Da was right, he wrote. As he usually is. Stamp disobedience and disrespect out while they’re still sparks, and you won’t set the ship on fire. Hidings should be brisk and business-like. I marched the lad to the bow, told him to drop breeches and bend over and I just did it. Did it fast, got it done and moved on with the day. That evening, he stood for story hour, with much teasing from his friends. But he said goodnight to me afterward and I told him to rest well. Already it feels long ago.
While he neither relished nor regretted the whipping, he did note he was mostly annoyed by the interruption to the day’s work.
Everything on the Kaleuche was on a bigger scale, including the work. Besides overseeing the sail making, Dhar and Beniv were measuring the crew for new boots and clothes, and sewing until their fingers and toes were numb. Lejo worked modest miracles with the crew, swiftly assessing skill and talent and putting apprentices where the ship needed them most.
When they stumbled to dinner, they ate around yawns. Some of the minoros nodded off in the soup. After writing in his journal and taking reports from his maristos, Trueblood fell into bed like a dead Nye tree, his jobs well done.
They stayed anchored in Valtourel another month, stocking the ship and taking their time getting used to the Kaleuche. Devising new ways, new rules and new traditions. Then they started short runs at sea.
“She’s incredibly stable for having no ballast,” Trueblood said.
Calvo was almost disturbed by the stability. “She’s too stable for a ship with empty holds. And something about the bulkheads in the holds is off, too. Can’t put my finger on it.”
They made their first overnight voyage to Alondra. Once aboard, Trueblood closed the door to the bedroom in the kepten’s quarters and had a bed moved into the twins’ cabin.
“Why?” Raj said. “I mean, not that we mind, but…”
The reason was so elusively obvious, Trueblood couldn’t articulate it beyond a shrug.
“It’s because you’re waiting for later,” Lejo said quietly.
“Lé, shut up.”
“It’s not your Da’s room.”
“I know,” he snapped. “But it’s not mine either. Not yet. I haven’t earned it.”
The twins let it be and Trueblood was grateful. But Lejo was right—he was waiting for later. Assuming command was one thing. He could easily pretend (and often did) that his father was ill or indisposed and Trueblood was simply holding the status quo on a temporary basis. To take ownership of the kepten’s giant bed was to acknowledge Ikharus wasn’t coming back, anytime, ever.
His mood was irritable and his nerves jumpy as he brought the Kaleuche into the Gulf of Pellandro and turned her south. By the time they approached the Elpremi, the tricky strait between Nordater and Pellandro, the spokes of the helm’s mighty wheel felt melded to every crease and line of his hands, as if it had been carved for him alone. His giantsblood sang with love for the sea. He was born for this and nothing else.
“You’re doing well, Troubled,” Abrakam said. It was after evening story hour and the centaur poured out two glasses of wine. “Your father would be proud.”
Trueblood took a careful sip, then smiled. “This isn’t Altynian plonk.”
“No,” Abrakam said gruffly, thumping the bottle on the table. “Gods know I love and miss Ikharus to my bones. But I’m happy never to drink liquid prunes again.”
Next morning, they slipped back through the Elpremi and made a jaunt around the Gulf of Pellandro, tacking and beating. They came into Valtourel on the noon tide, just as the temple of Solos rang the zenith bell.
The stevedores had nearly completed the new wharf for the Kaleuche. A crowd gathered along it, waving and shouting as she came in. The majoros puffed out their chests as they descended the gangplank, milking the celebrity. The maristos went off in search of sustenance—both at tables and in beds. Trueblood finished logging the day in his journal and ambled down the pier. A splash of red at the end caught his eye. He smiled as the red became a shirt and its wearer became Belmiro, sitting atop a post, legs swinging.
“Salutos, Kepten,” he called.
“Salu. What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Me?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am.”
Bel crossed his arms and gave a lopsided smile. “I’m more than just Naria’s errand boy.”
He’d grown a goatee since last Trueblood had seen him. Above the bearded grin his green eyes were full of the sun. They twinkled with mischief as his foot reached to knock against Trueblood’s leg. “Fancy a swim?”
“Gods, yes. Dying to get out of these clothes.”
He meant it conversationally but it hung in the air like a proposition, then plopped to the ground.
Belmiro hopped off the post. “I have one or two things to do in town. Drop your clobber at the palace and meet me in the courtyard. Half an hour?”
“All right.”
“See you then.” He raised a hand and walked off, adding over his shoulder, “Clothing optional.”
Belmiro held up a growler of ale, frosted and dripping condensation. “Fancy a drink with the swim?”
“Gimme that.” Trueblood said, and drained nearly a quarter of it.
“Drinking and walking is a true talent,” Belmiro said as they headed down the path toward the beach. He took a deep draught as he loped along, then coughed and sputtered half of it on his feet. “You can see I don’t have it.”
They skirted the grotto pool and clambered over the rocky outcropping to the public beach. The breakers were loud, frothing white on the slick sand. Trueblood found a place between two boulders to keep the ale both chilled and secure. Brushing sand off his hands, he walked toward Belmiro, who was pulling his shirt over his head.
