“You want me, don’t you?”
With a groan S?ren rolled backward and stretched out on the f loor. Kingsley rested his head on S?ren’s stomach and waited for him to object. He didn’t. Without a time machine, without magic, they were teenagers again, hiding in the hermitage at their old school.
“I wanted this club for you,” Kingsley confessed. “The truth is, I was building it for you. I wanted you to have somewhere safe you could go and be you. Because I love you,” Kingsley said.
“Kingsley—”
“I don’t mean I’m in love with you. I’m not,” Kingsley said hastily. “But I mean…”
“I know.” S?ren lightly tugged on Kingsley’s hair. “I know what you mean.”
“That day in the Rolls when we went to visit your sister, I promised you I would build you a castle, and you said to build you a dungeon instead. Why not both in one? I’ll keep the promise someday. Once all this bullshit with Fuller blows over.”
“You don’t—”
“I know I don’t have to. I want to. And not only for you. I want to do this for me. And for all of us.”
“‘Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom.’ Thomas Carlyle. You are a king when you act like a king, not simply because you have a kingdom.”
“I can’t believe you quoted a Calvinist.”
“Proof of how drunk I am.”
“They’re nice words, but it’s all a dream. I’m not a king. I don’t have a kingdom. I don’t have subjects. I don’t have—”
“I’ll be your subject,” S?ren said.
Kingsley rolled his eyes.
“You’re not subject to anyone,” Kingsley said. “You only pretend to be for job security.”
S?ren took a deep breath, one that Kingsley could hear and feel.
“I, Father Marcus Lennox Stearns, priest of the Society of Jesus, son of Lord Marcus Augustus Stearns, sixth baron Stearns, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty Kingsley Theophilé Boissonneault, his heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.”
Kingsley sat up and turned around. He looked down at S?ren still lying on the f loor.
“That’s the oath to the British monarch,” Kingsley said.
“I’m American,” S?ren said. “I can make it to whomever I want. I made it to you. And since the kings of old were always anointed by the high priest…”
S?ren sat up and took the corkscrew off the side table. Without f linching or blinking he pressed the end of it into his palm, breaking his own skin as easily as popping a cork. He let a few drops of blood fall into his glass. Kingsley held out his hand, palm up.
“You are in the mood to play with fire tonight, aren’t you?” S?ren asked.
“Felicia doesn’t do blood-play. I miss it. So do you,” Kingsley said.
S?ren’s eyes f lashed at him, but he said nothing. He took Kingsley by the wrist, thrust his palm up and pushed the sharp tip of the corkscrew into his skin. As drunk as he was, Kingsley hardly felt a thing. But S?ren clearly felt something. His pupils dilated and his breathing quickened. But he sat the corkscrew aside, f lipped Kingsley’s hand over and let a few drops of blood mingle with his in the wineglass. S?ren then dipped his two fingers into the blood and wine. With two wet red fingertips, he anointed Kingsley’s forehead with the wine, then touched his lips and the center of each palm.
Kingsley felt something strange as S?ren touched him with his wine-red fingertips. Even drunk, wasted even, he felt power. Power and the weight of responsibility.
“I still don’t have a kingdom.”
“You will,” S?ren said. “Someday you will. I have faith in you. Do you?”
Kingsley looked at his hands, the red stains in the center of his palms.
“If you do, I do.”
S?ren took Kingsley’s face in his hands and touched his lips to his forehead. It wasn’t a kiss so much as a blessing. To be kissed by S?ren was to be blessed. S?ren rose up on steady feet.
“Where are you going?” Kingsley asked.
“To bed.”
“Can I come with you?”
“Yes.”