Home > Treasured(7)

Treasured(7)
Author: S.J. Himes

Reaching out a single finger, he touched the fifth deed and waited. Where there should have been echoes and murmurs of impressions, all he got was a vague hint of anger and an upsetting, ill feeling that clenched in his belly. He pulled back and swallowed roughly, trying not to vomit.

“What is it?” Tarquin asked, sounding concerned. The hand on his shoulder tightened, and he leaned into it. Magic tingled in his hand, foreign to him and inimical. He rubbed his fingers, trying to dispel the sensation, but the feeling sank deeper into his extremities.

“This one is fake, for certain, but there is something weird about it. No one should touch that. I think there’s a spell on it,” Alaric said, pushing back in his chair. His stomach heaved. “I’m going to be sick.”

Alaric crossed his arms over his stomach and breathed carefully through his mouth, forcing back bile. There was a creeping cold emanating from his fingertips and inching up the back of his hand, and he whimpered. His personal shields were down, and he was unprotected as the spell slithered deeper into his awareness. The periphery of his vision shrank and the floor beneath him tipped, vertigo slamming into him.

“Who touched these last?” Tarquin demanded icily.

“My assistant Bill laid them out this morning before your arrival…” Ms. Kestreen’s voice trailed off before speaking again. “I sent him home right before you arrived. He was ill.”

“Send emergency services to do a wellness check on your assistant,” Tarquin ordered. Ms. Kestreen must have felt it was warranted as her receding footsteps left at a sprint.

“It’s a curse,” Alaric gasped out, struggling to breathe.

He was roughly jostled and then the chair spun, and two warm hands cupped his face and made him lift his head. Alaric shivered, the dragon’s touch on his skin helping, the flow of power from Tarquin narrowing, easing into his aura and bolstering his mind. The spell attacking him struck back at the influx of power and he gasped in pain. Tarquin cursed roughly and then picked Alaric up, the dragon settling them on the floor, Alaric in his lap. Tarquin cupped his cheek, the power pouring from the dragon again in a rush of relief, battering at the spell. “Alaric, I’m going to help you, I promise. Let me in all the way, trésor.”

A part of him was confused, wondering why Tarquin was asking such a thing. Tarquin was already inside of him, changing him, knocking down walls he’d erected his whole life to protect himself from pain and loneliness. He’d let Tarquin do anything to him. A dangerous thought, but he wanted quite selfishly to have something wonderful and amazing happen to him instead of more exhaustion and desperation. He reached up with a weak, shaking hand and touched Tarquin’s face, trying to smile.

What a sight—a dragon staring at him with so much emotion and concern, all for Alaric. He could die happy.

The room spun and then he was flying. Cheek pressed to a firm surface covered in something warm and soft, he snuggled in and relaxed. He smelled rain and hoped he didn’t get cold while flying through a thunderstorm.

 

 

Tarquin swore when Alaric passed out. The curse was swift and deadly, and the only reason the young man was still alive was that he was unwittingly drawing from Tarquin’s own power with his shields down. The clairvoyant’s aura was wide open and vulnerable, and the spell took advantage, even as Alaric’s gifts syphoned off the power Tarquin shed just by existing.

Using that connection was the fastest way to save the young man dying in his arms. His heart raced in terror, the young man hovering on the edge of death—he dropped his own shields, and Alaric’s aura bloomed in a riot of colors, a vacuum eagerly sucking in Tarquin’s magic. It wasn’t painful or violating—he wanted Alaric to take it. He had more than enough power to spare, and he pushed his magic into the mortal, aiming it at the spell trying to kill his treasure.

He hugged Alaric tightly to his chest, his head lolling back limply, his heart struggling to beat. He closed his eyes and pressed his face to Alaric’s and let the young man have it all. Every last piece of him, every atom of his being, scale to fang, down to the last drop of blood in his body, it was all for Alaric.

The curse eating away at Alaric’s lifeforce was overwhelmed, burning out in a flash of sulfur and the stench of impotent anger. Shards of whoever set the curse burnt away, leaving behind echoes of a signature. If he had more time he might be able to use it to determine who the caster had been, but Alaric was more important in that moment.

Alaric groaned, his heartbeat already stronger, his coloring returning to normal, though he was still far too pale. Tarquin stood in one easy motion, pulling his power back into his own body, though Alaric was still unshielded, his energies mixing with Tarquin’s in a swirl of rainbow colors. He pulled Alaric’s aura into his own and shielded them both, protecting the young man until he awakened and could shield himself.

Sirens were approaching, loud enough to be heard in the office, and there were screams and people rushing about outside in the rest of the offices. He shouldered the door open and carried Alaric down the hall and to the elevators, through a crowd of overwrought people. Alaric hung limply in his arms, and he growled, showing his fangs, scattering the dismayed humans like a flock of birds.

The police met them in the lobby, and despite his wilder instincts demanding he take to the sky and carry Alaric away, he carried his priceless burden to a leather couch in the lobby, sitting down with Alaric in his lap. He ignored the police as they demanded to know what happened and waited.

Dark gold lashes fluttered on flushed cheeks, and then gemstone eyes blinked open. Alaric smiled dazedly up at him, and Tarquin smiled in return, brushing his fingers over Alaric’s jaw. “There you are, trésor.”

 

 

A cool breeze lifted sweaty bangs from his face, and Alaric was too tired to care how he looked. He clung to the blanket wrapped around his shoulders and squinted at the chaos on the street outside the law office. The paramedics declared him free of the curse that nearly killed him, and Tarquin snorted quietly when the caster medic marveled that Alaric was even still alive.

The assistant, Bill, was dead. Alaric stood quietly beside Tarquin and shivered when the gurney with the covered body was wheeled out of the building, past where they were standing. The poor man had never made it out of the building—he died in his office, everyone around him unaware. Minutes after touching the cursed parchment, Bill was gone.

Alaric had trouble wrapping his head around the fact that his new boss saved his life, and he didn’t know how. He passed out so fast and then woke up sitting on Tarquin’s lap in the building lobby, watching the police stream into the building. His understanding of what happened was limited to questions from the paramedics and Tarquin’s brusque answers. Tarquin refused to let them be separated, and Alaric endured the questioning from the police in between Tarquin’s protective inquiries into how he was feeling.

Even now, Tarquin stood at his shoulder and hovered protectively, as if waiting for Alaric to keel over. He felt like he might, so he didn’t object to the hand holding his elbow. It felt nice, and left him with a warm, cozy feeling, safe and sound within Tarquin’s shadow.

The storm was quiet, though the sky over Montreal was dark and ominous. The wind was gone, the streets draining, but there was a heavy anticipation in the air, the atmosphere instilling a sense of anxiety and dread. A few people milling on the sidewalk kept glancing warily up at the sky, as if expecting a lightning strike. Alaric kept casting suspicious glances at Tarquin and the sky, the rumbles of thunder following within seconds of a growl reverberating from Tarquin as they waited to be released from the crime scene.

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