“I’m sorry for your loss.” The way Marquis said it, like he actually meant it, made Mads’s heart do a weird flip in his chest, missing a beat or something dumb.
Dealing in wish was a necessary evil and oftentimes was the only inheritance a mage left behind. For their family, there was alot of debt, and the wish settled it. Mostly. Mads paid off the rest with his ass, but he wasn’t about to tell Marquis that. “He wasn’t that great a man, to be honest. Kept me from being booted from the clan, the wish.”
“Still. It has to be hard.” Marquis sat up and tucked his legs neatly underneath him. It was well past evening, and he still wore his evening attire, not even changed into his nightclothes, which gave him a stiff and stuffy appearance. Baron was much the same, but he had a way of looking casual even in his finest.
“Easier with him gone. He drank and gambled.” Mads scoffed.
“And your other parent?” Marquis reached out to stroke over Mads’s hair with a gentle sweep.
“Never knew him. Alpha father promised marriage and split the day he got the goods. Just me and him.”
“That’s terrible.” Marquis frowned.
“Can’t imagine any alpha who would let that happen would be worth having as a father. Glad I figured out Baron was a cunt before we spent a heat together.” Mads folded his hands behind his head and stared up at the white plastered ceiling with designs pressed in. His house still had mud plaster over the boards. Most of the walls were insulated with newspapers, too. Hell, he still had an outhouse. He bet that their house had a water closet, not that Baron ever let him use it.
“True. Well, since you’re here for the night, would you like something to eat and to sit up reading for a bit?” Marquis smiled.
“Can’t read.” Mads blew a lock of hair from his forehead.
“Do you have a trade?” Marquis continued doing that stroking thing with his hand, sending goose bumps over Mads’s skin. For Baron’s brother, he had very little in common.
“In the summer I follow a Romani carnival a bit and do penny witchery.” Mads glanced away, not wanting to see the look of judgment on Marquis’s face.
“It’s summer now. Why aren’t you with them?”
“Good question. I stayed for Baron. I thought we were going to end up together.” Mads shrugged.
“Such a prick.” Marquis sighed heavily.
Mads couldn’t disagree. “But back to what you said earlier. I’ll totally take free food.”
“That, I most certainly can do.” Marquis rose from his seated position and left the room.
Mads contemplated bolting the moment Marquis closed the bedroom door. Never coming back. Finding the next circus, carnival, or freak show to slip into. His mind was one step out the door when Marquis turned in the doorway, his violet eyes bright and alluring. Nothing like Baron’s dark blue. Mads stared. “What?”
“I’ve not bathed in a few days.” He frowned.
“Just spell yourself clean. That’s what I do.” It wasn’t the most hygienic of things, but he could scrape the dirt and oil off himself and his clothes well enough to subdue any stink.
“I can tell. Would you like to bathe with me after we eat?” Marquis cleared his throat and cast his gaze away. “And I’ll read to you after. Stay the night.”
“Aren’t you afraid of getting caught with a pennywitch in your bed?” Mads hated that term, but it’s all the lowborn mages had. With no connections or good lines to a higher coven, they were relegated to trickery and petty magic. The foul name for his station should have cemented it for Marquis.
“What are they going to do? Force me to marry you? Wouldn’t be such a horrid fate.” Marquis turned and closed the door, his footsteps growing quiet.
It was a Robert Frost moment.Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could…
Down one path lay more pennywitchery. More Romani, more freak shows. Human rights would be a thing, sooner rather than later. Everyone else but the United States was evolving, so time was coming fast. On another path lay a future with the mage who had offered him food, a bath, good company, and hadn’t tried to ravage him. But that path, too, forked. On one side lay eventual abandonment, and the other, a future where he might never have to sell his ass to pay his coven dues again. Then again, marriage was also a type of selling one’s ass.
Five steps to the window to freedom, or lay there and hope the other brother didn’t dispose of him as easily as the first.
So, it was a surprise even to himself that he didn’t bother getting up.
They ate. They bathed. They read together.
And come morning, they were caught in an innocent embrace, fast asleep atop the covers with Tolstoy as their bedmate.
Tolstoy…
