Kei's Gift

by Ann Somerville

  “Kiss me,” he demanded. Kei had to adjust things to obey but he did, and Arman forgot everything else in the sweetness of Kei’s mouth. He cupped the sides of Kei’s head and made him look right at him. “Thank you,” he said.

  “But—”

  “Thank you for this much...and for what you’re going to do.”

  Kei gave him a wide smile. “You’re always welcome.” He stroked the back of his hand down Arman’s face. “Ready?”

  Arman nodded, and Kei moved back and got him into position again. “Don’t forget to breathe,” he ordered, and then something...blunt...nudged into Arman. Oh...gods, it felt so enormous inside him. He gripped the bedding again and tried to remember...oh yes, breathing...he kept up long, slow breaths. Kei was patient, taking his time. It didn’t hurt...it was just...odd.

  Kei slid his hand up and down Arman’s cock and he welcomed that distraction for its familiarity. Kei stared at him intently, no doubt looking for any sign this was hurting him. “I’m fine,” Arman whispered. “Go on.”

  Kei drew back and thrust, more quickly this time, and the sensation was stronger, the feeling of almost being overfilled on the verge of being unpleasant, but never getting to that point, and so long as Arman remembered Kei would never hurt him, he could stay calm. Still the intent look, and once again Arman reassured him. Kei moved more smoothly, in and out, setting up a slow, considerate rhythm, matched by the stroking motion on Arman’s cock.

  The sensation was intense, but not so overwhelming that Arman couldn’t focus on what was happening, or who he was with. Kei’s handsome face was a mask of rapt concentration, and Arman wondered what it felt like to him—fucking (for the word was appropriate there) Mayl had felt good and Kei seemed to like what he was doing. Would he ever have enough skill to pleasure Kei this way? His cock was thicker.... How big was Reji? Arman couldn’t help but wonder.

  And then he stopped thinking as Kei bumped that spot inside him he’d touched with his fingers earlier, and he cried out in incoherent pleasure, calling Kei’s name, begging for more. Kei gave it to him, thrusting faster into him but with a control that surprised Arman, as his clever hand played Arman’s body, wringing delight and shivering, rippling sensation from him over and over until he babbled in his need. He cried out again as with a flick and a quick stroke, and thrusting fast, Kei made him come harder than he ever had before, so powerfully that he had to close his eyes against the sparkling of his vision, and grip the bed again to stop himself flying apart, dimly aware of Kei’s own grunt of completion.

  He forced himself to breathe again and to open his eyes. Kei hung over him, hands on either side of his body, smiling, and looking rather out of breath himself. “You’re noisy,” he said. “I like that.”

  Arman flushed. “Sorry.”

  Kei shook his head. “I just said I liked it. Nothing better than knowing your lover really is enjoying themselves.” He eased his cock out of Arman’s body. “Now we’re both sticky,” he said with a grin. “The lesson ends with the observation that sex is very messy.”

  Which Arman had already worked out on his own, even from his own limited knowledge, and could have done so just from the sight of his come spattered on his stomach. Kei had tasted this the night before without a trace of hesitation. He touched one of the spatters with his finger, and brought it to his lips. Not completely disgusting—but not exactly a delight either.

  “Well?” Kei said. He’d been watching Arman’s actions with that same half-amused smile on his face.

  “I’ve eaten worse,” Arman said simply, and Kei laughed. “But I shan’t finish it, if you don’t mind.”

  “Reji never does either. Let me get a cloth.”

  Arman could do very little in his limp, sated state but lie there and wait for Kei to return.

  Reji’s name had been mentioned several times, and yet he had not felt any jealousy, perhaps because Kei had never even hinted he was comparing the two. He was just stating facts, offered mostly in reassurance to Arman, and no way indicating he thought he was getting the worse deal for having surrendered one lover for another.

  Reji was part of Kei’s experience, a beloved part, and Kei offered that experience to Arman to give him enjoyment. Far from Reji being a threat, in fact, Arman had a great deal to thank the older man for. Although, he thought wryly, Reji would probably not appreciate the gratitude.

