Lust ruled out over love, and for once, Uly let it. Beneath him lay a good-looking and well-endowed man who wanted him, although sexuality in this instance didn’t matter. He’d never questioned his choice. He had once told Tressa that it felt as if the universe had chosen for him, and now he felt it more than ever. He loved Markis for who he was, whatever body he occupied. He cared for Ryanac for the very same reasons. Ahh…but this…
Uly closed his eyes and gave himself over to the pleasure. Ryanac was right; he questioned too much, and he was tired of it. He questioned his very existence some days. He rode, that glorious penetration drawing forth a sweet gratification that felt almost sinful. Up and down, back and forth; Uly could no longer contain his moan of… He didn’t know what the sound that tumbled from his lips signified. In any case, it caused him to open his eyes, and the expression on Ryanac’s face was one he was afraid to decipher. He thought the tears vanquished, but he was wrong. He wanted to turn his head but even as he made the slightest gesture to do so, Ryanac twitched beneath him, and he knew the big man would grip his face in that unforgiving grasp if he tried to look away. Uly stared into those dark eyes, certain of the anguish he displayed on his face. If he blinked, he would cry.
Ryanac saw him in a different way than Markis did. Markis saw all the good in him, but Ryanac paid witness to the darkness that resided there, too. Markis was aware of it, but Ryanac’s eyes said that he saw all of Uly, everything he had been, was, and could be, and accepted him on a level that had nothing to do with sex or even love. Ryanac saw life for what it was, as harrowing as it was beautiful. For Markis and Ryanac, sex was not just for pleasure and no mere expression of love.
Uly frowned, uncertain how that sudden insight came to him, but he remained convinced of the rightness of his perception. He loved Markis ‑‑ he did! ‑‑ but in the beginning Uly looked to him almost as proof that he had a reason to exist. Ryanac… He’d never looked to Ryanac for those reasons. For protection, maybe, but not for confirmation of who he was, because somehow it felt as if Ryanac already knew him, understood him in a way that Uly had only recently begun to know himself. He didn’t want to love the big man. Uly wanted to blame him for his anxiety, but it was hardly the guard’s fault that Markis loved Ryanac as well. The big man truly was too easy to take into his heart.
The prickling behind his eyes spread into the back of his nose. Uly’s eyes filled with tears. For Ryanac, sex was no mere expression of love, no more than it was for Uly now. He doubted it ever had been. This dance denied extinction, no matter who the participants. Uly moved in denial that anyone or anything could ever take the people he loved from him. The realisation finally made him blink, and tears spilled out to roll down his face. With the tears came a kind of release he didn’t even understand, but he instinctively knew that this would never have happened with Markis. Only Ryanac could break down his defences like this. Markis loved him too much to pay witness to these tears, let alone cause them.
Uly had believed that he’d made peace with his life, but he’d been lying to himself all this time. Yet oddly, his life now made him so much more aware of what he had lost, or what he’d never had before and now did. He’d craved love, but he only recently accepted that he didn’t need love to prove his worth. He was happy for the first time, but he wanted to cry for the people he’d known and lost, as well as all that he’d suffered. Ryanac didn’t come from the streets, but he knew what went on in the world on a different level than Markis. Somehow, that made Ryanac more of an equal. Uly couldn’t cry like this in front of Markis. Not now. He loved him too much.
As if Ryanac knew, one of those large hands pressed in a solid line at his back, pulling him closer. Uly wanted to bury his face in the man’s neck, but the position wouldn’t allow for it.
