minions, putting a sword through his chest and a bullet through his head when he reanimates in a flash of white. “He still might have another trick up his sleeve. Remember to kill him twice.”
There’s a big part of Shane that just wants to ask who cares, when no one can stop them, when no one’s been able to even dent them for years.
Then, up on the hill, in the light of a flash of lightning, a figure tumbles to the ground. “Kaliga!”
“Go!” Drake shouts, shoving him hard in the back. “I’ll hold them off here. Get him while he’s summoning the next wave!”
“We’re not getting paid nearly enough for this,” Shane calls over his shoulder, winking.
“We’re not getting paid at all for this! I took it pro bono!”
“You bastard, I’ll give you pro bono!”
Drake just blows him a kiss.
After that it’s all running and dodging, weaving past the obvious traps and the lurking armies, until Shane reaches the bedraggled figure of an emaciated yellow-and-red skinned figure on the hill, some creature of the underworld that’s clawed itself up with an army and a name and a plan. “You know,” Shane remarks, drawing back his hand for a final strike, “you take-over-the-world types never pay as well as people who kidnap a single child. What do you think that says about the world?”
Kaliga sneers at him, eyes at least twenty-five percent of his face, and screeches, “I will rain blood down upon—”
Shane swallows his distaste and lets fly, blasting the creature’s head from its body to land in several tiny pieces. He hates it, killing with magic, killing at all, but there’s no reasoning with Kaliga’s people, whatever they are. They haven’t existed in the world for long enough to name, only long enough to murder several town’s worth of people in the Midwest.
He watches the corpse for long minutes, but Kaliga doesn’t reanimate like the rest of his army. Wearily, Shane turns back to the valley, trudging down the hill to find Drake giving him a tired thumbs-up. “Good day’s work.”
“Yeah. Too bad we didn’t make anything on it.”
“Just think of it like we saved the lives of many future employers.” Drake grins, flashing white teeth, and Shane can’t help but smile along with him.
White flashes behind Drake, and Shane doesn’t even have time to scream before Kaliga plays his last trick, a long blade reaching red through Drake’s chest before Shane pumps him so full of destructive magic that he explodes.
Shane runs faster than humanly possible, hitting the ground without realizing he’d been airborne, managing to catch Drake before he falls. “Baby, baby, stop it, are you okay?”
Drake’s hand twitches weakly toward his chest, an expression of startled shock on his face. “It’s cold.”
Shane tries to heal him, tries to summon the energy but he can’t think, and he’s drained after fighting all day, and this isn’t supposed to happen. “Gonna fix you,” he mutters, ignoring the fact that it’s not working, that goddamn Kaliga must have used some cursed dagger he doesn’t have time to figure out, because his spell isn’t taking. He barely manages to slow the pulse of blood from the wound, seeping out and staining his fingers red and that’s not helping when he’s trying to concentrate.
Drake’s eyes flutter a few times. “Shane.”
“Shut up, don’t you dare talk to me like you’re dying, I’ll kill you myself, baby, just shut up and let me fix you.”
Even as he says the words, the tears start falling because it’s not working. Nothing he does is helping, nothing is fixing him, and Shane’s never felt so helpless in his life, watching Drake bleed to death under his hands. “I’m sorry, baby, I—don’t, please, I’m gonna figure it out, just don’t—”
Drake’s lips twitch into a smile. “Worth it. It was worth it.”
His eyes slide shut.
Before Shane can do something—the tattered thoughts in his mind run to blasting apart the whole countryside, or killing himself, or trying to pick himself up and continue when the last thing he loved in the world is gone—Drake freezes in his hands. He turns to ice in an instant, clear and cold as a white figure steps out of a sudden cyclone of ice.
Shane’s blood goes cold, and not just because he’s holding Drake’s frozen body. He knows exactly who’s come to see him in this godforsaken wasteland. “The Ice King, isn’t it? I’ve killed a few of your men.”
“And more of my creatures. You are a powerful mage, Shane Conell.”
“Why are you here?”
Frozen lips thin, into what could generously be called a smile. “Because this is the greatest opportunity I am ever likely to get. Do you want to save him?”
Shane’s heart constricts. Never in his life has he wanted so badly to unmake something that’s happened, not even after the death of his family. “I can’t. I tried. I lost him.”
“He’s not dead yet. Not quite. I can heal him, and give you power even far beyond what you have now.”
Shane hesitates. A part of him wants to scream at himself for hesitating when Drake’s about to die, could die at any second, but they haven’t lived this long without learning to be suspicious of anyone who wants to help them. “Would he be truly healed? Not dependent continually on you for life, or trapped in a strange limbo, or suffering forever?”
“He would be exactly as he was in the instant before the blade cleft him,” the Ice King clarifies. “No bindings, no bonds. He would be free, just as he was.”
“And me?”
The creature’s eyes narrow slightly. “I think you have some idea already.”
They’ve fought the Ice King’s vassals before, Shane and Drake. The men and women of the Frozen Court are powerful, but cold, long since devoid of humanity in exchange for whatever cheap trinkets the Ice King tossed their way.
Every part of Shane rebels, screaming in horror at the very idea, the thought of having body and soul enslaved to a cold, remorseless creature like this. “No pacts,” Drake’s voice echoes in his mind. “No deals. Nothing that binds us to anyone except each other.”
But I can’t be bound to you if you’re dead.
I can’t be anything if you’re dead.
Drake’s lifeless face looks peaceful, as if he’s sleeping, and Shane is absolutely sick of being helpless. Most powerful mage in the world, and what does it get him? Couldn’t save his family. Couldn’t save his boyfriend. Can’t save himself.
How long will he even last, without Drake to keep him grounded, keep him sane? He remembers the time before moving in next door to the Young household. He remembers the hate, the shame, the anger and sadness that had been his constant companions, knowing he was different, that he was probably responsible for his parents’ deaths just by being himself.
Was
