The Sun Guardian

by T. S. Cleveland

  “Is this what you want?” Scorch asked, needing to be sure.

  Vivid glared at him, but then he whispered, “Yes.”

  Scorch slid the trousers down Vivid’s thighs, tracing delicate lines down the length of his legs until the fabric rested at his feet.

  “You still have your boots on,” Scorch laughed, fingering the knee-high leather.

  “Did you think I was going to wear the slippers?” Vivid returned snarkily.

  “They’re very comfortable slippers.” Scorch swept him up around the waist, spun them around, and planted Vivid onto the mattress so he could unlace his boots and pull them off, one by one. Next came the trousers from around the ankles. Scorch tossed them over his shoulder, and then, finally, he allowed himself to look his fill at Vivid, naked and spread before him.

  His thighs were muscular, his feet finely arched. His entire body was beautiful, but Scorch’s eyes were having a difficult time veering away from the cock that lay thick and lovely against Vivid’s stomach.

  “I’m feeling overdressed,” Scorch said, hypnotized by everything, absolutely everything.

  “Take off those stupid slippers and come here,” Vivid advised, rolling onto his side.

  Scorch kicked off the stupid slippers—literally kicked them so they went flying across the room—and joined him on the bed. Vivid melded to him, arms snaring around his neck and drawing him in. Scorch kissed him hard and dragged his hands over his skin, memorizing the way Vivid’s breath hitched when he scratched gently down his back, and the way he bit at Scorch’s lip when he gave his backside a squeeze.

  And Vivid’s hands were as inquisitive as Scorch’s, tugging off his shirt and tossing it haphazardly to the side. The floor was quickly becoming a graveyard for discarded adornments, and no barrier between their bodies was safe. Scorch lost his trousers next, Vivid yanking them down without pretense. And then Vivid’s mouth was on him, his breath hot and damp through the thin cloth of Scorch’s underclothes. He felt himself twitch in response, his back arching from the bed. Vivid rubbed a cheek against his painfully hard, painfully clothed erection, until Scorch was practically sobbing. Then he pulled the final impediment down Scorch’s hips and placed a single, open-mouthed kiss on the underside of his cock. Vivid reappeared by Scorch’s face a moment later, and he was smiling. It was a small smile, but it was real, and it was for him.

  “You’re going to kill me,” Scorch groaned, pushing Vivid onto his back.

  “Stop complaining,” Vivid answered, letting him.

  Skin met skin. Teeth clacked from insistent, desperate kisses. It was immeasurable, the state of them, wrapped around each other like they would never let go. Vivid’s eyes were closed, his lips red, and Scorch buried his face against his neck and kissed a path across his collarbone. Every piece of Vivid was presented to him, every inch welcoming his touch, and Scorch touched him everywhere.

  Time was broken in the space around them, so when Scorch moved down the bed and his hands firmly grasped Vivid’s thighs, he was unsure how long they’d been entwined; he only knew it was nowhere near long enough and never would be. Vivid writhed at the barest touch of Scorch’s lips brushing across the soft skin of his inner thigh. He sighed Scorch’s name and burrowed his fingers in his hair, and when Scorch teased him with a well-placed exhale, their eyes met across the expanse of his body. Vivid glowered at him crossly, heated, and then Scorch could wait no longer. He gave Vivid everything he wanted.

  The taste of him was simple: salt and skin and a clean musk that had Scorch stretching his lips and taking in more and more, as much as he could. Vivid’s fingers were soothing against his scalp, pulling gently when Scorch did something he liked. He liked the way Scorch held his hips steady, the way he swallowed him down, but it turned out, what Vivid liked most of all, was Scorch’s mouth on his, and it wasn’t overly long before he demanded it, yanking on his hair until Scorch found his way back. Vivid kissed him, and when he pulled back, his eyes were shining.

  “I have dreams about you,” Scorch whispered. He rubbed his stubbled cheek against Vivid’s neck. “But I don’t think all of them are dreams.”

  Vivid combed his fingers through Scorch’s hair. “What do you think they are?”

  “Memories. You, protecting me from Elias, cuddling me in the mountain cave.”

  Vivid scoffed. “That doesn’t sound like me.”