  Kei cleaned him quickly and put the cloth aside before cuddling close to him which, Arman was discovering, was really the part of sex he loved the most. They lay like that, Arman slowly stroking Kei’s braid and kissing him, until the last red streaks had gone from the sky.

  “Time to go,” he said then, and so they rose, refreshed and relaxed, ready to join the real world once more with all its concerns.

  Chapter : Darshek 6

  The only reference point Arman had for official dinners were the stultifyingly boring ones Kita regularly held at the palace, and he’d been expecting, without any great enthusiasm, to have to endure something of the sort tonight. It was therefore a surprise to find the atmosphere was decidedly informal—no elaborate linen or settings, no pre-established seating plan, and food piled on tables at the top and side of the room for the forty or so people to help themselves from. There were other tables arranged haphazardly around, and he realised the intention was for the guests to move about, discussing matters with whoever they needed to. By the time he and Kei arrived, the room was already lively. All the Rulers were there, the senior army and naval officers (including Tiko who scowled briefly as he spotted Arman, but then turned back to an earnest conversation with one of the sea captains), several of the Gifted, and others who had been at various daytime meetings.

  Kei was a little taken aback. “I didn’t realise there would be so many people,” he whispered.

  “Nor I. Can you handle this?”

  “Yes, if I can come back to your side if things get too much. Oh—there’s Reji.”

  That surprised Arman. However important Reji was to Kei personally, a beast manager was very low down the rank of people involved in this rescue. Perhaps Lord Meki thought he could come since he was around. The whole thing puzzled Arman—the idea of socialising based on a military expedition was odd. Lady Jilki said it had been Lady Nera’s idea, to help them all get to know each other and strengthen their cooperation. Arman had heard stranger ideas, he supposed.

  Lady Jilki snagged his attention as he and Kei went to fetch something to eat. He introduced her to Kei and she paid the barest attention due to politeness, before questioning Arman closely about the defences in Urshek. Kei stood listening for a few moments, looking ill at ease, but when Arman managed to shrug and indicate he could be a while, he smiled uncertainly and wandered off to find himself some food. Arman expected he would find Reji if he needed someone familiar to talk to, or come back to Arman’s side. Kei was not among enemies here, and so Arman refused to be too anxious about him. He did, however, make sure he knew where his lover was at all times.

  Lady Jilki was gracious enough to let him fill a plate and sit down, but he could hardly get a bite into his mouth as she quizzed him. It was with definite relief he saw someone else catch her eye, and she excused herself. Arman hastily ate some of the smoked jombeker meat with a hunk of the excellent bread—he doubted he would have much chance to eat in peace again and he was quite hungry.

  Sure enough, Lord Meki noticed he was free and strode over. “Have you got that report for me, General?”

  Arman dusted off his hands and pulled the papers out from where he’d stored them in his shirt pocket. Lord Meki scanned them quickly. “Excellent—thorough work, general.”

  “I can claim no credit, my lord. It was Kei and Reji together—I’ve been too occupied to do more than answer some questions they had.”

  Lord Meki nodded. “And the lad, where is he?”

  Arman pointed to where Kei was in an earnest conversation with Reis, hopefully convincing the eccentric mind-mover that however guilty he felt over
the death of one man, he could prevent many more by coming on the mission. He had every faith in Kei’s persuasive ability.

  “Then I think I’ll have a chat with him about this,” Lord Meki said. “I believe our sea captains want you to inspect the ships tomorrow—they want to be sure everything looks authentic.”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll arrange that first thing.”

  “Are you sure this healer of yours will be fit to travel in three days, general?”

  “Yes, my lord. If he’s not, he’s not coming. I’ve told him that.”

  Lord Meki grunted in approval. “Very well. I’ll speak to you once you’ve inspected the ships. Good evening.”

  The Ruler was not, underneath it all, a harsh man, but Arman still had a little anxiety as he watch his short, slim back make his way through the talking groups and past the tables towards Kei. “Something troubling you, general?”