“Uly.” Ryanac whispered his name only, but the sound of so much empathy in the man’s voice forced a sob from Uly’s throat. Incredibly, even as they fucked, Uly wept, but each tear tore his misery out of him. He didn’t understand what he was grieving for, but he felt as though each moment that passed cleansed him of something filthy he hadn’t even known he carried. Uly slammed down, gasping, feeling the man’s testicles smash against his body. He couldn’t tell if Ryanac’s answering grunt was one of pain or satisfaction. Not only his cock wanted to burst; Uly wanted his spirit to rupture, to soar, to let go. He wanted to share more than mere pleasure with this man, and the narrowing of Ryanac’s gaze told him that the big man knew. Still, some part of Uly kept his love in reserve, so Uly shared his tears. Ryanac lay passive, but need drove Uly on, for Ryanac watched him as though he witnessed something beautiful. Forgetting his embarrassment, Uly took his own cock in hand and began to stroke it, matching his rhythm to the gliding, pumping, blinding friction. He burned. Was it possible for blood to boil? It wasn’t enough.
“Please,” Uly whispered. “This isn’t what I need.” His eyes closed in helplessness even as the words spilled from his lips, and at once, Ryanac gathered him up. He might have questioned how the big man could keep their bodies pressed together like this as he turned them, if he wasn’t so aware of that remarkable strength. Uly lay pinioned, Ryanac’s hips driving into him now. Those incredible hands restrained his, and it was just what he needed. He met Ryanac’s gaze just before he arched his back, which rolled back his head and eyes both. He became what he wanted: a thing of sensation, stretched, open, and not just where that wonderful cock lay buried inside him. He wanted something, someone, to tear open some unseen barrier. He opened his eyes to meet that dark gaze as he bubbled over. Flesh swelled, gushed forth, making him writhe with pleasure mixed with pain, gasping as he felt liquid heat both leave and enter his body.
Uly continued to shudder, trapped under Ryanac’s heaving musculature. Uly’s breathing was almost ragged; the slightest movement reminded him that they lay still fastened together, but not only the spike of delight that came from that sweet tickling sensation made him whimper. He lay there and cried, the big man still holding him until his crying eased.
Chapter Nine
His pillow rose and fell softly, breathing. From within, he could hear the steady pulse of a heart beating.
Uly opened his eyes. His pillow was Ryanac. His first instinct was to turn his head and look up. He had tensed to do so, but he forced his body to relax and lie still, listening to the heart’s rhythm, feeling the warm skin against his cheek. Ryanac always smelled like a cupboard that had once contained spices. The thought made Uly smile. He did turn his head and look up then, unsurprised to see Ryanac looking at him. The man would have known when he woke. He would have felt Uly tense. Sometimes, Uly half believed the man never slept, or kept one eye open.
His mind swiftly relived the events of the night, of Ryanac stealing his voice with kisses and answering his need with his superior strength. Then later, after considerable rest, Uly recalled lying on his front, Ryanac’s wicked tongue delving in, ticking that sweet spot, making him cry out. Ryanac turning him at will. Ryanac sucking and making him suck. Ryanac inflaming his senses and blocking his thought processes so that it felt as if he’d turned into a thing of flesh, an animal with no sense of time or intellect. It occurred to Uly that at any other time in his life he would have felt abused. All he felt now was content, replete. Heat seeped into his face. Ryanac let loose a low chuckle. “Going shy on me now?”
Before he could try to form an answer, one of those huge hands gathered up his head and drew him forward into a kiss, but Uly resisted. “I haven’t cleaned my teeth,” he said. Ryanac let out another warm, creeping chuckle and gave him a closed mouth kiss anyway. They looked at one another, Uly frowning slightly. “What’s changed?” he asked at last. He couldn’t put a name to it but something felt different this morning.
Ryanac studied him, looked about to speak, then shook his head and said nothing.
“I’m not wrong, though.”
“No.” The other man spoke quietly. “You’re not wrong.”
It looked as though he
might say more, but at that moment, a quiet rapping came at the door. Markis’s voice drifted through. “Ryanac, we have council in the time it will take to walk there.”
Ryanac’s eyes grew wide. “I’m coming,” he shouted, and the sound rumbled through his chest beneath Uly’s hands. Standing up and somehow scooping Uly into his arms at the same time, Ryanac set him back down in the bed and drew the cover over him. “You have made me late for the first time in years.”
Uly stared up at him. “I can’t imagine you ever being late.”
