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“You know, asexual,” Nox explained nonchalantly, even though it was his turn to blush. “I have a few friends who are asexual and aromantic,” he added, then winced. Why would that matter and why was he babbling? “It’s totally cool.”
“Cool.” Nelson sounded unsure, though, as he turned and headed for the bathroom.
Nox waited until the door was shut and Nelson was in the shower to drop onto the bed and scrub his face with his hands. “It’s cool and I can totally behave,” he told himself. “But, gods! I would suck that man dry and ride his dick until my knees were raw. Until the sweat dripped off the walls and the room…” He lowered his hands and Nox’s nose wrinkled as he looked around him. “I don’t think it could smell any worse, honestly.”
Five
Work usually followed Nelson into his dreams. Or rather, Nelson often reported to work when he was dreaming. He double-checked the reports he had filed on the way out of the office and his brain did a dry run of the next day’s tasks while his body recovered and recharged. Nelson was always alone in his bland, gray simulation, working quietly at his desk or briskly striding through the empty halls of the Hoover Building, making copies and delivering files to vacant offices and inboxes.
This time, twigs and freezing blades of grass snapped and crackled beneath the soles of his shoes when Nelson arrived for dream duty in an eery, empty midnight forest. He marched through the clearing to the victim on the antler altar. His breath plumed from his lips as he panted, his heart a steady throb in his chest and ears as it kept time with his steps. He had his pencil and his notepad ready, his grandfather’s voice in his ear. He calmly ordered Nelson to look past the horror and the victim’s suffering.
“It’s too late to save her, junior,” he reminded Nelson. “Time to get to hunting.”
Some children went to the zoo or to ballgames. Nelson’s grandfather taught him how to track large game and hunt with a bow. If he could find clues and survive in the wilderness, Nelson would excel at the academy and on the streets, his grandfather had reasoned. Nelson might not have inherited any of his grandfather’s ambition or charisma. But he had acquired those finer investigative instincts that had made prior Nelsons legends within the bureau.
And he could hunt.
He had believed that there would never be an opportunity to prove he was as sharp and as effective in the field as his father and grandfather. But Nelson had been given another chance as long as he could find what Nox needed and keep the unorthodox savant happy and safe.
Hunt.
In his dream, Nelson reviewed his notes from the crime scene, turning slowly and counting the antlers hanging from the trees around him. He noted the holes in the ground and the three swirls charred into the earth in the center of the clearing. The area had been ringed by torches and there had been a large fire next to the altar. He made a note to ask Dr. Bixby if the ash and debris contained any animal or human remains when he woke up in the morning.
A spray of purple flowers had been trampled into the grass and mud. Nelson noted that he needed to ask Nox if they had any particular significance. It was late fall, they would have been grown in a nursery. Nothing else about the scene was random, so Nelson thought it was worth looking into.
He turned back to the tree and the victim was gone. Nelson felt his body pull and his heart hammered faster as he stumbled up to the void at the center of the antler sun. There were symbols carved into the bark and Nelson recalled that he had smelled something else amidst the decaying corpse, burned earth, and wet woods. A faint hint of sweet, almost fruity, and spicy… It had mingled with the smoke and it was stronger when they were together by the tree.
Ask Nox if he smelled it too.
“Now, you’re asking scary questions.”
Nelson spun and Nox was there.
So was the light. Torches glowed around them and Nox was wearing a black robe but it was open and he was naked as he backed Nelson up to the tree.
“What are you doing?” Nelson asked, alarmed at the feel of bark biting into his bare skin. He looked down at himself and his suit was gone.
Nox rubbed against Nelson like a cat and his eyes glowed, sparking with flecks of gold when their gazes locked. “Shhh! I know you can feel me, that you can feel this, Uaithne.”
“Who—?” Nelson’s arms fell and he didn’t fight as they were bound to the tree by vines and leaves..
“You are mine.”
Nelson nodded drunkenly, offering his lips and himself to Nox. A powerful swell of heat rose in his core, making his cock hard as his skin became slick with sweat. His pulse was frantic, and he heard a chorus of drums beating faster and faster, a wild, hypnotic pounding that shook the ground and the torches around them.
Their lips brushed and for a moment, the clearing was silent as they were swallowed by bright light and warmth. Nox’s tongue swept past Nelson’s lips and the driving beat was back. He tasted sweet, spicy, and warm, drugging Nelson and making him thirstier as they lapped and sucked at each other’s lips and tongues.
“Who do you belong to, Uaithne?”
Nelson heard Nox in his head and felt him in his heart. “You.”
“And what do you want?”
“You.” His soul yearned for Nox and Nelson wanted nothing else but to satisfy him. “Please. Command me.”
“Soon,” Nox promised as their kiss grew wilder and the heat more intense.
Nelson exalted and his joy was profound at the beauty around him and he could feel that this was right. He groaned when their lips parted, then shouted when Nox’s tongue dragged up his neck and curled around his ear. Desire raged within Nelson, a feral, unbridled beast that scared him more than the flames and the evil that had built the altar.
