Page 77 of Garden of Poisoned Delights

Iason pulled his hair. “Not quite. But I love you. I don’t love him. I’m not sure if I could.”

“You’re very good at it,” Levi said, “if that’s what you’re worried about.” At Iason’s look, he realized he was missing something again, and tried his best to go over what he was being told, find the patterns, the currents, swirling around him. “Oh. You don’t think you could get hard enough to fuck him? Won’t the magic fix that?”

“But then I will have fucked him,” Iason said, smoothing a thumb over Levi’s lower lip.

“Yes,” he agreed. “That’s the point, isn’t it?”

It was clear that, no, that wasn’t the point at all. Iason was quiet, playing with Levi’s hair and rubbing a thumb idly over his neck, clearly seeking the right words that would make Levi understand. “Sex means something to me,” he said, finally, voice rough. “I only want to have it with you.”

“So I’ll fuck him,” Levi said, which he realized was the wrong thing to say immediately. Iason’s eyes flashed with heat, the spark of magic like lightning glimmering within. “I meant, if it matters to you that this is done. Sex with him won’t mean anything to me.”

Iason looked like he was going to argue, but then he seemed to consider the words, turning them over and over. Levi liked very much that he considered things carefully, which seemed so very strange to a being that thrived on sudden and dramatic shifts in the fabric of his environment. “And if I said that I didn’t want you to?”

“Then I wouldn’t,” Levi said. “But if the magic is a problem, what do we do? I could call Cillian and Astra. They’re not mortal, but they were human, and I think they fuck other people sometimes, at least in dreams.”

“How do you— Never mind, don’t answer that. Lazaros said the reason he asked wasn’t only because you were a god. It’s because we’re both dragons. This is Mislia.”

“Where they killed their dragons,” Levi said, a growl in his voice.

Iason’s eyes flashed again, but not with anger this time. “We brought them back.”

Levi smiled, showing fangs. “We did. Lazaros wants to fuck you, not me, though, so we’ll have to figure that out.”

Iason nodded, then kissed Levi again, nipping at his bottom lip. “We will. Let’s not waste having the house to ourselves. See if you can make me scream.”

Levi surged like a wave up off the island, hauled Iason into his arms, and carried him with his god’s strength up to their bedroom.

The fish in their net lay forgotten in the kitchen, and that would be a problem in the morning, but for now, Levi had another catch to take care of.

* * *

Lazaros was in the Library when Iason knocked on his door.

It was a dangerous habit. The first time someone had caught him doing it, he’d been brought to the Inquisitor’s offices, where the Inquisitor’s assistant had spilled sawdust over the floor to catch the blood that drained from the stone chair in the middle of the room. He still remembered the sound of surprise the Inquisitor’s demon had made when it tried to enter Lazaros’ mind and found it empty.

You are not one of the great Lords, it had said, its voice slithering through the stacks of the Library where Lazaros was hiding. What are you doing with a mortal soul?

Demons didn’t claim the souls of the humans they possessed in Mislia. They shared space with their bodies, and when a mage died, they carried their soul beyond the dark and into the well of life, but they didn’t own mortals. That was something reserved for the great demons who ruled below, who the Library spoke of in flippant terms as Lazaros climbed the shelves and explored the labyrinthine expanse of her realm.

The Library didn’t know how to share. Everything in the Library was hers, even if someone borrowed a book for a while. Why wouldn’t the same apply to a Mislian boy trying to summon a demon for the first time?

He’d held his soul once or twice. It was sealed in a book the Librarian kept in her private collection, a small chamber in the heart of her labyrinth. Every thought and feeling was written there, and when Lazaros had held it for the first time, his body had trembled as though a current of lightning were running through it.

He couldn’t just disappear when he entered the Library, so the Librarian made a puppet who would take his place while Lazaros ran about in the stacks. They couldn’t do it all the time, but it gave Lazaros something the others didn’t have—a quiet place to hide.

That was where he was when Iason Ellas arrived. Man at the door, the Library said, her voice booming through the stacks. Lazaros cursed under his breath and ran for one of the book-stairs in the middle of the Katoikos History section. He half fell down the steps and emerged in his office again, almost knocking over a lamp and scattering papers to the floor.

His puppet stared up at him from where it was sitting at the desk. Lazaros snapped his fingers and dispelled it, and the sudden knowledge of three hours of paperwork surged into his mind.

“Is something amiss?”

Damn. That was Iason’s voice.

“One moment,” Lazaros said. He adjusted his robes. Look professional. You’re in charge of most of Mislia. You know what you’re doing.

“I know what I’m doing,” he said under his breath. He could sense the Library chuckling to herself and blushed hotly.

He swung open the door.

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