“Well, that wasn’t there before.” Lei gestured with his mug toward a speck on a distant mountainside. The average man wouldn’t have seen it, however, average was not a word that applied to either of the men on the porch swing.

  Following his husband’s gesture, Mir studied the new construction and wrinkled his nose. It was a manor house, decidedly gothic in nature, built of some dark stone that wasn’t native to the area. The roof tiles were a rusty red with semi-decorative iron spikes accenting the eaves and edges. Grinning gargoyles leered down from stone ledges, whether actual or architectural, Mir couldn’t determine at this distance. “Our young Dark Lord has no sense of taste.”

  “Really? I’d have thought you’d fancy it. It reminds me a bit of your Keep, especially the gargoyles.” Lei took a sip of steaming cider, snuggling into Mir’s side, both hands around the mug to warm in the cool morning air.

  Clicking his tongue, the pale man shook his horned head. “I outgrew gargoyles long before we met, my heart. By the time you were at my doorstep, I was ornamenting my walls with petrified pit fiends that animated on contingency.”

  “I’m very aware, darling.” Lenses flashed as his husband shot him a glance. “But it’s the same thing design-wise.”

  There it was again, the prodding at Mir's sense of decor. “It’s not the same thing at all. Gargoyles are petty, low-tier creatures. Some have even been brainwashed into siding with Good, becoming protectors of all things. The last thing a Dark Lord wants is their minions suddenly becoming confused in the middle of battle. Besides, Gargoyles are ugly. Pit fiends have a more uniform and intimidating look.”

  The dragon said nothing. Sometimes it was easier to just let his husband be wrong when it came to the petty things or matters of taste. The secret to a long-lasting relationship was picking your battles, strategic compromise, honest communication, and a firm foundation of intimacy. Mir had chosen a strange hill to make a stand on, and Lei was perfectly content to let him have it.

  “...you’re humoring me, aren’t you?” Mir turned, an appraising look in his eye.

  His husband's smile was warm, nuzzling against Mir’s chest. “I am, is it working?”

  The ex-Dark Lord huffed. It was impossible to stay angry at the dragon when he was acting cute. Mir reached out, adjusting Lei’s lenses, which had been knocked askew. “Of course it is. Agree to disagree?”

  “Absolutely. Now, points of taste aside, that is a rather worrying development.” An evil manor so close they could see it was rather disheartening. They’d veiled their demesne well, no doubt, all the fledgling Dark Lord would see in their direction was a remote valley and a rustic cabin. Hardly worth attention. Still, Lei disliked it.

  That dislike was easy to pick up on, making Mir’s tail flick in agitation. He lowered his head, lips whispering the words against the dragon’s ear conspiratorially. “If you’d just let me, Lei, I could erase that eyesore without batting an eye. Nobody would ever know.”

  “Too risky.” The prompt answer was accompanied by a small shiver. “And stop it, Mir. You wanted a cool, crisp morning, and that hardly inspires me to fool around out in the open. Turn the climate up next time.”

  With a small sigh and a wry smile, the pale man straightened up, sipping his cider. “Warm cider is wasted on warm mornings. It always tastes better when the air is refreshingly cold and clean.”

  “Spoken like a true Northman. How did someone as delicate of constitution as myself end up with an icy ruffian like yourself?” Lei couldn’t even keep a straight face while speaking the words, a grin twisting his lips as he spoke. ‘Delicate’ was an exceedingly relative term when it came to the dragon.

  It got a laugh out of Mir, a roll of his unveiled eye accompanying it. “Well, as I recall, you made a fetching proposal and followed it up with an enthusiastic night of-”

  His words cut off abruptly as energy sang across his senses. At the same time, a flicker of pallid light blazed behind the windows of the far-off manor. Mir’s grip tightened on the handle of his mug, and his body tensed in a way that had nothing to do with the teasing topic of a moment ago.

  “What was it?” His husband wasn’t attuned to the same frequencies of magic. Whatever had happened in that manor, it wasn’t on the proper wavelength for the dragon to interpret.

  “I’m going to have to revise the timetable I gave you. Our young neighbor is far more ambitious than I gave them credit for.” He took another long drink of his cider, gaze pinned to that distant location. “Make it one month till the Ley is corrupted and six till the Church arrives. No doubt a shadow has already fallen over Holly-on-Green.”

  His husband's disappointed sigh held a depth to it that broke Mir’s heart. Still, there was little that could be done under the strict restrictions both of them lived under. If Lei were to try to do something about it, the Draconic Council would descend upon him. He was forever forbidden from dabbling in the affairs of mortals again, the price paid for this marriage. His powers were reserved purely for preventing damage to the Lifestream, and like it or not, this little would-be Dark Lord wasn’t at that power level yet.

  Mir’s consequences were far more dire. The mortal world thought him dead. The Gods, those in the know, had a tacit understanding to turn a blind eye to his continued existence, provided he never meddled with the Balance between Good and Evil again. If he did, he would become an enemy to all existence, given no quarter by any force. While he had once fought under those conditions and succeeded, that was years ago. Since his marriage, Mir had dismantled much of the structures and resources that allowed him to survive a fight like that. Also, he hadn’t been married at the time. Protecting Lei would only make things harder.

