“Well, the bite would have severed the bond,” said Dove.

  “No,” said both Slate and Odion at once.

  Dove tilted her head to one side. “Well, all right, then.”

  “Our bond, it’s complicated,” said Odion.

  “All three of you?” said Dove. “But that’s not even… is that possible? How?”

  “We don’t know,” said Slate.

  “You can’t be bonded, you’re an ice monster,” said Dove.

  “Member of the Family, please,” said Odion. He groaned. “Look, you can’t take her. She’s ill, and she can’t travel, definitely not by dragon back. Not to mention, trying to get her out of here, it’s too dangerous. No, the best thing for me to do is to play it off like I’ve taken her into my quarters and she and I are having a reunion of sorts. I can keep that up for some time, I think. The colonel won’t suspect anything.”

  “So, you’re going to pretend you and Banyan are having a fuckfest,” said Slate, “and all the while, she’s still here, going through this fever?”

  “Yes,” said Odion.

  “To what end?” said Slate.

  “It buys us some time to figure out our next move,” said Odion.

  “Our next move?” said Slate. “We’re not on the same side.”

  “Against Rabi? We are,” said Odion. “When it comes to Banyan?” He smoothed out one of his white eyebrows. “We are.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Slate. “I need to see her.”

  Odion looked him over. “You. We’ll wrap you in a blanket and cover your face and you let me kiss you right outside my quarters and make sure people see it, and I’ll tell everyone that was Banyan.”

  “I’ve got fifty pounds on Banyan,” said Slate. “And I’m taller, and a man—”

  “It’ll work,” said Odion.

  “I’m not getting anywhere near your teeth,” said Slate. “Besides, then what’s going on with me? I’m just sitting around in your quarters? I want to be with Banyan.”

  “Well, I’m not telling either of you where she is,” said Dove. “It’s not safe. I can’t. If you’re going to stay in the school, Slate, you’re not going to be safe unless you’re hidden. If Odion wants to hide you…”

  “Odion wants to bite me,” said Slate.

  “I don’t,” said Odion, looking him over.

  “You just tried yesterday.”

  “Yes, but now I know about the parasite and the cure and now I’ve had to think about Banyan turning and have an emotional reaction to that, and—” Odion spread his hands. “Everything’s different.”

  “Nothing’s different,” said Slate. “No.”

  “Slate,” said Odion. “Come on.”

  “No,” said Slate. “Glider. No.”

  ODION HAD FABRIC over his mouth because it was the only way that Slate would agree to being kissed. Odion didn’t mind making this concession. It didn’t matter, and they both knew it. It would be nothing for Odion’s sharp teeth to cut through the fabric. But when Odion had offered it as a compromise, something in Slate seemed to have crumbled.

  Slate wanted him, after all.

  Odion wanted the other man too.

  He still wanted to bite him, but he wouldn’t. All of that was very, very confusing. He didn’t know what to think about it. He needed time to sit down and gather his thoughts, turn them this way and that, and make sense of it all. If such a thing was possible, which he wasn’t sure it was.

  All the time that he walked down the hallway with Slate, hunched into a blanket, with Odion’s arm around him, so as to appear small, his bulk disguised in the blanket, Odion wondered why he’d said that thing to Dove.

  I want it.

  The cure?

  He wanted the cure?

  How could he want that?

  It was only that—for some time now—some aspect of the Family had begun to chafe. It wasn’t entirely noticeable, but it was there, just under the surface, a little bit uncomfortable. And the more he remembered elements of before, even painful elements, the more some part of him longed for that independence.

  Even the longing was pain, but he cherished it.

  His own individual pain? It seemed precious now, the real gift, not the strange gift of the Family, which made him blank and cold and lost to the service of some other organism’s desire.

  Maybe that was it, really.

  If it was a parasite, not some great and wondrous gift, then he was just being used.

  It made him angry.

  This thing had gotten into his brain and tricked him. He didn’t like that feeling at all.