  “I think it does,” said Scorch. And even though he already knew the answer, he had to ask. “Did you hear what I said in the dungeon?”

  Vivid stilled beneath him. “Yes.” He grabbed Scorch’s hand and kissed his fingers, sucking two into his mouth. Then, with a determined gleam in his eyes, Vivid led his fingers down and brought them between his legs.

  “Yes,” Vivid said again, rocking his hips. “Scorch.”

  “Hold on. Gods.” Scorch unwound Vivid’s limbs from his body. His leather trousers were on the other side of the room, folded by the door and forgotten by the servant who’d been too busy flirting to collect Scorch’s filthy clothes for the laundry. He blessed that servant for his distractedness, Etheridge for her all-knowingness, and the little pouch of medicinals for not being stolen or lost before he had time to untie it from his belt and tear into it. There, between the nether-cream and the anti-inflammatory tealeaves, was a stoppered vial with a label on it that read, in Etheridge’s blocky hand: for Vivid and Scorch, followed by a winky face. He snatched it up and hurried back to the bed, where Vivid had turned onto his stomach. Scorch stared. It was a lot to take in.

  “Scorch,” he said, a summons, and one Scorch was all too happy to indulge, once his brain started working again.

  He crawled onto the bed and draped himself over Vivid’s back, kissing the nape of his neck and down his spine. He kissed further, too, picking Vivid up by the hips and pressing his mouth over his entrance, attending him with worshipful licks and kisses that had the sweat beading on Vivid’s back and his legs trembling. When his knees gave out, Scorch slicked his fingers with the oil and began opening him slowly, biting at the dimple in his lower back when he cursed him for being “too damn slow.”

  Scorch hushed him and took his time, enjoying the heady warmth of Vivid’s body, the way he grew increasingly impatient until he was grinding down on Scorch’s fingers and threatening murder. Scorch wondered, overwhelmed, which way it should be, but when Vivid arched his back and braced himself on his elbows, Scorch knew which way Vivid wanted it. He guided himself in, pausing when Vivid clenched around him, waiting for him to relax before inching deeper. Vivid’s hand reached around and Scorch held it, folding himself over his back and breathing roughly against his skin. When his hips were flush, they waited, Vivid tilting his head so Scorch could kiss him.

  It was Vivid who moved first, rocking back with languid undulations of his hips. It made Scorch’s skin burn so hot he might have set the bed on fire if not for the cool breeze from the open window. Awareness was a sluggish, creeping thing, stunted from the tight pleasure of Vivid’s body and the quick-building rhythm of Scorch’s hips as he moved with faster, less careful thrusts. But when Scorch turned his head to sigh and his eyes landed on the indisputably closed window, it hit him.

  Vivid grunted in surprise and annoyance when Scorch pulled out, rolled him onto his back, and thrust back in. The breeze ruffled their hair and Scorch leaned down to kiss him, smiling.

  Vivid didn’t notice until, after an exceptionally deep grind, the wind snuffed out the torchlight and knocked a vase of flowers off the dresser. He started in Scorch’s arms and broke their kiss to watch as the wind blew around the curtains, Scorch’s hair, and the bed sheets.

  “It’s you,” Scorch said, and Vivid nodded, bright-eyed.

  The air swirled around them excitedly when Vivid rolled Scorch onto his back and straddled him with a snarl. He laughed and took Vivid’s hands in his, anchoring him as he lifted up and dropped back down. Scorch wanted desperately to watch, to see, but the pleasure was too much and he had to close his eyes as
Vivid rode them both to completion. Scorch reached his first, unable to resist after Vivid leaned down and started sucking marks along his neck, and then Vivid came, wrapped in Scorch’s fist.

  They lay together after, Scorch’s head on Vivid’s chest, their fingers laced together, a sweet and mild breeze drying the sweat on their skin.

  Scorch nearly asked him, once they’d caught their breath, whether or not he was staying the night, but after Vivid turned his head to kiss him with a faint smile on his lips, his eyes fluttering shut with exhaustion, Scorch had his answer. He let his eyes close and slept happily, tucked into the curve of Vivid’s arm.

  They didn’t need Dream Moss to keep them safe anymore.

