Chapter 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

G wil started awake as the door slammed. Hyax stood in the middle of the room, hands on his hips, the anger rolling off him in waves. He looked fucking beautiful.

"What's wrong?" he asked, levering himself up. He'd dozed off at some point, and he had no idea of the time.

"My parents had more guests than I was expecting. They fucking set me up for receiving several candidates from their approved courtship list."

By Hyax's reaction, it was worse than a bit of meet and greet. "Not fun I take it."

"No, not in the slightest. It's the start of the traditional path to marry me off, even though they know we're together and that should be enough for them to back off. Not to mention, there were people there I'd have rather not have dealt with."

He could see why Hyax was so upset. Arranged marriages were pretty common but Hyax's parents seemed to have kicked things up a gear. "Anyone in particular?"

"Three of my ex-partners. One of them Metra, who no one was aware of our previous relationship."

Gwil had trouble being rational over Metra, but now wasn't the time to add oil to the fire and instead he wondered if that list included Lia, although he wasn't convinced of her status as a real ex. "I might have met one of them earlier. Lia was kind enough to drop in a tray for me. She told me she was the one who made you realise girls didn't do it for you."

"Lia? She was never my girlfriend. I've never had a girlfriend. I've never needed to have sex with a woman—of any species—to know I'm not attracted to them."

"I figured as much. But you know her though? She said she was a friend."

His wings fluttered erratically. "Of course I fucking know her, she's the daughter of the chief councillor, but she is not someone I would describe as a friend. Not in the real sense."

Gwil thought he understood. "But a political one?"

"Yes, and if I have been swayed by breasts and pussy then she'd have been high on the courtship list—her father has failed on several occasions to gain ties through marriage to the royal family."

"Has she a brother?"

Hyax began to remove his jewellery, throwing it onto the dresser. "Yes, and before you ask, he is on the list and was there this evening, but he's not my type. Spineless, straight mummy's boys don't do it for me."

He was having trouble removing his cape and Gwil got off the bed to help. "I get that they might have sprung a few extra guests on you, but I'm surprised you're so angry over this."

"It's a respect thing. As far as they know you are my chosen partner. The one I intend to make a future with, and instead of accepting that—as I thought they had done—they spent the evening parading eligible bachelors in front of me as if I was suddenly going to accept one."

He could see why that would rile. "This sort of thing can often bring out the worst in family members."

"If my mother had her way she'd make me pick one and score the rest out of ten and have me commit to considering a harem."

Hyax sounded angrier than Gwil had ever heard him, his wings vibrating so much he had trouble helping him remove the cape. "I thought those were common for royal fae."

"Do you find it so hard to believe I could commit to one individual instead of needing a collection of lovers?"

His anger was spilling over at Gwil, and he would need to contain this. "Of course not, and if I was your real boyfriend I'd hate the idea of having to share you. But you're asking them to put aside customs that have been in place for generations. Can you honestly say they wouldn't have done something similar if you hadn't brought home a vampire? It's not like you'd given them any indication that you'd be happy to be monogamous."

If looks could kill Gwil would be a pile of ash.

"What do you mean by that?" Did Hyax not realise that his dating habits were on the freer side of most, even for the fae?

"Well, you do go out a lot? Before you announced our involvement you were seeing a different bloke several times a week."

Hyax crowded up to him. "What are you implying? That I was fucking them?"

"It wasn't any of my business, but yes, you were always making comments about their appearance or stamina—what else was I supposed to have thought?"

"For all the years we have been friends you've assumed I've been shagging anything that moved?" He sounded quite hurt by the revelation.

"You suggested recently that you were retrieving information, nothing wrong with doing that post-coitally, if that's the way you've been operating." The idea Hyax would pretty much shag anyone but him had stung for a long time, but learning there had been a reason behind who he'd dated had made it a little better. "Like I said, as your friend, I don't really have a horse in the race. You can protect yourself, and you don't need me lecturing you on safe sex when you can use a spell to make sure you don't pick up something nasty that'd make your cock weep and drop off." He was aiming for nonchalant, a concerned friend, although he didn't think he'd pulled it off.

Hyax stepped away. "I'll have you know, I didn't fuck them. I used fae dust to make them lose their inhibitions and then let them tell me what I wanted."

"Right." He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that information. "So you never got laid?"

Hyax snorted. "Occasionally, but not as often as you thought. I prefer a steady lover, although after Metra I was a little wilder than usual, it wasn't over the top. You probably get laid more often than I do."

"Please. It's been nearly two years!"

"What?" Hyax sounded disbelieving. "What about that naiad girl? And then there was Chase."

Gwil counted under his breath to thirteen, reaching ten hadn't helped. "I told you Nella is a friend, and I did not fuck Chase. Which I also told you at the time."