  Now, just outside his quarters, Odion slammed Slate into the wall, where Slate crouched, swathed in the blanket, and Odion pulled fabric over his mouth before bringing his face to Slate’s.

  Then—for the first time in a long time—his mouth touched another person’s skin.

  Through fabric, it was true, but Slate’s skin was so very, very warm, and it felt like being scalded with the brightness of sheer passion. A whine leaked out of his lips. He kissed Slate like he wanted to devour him.

  Then, he thrust Slate inside the room and turned to look at the two guards down the hallway. Predictably, they’d been looking away, embarrassed by the passionate display.

  “Tell Rabi, if he asks, that Banyan and I are busy,” he shouted at them. Then he slammed the door.

  Slate was inside, looking around the room, which was a series of rooms, ones that had once belonged to a high-ranking member of the Quorum. It had a sitting room and two bedrooms and a room with a built-in bath. It was luxurious by Academy standards. Slate looked around, touching his face, touching his lips.

  “I should have just told her to give me the serum,” Odion said aloud. “Then you would have trusted me.”

  Slate trailed fingers over the back of one of the couches in the sitting room. “I don’t understand what she was saying about the serum exactly.”

  “I want you to trust me,” said Odion. “I want you back. It kills me to think you don’t… that you’d… you’ve tried to kill me, Slate.”

  “Well, you’ve tried to bite me,” said Slate. “And that’s killing me, and you played dirty. You tried to trick me into it while my cock was hard.”

  “Well, it’s not killing you, actually.”

  “I think it is!”

  “It’s…” Odion trailed off, folding his arms over his chest. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. He hated that. He’d been so sure at the beginning, right after he’d gotten the gift. “All right, I’m sorry.”

  Slate scoffed. “Well, then. All is forgiven,” he said sarcastically.

  Odion wandered over and sat down in one of the chairs. “I want to kiss you again.”

  Slate looked at the ceiling in disbelief, spreading his hands. “You’re unbelievable.”

  “You don’t want to kiss me?”

  Slate lowered his gaze, finding Odion’s. They both simply stared at each other.

  Time slowed and there was nothing but the two of them, and Odion remembered too many other moments with this man, the way he’d felt when he was first in heat, and the way Slate had been steadying and caring and yet firm. The way it had felt to have Slate take pleasure in Odion’s body for the first time, being a receptacle of another person’s pleasure, how heady a thing that was…

  Slate broke the gaze. “No,” he said softly. “I can’t kiss you.” He sat down in a chair opposite Odion.

  “I don’t know what you think is going to happen,” said Odion.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I’m not going to bite you.”

  Slate laughed again.

  “Look, if I want to bite you, you’re not safe here, anyway. I’ll get you when you’re sleeping or when your guard is down or I’ll just force it on you. We both know, if it comes down to a fight between us, I will win.”

  Slate glared at him. “We do not know that.”

  Odion threw his legs over the arm of his chair and lounged there, grinning insouciantly at his lover. “We know that.”

  “I’m not letting you—”

  “We’re stuck here together, anyway, until Dove comes to give us news,” said Odion.

  After all, this was the plan. Dove would not tell them anything about Banyan, but she promised to come by Odion’s room and tell them when Banyan’s fever had eradicated her change. She said this might take some time, so they were just to wait there.

  In the meantime, she’d be in a position to know if Colonel Rabi was believing the idea that Odion and Banyan were in Odion’s chambers together. He would find out she wasn’t in the cold room soon enough, of course, and whether Slate had looked enough like a swathed and newly turned Banyan to be convincing remained to be seen.

  “I’m not letting you kiss me.”

  “All right, well, then, let’s fuck,” said Odion.

  Slate groaned. “You’re insane, and you know that you are.”

  Odion shrugged. “I know. I’ll force you.”

  “You’ll force me?” said Slate. “I thought you were pretending not to be the villain.”

  “Well, say ‘glider’ if you don’t like it and I’ll stop,” said Odion.

  “Glider,” said Slate.