That grin appeared. “You didn’t know me at the academy.”
The big man stooped down to kiss his forehead. Then he was gone in a hurry with an armful of clothing. Apparently, he intended to dress on the way.
* * * * *
“What happened last night?”
Ryanac didn’t answer immediately. They had paused once in the main suite while Ryanac drew on his trousers. He had pulled on a tunic while they walked. Now he stopped again to pull on his boots. Thankfully, in this morning’s meeting, Ryanac wasn’t required to wear full armour. He usually did, but not always. They reached the end of a corridor and stopped again. Markis held out the last piece of the man’s clothing, though this was made of leather and served more like a shield for the body. It wouldn’t withstand the heaviest or sharpest blade, but it would help deflect it, and save the wearer from a dagger strike. It protected the organs in the body.
They were off again, Ryanac gathering up his free-flowing hair. There wasn’t time for him to put it into a proper braid. He began to pull in back into a ponytail. It would probably garner a few raised eyebrows. In truth, Markis didn’t care, and he knew Ryanac well enough to know the big man took such criticism lightly. Those dark eyes glanced at him, aware he had been watching.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I had no idea you weren’t getting ready. I know you once had a penchant for crawling out of bed late in the morning, but you’ve never let me down.”
Ryanac winced. “I was sleeping soundly until I felt Uly wake up.”
Taking this on board, Markis set his mind to how that was a good thing, but images of how they might have been lying, and what had made Ryanac sleep so heavily, flittered through his head.
“You’re going to have to take lessons on how to school that face of yours.”
Wondering what his expression had revealed, Markis said, “I’m not upset.”
“I know that.”
The king stopped walking. He gripped Ryanac’s arm tightly. “We’ll be late,” his guard said, his voice rising in pitch with that almost ever-present amusement.
“This is more important.”
“Taking my appearance into account, if we’re late, they’ll think it’s because we were fucking.”
“Ryanac.”
The big man grimaced. “We made love,” he said simply.
“So you did seduce him. You finally had sex with him.” And I wasn’t there.
“No. The opportunity was there, and I took it because the moment was right. You’re not listening to me. We made love.”
The significance of those words finally filtered through to him.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Ryanac said more gently, “but if you had been there, it never would have happened. You’re his focus, just as you are mine. We needed the time alone, and it was the right moment for it.”
Markis narrowed his eyes in question. Were they finally a family? He never got the chance to ask the question aloud. Ryanac shook his head and dashed his hope.
“It’s too soon for that. Uly has to find peace within himself first.”
Once more, Markis experienced that irritating feeling that he was king and he should know more than he did. Somehow, Ryanac was nearly always one step ahead of him. “Hasn’t he found peace here, with me?”
Ryanac opened his mouth, and then snapped his teeth together.
“If you call me shaylah, so help me we’ll end up brawling.” Markis meant it, and the look in Ryanac’s eyes told him the man knew it. Alas, all it did was make him laugh.
“He needs more time.”
He stared into those dark eyes, and they gazed back calmly. “That’s all you’re going to tell me?”
“That’s all you need to know.”
Only Ryanac could make him feel like the little boy who had once fallen down a well, and always Ryanac was the one to rescue him. The comet didn’t have a spark on Ryanac, and neither did he.
* * * * *
Markis stopped just outside the council’s chambers. He had heard a few petitions from the general populace, as was his duty, grateful that there were not many today. Then they had dealt with general matters. When anything had come to a vote, Stargazer made a point of deferring. He had the right to step out of the running. The final decision always fell to the king or the person in charge, whether the vote tied or not. For those posted in an outlying area where the king was not present, one could send an appeal against a ruling, in effect to petition the king to overrule it. Thankfully, that hardly ever happened. Whatever the circumstances, it was unusual for anyone to abstain unless he or she lacked enough knowledge to provide a true judgment. For someone to hold back on every issue was unheard of. Markis ignored the old man’s stubbornness, and by the end of the session, he could see Stargazer struggling not to grit his teeth. At least one of the old man’s hands had balled into a fist.