  He looked up at Bikel, who stared back with cool, slightly mocking eyes. It was a habitual expression. It meant nothing other than the man liked to hide his thoughts. “No, not really.”

  “Oh? Not a certain stubborn village healer?”

  “No, Kei’s fine, in fact—over there.” He pointed, and had the pleasure of obviously catching Bikel by surprise. “He took your advice after all.”

  “Did he now? Good gods, I thought he was a lost cause. And what will happen when you go to Utuk?”

  Arman looked at him seriously. “He’s coming with me.”

  Bikel went very still. “And should something happen to you?”

  “You know the answer to that, Master Bikel. But he insists it will make no difference wherever he learns the news, and if he goes he will have that bit longer with me. I’ve tried arguing with him. As you know, it’s an unrewarding task.”

  Bikel frowned. “This is very bad. That boy would be a great loss for us. He has a fine mind, if a stubborn one, and a great gift and talent.”

  Arman shrugged helplessly. “I’m open to suggestions. I particularly would love some answer to the question of how to keep him alive if something happens to me. Is there no one with your gift who can help? It would be worth trying almost anything to save him, but I don’t want him to survive just by locking himself away. I would truly rather he died than suffered that, and I think, in his heart, so would he.”

  Bikel nodded. “I agree,” he said. “I’ve been discussing this very thing with Diza today—what happened to Kei is naturally something that upset him greatly, given our situation. He said if he and I were unfortunately linked at my death, which I truly hope we’re not, but it could easily happen, he would just take an overdose of pijn. I can’t find it in my heart to argue against that. We’re not meant to endure such pain for years.”

  “I’m sorry,” Arman said quietly. “I hadn’t thought how this would resonate for you.”

  Bikel gave him a sad look. “It’s one of the few disadvantages of loving a soul-toucher. The other main one is never being able to deceive the bastards,” he said, his thin mouth quirking into a brief, wry smile, before he became serious again. “There is one other option, one that Diza being in his late middle age would never contemplate, nor I suggest it. But since Kei is so young, it’s possible he might consent, if the only other options were suicide or a lifetime of agony. It’s a last resort, you understand.”

