“I could teach her,” Kingsley said. “I’m good at it. Didn’t know I was until I started teaching Irina. I used to do all this dirty work for a living—spying, tracking, guarding important people... I have all these skills. I wanted to put them to good use. You know, for us. We need that in this city. Someone to watch over us. Someone who can protect us. Someone to stand between us and them. What’s the word for that?”

“A king,” Søren said.

“A king...” Kingsley laughed. “Nice dream.”

“You sacrificed your kingdom for your subjects. There is no greater sign of worthiness to be king than the willingness to set aside the crown for the sake of your people.”

“A lot of good it does me.”

“It doesn’t do you any good. That’s the point. I would sleep well knowing you were king of us all.”

Kingsley narrowed his eyes at him. “You would?”

“I trust you with my secrets, with my life. I’ll even trust you with my Eleanor.”

“The Virgin Queen?” Kingsley rolled up. “Here? Where?”

Søren put his hand on Kingsley’s chest and pushed him on to his back again.

“Behave.”

“She’s so...” Kingsley began, sighing with exaggerated drunken bliss.

“She’s so what?” Søren asked, increasing the pressure on Kingsley’s chest.

“Vicious.”

Kingsley felt the pressure of Søren’s hand on his sternum and tried to ignore how good it felt to be held down so roughly.

“Don’t,” Søren warned.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t enjoy this.”

“Too late,” Kingsley said. “It would help if you moved your hand off my chest.”

“I can’t,” Søren said.

“Why not?”

“I’m enjoying this.”

Kingsley looked at Søren, who took measured breaths through his parted lips.

The heat from Søren’s hand permeated through Kingsley’s shirt and into his skin. With so much pressure on his chest, Kingsley had trouble taking a full breath. Or was it his intense arousal that set him panting?

“I’m going to stop right now,” Søren said. The buttons on Kingsley’s shirt bit into his skin.

“You don’t have to stop,” Kingsley said.

“I have to.”

The hand remained. The pressure increased.

“I fucked a blond teenager because he reminded me of you,” Kingsley said. “That’s my drunken confession for the night.”

“I never let you fuck me,” Søren said, and Kingsley shivered at hearing Søren swear—a rare and erotic occurrence.

“Which is why I fucked him. What’s your drunken confession for the night?”

“If you’d begged hard enough, I might have let you.”

Kingsley’s eyes went huge. Søren laughed, and then the pressure was gone from Kingsley’s chest.

“I said you didn’t have to stop.” Kingsley rolled into a sitting position again. This time Søren let him up.

“Yes, I did. I wouldn’t want to accidentally kill you. If and when I kill you, it will be on purpose.”

Kingsley met Søren’s eyes.

“You want me, don’t you?”

With a groan Søren rolled backward and stretched out on the floor. Kingsley rested his head on Søren’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.” Søren 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,” Søren said.

Kingsley rolled his eyes.

“You’re not subject to anyone,” Kingsley said. “You only pretend to be for job security.”

Søren 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.”