Kingsley sat up and turned around. He looked down at Søren still lying on the floor.

“That’s the oath to the British monarch,” Kingsley said.

“I’m American,” Søren 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...”

Søren sat up and took the corkscrew off the side table. Without flinching 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?” Søren asked.

“Felicia doesn’t do blood-play. I miss it. So do you,” Kingsley said.

Søren’s eyes flashed 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 Søren clearly felt something. His pupils dilated and his breathing quickened. But he sat the corkscrew aside, flipped Kingsley’s hand over and let a few drops of blood mingle with his in the wineglass. Søren 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 Søren 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,” Søren 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.”

Søren 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 Søren was to be blessed. Søren rose up on steady feet.

“Where are you going?” Kingsley asked.

“To bed.”

“Can I come with you?”

“Yes.”

“Will it be like old times?”

“Yes.”

It was indeed like old times. Søren took the bed and ordered Kingsley to take the floor. But better one night on Søren’s floor than a thousand nights elsewhere.

“Can I at least have a—”

A pillow landed on Kingsley’s face.

“Merci,” Kingsley said from underneath the pillow.

“Velkommen.”

“No Danish,” Kingsley said. “Not unless you tell me what you said.”

“I said ‘you’re welcome.’”

“Not now. I meant in the car.”

“You seem to be getting more drunk and not less. What car?”

“The Rolls Royce we took to see your sister that day back at school. Do you remember?”

“Yes, I think I would remember the day I met Claire for the first time.”

“Do you remember what you said to me in the car while we were—”

“I remember,” Søren said, his voice so low it was barely audible. But Kingsley heard it.

“What did you say to me?”

“I said ‘Jeg vil være din family. Jeg er din familie.’”

“What does it mean?”

“It means,” Søren said with a tired sigh. “I want to be your family. I will be your family.”

“You married my sister three weeks later.”

“I wonder why.”

“Søren—”

“It’s ancient history,” Søren said. “Let it go.”

“But—”

“Go to sleep, Kingsley. Please.”

If Søren hadn’t added the please at the end, Kingsley wouldn’t have gone to sleep. But something in the way Søren said “please,” the way another man might say “mercy,” silenced Kingsley’s need to keep talking. Ancient history. Let the dead bury the dead. Instead of digging up the past, Kingsley slept.

* * *

When Kingsley awoke it was five in the morning. He was sore all over, his whole body. Now he remembered why he’d cut back on the drinking. Next time he decided to pass out at Søren’s, he’d do it on the couch, not the floor.

He called for his car, splashed water on his face and threw up on principle. Wouldn’t be a good binge without a little purge to top it all off. After his self-induced sickness and drinking half a gallon of water, he felt human, more or less.

Kingsley found Søren still asleep, lying on his side, the white sheet pulled to his stomach. In his lifetime Kingsley had fucked a thousand people, and he’d yet to meet anyone—man or woman—who surpassed Søren in sheer physical beauty. Unable to stop himself, Kingsley crawled across the bed and brought his face to Søren’s neck. He inhaled and in one breath smelled new snow in the midnight air, ice on pine tree branches, the world frozen still and silent.

Søren pinched Kingsley’s nose.

“I thought you were asleep,” Kingsley said in a pained and nasal voice.

“I was asleep until a Frenchman started sniffing my hair.” Søren released his nose.

“You smell like snow.”

“Snow has no scent.”

“It’s like the winter all over your skin.”