Marcel had no idea how he had lucked out so well. He had thought that he would need to run after Nikola, but his soulmate had come to his home by himself!
Marcel was holding Nikola's hand, leading him safely through the deer trail.
Now, what a deer would do in a forest such as this, haunted and smelling like a swamp, was beyond Marcel.
But the truth of the matter was that he had seen more than one deer pass through these woods.
Mostly with rabbits in their mouths, the entrails poking out.
Marcel knew to avoid the creatures.
"So, Niki," Marcel began, as he luxuriated in the fact that Nikola was right there, next to him, and looking at him so, as if he were a hero. "What are you doing in here?"
Nikola nodded more to himself than to Marcel. It was his hopes and dreams on the line. His rakija project depended on him getting the magical pepper!
"I need to get information on where the witch Gildana lives," Nikola told him, as he tried not to think how Marcel's scent reminded him of ice cream during a hot day.
Before it melted and turned to soup.
"You don't need the gossip аuntie for that," Marcel smiled, turning around , and taking Nikola in his arms. "You just need a teleport!"
"Oh! And you will help me?" Nikola had no idea whether the demon was going to do so or not.
After all, he had turned him and his harem idea down one too many times. The last time had even been over coffee.
If this was not a way to say, It's over, then he didn't know what it was.
"I don't know… maybe if you tell me your favorite color, I will consider it!"
"You know, Marcel," Nikola whispered. He really liked the incubus. Had fun with him that one night.
But the fact that the man was going to demand a harem was something Nikola could simply not overlook.
"You would have been perfect, if you could only commit to one love. Only one desire: to see someone smile. I know that I am not enough, or you would have jumped my bones. But please… don't play with me like this."
Marcel blinked. Was he being denied once more?
"I just want you to be with me," Marcel said, bowing his head. "Just to be a part of my life. Is that too much to ask?"
Nikola nodded.
"If you are still adamant about sharing me, then yes, it is," Nikola told him, as he tried to think about all that could have been.
About the sunsets, about the sunrises after a steamy night.
It wasn't fair that the most perfect creature in the universe wanted a harem, Nikola thought bitterly.
"If you really liked me, then the harem wouldn't have been a problem for you," Marcel insisted.
"If I were enough for you, you wouldn't have wanted the harems," Nikola countered.
Marcel sighed, teleporting them before Gildana's hut.
"I will be waiting for you, to take you back to Big Capybara," Marcel said, but he wasn't letting Nikola out of the embrace.
And how could he? The man was going to go away. Maybe for good. Maybe for the rest of eternity.
For the first time in his unlife, Marcel cursed the fact that he didn't age. The fact that he was doomed to stay the way he was, while Nikola would probably pass on in 40-50 years.
Marcel was man enough to admit to the fact that he wanted to change Nikola. To turn him into a vampire, or maybe even just a ghoul.
To keep him in the world, even if not in his arms.
But as Nikola pushed against his chest, he knew that it was time to let him go.
Because the man needed his freedom. He needed his space.
And Marcel knew that he would never, ever, change.
More the fool, he, for trying to take the future by the horns and predict it.
****
Nikola knocked on the witch's door. There were alcoholic fumes coming out of the chimney.
Marcel was still sitting by a bench, waiting.
The witch who came through was no normal witch. She looked to be in her 40s, but her hair was pure white. Her clothes hinted at a potion experiment, or, and that was more likely, about a brew gone down the gullet.
Nikola smiled, bowing his head.
"I would like some Red Holy Pepper! The one that kills werewolves with just a sniff!"
Gildana opened the door wider. Nikola nearly died on the spot.
The smell of the Unholy Red Pepper was making his eyes sting with unshed tears. The witch smiled, picked a jar, and filled it up.
"That is guaranteed to get rid of all your rivals," the witch told him, as she slowly closed the door behind him. "It is a new batch. Yet to become potent, but that is a good thing. You won't die from using it!"
Nikola nodded, trying to see if he couldn't escape the pepper hell fumes.
He sneezed.
It felt like a kick to the heart.
"Now, the payment will be 100 gold coins for the jar," the witch told him, taking out a calculator. "And I can hook you up with a neat insurance! What do you think?"
"I need to go out," Nikola all but threw the money on the table. "I need to breathe!"
Gildana sighed.
Yet one more who didn't need an insurance.
"Fine!" The witch said, as she opened the door for him. "But if you ever feel like breaking the law, do come by! I can give you better weapons than red pepper!"
Now Nikola's imagination, with the lack of oxygen going to his brain and the fire at the back of his nose, began to go wild.
If the witch had something more than red pepper, then he was certain that he should have it!
"I would like to buy your strongest stuff!"
He was given a jar with a small slime blob.
"Now, use at your own peril!" The witch told him, as he stared at the cute thing. "And let me imprint you on it, or it will try to eat you. Give me your finger!"
Nikola did so. The witch cut his finger with her sharp as a curse nails.
The slime blob did a happy dance.
Nikola was already considering letting it run wild in dungeons.
It was not like he could afford to feed slimes, and the dungeons had loot in them!
It was a win-win.
Oh, if only the slime did not have opinions on everything…