Emil twisted his body, which only made the muscles on his sides more pronounced, and pointed to the bits of his skin Adam had dressed yesterday. “My burns are no fucking hallucination. Last time I checked you didn’t have hot irons for hands.”
Adam’s lips went dry, and he approached, focused on two red imprints, each with five fingers. He placed his hand on one of the burns, and when it fit perfectly, the floor under his feet seemed to creak, as if there was a bottomless pit just below, ready to suck him in. He pulled away with fright burning through his body like acid.
“He really did make me do it—”
Emil shook his head, standing that inch closer than before, and looking straight into Adam’s eyes. “Yes, a demon made you do that horrible, horrible thing. Especially at the end, when you held my hands. Everyone knows Satan’s such a romantic.”
Adam’s chest tightened, as if his ribs would rather squash his heart than let him live with the shame of what Emil implied.
He couldn’t move when Emil swallowed, and his sneaky hands reached for Adam’s hips.
“Adam, please. We had a connection. I know it’s a difficult thing for someone in your position, but you seem really sweet. We could take things slow, if that’s what you want.” Before Adam could flinch, Emil gave him the gentlest kiss on the lips.
Warm claws sank into Adam once again, but before he could have struggled, tried to push Emil away, a strange murmur rose all around, as if hundreds of fingers tapped on wood at the same time. Fur slid across Adam’s bare foot, and he stepped back, only to be tossed into yet another nightmare.
Field mice poured out from under his bed and closet, they pushed their way under the door, they swarmed on the windowsill, like bees about to protect their hive.
Emil screamed, and in a most surreal gesture, he grabbed Adam and lifted him to the bed, while staying on the floor himself and kicking away rodents, some of which seemed adamant on climbing up his legs.
His wide gaze turned to Adam. “Make them stop!” he yelled to Adam as if any of this could be Adam’s doing.
But what if… it was?
Adam had never shared any kind of bond with mice, but the frequency of coincidences in his recent life suggested they were anything but. “Shoo, go away!” he said with little energy, only to utter a high-pitched sound when the tiny animals changed direction, charging toward the open window like a herd of antelopes running from a lion.
Emil was still catching his breath, but he spread his arms. “You still gonna tell me we don’t need to investigate?”
Adam watched him with his throat pulsing from all the conflicting emotions buzzing inside him at once. It now occurred to him that this wasn’t the first time Emil had acted chivalrously toward him. Maybe he should have felt offended over being treated like a girl who needed protection from mice, of all things, but how could he if Emil’s reactions seemed so genuine?
“Maybe you’re right. But you can’t kiss me. I’m celibate, and I intend to stick to my vows.”
You’ve already broken them, a tiny voice at the back of his mind whispered, but he shrugged it off.
There was a rapping on the door and Adam thanked God and all the saints that he’d locked it.
“Is everything all right? I heard strange noises,” Father Marek said.
“Go,” Adam whispered to Emil and pointed at the window, where a couple of the rodents lingered. “Wait by the little shrine at the crossing.”
Emil held his gaze through the curtain of dark hair but didn’t hesitate and climbed outside, leaving Adam with his gums throbbing in hunger.
Chapter 12 - Emil
Emil stroked Jinx’s mane, still rattled about the mice coming at him out of nowhere and leaving at Adam’s command. But just beneath the surface of fear were coals that spread their heat all over his body. What had happened last night had not been natural. Whether it was good or bad, Adam was part of something that questioned Emil’s worldview, and they needed to uncover what this new reality meant. Emil would be there for Adam on this journey, even if it meant swallowing the bitter pill of rejection.
He’d opened up and tried to communicate as honestly as possible, so if that wasn’t enough, Emil would keep his feelings to himself from now on. He tried to dismiss his disappointment as anger over Adam’s unwillingness to put out again, but he knew deep down that had nothing to do with the truth. The emotions Adam made him feel were about much more than sex at this point, and Emil hadn’t even noticed when that changed.
It was as if they knew each other from a previous life, and their souls understood they shared a bond that couldn’t be expressed with something as conventional as words.
Emil hadn’t accepted himself as a gay man straight off the bat either, so he felt for Adam who seemed as lost as a deer on a highway.
“What am I supposed to do about this mess? It’ll be hard to forget last night,” Emil told Jinx, who snorted and shook his giant head, chasing flies away. A part of him wanted to tell Radek a censored version of what happened, but that would have been a betrayal of Adam’s trust. He needed to keep it all—the joys and the disappointments—to himself.
His stallion pulled on the reins and peeked over Emil’s shoulder, standing taller, as if he were saluting his king.
The back of Emil’s neck tingled, but he looked back, disappointed to see Adam running toward him in a cassock. Without the customary clothes of a priest, he seemed like a normal guy. A guy who was available, so it was safe to assume that by dressing in such somber clothes he wanted to communicate he was anything but. Regardless of his desires, he’d made it clear that he took his vows seriously.
No matter how much Emil wanted to get his hands on the athletic body hidden under a thick layer of black fabric, on the pale lips and golden skin, they weren’t his to take.
“Hey. Everything okay at the church? I heard they’re considering what they found a hate crime?”
Adam cleared his throat and rested his hands on his hips, breathing softly as Jinx stepped closer to smell him. “I removed my fingerprints from the… whip left in the church. Someone needs to come over from the office of the Provincial Monument Conservator to decide what to do about the damaged sculpture. In other news, Father Marek doesn’t have a hangover. That man’s gonna outlive all of us.”
Emil guessed last night’s passion was a taboo topic as well, and while he wanted to honor Adam’s wishes, he couldn’t help the sense of loss at the pit of his stomach. He’d been on his own for so long he learned how to trick himself that he wasn’t lonely, but the raw closeness he’d experienced in bed with Adam proved that he’d been lying to himself all this time. For the span of those twenty minutes, he’d felt truly connected to someone. He’d been seen and understood, but the fact that there was a third player in the room, not only watching but imprisoning Adam within his own body turned all of Emil’s giddiness to rot.
“Will you ride home with me?” Emil patted Jinx’s rump where it was scarred from his many accidents, which had somehow still left him without any serious injuries.
Adam hesitated, but in the end his lips stretched into a soft smile. “How about we walk?” he asked before brushing the backs of his fingers against Jinx’s soft nose. The morning sun shone through his fair hair, transforming it into thin rays of light illuminating Adam’s head like a halo.