  A Beginning

  26

  The morning sun woke slowly, stretching its light across Vivid’s bare leg, slung around Scorch’s thigh like it had always belonged there. It was familiar and new all at once, waking up with Vivid. Familiar, because Scorch was already so accustomed to the way he stretched and yawned in the morning, his eyebrows moodily arched on his pillow-creased face, and new, because Vivid had never stretched and yawned moodily in his arms before. Scorch had certainly never smoothed his thumb over those scowling brows or pressed a kiss on the crease between his eyes, and Vivid had never brought Scorch to gasping wakefulness with his mouth.

  By the time the room was golden with sunlight, Scorch was freshly spent and ready to go back to sleep. If not for Vivid’s staunch refusal to lie down, he might have.

  “Get up,” Vivid demanded as he pulled on his snug trousers. Scorch mumbled into the warmth Vivid had left in the sheets, hesitant to move. “You are a mess,” was Vivid’s assessment, and a moment later Scorch was being bombarded with thrown articles of clothing. “We shouldn’t linger here.”

  Scorch pulled the underclothes from his face. “You don’t like the Queen,” he said.

  “I don’t like her, and I don’t trust her.”

  Scorch pried himself from the bed and walked over to Vivid, nuzzling his neck sleepily. “Last night, when I was with her, she had me burn the ordinances against elementals.”

  Vivid looked back at Scorch dubiously. “The morning changes people’s minds.”

  “Some people,” Scorch countered, pointedly placing his hand on the small of Vivid’s back.

  Vivid rolled his eyes. “She’s proven herself an ally only to her own best interests. Burning a piece of paper means nothing compared to the blood that’s been shed in her name.”

  “But she did burn the paper. It’s a step in the right direction, at least.” Scorch closed his eyes when Vivid’s fingers reached up to touch the gash on his brow.

  “You’re a fool.”

  Scorch opened his eyes. Vivid wasn’t smiling, but now that Scorch knew his smile, he could see how close to the surface it had always been. “I think being a fool has worked in my favor, in the long run.”

  Finally, a few kisses later, Scorch submitted to the idea of clothes. Though Vivid was making a show of righting the knocked over vase, Scorch could tell he was watching, so he pulled his trousers on extra slow, and stretched his arms high above his head before he tugged on his shirt. He also reached down, his back turned suggestively to Vivid, to pick up his slippers.

  A gust of wind knocked him down and he definitely deserved it. He looked up from his sprawl on the floor. “Kio’s potion was flawed. I knew it.”

  Vivid’s lips still looked slightly swollen from use as he pursed them, and Scorch wondered if he could coax him into joining him on the Queen’s soft rug. “You didn’t know it,” Vivid said.

  “I hoped it,” Scorch shrugged. “Do you feel back to normal? Do you think the effects have worn off completely?”

  Vivid held a hand to his stomach and closed his eyes. “It’s not cut off from me anymore.” He opened them a moment later. “But there’s no predicting the long term effects.”

  “We will take them as they come,” Scorch assured him.

  Vivid helped him from the floor. “Yes, we will.”

  Scorch was enjoying the bursting sensation in his chest when there came a knock on their door. Vivid automatically readied himself to unsheathe his daggers, but Scorch held up a hand to calm him. It wasn’t the formal knock of a servant, or the over-confident knock of an assassin. It was an awkward staccato that went on a little too long and was followed by a cough.

  Vivid’s shoulders relaxed, but he still looked at the door with displeasure. “It’s your guardian,” he grumbled.

  “He’s not my guardian,” Scorch argued, heading toward the door. “And I’ll have you know, Merric is the reason Etheridge was allowed to save your life, so you should be nicer to him.” Vivid didn’t look convinced. “Also, he thinks you’re pretty.” Vivid snorted as Scorch opened the door.

  Merric stood on the other side. Sometime during the night, his leg had been wrapped and he’d obtained the use of a cane. But for all of his injuries, Scorch had never seen him more contented. He guessed it might have something to do with the flautist glued to his side. One of Felix’s eyes was swollen and bruised, but he was grinning ear to ear. Scorch moved aside to let them in, grimacing in sympathy as Merric limped over to sit on the unmade bed. Felix sat beside him, but before he did, he plucked something out from the messy covers and held it up to examine in the light.

