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Ethan was in a foul mood. Everything seemed to be going wrong for him today.
He had been up most of the past three nights working on a complicated paper and then he had just closed his eyes for a minute and the next thing he knew, he had overslept and missed the bloody class. That alone would cost him points.
He had tramped through two colleges already, trying to locate the stupid, bloody Don so he could at least give him his paper—better late than never—and he had consistently “just missed him”. Why wasn’t he lurking in his dusty little office like he usually was? Bloody man should wear a homing device of some kind, Ethan thought. I should have invested in carrier pigeons! I could have sent the paper via pigeon and hoped that it shat on his head after delivery! His whole day was now off-schedule, and he was no closer to handing in his paper than he had been two hours ago.
Jamming his hands into his pockets, he called down ancient Babylonian curses on the head of the hapless Don. Getting more inventive by the second (May your penis grow to the length of four feet, wrap itself around your neck and slowly strangle you to death!) he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going.
The next thing he knew, he had landed on his ass and a book the approximate size and weight of the Titanic had hit him in the head and probably given him a concussion.
“Sorry. I wasn’t watching. . . I just. . .are you hurt?”
“No, you berk! I’m sitting on my sodding arse on the bloody ground, with a lump the size of Madagascar because you dropped bloody Stonehenge on my head! What could possibly have given you the impression that I was hurt?”
Ethan picked up the offending tome: Darkest Magicks. He glared up at his attacker—tall, tousled sandy hair, sparkling hazel eyes, tight white T-shirt with a pack of fags rolled in the right sleeve, showing off nicely formed biceps, blue jeans, shit-kicker boots. . . who the hell did this git think he was, James Bloody Dean?
“What made you think of Madagascar?” There was curiosity and honest interest in his assailant’s voice.
Ethan thought about it. “I don’t know. It just popped into my head. That would be the head with the scrambled brains, in case you were wondering!”
“Can you stand? Should I take you to the infirmary?”
Ethan gestured to the book in his lap. “Why don’t you just heal me with magick? Or, you could always kiss it and make it all better.”
‘James Dean’ threw back his head and laughed. Relieving Ethan of the book, he extended his hand to help Ethan up.
“I’m Rupert Giles,” he said, studying the large, purplish lump on Ethan’s forehead.
“Ethan Rayne.”
Giles opened one of the books from the stack he carried, flipping through the pages until he apparently found what he was looking for.
He looked up and smiled, marking the place with his finger. “Come on, then, my rooms are nearby. After concussing you, the least I can do is take you up on your suggestion.”
A shit-eating grin spread over Ethan’s face. “Which one?” he asked dryly.
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Ethan was practically vibrating with excitement. He had never seen anything like Giles’ rooms—and the dark energy was palpable. Ethan felt the short hairs on the back of his neck rising the moment he entered the sitting room. There had been real magick practiced in these rooms and Ethan was the moth to its flame.
Giles had a small refrigerator and hot plate in his rooms, and he put the kettle on for tea before dumping a tray of ice cubes in a towel and handing it to Ethan.
Giles lit some variously colored candles, mixed the contents of several jars and then opened the book he had marked with a slip of paper as soon as they had arrived. Ethan felt the concussion-induced muzziness and nausea recede almost instantly, as Giles murmured the incantation. Suddenly, a word caught his attention and he looked up. “Barakah.”
Giles stopped chanting and stared at him. “Sorry?”
“It’s barakah,” Ethan repeated. “Not barakah.”
“You speak Babylonian?” Giles asked in surprise.
Ethan nodded. “Babylonian, Sumerian, Latin, Greek, and, ah, Coptic.”
“Sumerian?” Giles asked with delight. “P’rhaps you can give me a hand with this bit I’d been having trouble with over here. . .”
Ice pack in place, mind clear, Ethan fell madly and irrevocably in love.
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Over the next few weeks, Ethan and Giles began spending more and more time together. For the first time in his life, Ethan neglected his studies—his official studies, that is. In actuality, he was like a sponge, soaking up esoteric knowledge and magicks he had never dreamed existed. Ethan had an innate talent for magick which flourished in Giles’ presence.
Drinking numerous pots of tea, interspersed with Scotch when economically feasible, they poured over dusty tomes and argued over translations far into the night. Ethan wanted things to continue like this forever.
He was introduced to Rupert’s friends Thomas, Randall, Philip and Deirdre and shortly became a member of the inner circle orbiting Giles like satellites around a dark and mysterious moon. He was welcomed into the fold; he fit in. For the first time in his life, Ethan truly felt he belonged.
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Ethan woke to the sound of pebbles clattering against his window pane. He scrubbed his hands over his face and had nearly convinced himself he had imagined it, when the sound was repeated. He cautiously approached the window and looked out. There stood Giles, bathed in moonlight, eyes glittering with excitement. Ethan threw open the window and leaned out.
“C’mon! Hurry!” Giles beckoned.
Throwing on a pair of jeans and a fisherman’s sweater, Ethan hurried down the stairs.
Giles’ excitement was contagious.
Grabbing Ethan’s arm, he hurried down the street, pulling Ethan along, finally halting across the street from an imposing edifice. Ethan looked a question at Giles.