“Why did he want me to challenge him?” Markis said softly. Ryanac looked at him, although they both knew Markis wasn’t truly asking.
“I can’t see what he would gain from it,” Ryanac stated.
Markis shook his head. “Neither can I.” He gave a slight nod to Harton, who stood in the distance with Kilan. People believed his threat that he had sent Harton to discipline his brother. He had done no such thing. Harton was providing protection to all of them. He had brought Kilan here at his command. “What are you doing next?”
“I thought I would give Uly a combat lesson.”
“Good idea.” Markis hated to say it, but only a foolish man ran from the truth. “I’ll meet you after we’re both finished.”
He walked off, aware Ryanac waited until he stood with Harton. Only then did the big man let him out of his sight.
* * * * *
Examining the blade Uly carried, Ryanac whistled. He had scrutinized it more than once, aware the dagger was a gift from Antal. They called this type of blade a reaper. It curved from the back of the handle into a second blade. The user could use it to thrust forward, but could equally slice an opponent on the return journey. If a person tried to twist it from your grasp, the fighter might cut their fingers or sever them. The object was wicked and beautiful all at once.
“A word of advice. Don’t ever betray Antal’s friendship. You only give something like this to someone you consider worthy, someone who is as good as a member of your family.”
Uly hadn’t realised. Now he felt even more ashamed for having snuck off with Tressa.
They stood in an open forecourt, where Tressa and Antal waited for them. Uly still wasn’t sure what had happened. Tressa had picked up a sword, hefting it as though she knew what she was doing, and looked at Ryanac. He laughed while moving in, most likely to disarm her, and she somehow moved into the big man’s body, making him turn to keep her in sight. Ryanac motioned to slap her with the sword, and she managed to get there before him. She hit him hard with it, too. By the look on his face, she surprised him, and few fighters did that.
Now she returned from the other side of the forecourt, interrupting them. “Mind if I take over?” she asked demurely. Ryanac inclined his head. She moved around him to Uly.
“These moves will not apply to you, but I am short and small, and you should know how such a fighter might react. Many believe that those lacking in height and build cannot fight. It is more a matter of technique and skill. We simply need to learn how to fight a different way and you have to recognise those moves. In truth, there are f
ew truly great warriors no matter what their size, and while I am at a disadvantage, being small and being a woman means others often overlook me until it’s too late. Do not make that mistake whether your opponent is male or female.”
Uly glanced from Tressa to Ryanac. “I’m not really going to need to know all this, am I?” He disliked the idea of training to protect himself. He disliked the idea of having to face down a person who was smaller than he was. The very idea felt wrong, somehow.
“I’ve told you more than once that Markis wants you able to protect yourself though he hopes you never need to,” Ryanac said. He inclined his head toward Tressa. “Listen to her. She’s right. A small fighter simply has other considerations. They can be as good if not better than you can, though. A smaller person requires different armour. One without bulk, something lighter perhaps, but the vision is the most important thing. A small person needs to be able to look up. The wrong armour will impair a short opponent. The right armour makes their protection equal. As a race, we generally hate to wear anything constricting over the head, but in the midst of battle even I have resorted to a helm.”
Tressa snorted. Ryanac looked at her. “How do you manage to sound so informative and arrogant all at once?” she asked.
He raised his brow. “Arrogant?”
Tressa ignored him. “A smaller fighter will use their eyes rather than tilt their head. Do not think for a minute that they are unaware of anything. If you can force your opponent to move his or her head, it affects their balance. Likewise, such fighters tend to have fewer adornments though I am pleased” ‑‑ Tressa shot Ryanac a glance ‑‑ “to say that the Swithin work their armour for practical rather than fanciful purposes. Full battle gear includes knees and thigh protection.” She glanced back over to Ryanac as she paced. “This is for fighting a smaller opponent. No point protecting your body if someone small rushes in and severs a leg. The boots are well designed and protect you here.”
The Swithin Chronicles 3: The Comet Cometh Page 13