  Vivid’s eyes met Scorch’s as they both stared at the vial in Felix’s hand.

  “Whoops. Don’t want to lose this,” Felix said amiably, tossing it to Vivid. Vivid caught it and stuffed the vial of oil into his trouser pocket, his face coloring.

  Scorch stifled a laugh and looked from Felix to Merric, who was as red in the face as Vivid. “Did you have a nice night, Merric?” he asked innocently, suddenly curious whether Merric’s morning hobble had anything to do with his injury at all.

  “A nice night, yes,” Merric replied. “It sounded like you had a nice night, as well.”

  Scorch refused to be embarrassed. “A very nice night.” The best night of my life.

  Audrey sauntered in next, leaning in the doorway and judging Scorch’s fuzzy slippers. She had the look of secrets about her and smelled like flowers.

  “How is the Queen this morning?” Vivid asked her. He was propped by the window with his arms crossed. “Your eye patch is crooked.”

  “Bellamy is in amiable spirits,” Audrey said, checking the placement of her patch with a smirk. “And she has sent me to propose an idea to you.”

  “Why can’t she tell us herself?” Scorch asked.

  “Because she is in the bath,” Audrey answered.

  Audrey knowing about the Queen of Viridor’s bathtub occupancy was hardly the strangest thing Scorch had ever heard, so he nodded and plopped down on the bed beside Merric. “And what does Queen Bellamy propose?”

  “That I remain in the Royal Quarter and help her open a school.”

  That might have been the strangest thing Scorch had ever heard. Vivid looked less shocked, however, and he replied in a bored intonation. “What does that have anything to do with us?”

  “Because it will be a school for elementals,” Audrey said.

  Scorch stood up from the bed. “What did you say?” Vivid crossed from the window to stand at his side, and Scorch had to divide his attention between being stunned by Audrey’s announcement and being thoroughly pleased that Vivid was standing beside him, so close their arms brushed together.

  “She said she wants to create a place where elementals can hone their craft safely. Like the Hollow.”

  Scorch harrumphed rudely.

  Audrey glared at him with her eye and allotted, “Like the Hollow, but without all the murder.”

  “But the ordinances,” Merric began.

  “They’ve been destroyed,” Scorch told him.

  “Destroyed or not, Viridor won’t change its opinion of elementals overnight,” Merric argued. “Even after word spreads that the Queen’s stance has changed, most are already ingrained with the idea that elementals are dangerous.”r />
  “We are dangerous,” Vivid growled.

  “Only because we are forced to be.” Scorch put a hand on Vivid’s back, mostly because he could. “If elementals had a place to go, a way to learn control—it could change everything.” He looked at Audrey. “Are you going to do it?”

  “The Hollow has tainted itself for me,” she said. “And the Queen’s offer was . . . tempting.”

  “You’ll be putting yourself at risk,” warned Vivid.

  “Sometimes the right thing to do is the foolish thing,” she replied. “But my involvement isn’t why Bellamy sent me to speak with you. She’s extending an invitation to you both. She requests your aid teaching.”

  “No,” Vivid answered immediately.

  “You can’t stay here,” Merric said, standing from the bed and leaning on his cane, angling towards Scorch. “You have to come back to the Guild.”

  “I’m not a guardian anymore, Merric,” Scorch said, and for the first time, saying it aloud didn’t make him sad.

  “You are a guardian.” Felix sprang from the mattress, earnestness plastered on his honest face, and for a horrifying moment, Scorch was afraid he might burst into song. “You will always be a guardian.”

  “I’m sure my father will come around once word has spread about the ordinances. You can come back, Scorch,” said Merric. Merric, with his auburn hair and lovely green eyes. Merric, whom Scorch had always thought hated him and was now pleading for his companionship. “Vivid, you could come, too. You would make a fine guardian, I think.”

  “Say it again and it will be the last thing you ever say,” Vivid snapped.

  “I—need to think about it,” Scorch sighed.

  “Bellamy wants an answer soon,” Audrey said.

  “Felix and I want to head back tomorrow morning,” Merric said. “If you decide by then, we can share a carriage.”