  Odion grimaced. “Oh, come on, you haven’t even heard the idea.”

  Slate scooted down in the chair. “You’re the one who likes being forced, Odion.”

  “Everyone likes being forced,” Odion countered.

  “No, they do not,” said Slate. “And I definitely don’t. Just… aren’t there books or something in here? Let’s read.” He considered. “Or cards. Could we play cards?”

  Odion regarded the other man. “You’re serious.”

  “As the Great God Tan is my witness.”

  “Fuck,” muttered Odion. It was going to be a very long day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THERE WAS A knock on Odion’s door and Slate perked up from where he was sitting in his chair. Was it Dove? They’d been waiting for her to arrive for what seemed like years at this point.

  He’d tried to read the few books in the room, though they were dry and boring and about nautical direction, both of them.

  He and Odion had played a thousand hands of cards—well, it couldn’t have been that many, but so many that he’d lost count, anyway.

  Odion got up and started over for the door.

  But before he could get there, the door burst open and in came Colonel Rabi.

  Slate stiffened.

  Odion put a hand on the colonel’s chest and pushed him back out of the room.

  “I knocked, didn’t I?” snarled the colonel, his voice fading as he disappeared from view.

  Odion slammed the door, shutting both of them outside.

  Slate sat there, heart pounding in his chest, unable to breathe without sucking in sharp breaths. What had just happened? Had the colonel seen him sitting here?

  From outside the door came the sound of muffled conversation. It sounded heated.

  Slate strained to make out the words, but the walls and doors were thick here in the Academy, and it wasn’t clear.

  Abruptly, Odion came back into the room alone, shutting the door behind him. He came for Slate. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he breathed. “You have to trust me.”

  Slate’s eyes widened. “But I don’t trust you.”

  Odion gestured with his head. “Hands behind your back.”

  “What?” said Slate.

  “He saw you, and I had to think of something, so…” Odion raised his white eyebrows.

  Slate hesitated and then he was up, turning, hands behind his back. What choice did he have at this point? He didn’t trust Odion, but they’d been in here for a really long time, and if Odion was going to bite him, he’d had chances. Maybe there was some sliver of the man he’d loved in there somewhere. He was going to have to hope it was true.

  Odion secured Slate’s hands with twine, not too tight. Then he hauled Slate out into the hallway. He thrust Slate at the colonel. “There he is, see?”

  “He wasn’t tied up before,” said the colonel.

  “Yes, he was,” said Odion. “I’m playing games with him, that’s all. I’m getting around to biting him, but I’m not there yet.”

  The colonel folded his arms over his chest. “No one saw you bring him into your room.”

  “Well, he was brought here when someone found him trying to rescue Banyan,” said Odion. “Isn’t that right, Slate?”

  “Fuck you,” said Slate, unsure of how he was supposed to be playing this.

  “Now, now,” said Odion, pulling Slate back and licking him just under his ear lobe, making Slate shiver. “I know you don’t think you want a bite, but Banyan and I are going to convince you.”

  “Oh, elemental forces,” muttered the colonel. “What is it with the three of you?”

  “So many things,” said Odion. “He likes watching me fuck her, of course. He acts like he’s disgusted, but his cock’s been perpetually hard throughout, and I can show you—”

  “No,” said the colonel.

  Odion’s hands were hovering right at Slate’s crotch.

  Slate’s stupid, traitorous cock was getting hard.

  Odion caressed him through his trousers. “You sure, colonel? Slate has a very pretty cock, and he loves it when I show it to strangers.”

  “Fuck you,” said Slate again, now incredibly hard even as he tried to struggle out of Odion’s grasp.

  Odion pushed him face first into the wall and ran a hand down Slate’s spine. “Just look at that ass, Colonel Rabi.”

  “Where’s Banyan?” said the colonel tightly.

  “In bed,” said Odion. “In one of the bedrooms, patiently waiting for me to come back.”

  “Bring her out,” said the colonel.

  “She’s not dressed,” said Odion. “She wants to play with herself while she watches me bite Slate.”

