Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

B ryn was in a rage as he pulled Gil away from the icy water. Done. He was done letting others decide his life. If he'd had access to his magic before the stroke of midnight on Thursday night, Gil'd never be in this state. When the wee boat had snapped in half, Gil'd thought of nothing else but saving his cat, even though he'd have had an easier time saving his own arse if he'd left Bryn behind. Most would've done just that.

Just a cat, they'd have said. Not this big, beautiful man with his big, brave heart.

Now, Gil's skin shone white as seafoam under the bright stars, his lips ash-gray and his breathing shallow. Bryn hoisted him into his arms and carried him farther inland to lay him on a tuft of billowy, brittle grass. Quickly, he piled driftwood and debris—there was a far amount washed ashore here—into a pile and stood back. He easily summoned an apple-sized ball of fire to dance on his palm and tossed it onto the pyre. The wood was wet, and it took him three tries in all, but before long, a bonfire blazed on the desolate beach.

Bryn pulled Gil as close to the fire's warmth as he dared and took off his heavy boots and wet socks to rub the circulation back into his wrinkled, ice-cold feet. He looked for the bluish glow around the top of Gil's head that indicated his soul was rising up to exit his body. It would shine like a crown of starlight before arcing into the sky. Once, that was when Bryn would've grabbed it in his claws and shoved it into his pouch to give to old Blackthorn for the tithe. Gil's soul remained buried deep, though. He'd make it. He was strong. Giving in to impulse, Bryn leaned down and licked the lengthening red whiskers on Gil's cheek, smoothing them with his rough tongue.

A light wind and the scent of dead leaves made him sit up. Old Blackie waited on the other side of his fire, the shadows of the bare branches in his crown stretched out far behind him, making a tangle of shapes and angles over the wet rocks.

Anger erupted in Bryn as sure as the sea water had shot up like a fountain through the Freya 's deck. He pushed off with his legs, leapt the fire, and struck, leaving four deep gashes across the faerie lord's cheek. Desiccated brown leaves fell from the wounds before they quickly closed just as Bryn landed a few feet away. Blackthorn turned, the long train of his tattered cloak making the gravel rattle.

"You had no right ta send that storm after us!" Bryn shouted.

"I had every right," the faerie said. "After all, I am owed a debt, and you have failed to deliver. Your very purpose is to steal souls and deliver them to me. I refuse to offer up even one more fae to Hell."

"If you want souls so badly, why don't you get them yerself!"

"That I cannot do," Blackthorn said, "As you well know. I have my purpose just as you have yours. We are all of us bound by the order of things."

"Well, if you put Gil in danger again, you'll be shit out of luck! And if you think you're just going ta kill me, you'll really be up the creek then, won't ye?"

Blackthorn laughed, dry leaves tumbling across frozen ground. "First, little cait, you are not the only creature capable of catching a spirit as it leaves the body. Even certain humans can be taught the art. And second, I won't kill you." He took a few steps closer and leaned in until his pointy nose almost bumped Bryn's. "I will kill any friends you happen to make, starting with that one."

"You—"

"Hush, cait. Some solitary hunter you've shown yourself to be. In the old days, humans trembled at every thickening shadow because you might be waiting there. It seems you are one more thing they have bent to their will, robbed of your danger and magic and made harmless and dull. But you had better find that part of your nature and deliver me at least some souls by Summer's End. If you do not, that little storm will seem as mild as a spring rain."

Before Bryn could argue, a cold wind blew, leaves scattered, and the Lord of Half Twilight was gone.

Gil groaned, and Bryn hurried back to his side. He should change back, cuddle into Gil's side as a cat. He couldn't quite say why he chose to remain in human form, but it wasn't for selfless reasons.

He sat cross-legged next to Gil, whose eyes fluttered open and slowly focused on Bryn. Gil sat up with a flinch. "Wh-what the fuck?"

Bryn smoothed the tangled hair off Gil's forehead. "I… suppose I have some explaining ta do."

"You're the guy from the Drunken Scallop. How the hell did you get…. I think we must be on Grand Manan. I… I hope to god we're on the main island, or it'll take days for anyone to find us. What are you doing here? Where's my cat?"

Bryn slowly trailed his fingers down Gil's check, down his arm until he could clasp his big, rough hand. "Gil, look at me."

