask Asterion or Ellery for help. Not getting in at all wasn’t an option, with Sidney on the line.

On a whim, Jonas tried the lid of the second trunk and found it unlocked. It had mostly been unpacked, which gave Jonas another avenue for searching the room. The black leather pouch he’d been wanting was safely tucked away where he should have begun his search: in the drawer of the bedside table.

Jonas was alone, but he still found himself blushing as he shuffled through Asterion’s bag of sex tricks. They’d lived together for a few years, and had been in bed together a few times on either side of that, but there were plenty of things in the bag that Jonas didn’t recognize and didn’t want to know the use for. He was going to have to wash his hands and, if possible, some parts of his brain, but none of that mattered if it meant being able to please Sidney.

Sidney wanted Jonas. Jonas wanted Sidney, and Jonas didn’t want to explain why it would be dangerous for Sidney to hop into bed with him because, well, because there was only so much one person could take, wasn’t there? Surely Sidney was nearly at his upper limit by now. And Sidney liked Jonas as he was. Why ruin that?

Alchemically-laced prophylactics were hard to come by. Demand was traditionally quite low and they were complicated to make. Most creatures with magic wanted to mark their partners. That was half the point of sexual congress with humans anyway, and anything else, like pregnancy and most diseases, could be prevented using normal human contraception. Magic, though it was tied to bodily fluids on some level, followed intent. Wanting someone the way Jonas wanted Sidney was risky, even though he wasn’t anywhere as powerful as he used to be.

Still, Jonas knew two things about Asterion, and one was that he really enjoyed sex, and the other was that he didn’t always enjoy being marked by partners. If anyone was going to have what Jonas was looking for, it was him, and there, near the bottom of the bag, was a small black tin with copper lettering. Exactly what he’d been looking for.

Jonas tugged it out, and flipped it open. There were five. He could likely take two, deposit them in a tin of his own, and then bring this one back. It wasn’t as though Jonas wasn’t going to tell Asterion he’d taken them, he just also didn’t want to have to ask. Not because they’d been lovers, but because they were friends, and Asterion had spent years telling Jonas to get back out into the world, and he was going to be insufferable when he found out Jonas had done exactly that.

A knock on the doorframe froze Jonas in his tracks. He looked up, trying to pretend like he absolutely belonged where he was. His house. His ex-boyfriend’s room. Desdemona Briarthorne blinked at him, her mauve eyes wide in surprise. A single white fang pressed into the plush coral skin of her bottom lip. Shit.

She was a confectionary creature. Her skin was bright pink and dusted in white freckles, like only her nose had been out in a snow flurry. Her hair was a shade of pink so light that it could have been mistaken for spun sugar, if not for the iridescent ivory of the horns that curled away from the crown of her head. A robin’s egg bodice set of several inches of lightly glittered cleavage, as she leaned heavily on the doorway, peering in at him like he was a strange animal in a cage.

“You’re the absolute, very last person I thought I’d see here,” she mused. Her eyes dropped to the bag in his hand and her smile widened, teeth bared like a shark smelling blood in the water. “Well, maybe not the very last person. What the fuck are you wearing?”

It took Jonas a moment to realize she was talking about his glamour. To remember he was wearing one. He tried to ignore the heat crawling up the back of his neck.

“It’s good to see you too, cousin.” Jonas kept his voice carefully measured. Desdemona scoffed.

“Drop the glamour, Jonas. I can’t take you seriously while you’re playing dress-up.” Jonas swallowed. Desdemona required delicacy in all situations because she was a horrible combination of spoiled and capricious. One wrong move, and she’d have a field day. And even if he said everything right, there wasn’t a single doubt that she’d be telling everyone she saw in the next twenty-four hours that she’d seen Jonas in Asterion’s bedroom, rifling through his ‘intimate’ items. Fuck.

Jonas dropped his glamour and straightened his shoulders.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her before she could ask him. She arched an eyebrow and provided the obvious answer.

“Looking for Asterion, of course.”

“Why?” He knew it made him sound like a jealous lover and he didn’t care. It wasn’t jealousy. He’d long ago stopped caring who Asterion bedded, except when it was unsafe for Asterion to do so. And Desdemona was certainly not to be trifled with when it came to matters of the heart.

“Goodness.” Desdemona batted her lashes and covered her mouth with her fingertips in a mock gasp. “I didn’t realize you two were still involved.”