  “...we’re allowed to defend ourselves.” The dragon's voice was firm, lenses flashing as he looked over at his husband, reaching out to lace fingers together with Mir’s free hand.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The ex-Dark Lord raised an eyebrow. “Are we? If so then at what point does it become self-defense? Because if we wait till the point where we’re actually threatened, my heart, then would there be any point? Everything around us will have become whatever the young Evil wills it to be. From experience, it would be like having a grain of sand in my eye to have a piece of land I didn’t control within my territory. I wouldn’t stop challenging whatever lived on it till I killed them or drove them away.”

  And the first time that idiot challenged Mir, he’d kill them. Creatively. Consequences be damned.

  The answer was a strangely feral grin from the dragon. A moment later, Lei's words rumbled from his chest in a purr of conspiracy. “Darling, I don’t believe we ever negotiated that point. Did we?”

  Mir paused, mug halfway to his lips. He was starting to rub off on his husband! The smile that curved his features as he looked at Lei was like a second, more radiant sun than the one in the sky. “This. This is why I love you, Lei.”

  Because no, they hadn’t ever defined what constituted ‘threat’ and when they were reasonably able to ‘defend’ themselves. It was a loophole that would do any fae, devil, or lawyer proud!

  “Don’t say it like that. You’re a bad influence on me.” A nudge of an elbow punctuated Lei’s words, but the dragon’s expression was nothing but pleased. “I’ll contact the Council.”

  “Then I suppose I’ll have to commune with whoever is in charge of things on my side these days. Or I could just go straight to the top.” What fun that would be! Mir hated that divine ignoramus. The current God of Evil was pathetically unimaginative and honestly a bit timid.

  Lei made a gesture with his mug, a laugh barely contained by his words. “Oh, I’m sure that conversation is going to go swimmingly. Try to leave him some dignity this time. The last time you spoke with him, it rained blood in Hell for a month.”

  “Would you like to proofread the correspondence before I send it this time?” Certainly, that would make matters easier, Mir thought. Or at least the tone would be politer.

  “I’m sure you can handle it. Just... perhaps don’t start it off with ‘Hello Chosen Replacement’ this time?” The dragon still didn’t know why his husband hadn’t taken up the mantle of the divinity he’d killed or the circumstances that had led to him handing it all off to another.

  “I thought that was a rather diplomatic way of putting it. I’m not going to kiss the hind end of someone I handed the job to.” Becoming a God had been a significant step up in restriction and a relative downgrade in power. Divinity was a crutch for those who couldn’t overcome mortality in less mortal-reliant ways. Mir hadn't been impressed with it.

  “Sweetheart, no matter how you feel about it, that doesn’t change the fact that he is doing the job and, technically, he does have to sign off on you doing what you want to do if you want to remain incognito." A grounding squeeze was given to their interlaced fingers.

  The look in Mir's visible eye hardened, lip curling a bit. His tone was dismissive when he finally spoke. “He doesn’t have the fortitude to refuse me. I’ll kill him if he thinks he can get away with treating me like another subject.”

  Somewhere, in a distant underworld palace, the God of all things Dark and Vile shivered and looked up from his paperwork. For a brief moment, there was an intense sense of impending doom. Then it lifted, and he returned to his documents, unsettled.

  Evil was not omniscient.

  Back on the porch, Lei was giving out more soothing nuzzles. “My dear darling darkness, let's take deicide off the table, shall we? Baby steps. First, send a polite letter without threats, and if that fails, then you can threaten him. Alright?”

  “Hardly how I’m used to doing things, but for you, my heart, I will certainly try.” Indeed, Mir was used to giving commands and having them obeyed. A decade of retirement hadn’t changed that habit in the least. Perhaps the only being in the universe he didn’t command out of habit was the husband that was currently assuaging his temper.

  He wouldn’t dare. That was a quick way for an ex-Dark Lord to end up sleeping on the couch.

  They were both quiet after that, Mir rocking the swing for them gently as they watched the last of the morning mist burning off the mountains. Winter was drawing near outside their borders. The natural time of death and sickness, as the cold claimed its due, returned nutrients to the soil. The cycle of life, something to be acknowledged and respected, not feared.

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay with this? The villagers are going to suffer my heart.” Mir couldn’t help but bring it up. No matter what happened with the case of them defending themselves, no decision would come swiftly enough to spare Holly-on-Green and its surrounding freeholdings. The shadow was already falling on them.

  Lei’s expression was troubled, the dragon chewing on the inside of his cheek in thought. “Perhaps we should visit more often? There must be little things we could do. Small wards, useful tonics and tinctures, just little protective steps.”

  “You mean giving them ways to fight back? My heart, that’s one of the easiest ways to start a Hero’s Journey. Rural farmhand defeats first evil with the help of minor magic item. The tale writes itself.” Mir wanted a Hero quartered on his doorstep, like he wanted to say evening prayer. Which was to say, not in the damned least.

  But those pleading orchid eyes? He couldn’t resist them. The soft pout on that handsome face, Mir was so incredibly weak to it. The little tug on their interlaced hands. The hair tousled softly by the morning breeze, lending just the right amount of vulnerability to the world’s second least vulnerable man, and Mir did so love when people begged him for things.

  “Fine! Fine. I’m sure we can think of something minor to give them that will help. I’ll start work in the lab this afternoon, my heart.”