He consulted the Farmer’s Almanac and the barometers in the library, and did not believe storms were on the horizon. He brought in wood for the stove and for the fireplace in his room, although he would only want a fire again as the heat left him. The manor would get very cold, but he would hardly leave his bedroom, or even remember to feed himself, and he’d be in no condition or mood to cook afterward.
He went out long enough to place an order for a grocery delivery in seven days, to be left at the front steps, and to suspend visits from the milkman for the same amount of time. He cleaned his room, and the kitchen, and the small upstairs toilet that Holt had wisely had installed when the manor had been built, along with the gas lights. Nonetheless, Nicodemus put chamber pots in his room for the worst of it, just in case, and laid out with furious care the items he would need: towels, a salve for the aches afterward, two canteens Holt had given him specifically for this reason which he filled with water, and a slippery concoction Nicodemus made himself in the basement laboratory that helped with both the inevitable chafing and the insertion of the smooth, clay phallus that Nicodemus had traveled overnight by train to buy for himself in a different town.
In the kitchen, with little else to do, he used up the eggs and flour to make cookies, which could be eaten even when stale. He drank coffee although it made him hotter, and removed his vest to bake in his shirtsleeves, alone in a cold house. He walked a well-worn path to consult the barometers every time he glanced to the table and the note held in place by the sugar bowl:The weather will turn.
The barometers did not agree. But the barometers had never been to the Realm as far as Nicodemus knew. Nicodemus huffed at the note and wondered if this was a scold for him to stay put, as if he needed any sort of reminder to stay home when he hardly ever left the house to begin with.
It would be cooler outside, which was not a thought he allowed himself to consider, except to think that the time it would take to stroll around the grounds and the few, somewhat close, neighboring houses to cool off would be almost the same amount of time it would take to walk into the heart of town. Perhaps that would take a little longer, all things told, but he had hours, if not days, to wait and nothing to occupy himself.
What did he care if the weather would turn? Nicodemus didn’t need to be cautioned to stay indoors. He wished for a storm to cool him off and then shuddered from the thought of lightning and frigid rain and the boom of thunder while he was writhing in his bed.
He wandered the house, twitching aside curtains and not-looking at the Ring. He realized he was checking the locks on the windows and clucked his tongue at his own foolishness. No one wanted to break into this house. It was his affliction making him worry, and perhaps fret over the children he could not have but his body wanted him to.
But he would make the house very safe for them, if he ever did find himself a father. He could not imagine how, not here, and he had no intention of venturing into thewaverjust outside the windows to find out if it was possible for him. What hecouldimagine was the process of trying to make a baby, and at this stage, it took no prompting for his mind to take over from there.
He found himself hard in the library, hard in the kitchen, hard in his bedroom from merely handling the clay cock. He knocked on all the doors, assuring himself the house was empty, then sat on the edge of his bed, pushing against his erection, debating whether or not it was worth it to stroke himself to completion now, or if it would only frustrate him and add to his chafing.
There was too much time to think when the house was like this. To wonder about the smell of cologne, or the love Holt would likely one day feel. What it might be like to walk into a bar and be desired. How it must feel for Alistair to have a steady someone to occupy his free time, even though he was peculiari.
Nicodemus would be fine on his own. But in the quiet, with his skin burning and the wind occasionally howling outside, he imagined it would be very nice not to fetch his own water during his rut. To have someone to help him wipe himself clean and to strip the bedding with him afterward. Someone happy to do those things with him, and not smile and pat his shoulder and leave the moment it was clear that Nicodemus could think again.
Not anything more than that. Just something more than what he had. That was truly all Nicodemus found himself dreaming of as he sweated and itched and hungered. He was not one of the beautiful asterion. He lived with magic-using Realm visitors. He would not get anything more. He would likely not even get this, but he had wanted at least a friendly touch.
He frowned at the cookies he’d made, and the silly note which should not be there, and finally tossed the note into the fire for the stove.
