dragging Darien back upstairs. Or maybe to that convenient desk in the study. He pivoted toward the kitchen. “Food always makes things easier.”
Darien’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. “Wait.”
He paused but didn’t turn.
“It’s not just me, right? That feels something… right, when we do that?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s not just you.”
“Are we… Can we…”
He stood silent as Darien moved up closer behind him, then brushed a tiny kiss across the back of his neck.
He’s much braver than I am. Silas shivered. “I’ve never really been with someone. In the daylight, I mean. I’ve— There’ve been men, of course, in bars and hotels, no names, lights down low. You’re different.”
Darien plastered himself warm against Silas’s back, an arm across his chest. “I had a lover in college. My second year. Only lasted a few months, but I liked being important to someone.”
You’re essential to me. It was far too soon to say that. He turned in Darien’s arms. Remember that no matter how he looks now, he’s still very young. And wounded. He touched Darien’s cheek, where the dark circles hadn’t faded from under his eyes. “You are important. And now we’d better get some food into you, and get that cat his bacon.”
Darien kept hold of Silas’s arm as they headed for the kitchen. “You need to eat too. You look like crap.”
“You’re too kind.”
“That’s what you’ll keep me around for. My kindness.”
I think I would keep you around for a thousand reasons. He pressed a quick kiss to Darien’s temple, and made a beeline for the refrigerator where Grim stood switching his tail impatiently.
Chapter 11
Darien was full of bacon and a dozy aftermath of fatigue when the bell of the telephone on the kitchen wall startled him. He whacked his knee on the table and swore.
Silas jumped up to answer it, fighting the twisted cord as he held the handset to his ear. “Thornwood… Yes, sir… Seven o’clock. Has someone gone to check Crosby’s— I understand… Yes, sir. We’ll be there.” He hung up with a rough thump of the handset in the cradle, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That was the Guild council.”
“Sorcerers use the telephone?”
“What did you expect?”
“Telepathy? Glowing runes? A note tied to the leg of a bat?”
That got a little smile. “Technology’s useful, in its own way. And doesn’t take power.”
“Well, electricity.” But he abandoned the subject. “What was that about Crosby?”
Silas sat back down across from Darien. “The odds are very high that Crosby invited the demon on purpose, gave it assistance to cross to this world. That means he was practicing dangerous magic.”
“He wanted to be possessed?” The man had seemed twisted, but that was truly insane.
“Oh, no. He would’ve assumed he could control the demon. Keep it imprisoned and give it little bits of rewards in exchange for its help. But the kind of man who thinks he can safely master a demon usually has weaknesses the demon can exploit. And the kind of rewards you have to give a demon taint the soul, so gradually they start to win.”
“Wouldn’t he just get rid of it— banish it or whatever— if he thought he was losing control?”
“Unless the practitioner’s a necromancer, they can’t open the world gates without the demon’s help. Once they’ve invited it across, they have to contain it forever. Demons are patient and devious, and eventually the sorcerer slips. Or the demon tempts them into giving it more freedom.”
“So you think the demon offered him what? Eternal youth? Power?”
“Not eternal, but youth, yes.” Silas pressed a fist to his lips for a moment, then said, “Crosby was three decades older than me.”
“He what?” No way that man had been in his sixties. “The demon did that for him?” Could a demon take away my extra years? He gave his thigh a hard pinch for even letting the thought escape. “Ouch.” Don’t be an idiot. Jesus fucking Christ, like ghosts weren’t enough.
Silas gave him a quizzical look. “I imagine so. It might’ve been an illusion.”
See. You almost considered trading your soul for an illusion.
“Or it could’ve been some kind of regeneration. But odds are it was outward only. The demon couldn’t turn back time, just make a sixty-year-old man look thirty.”
“Or twenty-four.” Oops. “Not that I cared. But I thought he was trapped because he was young and stupid.” Like me.
“No. Old and greedy. Egotistical.” Silas pushed his chair back, crossed his legs, and laced his fingers around his raised knee. There was something artificial about