Page 67 of Bound and Tide

“Don’t you start threatening me with a good time too!” Xander fell into hearty laughter as Amma reined in her betrothed with a smattering of kisses up the side of his face which was, of course, repugnant, but it was sort of cute too—in a repugnant way.

Xander rubbed a hand over his smooth jaw and leaned back. There was a sound from downstairs in the apothecary, reminding him of where he actually was, and his amusement shifted into joy. “On one condition,” he finally said, “I’ve got someone I’d like to bring along.”

“Oh?” Amma perked up, leaning in close and biting her lip. “A special someone?”

“Very special. And actually there are two more—not as special, but I think maybe I should introduce my family to my…other…well, to the two of you.”

Bloodthorne’s face blanched. “Dark gods, don’t tell me you’ve reproduced.”

“Ugh, no, nothing like that. It’s a bit complicated, but you’ll see.”

“Yes, of course bring them!” Amma embraced Bloodthorne fully around his middle then, and he sucked in a breath at the squeeze before slipping arms around her and pulling her into his lap. “Oh, I’m so excited.” She wrapped arms around his neck and nuzzled into him. “Aren’t you excited, Damien?”

The blood mage’s lip curled as he stared down at her adoringly, grip tightening. “Certainly getting there.” Then his gaze pinged back up to Xander. “Uh, we’ve got to go. I’ll send the details along later.”

“I’m looking forward to it, Damien,” he said, a full truth.

The other blood mage, his first brother and his oldest friend, offered him a genuine smile. “Until then, Xander.”

Hand slipping out of Corben’s feathers, the vision dissolved with Amma’s farewell squeals. Xander was left with his own reflection grinning back at him ridiculously. He looked like an idiot, but what did it matter? He was happy, and sometimes happiness just looked like that—a thing he’d come to learn when Maia got a potion just right or Costa finished a new carving to add to his shelf in the shop.

But then that dumb look was wiped off his face when the raven pecked at the metal charm inscribed with Old Key that hung from Xander’s neck, the one he never took off. “I know you’re arcane,” he sniped at the bird. “You can make it back home without a morsel from me.”

With a last indignant squawk, the bird took off.

“Xander?” The door to the bedchamber was pushed open, and Red sauntered in, peering about the room. “Are you talking to someone in here?”

“Just planning a little trip for us. That is, if it’s all right to close the shop for a bit?”

Her emerald eyes lit up. “Oh, yes. I’ve been itching to go somewhere else since you showed me the Accursed Wastes last moon.” She went to stand behind him and leaned over his shoulder, brushing back that loose strand of his hair as she appraised their reflections in the mirror.

“I’m afraid you’ll like Aszath Koth even better than the wastes. They’ve got undead kalsepherus trees there.”

She hummed an excitable noise in his ear as her hand trailed over his shoulder and into the open lapel of his robe.

“All done for the day?”

The nibble she took of his ear told him that she was, and her roving hand on his stomach told him that she was also just getting started. “I had a thought while I was pounding some muscavale seeds this afternoon.” Her fingers teased along his navel and loosened his robe. “That spell you used to try to trick me by changing your face and body way back when we were just getting to know one another—does it really work?”

“When I’m not being hampered by your all-too-helpful el’erium, it certainly does.”

“It’s not just an illusion, right? It really changes things?”

Xander’s brow rose as he watched her paw at him in the glass. “For a short time, yes.”

“Could you focus it in one specific area?” Her lips tickled his cheek, fingers dipping lower.

He did his best to remain still under her teasing. “Depends on what you have in mind.”

Her hand curled around his cock, and it was already eager for whatever she was cooking up. “Do you think you could give me one of these for, say, an hour?”

He turned to her fully. “And what in the Abyss would you do with that?”

Red pouted. “Well, you, of course.”

“Basest beasts, I never thought you’d offer.” Xander pounced out of the chair and tackled Red onto the bed. She chuckled darkly as he scrambled for the dagger on the side table, and it was easy then, to make himself bleed, just a little, because he knew Evangeline would always be there to tend to his wounds after.

And he too would gladly see to her needs, to serve her because he wanted to, and be cared for in return because that was what love did. Love made one wild and free but safe and sincere too, and it overcame birth and duty and even hopelessness because, in the end, it was the most transcendent of virtues, and even a villain understood that.