AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mort stood back, holding Tristan by a thick handful of blond hair. Tristan looked up at him balefully, panting hard on his knees with the wasted effort of trying to fight him.
Mort’s eyes were so dark they were practically hollow as he intoned, “You’ve been marked.”
“By what? Or who?”
“By a god.”
Tristan let out a hysterical laugh. “Yeah. Fucking. Right.”
Mort let him go entirely. Tristan scrambled to his feet, naked and mad. He was particularly attractive when he was angry, blue eyes flashing, dirty blond hair tousled from their struggle. Mort wanted to grab him and kiss him, but he thought better of it given Tristan’s mood.
“It’s true. You are a chosen one.”
“Oh, fuck off! What the fuck is a chosen one? Something out of a kid’s cartoon? Christ, dude, I know you’re death, or whatever, but that’s a step too far. Fuck off with that shit.”
“A chosen one is someone with powers granted by…”
“Nope!” Tristan interrupted. “No. I don’t want to know. I don’t care, that’s some bullshit. I don’t believe in any of this crap.”
“Tris,” Mort said, making his voice more gentle. “You see demons.”
“So?”
“Doesn’t the existence of demons at least imply the existence of gods?”
“I’ve never seen a god once in my entire fucking life. So no. I don’t want to hear about this. I don’t want to be chosen. I don’t want to be weird. I just want to be a normal fucking guy. Where’s my beer?”
At that point, Mort did grab Tristan and kiss him, one hand on his cheek, the other hand on the back of his neck, holding him in the lip lock until he felt his angry mortal mate calm and sigh against his tongue.
“Remember, I love you.”
“You held me down like a dog,” Tristan complained when Mort broke the kiss.
“Yes. I did. Because you were being a naughty pup.”
Mort saw warmth and mischief return to Tristan’s eyes.
“Was not,” he said, nudging Mort. There was another pulse of heat between them as he made contact with Mort’s soul-marked stomach.
“That is going to take some getting used to,” he said. “Am I going to get a fire shock every time I touch you?”
“I don’t know,” Mort said, frowning. “I believe it is a function of the sigils, not my flesh.”
Tristan reached around behind his head, his finger finding the mark unerringly now that Mort had brought it to his attention.
“How do I get it off?”
“You don’t.”
“If I got it on, I can get it off.” Tristan’s logic was impeccably incorrect.
“You didn’t get it on. And if it ever comes off, it won’t be because you decided to take it off.”
If Mort had thought about it for even a second, he would have realized the gauntlet he was throwing down. But he was too distracted by the mark itself, and what it might mean. Chosen ones weren’t common in the modern world. Thousands of years ago, you couldn’t throw a rock into a crowd without hitting a dozen chosen ones.
The gods were choosier now. More careful. Or perhaps they were lazy and sleeping. Mort didn’t pay much attention to them. Once he had determined to quit, he had turned his back on all things immortal. But staying out of the loop wasn’t an option anymore. His Tristan belonged to someone. Had been marked by someone. And that would not do.
“Are you angry at me?” Tristan asked the question with a worried expression.
“I’m not angry.”
“You seem fucking pissed. And I know, because I’m angry as hell. I don’t want a fucking mark on me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Mort said, while privately worrying about it a great deal.
The mood had been thoroughly killed. They both knew it.
“I’m going to get a beer,” Tristan said.
“Good idea.”
10
Mort was deep in thought when he heard a whimper from the bathroom in the middle of the night. Mort did not sleep, but he did not hear his boy go in there either. He must have sneaked into the bathroom very quietly for Mort not to notice. Or perhaps Mort had simply phased out of the material world for a time and failed to pay attention.
Either way, that sob brought him back and to his feet immediately. It was a sound of pain, like the kind a wounded animal makes.
“Tris?”
He opened the bathroom door, risking intruding on some very mortal display of bodily functions. Tristan was standing in front of the toothpaste-flecked mirror. He was shirtless, as usual. More unusually, there was blood running down the nape of his neck in a thick flow, then in deltas over his shoulder blades and back.
It was immediately apparent what he had tried to do. He had attempted to cut the mark out of his head. Judging by the tool in his hand, he’d used a fucking screwdriver, sharpened at the tip. As usual, choosing the most simple and brutal solution to any given problem, carving out his own flesh like a sculptor might carve stone.