Trueblood stopped, blinking at the silvery marks on Belmiro’s back. A pair of wings, parallel to his spine, the tips overlapping.
“Bel, you’re a kheiron,” he said.
Slowly Belmiro looked back over his shoulder, the wind ruffling his hair. “You’re pretty astute for a wharf rat.”
“I had no idea.”
“Of course you didn’t. This is the first time I’ve taken my clothes off in your presence.” He threw the shirt at Trueblood’s face. “Close your mouth, Kepten.”
Trueblood deflected the garment and walked closer, stunned at his own ignorance. “Let me see your hands.”
“My, I haven’t had my nails inspected since I was a foalboy.” Bel dutifully held out his nine fingers and their silver rings.
“I can’t believe I never noticed,” Trueblood said
“To be fair, you’ve had a lot on your mind lately. A fellow’s hands probably aren’t high on your list of priorities.”
“You don’t ever take kheiros form?”
Belmiro shook his head. “My legs were broken when I was young. As a result it’s really painful for me to stand in kheiros. So I live on two feet.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged as he untied the laces of his breeches.
“I don’t ever see you with the herd,” Trueblood said, staring.
“For reasons too depressing to get into, I’m not really part of the herd anymore.” He paused, a corner of his mouth grinning and his thumbs in the waistband of his breeches. “What, are you waiting to see if I’m hung like a horse?”
His laugh rose above the surf as Trueblood turned around.
“You’re blushing, wharf rat.”
“Fuck off, crow bait.”
Belmiro only laughed harder as his breeches landed on Trueblood’s head.
They swam for the better part of an hour, diving through the waves or bodysurfing them onto the beach. Then they stretched out on a flat rock to dry off. Belmiro held up a refusing palm to the growler. “I’m high on life. You kill it.”<
br />
The sun and the ale and the day’s exertions sank fingers into Trueblood’s body. He dozed off, hands laced beneath his head. His grief rested as well, tired of being the driving force all this time. When he sent experimental feelers into his heart, looking for signs the twins needed him, he felt no longing yank or pull.
He sighed, perfectly content. Wanting for nothing. Melting into the gold light through his eyelids and toying with the idea of kissing the kheiron.
When he yawned awake, the tide was nearly out. Belmiro lay on his stomach, chin on his crossed arms. Eyes open and fixed on something far away. The sun glinted off the marks on his back, tantalizing and gorgeous.
“Can I see your wings?” Trueblood asked.
Belmiro blinked once. Then the sunlight disappeared as his wings unfurled and spread wide. They flapped once, twice, then lowered to the rock’s surface, one draped over Trueblood’s hips. He expected the feathers to be blood-warm, having emerged from Belmiro’s body. Instead they were cool, and softer than twilight. They tickled. Beneath their caress, he started to get hard.
Belmiro closed his eyes. “Kepten, did I suddenly grow another basal phalanx or are you just glad to see me?”
And like that, Pelippé Trueblood went from a boy mooning over naked pictures in books to a young man bedded by two lovers in the space of a month.
“Now what are you giggling about,” Belmiro said. Door locked, drapes drawn, they lay in Trueblood’s bed, in a tangle of limbs and bedclothes.
“Naria did say if I needed anything I should ask you.”
“What else did she say?”
“That you were the official know what to do-er.”
“And was she right?”
“Is Naria ever wrong?”
“Often wrong,” Belmiro said, rolling onto him again. “Never in doubt.”
The kheiron was confident, mature and fearless in matters gelang, but his prowess hid behind an easy, self-effacing manner. He was undemanding and protective of Trueblood’s inexperience with bedding men. Asking questions and being the perfect listener, he learned of the entire journey. From discovering the books in Abrakam’s library, to the strange monstrous feelings, to the clumsy but tender exploration with Lejo.
“It’s good you told him to stop,” Bel said. “When it comes to that kind of thing, it’s enthusiastic consent or nothing.”
“I was enthusiastic but it hurt.”
“Of course it did. What were you using, a little spit? If that?”
Trueblood put the pillow over his head. “What do you want from my life? The book had pictures, not step-by-step directions.”
Belmiro laughed and yanked the pillow away. “I think I need to see this book.”
The very next day, Trueblood snuck the illustrated study in gelang off the ship and that night, he discovered reading was the second-greatest thing you could do with someone in bed.
Bel’s contribution to the evening was a vial of thin, gold oil. “Algolerta,” he said. “Extracted from seaweed. Mixed with oud tree resin and saffron before being filtered through a nychet. Expensive, but worth every kheso.”
Trueblood rubbed a bit of the slickness between his thumb and finger and his eyes bulged.
“I know,” Bel said, tackling him. “You can thank me later.”
“Thank you,” Trueblood said to the ceiling later, breathing hard and blinking away the spots in his vision.
Belmiro collapsed beside him, breathing just as hard. “You’re welcome.”
“Where do I get more?”
“More algolerta or more of me?”
“Both.”
Trueblood could hardly believe what his life had become. Kepten by day, lover by night. Working his ass off, fucking his brains out. Barely getting any sleep, yet he’d never felt so full of energy.