Giles grinned. “Feel up for a spot of burglary?”
Ethan shrugged nonchalantly. “Why not?”
Giles clasped his shoulder and nodded toward the building. Whispering conspiratorially, he outlined his plan.
“Y’know we’d been talking about trying something bigger? Well, I’ve got just the thing. My grandmother is a Watcher—I’ll explain it to you later—and she belongs to this secret society of sorts. They’ve loads of information, artifacts and what-have-you about magick, daemons, the supernatural. . . anyway, they’ve gotten their hands on a talisman to summon Eyghon, and we’re going to relieve them of it!”
“Eyghon? The Sleepwalker?”
“The very same!”
“Giles, this is. . . are you sure we’re ready for this?”
“Of course we are! We’ve been studying and planning and now we finally have the chance to actually do something.”
“But summoning a daemon. . .”
“Don’t you ever get tired of playing by the rules, Ethan? Don’t you ever just want to. . . let it all rip?”
Ethan capitulated, as he’d known he would from the very beginning. “Lead on, ‘Ripper’—I’m in.”
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Flushed with success, they ran all the way back to Giles’ rooms, breathlessly collapsing on the couch.
“What the bloody hell was that place?” Ethan asked when he was finally capable of speech.
“Branch of the Watchers’ Council,” Giles panted. “The ‘motherhouse’ is in London.”
“What do they ‘watch’?”
“Daemonic activity, vampires, things that go bump in the night. . .”
Giles turned to his desk and carefully put the talisman inside, taking out a hand-rolled cigarette. Lighting up, he drew the smoke deep into his lungs and handed it to Ethan. The sweet, cloying odor of marijuana filled the room. Ethan took a deep drag, and handed the joint back to Giles.
The release of tension after their ‘caper’, combined with the marijuana, had them both giggling within moments.
“That was. . . you’re amazing, Ripper!”
“Ripper!” Giles giggled. “I like that. We’re going to rip it up now, right and proper, aren’t we?”
Ethan nodded slowly. “I’d follow you to hell itself, Ripper,” he said quietly and leaned forward, gently pressing a kiss on Giles’ lips. His lips felt dry and rough, and he tasted of tobacco and Scotch and marijuana and magick.
Ethan brought both hands up to gently cup Giles face and he deepened the kiss, tracing those dry, wind-roughened lips and then parting them. His tongue explored Giles’ mouth and Ethan felt a rush of desire and something else he couldn’t name. Realization finally identified the feeling as “choice”—for the first time in his life, Ethan was going after something—someone—he wanted, and that realization ignited him.
Ethan pulled back, looking deeply into Giles’ eyes. They looked more green than hazel in this light, and Ethan thought they were beautiful.
“Do you want this?” Ethan asked. “Because you must know how I feel about you, and if you say ‘no’ I’ll understand, but if you say ‘yes’ and later decide it was just because you were high, or I was available. . . I don’t think I could bear it.”
In answer, Giles leaned forward and kissed Ethan, which really wasn’t an answer at all, but Ethan tamped down his misgivings and gave himself up to the moment.
He sucked Giles’ tongue into his own mouth, exploring every centimeter of it, and then began sucking gently and rhythmically. Giles moaned and Ethan felt a surge of passion and a heady sense of power. He reveled in being the aggressor. . . the seducer. . . the one that got to do whatever he wanted. And what did he want? In this moment, kissing ripper was all he wanted in the world.
Ripper. He rolled the name around in his mind and stifled an unbidden giggle. The first time he bestows a pet name on someone, he comes up with something you’d associate with a leather-boy slasher flick! ‘Slasher’. . . Ethan mentally giggled again. Not an image one would normally associate with intense, brilliant, bookish Giles. . . but ‘Ripper’ had a dark side. It was buried, but it was there. What would it be like to bring that darkness out? Ethan’s cock grew harder at the thought.
He was playing with fire and he knew it. . . but before the destruction, came the incomparable beauty of the fire. And he wanted that beauty and fire more than he had ever wanted anything. He knew the destruction would follow. . . he knew Giles didn’t love him, would probably never love him; he even knew Giles wasn’t primarily attracted to men. He knew he was going to get his heart ripped from his body, still beating, handed to him on a platter of rejection. . . and. . . he. . . didn’t. . . bloody. . . care. . .
‘Now’ was all that mattered. . . ‘now’ was all he might ever have. . . Ethan told his mind to shut the fuck up and leave him alone as he unbuttoned Giles’ shirt and ran his hands over the muscular chest, covered with soft, springy hairs. He bent his head and flicked his tongue over Giles’ nipple, feeling it harden as he gently took it between his teeth and bit, before sucking it into his mouth. His hands explored Giles’ muscular chest and abdomen, closely followed by his lips.
His sense of urgency mounted as he fumbled with Giles’ belt. It finally gave way, the buckle catching him on the cheek and drawing blood. He felt the slow trickle of blood running down his cheek to his mouth as he finally freed Giles’ cock. He slowly drew it into his mouth, and sighed deep with himself as he breathed in Giles’ unique scent. He sucked Giles’ cock deep into his mouth, smearing—and claiming—it with his own blood.
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Continued in Chapter Four
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