"Where's Mr. Brimstone?"

"Gil."

Bryn saw the exact moment Gil realized… and the moment, a few seconds on its tail, when he denied what he knew in his heart was true.

He pulled his hand out of Bryn's grasp. "What the hell are you trying to say? Are you trying to tell me that you…?"

"You know I am," Bryn said. "I've been by yer side all these years. All that time you were in prison. All this time, we've looked out for each other."

"Bullshit. I don't know what you're trying to pull or who you are."

"You do know me," Bryn insisted. He stood up. "Watch."

When he changed from cat to man or vice versa, Bryn entered an in-between state. He became a swirl of glittering dark mist until his essence—atoms and energy, humans would probably say—coalesced into the other shape. Before he'd had the bad luck of meeting Brother Wilfred, he'd been able to do so at a whim… and he still could on Fridays.

Gil stumbled to his feet and backed away from the big black cat with the white star on his chest, so Bryn resumed his human form.

"No," Gil said. "I… I hit my head on a rock. I have a concussion. Christ… maybe I'm dead."

Realizing he was still naked, Bryn glamoured himself a gauzy kaftan before approaching Gil again. "Yer not dead, and neither am I, thanks to you. You fought yer way through what would've killed most men and saved me. Back when I was young, they'd have written songs about what ye just did."

Gil pressed a palm to his forehead and swooned. Bryn quickly took his elbow and guided him back to his seat by the fire. Gil drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. For a long time, the crackling of the flames and the distant roar of the ocean were the only sounds.

Finally Gil spoke. "So… what are you?"

"The native people of my homeland think of me as a faerie creature," Bryn said. "Cait-sith. The Christians called me demon."

"How is this real?"

"The world's a strange place full of all kinds of things, Gil. What's more, there are worlds beyond this one. They… kind of overlap, and sometimes, one or the other bleeds through."

Gil sat silent again for several moments. "You let me think you were a cat. You saw me at my worst! Jesus, you watched me take a shit! Why did you let me think that? Why did you deceive me that way?"

"What choice did I have? Was I supposed to transform in the prison?"

"You lied to me," Gil continued. "God, I laid there whining about what I loser I am, how I'm too scared to stand up for myself…. I thought I was talking to a cat! And then you… that night at the Scallop…."

Bryn reached for Gil's arm, but Gil pulled away. "Why did you wait so long to tell me the truth?"

"I wasn't planning ta tell ye at all," Bryn said.

"Great, that's great. Why… why now?"

"I don't know," Bryn admitted.

"Wait. Why didn't you transform and help me when the Freya went down?"

Bryn hissed out a breath. "I can only transform on Fridays. It wasn't always this way, but back in Scotland, a Benedictine monk called Brother Wilfred thought he'd show me the error of my wicked ways. He cursed me to be stuck as a cat until I conducted myself to his standards for a few centuries."

"Except on Fridays," Gil snarled.

"Except on Fridays. Gil, I never meant ta deceive ye, and I don't understand why you're so angry. I cannae help what I am."

Gil turned to him, his gray eyes bright and wet. "Because… because I wanted there to be one person in the world who didn't think I was a loser! I didn't want you to know that I let Grady push me around, that I took the rap for that fisherman he killed. That… I'm a big fat coward. I always have been."

"No," Bryn insisted. "Yer tryin' ta do the right thing."

"No," Gil said softly. "I'm trying to do the easiest thing."

"The easiest thing would've been joining up with that Nazi gang in prison," Bryn argued. "The moon and her sisters know they pressured ye, threatened ye, but you wouldn't give in. The easiest thing would be ta leave yer uncle to Grady and sail off. It seems ta me yer good at lookin' after everyone but yerself.

"Gil, yer worth looking after."

Gil shook his head.

Bryn moved in front of Gil and gripped his shoulders. "Damn it, take your place in this world. Stand up proud and take it!"

Their gazes met and held, the firelight reflecting in Gil's stormy gray eyes. Bryn wet his lips with his tongue and waited; he needed Gil to take charge of his own fate, even if only for a little while.

Gil didn't disappoint him. He wrapped his thick arms around Bryn's waist and pulled their bodies tight as he kissed Bryn hard, pushing his tongue past Bryn's sharp teeth. Bryn straddled Gil's thighs and grinded against him as Gil's hands moved up his back, into his hair, and back down to cup his arse.