Maybe that was what gelang did to you.
Is this gelang?
“I can’t think when I had a better time,” Belmiro said, when he kissed Trueblood in the wee hours and slipped from the bed. He rarely stayed the whole night. “I’m horrible enough in the mornings without having to do a walk of shame past Raj and Lejo.”
“They don’t care if you sleep with me.”
Bel barked a laugh as he pulled on his breeches. “Maybe Raj fucks everything and Lejo’s not interested in fucking anything, but believe me, Pé. They care who shares your bed.”
Trueblood sighed. “If my honor means that much to you—”
“Oh, but it does.”
“Fine. Get out of here.”
Alone, the mariner sprawled like a satisfied tiger in the center of the mattress, blissed-out and aching in every major muscle group. His ego stroked to a velvety purr. So what if Bel went home to his own bed? He was terrific in every other aspect. Hilarious. Sexy. Patient. The perfect lover. He guided them through night after night of exploration, yet somehow made it all seem Trueblood’s idea. Best of all, he generously answered all Trueblood’s questions. Even the ones about Fen il-Kheir, albeit a little more tersely.
“Were you and Fen friends growing up?”
“Yes.”
Trueblood gently pushed the single syllable. “But not after he was rescued?”
Belmiro ran his fourhand through his hair. “Fen didn’t want friends after he came home. He was…” The hand came out and turned over in the air.
“Untouchable.”
“Good word.”
“Why do you think il-Kheir treats Fen the way he does?”
Bel took a long time to answer, his mouth opening and closing as he chose words. “I was only two when Fen was born,” he finally said. “But those who were older, those who were there, they all say after Zoria died, the Horselord was never the same. Not that losing your mate isn’t a life-altering experience for any creature, but it left il-Kheir slightly…off. Like he constantly walked the line between life and death, and only managed to stay grounded on this side because he put everything he felt for Zoria into Fen. But then Fen was taken away from him.”
He rolled on his side to face Trueblood. “I think the Horselord distracted himself from Fen’s disappearance by going to war. But after Minosaros was cleaned out and Fen still wasn’t found, il-Kheir had nothing to do except think about him. Spend all day wondering what became of him. Spend all night imagining what might’ve been done to him. Obsess over it. Be consumed by it. And finally when Fen was rescued and il-Kheir saw what the minotaurs did to him…”
Belmiro whistled softly as his index finger made a slow circle around his temple. “I think that’s when he really lost his mind, Pé. He didn’t just shut down what happened to Fen. He threw it out of his head, heart and soul so thoroughly that he lost it. And because he’s king, the herd lost it, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Il-Kheir controls the herd mentality. The group mind. It looks to him for a reaction to every intense situation. If he gets fired up, we get fired up. If he shuts down, every kheiron unconsciously takes a cue and does the same.”
“Holy shit. As the heir, can Fen affect the herd mentality?”
Bel nodded. “A bit, yes. He built those untouchable walls around himself, but no doubt he was giving off soul-signals to his people. He buried what happened to him in the past, and the herd did, too. He didn’t talk about how his father was behaving, and every kheiron followed suit. Nobody talked about it or acknowledged what was happening. I mean nobody.”
“Except you.”
Belmiro chuckled through his nose and his shoulder shrugged. “I’m an outcast. I can think for myself.”
“You’re an outcast because of your legs?”
“Sort of.”
The nature of Belmiro’s injury was a subject off-limits. “It would be like me asking for details of your father’s death,” he said. “Or even pushing you to remember your mother’s murder.”
Trueblood respected the boundary, but his curiosity niggled and one night, he couldn’t help asking to see Belmiro in kheiros. Just once. Just for a minute.
Belmiro gave a dramatic sigh, his eyes circling the ceiling. “I’m afraid you’re irresistible, Pelippé Trueblood. One minute.”
And he shifted.
“Gods,” Trueblood whispered. He didn’t have time to waste rationalizing how such magic was possible or how it worked. He suspended his belief and ran his hand along Belmiro’s dappled, chestnut coat.
“You like?” Bel said.
“You are one splendid stallion, my friend.”
“Thank you. And could you scratch? Right between the withers. Yes. There.”
“Feel good?”
“Come here, I’ll show you what feels good.” He took Trueblood’s hand and guided it between his forelegs. “Just dig in between those two big muscles. With the heel of your hand. That’s it.”
“Here?” Trueblood said. “Not back there?”
Belmiro’s smile was delicious. “No, back there is for making babies. Where it feels good in kheiros is here.”
“Like that?”
“Mm.” His body shivered, tiny bumps rashing the skin of his arms and chest. “Your hand feels amazing but my legs hurt. Time’s up.”
He shifted to humos, an impressive erection tenting his breeches. Trueblood stepped back and regarded it, arms crossed.
Belmiro crossed his own arms. “No doubt you noticed I’m slightly shorter when I stand in humos.”
“I did notice.”
“I believe you’re also wondering what happens to my pants when I shift.”
“Indeed I am.”
The Voyages of Trueblood Cay Page 18