“We’re not. I’m just borrowing something.”

“Well, I can see that.” Desdemona stepped forward into the door frame, leaning her hip against the gilded wood. She stared at him like she was trying to see inside of him. Perhaps she was. Jonas stiffened.

“Asterion’s not here yet. If you’re looking for him, you’ll have to come back later.”

“Which just leads me to wonder why you’re in here, borrowing something from that bag in particular, if he’s not even here yet.” Desdemona wrinkled her nose, as though Jonas was doing something distasteful. He pursed his lip and slid the condom tin from his palm into his pocket as discreetly as he could.

“Are you traveling this Ascension?” he asked. Desdemona snorted.

“Good lord, Jonas. You’re truly terrible at this! Sneaking around and being subtle are not your strong suits. No wonder you stay holed up in that little cottage all the time.” She was right. Jonas grit his teeth, and Desdemona laughed. “Not that you actually care, but yes. I’m going back to Halmorn.”

“Halmorn?” The capital of the fae realm. Not what he’d expected from the demon baroness. Unless she’d been compelled to give up her title too.

“I’ve got a new apartment in the city. Come through and visit sometime. You’ve got enough magic left for that, surely?” He didn’t. And even if he had, he wouldn’t have wasted it on a trip to see Desdemona. Still, his silence seemed to speak for him. For the first time, the smile dropped off Desdemona’s face and she shook her head. “Ruthless,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing, dearheart.” Her smile was back, horribly apologetic. It made his stomach sink.

Jonas’s loss of magic had been a scandal in demonic circles. It was a circumstance entirely of his own making, of course, so there was little sympathy to spare for him. But it was strange how, even now, his shame lingered. The way it felt to have everyone know what a fool he’d been. And that they still knew it. He’d become a cautionary tale to people he’d once thought of as friends, and it stung.

Jonas closed Asterion’s bag and put it away. When he turned back toward the door, Desdemona had straightened up, and in doing so, lost some of her softness. For a moment, she looked stiff.

“Give my congratulations to Karolina, won’t you? I was so sorry I couldn’t make it to the wedding.”

“Of course,” Jonas nodded. The formality which he’d hated for so long was now a relief to him. Polite conversation was fully navigable. She stepped out of the doorway, and somehow it was enough of an opening that Jonas knew he was being freed. She’d taken pity on him. He didn’t like it, and he wasn’t sure why it was happening, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He’d made it halfway across the suite before Desdemona spoke again.

“It was good to see you, Jonas.” Jonas made a noise that sounded affirmative, and left quickly down the servant’s stairs, before he could encounter anyone else.

He shouldered into his coat as he walked back toward the cottage. The ruffle of his hair catching the wind and settling on either side of his horns was the thing that made him realize he still had his glamour off. His cheeks heated immediately, as his glance darted to the cottage up ahead, as though Sidney was going to be standing with his nose pressed to the window, eyes wide and jaw hanging in shock.

Jonas ducked his head and yanked the magic back up over his shoulders like a cloak. The thought of Sidney made him feel nauseous. So did the thought of Desdemona, Elmmond House. All of it. What was he even trying to do anymore? Wanting Sidney was stupid. He could tamp down his own longing; he’d been doing that for years. And if Sidney just wanted him for sex, then what was the problem, really? Jonas could do that without having gone shuffling through Asterion’s things. Exposing himself to ridicule and age-old hurts. That had been supremely foolish.

Except, it wasn’t just that he wanted Sidney in his bed. They got along so well. It was another stupid thing to think. Self-indulgent. He likely could have gotten along with plenty of people if he didn’t stay locked up in his house all the time. But Sidney liked him even though he did stay locked in his house all the time. And he was so clever and handsome and nice to talk to. And Jonas had nothing to offer him for all of that. Not even sex, which was why he had gone into Elmmond House. Because even if he couldn’t give Sidney anything his real self, at least they could do that.

Jonas skirted the edge of the cottage and stomped down into the garden. The breeze off the bay was growing stronger, and the goldenrod was practically bowing in the wind. Goldenrod he’d planted for Edmund Morrow. Edmund had wanted marigolds, but they didn’t do well so far north. Jonas had tried anyway. But it hadn’t been enough.

His eyes were stinging, suddenly, hot tears collecting just beneath his eyelids. He blinked them away and walked up to the garden shed to get his trowel.