Page 73 of Garden of Poisoned Delights

“Yes, which is why I don’t really understand why you thought it would be fun to fuck in a Katoikos jail.”

“I thought it would be a bit more inspired? Some implements. Perhaps sexy chains for you. Come along.” Arwyn at the very least paid for the phallus, a sign that he’d remembered how inconvenient it had been to get what the guard wanted in order to release them.

Maybe reminding Arwyn of that would help. “Remember the figurine?”

“Hmm?” Arwyn wasn’t looking at him, merely heading with terrifying purpose back toward the museum. “What figurine?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t remember it. The only thing the guard wanted for a bribe in Katoikos, remember?” Declan knocked his shoulder, chuckling despite himself. “The little porcelain figurine that belonged in the guard’s mother’s set, the one glorifying farmwork. It was the little, chubby baby figurine, with the beady eyes.”

Arwyn stopped and shuddered. “If that had been thrown in my Well, I would have thrown it right back. Humanity has wanted strange things, but that dead-eyed baby statue is up there with the most unsettling.”

“Which is why we shouldn’t do this,” Declan said. “It could always be worse.”

“Yes, of course, but that’s why we’re not going to get caught.” Arwyn pulled him over to a window on the side of the now-closed museum, which he wasn’t quite tall enough to reach. Just as Declan thought perhaps they could take their new toy and go back to the inn without the artifact larceny, Arwyn turned to him and let his human form fade, so that it was the Shadow standing before him, resplendent in his crown of rust and his ruby eyes glowing in the dark.

Declan put all his submissive’s power into his voice, making it plaintive and aching. “Shadow. No.”

“My Knight,” the Shadow purred, making all the hairs on Declan’s body stand up, heat coursing through him, cock hardening so much that it would rival the phallus in the silk bag held tight in the Shadow’s bony fingers. “Kneel.”

Declan swayed, but he shook his head. He knew where this was going. “You are not using me as a stepping stool to–”

For a skeletal creature wreathed in leathery skin and rags, Arwyn moved fast in this form. He was suddenly right there, pushing Declan against the wall and sliding fingers into his mouth. Declan moaned, eyes half closing as Arwyn’s fingers fucked his mouth and he turned the full force of his power on Declan.

“I said kneel,” the Shadow commanded, and when he took his fingers away, Declan couldn’t keep himself from going to his knees.

Declan saw the shadows shift and there stood Arwyn in his mortal form, smiling in pleasure before he climbed up Declan’s back and settled on his shoulders. “Up you go, Dex, let’s get me to that window.”

“You could do this literally six other ways. It’s a museum, not a palace,” Declan groused, but he stood, slowly, with Arwyn’s heels kicking his chest.

“But those ways don’t annoy you as much, so it’s not as fun. Put your hands out. I know you’re strong enough to lift me up.”

Normally, Declan might make a comment about Arwyn’s stature—in his mortal form, he was short and slight enough that he didn’t look nearly enough like the menace he was—but Declan had the majority of the self-control in this particular relationship and the sense when to use it. He was also a former soldier, enough to know when a battle was lost.

So he put his hands out, lifting Arwyn so his feet were on Declan’s shoulders and he could push the window open. “Seems foolish not to lock it.”

“Yes, you’d think the museum would absolutely consider the god of desire might stand on his companion’s shoulders to break in and steal a mislabeled phallus while replacing it with a sex toy bought down the street. Why wouldn’t they make sure every entrance was barred to you, no matter how high off the ground it is?”

“I’m not stealing it, it’s mine,” Arwyn said, stepping on Declan’s head as he shimmied into the open window.

Declan watched him disappear, then hissed, “Shadow! How am I supposed to get in?”

Arwyn leaned out of the window like a damsel in a play greeting her lover from a bower, and he held a hand out to him.

“No,” Declan said. “Absolutely not.”

“I’ll go open the door,” Arwyn said. “There’s no one here. Honestly, I would prefer better security for my former ship’s treasures.”

“Why? You’re stealing them!”

“It’s the point of the thing.” Arwyn stared down at him, long, blond hair in his face. “I’ll be right back. You stay there.”

Declan sighed, arms over his chest. He waited until he was sure Arwyn was slinking about in his shadow-form to start laughing. He wondered if Azaiah and Nyx did this sort of thing, or Cillian and Astra. Maybe not. Maybe they were the only disasters.

Arwyn returned in mere minutes, shoving his head out of the window and whistling sharply. “Catch.” He tossed something out of the window and Declan caught it, thinking again of a maiden on a balcony tossing a flower to show her favor to a lover. Instead, it was a messy-haired god of desire throwing down a phallus he’d once used to fuck Declan on a balcony, a phallus that had spent the better part of two hundred years on the sea floor.

He had barely any time to ponder the absurdity before it was Arwyn himself jumping down for Declan to catch, and Declan caught him easily. Arwyn was so pleased he was faintly vibrating with it, and when he kissed Declan, Declan tasted a hint of a brine, smelled the rust of a crown and felt bones sharper than they should be under his hands.

Arwyn was entirely his human form when he pulled away. “Well, let’s see it.”

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