Page 34 of Sweet Surrender
They’d spent all day watching the movies in bed. Through the open curtains, the sun was in the middle of setting. It was dark enough that they’d already had to turn the lights on.
“I want to watch all the movies,” Knight announced with gravitas once the movie was over. “How many have been made?”
“Too many to finish in one day,” Saint said with a laugh, then jolted as the lights abruptly went out. He sighed, his face looking eerie from the grey-white glow of the laptop screen. “Well, I guess that’s enough movies for today.” He reached out, presumably to shut down the device.
Knight looked confused. “Why? The power didn’t seem to affect the laptop.”
“Oh, this shit is dead,” Saint said, laughing again. He’d been laughing a lot today. Knight was a little bit in love with the sound. “I have to keep it eternally plugged in, and when it isn’t, it only lasts about fifteen minutes at most before it quenches.”
“I could keep it on if you like?” Knight wiggled his fingers.
Saint shook his head, but he was smiling. “That won’t take too much magic?”
“I teleported us home last night,” Knight scoffed, even though the truth was he wasn’t actually sure if he could keep it on when it wasn’t something he’d ever done. “I’ll be fine.”
“All right, then.” Saint looked like he knew Knight was bluffing but was going to indulge him anyway. Knight’s wings gave a pleased little shiver. “We’ve been watching a lot of action movies; I think we should try some animation. What do you think?”
“I will watch anything you recommend.”
Saint ducked his head, but Knight saw his pleased little smile before he could hide it, his scent going all buttery warm again. Saint pulled the laptop onto his lap and began working his magic. Knight was still figuring out how his phone worked; the laptop looked like a whole other nightmare.
“Do you not have movies in Hell, then?” Saint asked as he searched.
“I don’t know. Not like this, I don’t think. If we do, I’ve never encountered it. The closest I can think of is when we tell stories, sometimes we connect telepathically and project images to make the stories seem more real. But it’s not the same as seeing it on a screen.” Knight violently forced away the sharp pain at the reminder that he was never seeing his family of nicquiris again.
“Sharing stories telepathically?” Saint said, sounding awed. “That sounds so fucking cool, not going to lie. So, you’ve never watched a movie like this before? Really? What about your other contracts? Assuming you’ve had contracts before,” Saint added quickly.
“This is my first contract,” Knight said before he could think about it. “Firstrealcontract, I mean.”
Saint glanced at him. “What does that mean?”
Right. Knight hesitated. Forced a laugh. “I don’t know. You probably don’t want to know my boring life story.”
Saint stopped his search, turning the full intensity of his gaze on him. “Yes, actually, I do.”
Oh. Knight tried not to shiver. “Ah.”
“Only if you want to,” Saint said quickly. “You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” Knight said, surprising himself. “So, remember how I told you I was a nicquiri? My abilities?”
“Yes,” Saint said with a frown. “You can travel the, uh, Veil hiding our worlds? And manipulate it?”
“Yes. And you remember how I said most sects feed on human souls and emotions? Well, within the sect, that was my job as a nicquiri. I was sent intermittently to the human world, where I made contracts with any humans who used a summoning circle, usually coercing the more naive ones out of their souls, and the smarter ones I harvested their emotions through a magicked gem.”
Saint was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was a whisper, “So, when you said you were living in a cage, except literally ...”
“Yes,” Knight forced himself to say, whispering as well. “That was my cage. I was confined to a room. I interacted with nothing and no one else.” Fuck, Knight didn’t want to talk about it. “But I managed to escape. I didn’t spend too long on my own before I met a group of escaped nicquiri like myself. We’ve been together ever since.” His heart twisted painfully as he once again remembered his banishment.
In his periphery, Saint had softened. “I’m glad you found community.”
Knight forced a smile. “Me too.”
The light of the laptop screen had dimmed after several moments of inactivity, further softening the aura between them. Knight could see Saint still had more questions, so he waited patiently.
“Last night,” Saint finally began, still whispering, “You told me you were afraid to think of what kind of demon you wanted to be. What did you mean?”
Knight inhaled deeply, stretching his legs out and resting his hands on the mattress behind him so he could lean on them, his wings spreading out against the pillows. “The nicquiris I joined ... after everything they’d been through at the hands of a sect, they wanted to be the opposite. So, no contact with humans, except when we dreamscaped.”