"But… you're…" He waved his hand up and down. "Reasonably attractive."

"Curb your enthusiasm, Hyax. I know I'm not in your league but there's no reason to be a shit about it." He grabbed his wash kit and pyjamas and stalked past Hyax to the bathroom.

"I didn't mean?—"

"Piss off, you fucking insensitive twat."

He didn't know why this particular exchange had annoyed him so much, learning the truth that Hyax wasn't dating as often as he thought should have cheered him as he could think he'd have a chance. Maybe it was that Hyax hadn't believed him over Chase, and had thought he'd been lying about Nella. His incredulous expression about him having not been laid for so long also bit, but then to top it off by saying he thought him passably attractive all whirled together for a shitty rhetoric that he didn't need to be made aware of while trying to play the blond fucker's one true love.

At least the fae had excellent plumbing, and if he wasn't already dead he'd have tried to drown himself in the shower. Instead he let the water pummel his shoulders and he used the fancy-looking toiletries that were no doubt Hyax's private stash to wash away the bollocks that was the evening's multiple levels of shite he'd put up with.

It wouldn't do either of them any good if he went back out there openly hostile. The situation was getting to him, and he couldn't help but feel betrayed by Hyax. While it was clear he'd never mean as much to Hyax as Hyax meant to him, he had believed he was one of Hyax's best friends, now he'd never felt more like a business partner than ever before. He dried himself on a fluffy towel and changed into his pyjamas. A good sleep was what he needed, his body clock was out of whack from him being away from his own realm, and if he could just reset all would be fine.

Hyax was sitting in the middle of the bed as he returned, dressed in loose-fitting dark blue pyjamas. "I'm sorry."

Gwil dropped his clothes in the corner. "It doesn't matter."

"Of course it does, I should have believed you when you said you hadn't slept with Chase and the naiad girl. I didn't mean to infer that you weren't attractive, I was just surprised that you'd have a bit of a dry spell."

"I've been busy," he muttered. Being in love with his best friend was a real dampener on his sex life, but he might have to accept that he would need to let this go. "We should probably get some sleep."

Hyax shifted over on the bed so he would have room. "You know I'm also a bit annoyed you thought I was fucking so many people."

"Why? If I thought worse of you for having an active sex life then I would be an arsehole." He lifted the covers. "Would you prefer me to sleep on the floor?"

"Gwil, don't be silly. We're more than capable of sharing a bed. It's not like you're a handsy ex."

He wouldn't mind being thought of as a decent individual who wouldn't try it on uninvited, but it might have been nice to have been thought of as someone who could be more than a friend, if not now, but at some point. However, that seemed to be far from Hyax's mind.

"Which particular handsy ex are you thinking of?"

Hyax shuffled down the bed and turned off the light. "Metra. He was not subtle earlier, and asked if we could find a way to ensure we got to know each other. If my parents knew about us I'd have sent him away with his wings drooping."

The darkness didn't impede his vision and he could see the repugnance on Hyax's face. He'd believed Hyax was still holding a candle for Metra, despite the allegations of cheating, and that Hyax might want to see if what that had could be rekindled, but that didn't seem to be the case.

"He sounds like a bit of an arrogant twat."

"You're not wrong there."

He might as well get a proper answer. "So you're not interested in getting back together? We did discuss it, and you could've told him about us—if you trusted him."

"I don't trust him—he claims he didn't cheat on me, I think he's lying. I trusted him once and he chose to take the easy path instead of fighting for what he claimed we had. In reality, what we had was a lot of great sex and the thrill of being caught—not a great love story, or anything meaningful. I just wish I'd figured that out earlier."

Seemed pretty cut and dry, and a positive to come out of the shitty evening. But there was something he couldn't shake. "Any chance he's involved in the stone business?"

"Why would you ask that?"

He'd always had a gut instinct for things like this, even as a human, and now he was a vampire, they'd been magnified and had been too important not to ignore. "There's something about him turning up, and playing nice out of the blue. Your families called a truce a while back, so if he was interested in rekindling what you had before since he's on the approved list now, why didn't he try it straight away if he meant it."

"You've a point. I think you're right to follow up that line of inquiry. But at least his actions have proved to me we had no future, whether that's what he thinks is another matter." He saw Hyax turn his head to stare at him in the dark, and he wasn't sure if he remembered how good Gwil's night vision was. His expression had softened, was almost wistful. "As far as I'm concerned, I've a lot better options than Metra."

He knew he shouldn't take that to mean him, but he wanted it to. To save himself from doing something mind-numbingly stupid he turned over. He needed to sleep, dream of anything other than beautiful fae and try not to let himself fall deeper in love with his best friend.