  Arman could tell from the man’s voice he found what he was talking about repugnant, but if it offered any hope at all for Kei in the event of his own death, he wanted to know. “Tell me more,” he said quietly.

  ~~~~~~~~

  “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Meda said. “Honestly, Reis, you’re no murderer,” she added affectionately, putting her arm through her lover’s.

  Reis struggled against his own sadness to understand Kei’s argument. Kei hadn’t intended to speak to the man this evening, since Arman hadn’t even thought he would be here. But Neka, the mind-speaker, had spotted Kei and recognised him, as she’d shyly told him, as the person occupying so much of Arman’s thoughts. She had brought him over to meet Meda, who’d then insisted he talk to Reis. And so there he found himself telling them about how he’d come to know Arman, about their relationship (because if you were someone the Gifted wanted to talk to, then they wanted to know all about you with nothing held back). That had led on, somehow, to Reis saying he couldn’t convince himself he should go on the rescue and that he was no better than the Prij himself. At this point, Meda had looked at Kei with pleading eyes, and Kei knew, whether Reis came on the mission or not, he couldn’t let this young man carry this burden of misery.

  The problem was Reis had only ever thought of his gift as something to amuse himself, rather than as anything dangerous. That didn’t mean he hadn’t been careful when he’d brought the ships into the harbour. It only meant he’d never really believed he could in fact cause a death, or many deaths, even by accident. Not being a stupid person, he’d understood that fact intellectually, but it was quite another thing to actually have caused someone’s life to end—and it didn’t help that many of the Gifted had point blank refused to be involved in the mission. Reis and the others who had so agreed already faced disapproval for involving themselves with a military operation. Kei didn’t think he could live with the guilt of causing a death himself, so he had every sympathy with Reis’ reluctance to put himself in the way of doing it again.

  But at the same time, Reis was so crucial to the plans that the entire mission might have to be scrapped if he didn’t come with them, and Kei was desperate to stop the Prij killing his friends. He refused to lay even more guilt on Reis, by claiming he would be responsible for more deaths if he refused—it sounded like enough people had already tried that with Reis and it had just made him even more upset and unhappy. It was as if no one cared at all how Reis himself was feeling.

  “When I was in Fort Trejk, after the Prij force was overrun,” he said hesitantly, and the two Gifted turned to him. “We had dozens of people coming in—blood everywhere, arrows sticking out of bodies, even spears, broken bones breaking the skin....” Meda shuddered. “The first time I’d seen anything like that was when I was ten. Our village mines pujum ore, and there was a kiln explosion. Ma was our healer and I went with her—everyone did, as you can imagine. We just ran to where the smoke was.”

  He had their full attention. “When we got there, it was a bit like the fort. All I could see was blood, broken bodies, fire.... I was scared to death. Ma made me stand outside while she worked. We had...oh, there were six or seven people, injured, and as many more I think, lying on the ground. I thought they were all dead, there was so much blood and damage, but Ma knew they were alive. I watched her as she decided who she had to treat and in what order and then she started making order of the chaos. She made a decision to work on the most desperate ones first, as is our training. While she was operating on the second victim, two of those waiting died. There was nothing she could do—she was the only one who could do the surgery, and there were too many. She told me later she might have saved the men, if there had been time and someone else to help, but that was the decision she made. That was the day I really decided I wanted to be a healer like her.”

  Meda looked about to cry—he put a hand on her arm to soothe her. “It was a long time ago,” he said gently. “Such things happen when you refine pujum, or where you carry out any such dangerous work.” She nodded. “But my point is that it was a stark lesson to me in many ways. You need to always be prepared for disasters, and you do what you can when they happen. But you can’t save everyone, and if you try, you might lose all your patients.”

  “Fort Trejk?” Reis clung to his lover’s arm, his eyes burning into Kei’s.

  “Yes. Well, as I said, it was chaos—I was the only trained healer on hand, although we had medics as well. We just had to sift and assess and make those who were safe, even if they were in pain, wait until we knew who needed treatment first. Several died as we were assessing them—they were too badly hurt. Finally,
it came down to two men who were the most seriously injured. One had a spear through his lung, the other had been crushed by an urs beast. The first would die in minutes if I didn’t work on him, get the spear removed, stop him bleeding. It took a long time to make him stable. I knew the other man was waiting, but there was only one of me, and if I stopped on the first to attend to the second, both would have died. By the time I’d judged the first safe to leave, the second was probably only minutes from death, perhaps no more than five to ten until it would have been too late to save him whatever I did. If I hadn’t had my gift to help me, it’s certain the second would have died—it would have taken too long.” Kei pointed at where Arman was sitting with Bikel, talking seriously about something or other. “The second man was Arman.”

  Meda gasped a little. “Your point is?” Reis said angrily, pale and looking about to collapse. Kei tugged him over to a chair and made him sit, Meda hovering behind him. Kei pulled a chair up and sat down also.

  “My point...my point is that if Arman had died, I wouldn’t have forgiven myself, even though it would have been unavoidable. His death would have been the direct result of my decision, but it was a decision I made to save another person. That the one who would have died was the man who would become my lover, and who even then I was probably already in love with, had to be set aside. But afterwards, I would have tortured myself, even though my presence there was pure chance—if I’d not been there, both men would have died, and others besides. But should I have let the other man die to save him?”

  “Was the other one a good man?” Meda asked quietly.

  “I didn’t know him at all. Does it matter?” Kei said, just as quietly. She shook her head. “No. We who have skills and gifts can do so much good, save people’s lives. But we can’t save everyone, and sometimes our decision to save someone means someone else dies. Reis, you saved hundreds and hundreds of people that day, Prij and Darshianese alike. You should be proud of that. It was a humane and skilful thing to do.”