  “Elemental forces,” said the colonel.

  “You want to watch, too?” said Odion.

  “I’m leaving,” said the colonel dryly. “But if you’re going to bite him, bite him, Odion. Don’t drag it out.”

  “All in good time,” said Odion. “This is the best thing that’s happened to me in months, sir, and you can’t expect me not to savor it.”

  The colonel looked disgusted. He smoothed out his clothing and picked at some invisible bit of lint. “Suit yourself. I’ll talk to you later, Odion.” Then he turned and walked off.

  Odion yanked Slate back into the room.

  Slate jerked out of his grasp and put distance between the two of them. His cock twitched. Great God Tan, what was he going to do about this erection of his? Why had that made him hard? It shouldn’t have? He hated the colonel, and he didn’t want to be humiliated, and if Odion had really displayed his nudity to someone, it would have been horrific abuse, but the idea of it… Great God Tan.

  “Well,” said Odion, “that got me worked up. You, too, I see.”

  Slate looked down at himself. Yeah, it was pretty obvious when his cock was straining against his trousers like that.

  “I’m sorry. He saw you, and I didn’t know what else to say.”

  “So, your story is that you’re here, having a drawn-out session of biting and fucking with me and Banyan,” said Slate. “I guess it works. Not forever, but for a little while.”

  “It was the best I could come up with. I never would have exposed you in front of him.”

  “I know,” said Slate.

  “You do trust me?”

  “Untie me.”

  Odion gave him a little smile. “That really what you want?”

  Slate groaned.

  Odion sauntered over to him. He ran one hand over Slate’s arm, and then up over the other arm. Then he gripped Slate’s ass. He squeezed one cheek. “It’s been a while.”

  “No,” said Slate in a tiny voice.

  “No or glider?” said Odion, reaching around to close his cold fingers around the hard heat of Slate’s cock.

  Slate mewled.

  Odion stroked him.

  “No,” said Slate again, but it was a surrender, and they both knew it. He sagged into Odion, letting the other man stroke him, just like he had back at the castle in Noch.

  Odion murmured soft nonsense words in Slate’s ear.

  Slate shut his eyes, sighing.

  Odion undid Slate’s trousers. “Oh, there we are, there he is. Let me just take care of that big, swollen cock for you, hmm? That feel good, big boy?”

  Slate moaned as Odion’s cold hand gripped his bare cock.

  “Shh, I got you,” said Odion. “Shh, let me take care of you, Slate. Let me take good care of your big, pretty cock.”

  “Yes,” Slate said, feeling frenzied because he really needed the release, because he was so very aroused. “Yes, please, Odion, please.”

  “I want to suck it.”

  “No—glider.” Slate whined it. “I don’t—I can’t—you get your teeth near me, I will wilt.”

  “If I can’t suck it, I’m going to fuck your ass,” said Odion.

  Slate gasped. “Shit.”

  “Yes?”

  “Shit,” said Slate, and he stretched the word out so that it contained several syllables.

  Odion chuckled in his ear, pleased. “Good.” he walked Slate into one of the bedrooms, stopped him at the foot of the bed, and then shoved him so that Slate toppled face first into the mattress.

  Slate let out a little oomph, laughing a little. “Odion…”

  Odion pulled Slate’s trousers down and off. He caressed Slate’s ass. “Spread your legs,” he breathed.

  Slate moaned and did it.

  “There you are,” breathed Odion appreciatively. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been inside anyone’s ass.”

  “I fucked Banyan’s,” said Slate, unsure why he said it, why it mattered, what he was trying to do by provoking the other man.

  Odion’s fingers, which had been light on Slate’s skin, suddenly dug in. “Did you?”

  Slate shut his eyes. “You jealous?”

  “I’m going to mercilessly fuck this little tight hole of yours,” said Odion in a velvet growl. “Teach you to take Banyan’s firsts from me. Don’t I get any of Banyan’s firsts?” He got up from the bed, sounding actually annoyed.