If there was anyone who would not mind an asterion, or at least, not mind too much, it should be a peculiari. Nicodemus realized this as he stared at the different barometer gauges. He could not imagine seeking out a Bureau agent; Holt alone would have a fit. State agents were not to be trusted.
Most of those in this house were like family, which ruled them out. Nicodemus wasn’t even sure he was in his right mind to have thought of explaining his condition to them and hoping someone would be willing to help. But he supposed that if he could stomach the thought of a pitying fuck from a State peculiari, he could tolerate the approach of curious strangers. Perhaps more than tolerate, judging from how his body reacted to the idea.
He had a bath, the water chilly, his skin hot, and took care to clean himself thoroughly. It seemed reasonable to imagine what he might do with his body thus prepared; he could calm his nerves with a drink, despite his dislike for the taste of alcohol, and find someone, and spend the hours before the coming storm getting laid, as Donovan would say. The days of his affliction might be fewer, the force of the rut weaker.
The air would be cool outside, he thought again as he dried off, as he dressed in the nicest vest he had and tried to subdue his curls. He could buy a meal if no one decided to approach him, but tucked a handkerchief full of cookies into one pocket of his coat, and a tub of his home-brewed slick into another.
He was not a child to be warned to stay indoors.
With that thought, he went out the servants’ entrance and emerged onto the street in front of the house a few moments later.
The sun was setting. The street lamps were on. The wind was rising.
Nicodemus walked on anyway, his eyes down but his jaw set.
HE NEARLYturned back twice before he had even reached the center of town. There were too many sudden drops in the volume of the conversations around him, too few people that accidentally stumbled into his path while the other side of the street grew more crowded. Asterion were not rare, although most of the humans who lived in towns and cities and answered to the State remained wary of them, but the reactions tonight made Nicodemus flinch and wish for a hat that fit over his horns without being ludicrously large. He had an overcoat with a specially made hood for rain and snow, but no hats that could be worn at anything other than a rakish angle, tipped over one horn but not both.
The kind of person who could have worn a hat in such a manner might be at the end of his journey, and could perhaps be persuaded to take Nicodemus to bed. That was what convinced Nicodemus to press on—that, and the possibility of a hot meal he did not have to prepare himself.
The sky above was blue-black by the time he veered off the central streets to the bars and restaurants less well-lit, with simple menus and clientele who wanted their drinks more than they worried about others. Holt could never venture into such places, helplessly la-ti-dah with his mannerisms and unable to hide it. Nicodemus was a boring, scrawny grind who might have been out of place in these bars too, if he hadn’t been born an outcast.
He nibbled a cookie from his pocket as he considered which way to go, his skin stinging beneath his coat, his cheeks undoubtedly red with his particular fever. Weighing the chance for better food against the chance that he might find someone willing, he finally took another side street to one of the houses where people went for a drink first and then possibly a screw, and were not as subtle about it as they might have had to be in one of the hotels on Main Street. It was also the kind of place where two men or two women engaging in such behavior wouldn’t draw nearly the same amount of raised noses and disapproving glances as they would have in a drawing room in a fancy house in a big city.
The heat inside fogged up his glasses and nearly drove him back out into the street. He kept his muddled gaze on the bar and not any of the other patrons, hoping they would grow used to his presence in time if he sat quietly and nursed whatever alcohol he was given. He was not told to leave, at any rate, and was served a glass of beer without any comment from the bartender, although she did not stop to make conversation, either.
He cleaned his glasses on his sleeve, hid a grimace as he sipped his beer, and was debating removing his coat when Bel appeared in the seat next to him. Bel tapped the bar, caught the shot glass full of brown liquor that was slid to him, and downed it without taking his eyes from Nicodemus.
He did not raise his eyebrows or scoff. There was that at least.
Nicodemus itched beneath his clothes. The beer was bitter on his tongue. He looked away first, turning toward the rest of the bar in time to catch a few quickly redirected stares. There would be no pleasure to be found here tonight, not for him.
He pulled his glass of beer to him without trying another sip. “What are you doing here?”
