Page 9 of A Subtle Scar
“I guess he wants to be very extra because he’s extra in love with you. Hmm, okay, that sounded stupid, but Lucy seems like the kind of immortal who might willingly misinterpret the word ‘intimate,’ which I don’t mean to come across as a criticism.”
Lionel sighed. “It’s fine. And you’re probably right about that. He is a god, and he does like to stick to the literal meaning when it suits him. I might have specified.”
“What’s Lucy’s problem with Deacon anyway?” I asked. The man wasn’t overly fond of Lucifer, I knew that, but for there to be posturing, there had to be something between Lionel and Deacon. I was decent at picking out coworker relationships, and Lionel and Deacon didn’t ping my radar.
Lionel rolled his eyes. “There isn’t a problem except the one Lucy has created. It’s just that Marc may have asked me to go out with him? Oh, fuck it all. He basically confessed his love to me because we were in the orphanage together and sort of ended up having sex. Years ago. Years and years ago.”
I wasn’t sure Lionel needed to go back this far and offer that much detail about his personal life, but it was his birthday, and I didn’t want to be dismissive.
“I see. Go on?” I said like I would with anyone when taking a statement.
“Nothing! There is literally nothing else because it meant nothing to me. But of course my alpha god of a boyfriend needs to mark his territory like a guard dog with bladder issues.”
“Like a what now?”
Lionel huffed. “Oh, you heard me.” We rounded the corner and headed back to the quieter part of the house, toward the front door.
“Marc,” Lionel said. “Chandler has been looking for you.”
Unfaltering in my support, I said, “So I have.”
“I was just about to suggest to Marc he head home, babe,” Lucifer said. “He’s been at work all day and looks a little tired. We wouldn’t want to have to take him home and put him to bed.”
“I’m good,” Deacon said. He was glaring at Lucifer, which was not good. Laid-back though the Devil might be, no immortal reacted well when they were riled in their home, behind their own wards, in front of their chosen.
I cleared my throat to diffuse the tension. “Deacon, a word?”
Lionel breathed a sigh of relief when Deacon walked past Lucifer. Lucifer seemed satisfied to put his arm around Lionel and glare at the back of Deacon’s head.
It was a lot of posturing, I had to agree. You had to be a certain kind of man to deal with that in your life, and when I headed back to the rest of the party, Deacon in tow, I considered whether I’d misinterpreted Lionel and Lucifer from the start.
I knew Lionel was a competent necromancer and invested in getting to the bottom of each case, tenacious, and we both shared the way we pursued our cases: relentlessly, and until they were done.
In a lot of people, that kind of thing created that funny dichotomy where they were high-performing in one area of their lives but liked being coddled in the other, liked having their partner’s undivided attention.
And I’d thought Lionel was like that. I’d misinterpreted him as mildly high-strung when we’d first met. Since then I had to conclude it was the Devil, needing his lover, his lover’s attention…and whatever else they were into. I didn’t need to speculate as to what that was. Imagining such things about your coworkers and work friends made for a poor show of professional courtesy. The semi-regular lunch coffee breaks were already more chummy than was customary for me.
“If you want an update on the case, I don’t really have one,” Deacon said. “The victim is with the coroner and Detective Rice is checking the records to find out who she was.”
“What? Oh, no. I just wanted to show you the cake,” I said when we’d come to the cake room. In which there was now more eating going on, and the cream being licked here wasn’t the kind of thing you typically found on cake. Put more plainly, it had turned into the fellatio and cunnilingus room.
“Damn, this is just too much,” Deacon said, eyes roving over the couples and poly configurations, not quite with disgust, but at least with noticeable distaste. Just that side of a prude then.
I shrugged and went for something that looked a lot like a lemon square. If Trony had made it, it was probably divine. “A party like this is not illegal, and everyone is having fun. Nothing wrong with consensual fun.”
Deacon went into steaming-on-the-inside mode and frowned at the fellatio happening behind the cake display.
“Huh. Speaking of consensual. You’re a mage, right?” he asked after I was done with my lemon square, which really had been that good.
“Yeah.” I eyed another but wondered whether I should. Sugar tended to keep me up late.
“I know Lionel doesn’t see it as an issue, but did you know he and Lucifer made deals?”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t really surprise me.”
“But it’s wrong, morally wrong,” Deacon went on. He really didn’t want to let this go. “He…he makes Lionel do things he wouldn’t normally do. He’s making him behave all wrong.”
“Listen, Deacon. I know we’re not friends, but can I give you some advice?”