"What's your name?" Gil's breath was hot and damp against Bryn's ear. "What is it really?"

"You can call me Bryn."

"Bryn…. Is it wrong to want you?"

Bryn chuckled. "Wrong never much mattered ta me." He guided Gil's hand to his erection, only the filmy fabric covering it. As Gil stroked him, Bryn pushed his hands up under the sweatshirt. It was completely dry now, and Gil's skin was warm underneath. Bryn worked the sweatshirt over his head and pushed the suspenders holding those rubbery yellow overalls down his arms. Gil's pink nipples poked against his thin T-shirt, and Bryn bent to suck one of them through the fabric.

"God!" Gil arched off the ground, and Bryn took the opportunity to push the overalls down and start on the fly of Gil's jeans.

"These are still wet," Bryn said. "Take them off and lay them out to dry by the fire."

Gil hesitated a few moments before standing and stripping out of the overalls, his jeans, and his briefs. His T-shirt was tight against his thick torso, and his erection arched up toward his belly button, thick, flushed with blood, and wet at the tip.

Bryn, still on the ground, ran his nails lightly up Gil's thighs. He cupped his big balls and nibbled at the skin of his sac before burrowing his nose into his red curls and breathing in his scent. Then he kneaded Gil's arse as he nipped and licked down the inside of one thigh, back up, across his belly, and down his other leg.

Gil knit his fingers into Bryn's hair and panted as Bryn continued to mouth his legs, his balls, the round curve of his middle. "Are you going to get on with it?"

Bryn chuckled, ran his tongue slowly up the underside of Gil's cock, stopped at the tip, and met his eyes. "I'm a cat. I like to play with my food."

"I have an idea," Gil said. "Stand up."

Bryn swiped the back of his hand over his lips, and he did what Gil asked. Gil grasped the hem of Bryn's robe and lifted it over his head. He skated his hands over Bryn's lean belly reverently. With one finger, he traced the star of raised, white skin above Bryn's heart and said, "I've thought about you a lot since that night, how your body felt under my hands. I've thought about doing this with you…."

He arranged their cast-off clothing as best he could and stretched out on his back, his fair skin flushed pink with arousal, his lips swollen, that fat dick throbbing with his heartbeat.

"Fionn's thumb, look at you…."

"Come here."

Bryn took Gil's outstretched hand and let himself by guided down onto his side facing Gil, Gil's erection inches from his face. Tight warmth closed around Bryn's cock, and Gil's whiskers brushed his flesh as Gil's head bobbed up and down. Following his lead, Bryn got down to business too, swallowing Gil deep and swirling his tongue around the head when he pulled back.

Bryn's balls tightened, and before he knew it, he was dancing on the edge of release. He grasped Gil's cock at the base and sucked hard, letting Gil thrust into his mouth. As soon as he tasted the first droplets of Gil's release, Bryn exploded, pleasure wracking his body, making him twitch and tremble. He sunk his claws into Gil's thigh to hold on, lest he be blown away by the intensity of it all.

A minute later, Bryn slipped from Gil's mouth as Gil threw his head back and shouted out his own release. His warm seed flooded Bryn's mouth, and Bryn swallowed it down, sucking to make sure he harvested every drop.

Afterward, Gil guided Bryn onto his wide chest and petted his hair and down his back. "It's been a long time since I've done that," Gil said with a chuckle.

Bryn was happy to see him sprawled out, not curled in and making himself small. The firelight accentuated the planes of his body and turned the hair covering it to crimson and gold.

"I couldn't tell." Bryn circled Gil's nipple with his finger.

"Good." Gil closed his arms around Bryn and buried his nose and lips in Bryn's thick hair. They dozed until it got too cold to lay naked and Gil had to put his clothes back on. He twisted from side to side, cracking his back, as he looked south into the night.

"I knew it. I think I can see the Southwest Head Lighthouse," Gil announced. "We got lucky."

"We certainly did."

Gil blushed. "I mean we're on Grand Manan Island. We'll be able to find somebody to take us back to Maine as soon as the sun comes up. There are still fisherman and even tourists. Then… then I have to decide how to tell Grady that I lost over a million dollars' worth of fentanyl."