by Mia West
Palahmed considered the pup. “She’s heavy for her size.”
“Ought to be. She lapped up a pond’s worth of milk not an hour ago.” He gave the pup an affectionate glance.
“Answer me this…”
Gawain sighed. “Palahmed—”
“If you think it so ordinary and reasonable to dive overboard to save a puppy, why were you the only man to do it?”
The hawk glared at him, then at the fire, and then down at his own empty hands. “Lot has four sons. Does that make him seem like a powerful man to you?”
Palahmed didn’t understand the change of topic, but he considered the question. “I suppose it gives him better odds of leaving a legacy. Several heirs?”
“But does a man who only fathers sons seem more powerful? Don’t mull it over—what’s your first reaction?”
“Yes.” He studied Gawain’s features, unsure what he wanted to hear but unwilling to lie to him. “It was the same where I was born.”
Gawain nodded. “Exactly the impression Lot wants to make on other men. Especially those who might harbor thoughts of overthrowing him. But the truth is, he doesn’t have only sons. Or, he didn’t.”
“He had girl-babes too?”
“My mother had girl-babes. Lot wanted nothing to do with them.”
“Did he hide them away?”
Gawain gave him a look strangely close to…pity?
Then he shook his head.
“He drowned them.”
Chapter 12
The pup squawked, and Palahmed realized he’d squeezed it.
“My mother’s belly would swell, and she would tell me about the brother I was going to have, but only two of the times she was closed up with the midwife did I have a brother the next day.”
“Mightn’t there have been stillbirths?”
“That’s what the kitchen women said. But they said it low, and clamp-jawed, so I never pushed. After the third time, I wanted to see for myself. So I sat in the corridor while my mother screamed and panted. It sounded like the life was being ripped out of her, and I huddled in a corner, you know? I was so scared I almost left. But then she stopped shouting and there was another sound—a squall. I have another brother, I thought. Before I could even stand up, Lot went into her chamber. Came out again not even ten breaths later, and that coughing squall came with him. He was carrying the babe. I thought he was going to take it to the hall to proclaim himself a father again. But he didn’t walk to the hall. He left the fortress and took the path down to the mussel cove. Then he waded in to his knees and pushed the bundle under the water.”
“Good God.”
“I thought at first he was baptizing it. It wasn’t something we did, but I’d heard people talk about it around the night fire sometimes. Sounded horrible, to tell you a truth. And I was sure he was doing it wrong because he just held the babe under longer and longer. So I called out from the beach. That’s too long, I said. He just turned and looked at me. Told me to go home.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I splashed out to him and grabbed his sleeve. You’ll kill him, I said. Not a son, he said. No get of mine. And I realized he did mean to kill it. So I fought him.”
“How old were you?”
“Ten years. No match for him, even with his other hand occupied.” He looked into the fire. “He held me under, too.”
“Gawain.”
“It hurt. Burned like nothing I’d ever felt. Understand, we all knew the water. I don’t even remember learning to swim, I was so young, but I know he was the one who threw me in. But he hadn’t grabbed my hair and held me under. Not ’til that night.”
Palahmed stared at Gawain’s dark curls and couldn’t imagine touching them with anything but reverence.
“I fought as long as I could. I imagined Agravain saving me, but he didn’t. I imagined my younger brothers being told I’d fallen in and hit my head on a rock. I tried to imagine my mother crying over me, but then I remembered all the times I’d thought to wake up to a brother and there’d been no brother and no tears on her cheeks either. Then I saw myself grown, running a blade through my father, and it scared me worse than anything else. I sucked down water. Everything inside me felt like it was going to burst, and then…” Gawain looked at the pup, then up at Palahmed. “Then he lifted me out. When I quit spewing seawater, he told me he had three other sons and if I ever did anything like that again, three would suffice.”
“Gawain.”
“Did I mention Lot does the same to hound pups that don’t meet his measure?” His green gaze was steady. “Only he can’t be bothered to dispatch them himself. Sends them out with the patrol boats. Makes the crews do it for him.”
Palahmed stared at him. At the strong, resolute lines of his face, at the way his hair softened them just at the edges. At the vulnerable hollow of his throat. The press of his pulse there.
“You grabbed my hair like that once.”
Palahmed flinched. “I never did.”
“You did. I’d cut myself. You took hold of me, trying to find the wound.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“How could you?”
Regret twisted in his chest. He looked at the puppy. “Does she have a bed?”
Gawain took her from him, depositing her on a mound of what appeared to be wool scraps. He watched her for a moment before facing the fire again.
“Gawain.”
“Yes?”
“May I touch you?”
For several breaths, nothing moved but the flames in the hearth. Then Gawain swallowed and looked at him. “Touch me how?”
Sweet, cautious hawk. “However you want me to.”
~ ~ ~
The chamber was dark, but Palahmed’s eyes were darker still. Almost black, and deep enough to fall into.
But however he wanted? This man couldn’t know how many different ways Gawain had dreamed Palahmed might touch him. “I don’t…”
The line between Palahmed’s thick eyebrows—the furrow that was always there and which Gawain was very good at provoking—deepened. But not into reprimand, or retreat. Palahmed only waited.
“I don’t know what to ask for,” Gawain admitted.
A soft breath huffed from the man’s mouth, an echo of the sort of frustrated sound Gawain usually inspired alongside the scowl. Predictably, Palahmed’s hands curled into fists on his knees.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?” Palahmed asked.
“Because I don’t know what you expect.”
“I don’t expect anything.”
“Yes, you do. You always do.”
Palahmed looked at him for a long moment, then said, “All right. I expect you to own your desires. I expect you to tell me what they are, so I can realize them for you.”
“All of them?” he blurted, then felt himself flush at how stupid he sounded. How hopelessly green.
But when he began to look away, Palahmed said, “Every last one.”
Gawain’s heart drummed in his chest. “You wouldn’t get a blink of sleep.”
Palahmed smiled, and the sudden brilliance of it was like sun flashing off a wave. “That many?”
He felt blood rising, fresh and hot, into his cheeks again. Palahmed rubbed a thumb over one of them. His skin felt cool by comparison, but his expression wasn’t aloof. It wasn’t superior in any way. It was intent but soft. Sort of…
Gawain’s breath snagged in his lungs.
The expression on Palahmed’s face was sort of like the one Bedwyr sometimes wore when he looked at Arthur.
“Touch my hair.”
Palahmed’s smile slipped. “Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“However you want.”
Palahmed’s gaze left his to study his hair. Then he smoothed a hand over Gawain’s head. He did it slowly, watching his hand as if he’d never done such a thing, but surely he had done. He’d had lovers. He never boasted
about them, or even talked about them at all, but Gawain had seen him in and around Caron’s brothel enough to know. And Safir had no restraint at all, teasing his brother sometimes about his nights there.
But anyone who hadn’t seen him near the brothel would think Palahmed hadn’t touched another man in years. After petting Gawain’s hair a few times, he slipped his fingers into it. His nails scraped lightly over Gawain’s scalp, raising the hairs on his arms too.
“You didn’t trim it.”
“No.”
“Thank you.”
Some rebellious lever in him tripped. “Didn’t do it for you.”
That smile again, as if Palahmed had known he would say that. “It’s a gift all the same, hawk.” He pushed his fingertips through Gawain’s hair again. “I’ve wanted to feel it for a long time.”
“What does it feel like?” he said, then bit his tongue. It was only hair. When was he going to stop asking a fool’s questions? “Never mind.”
But Palahmed shook his head. “I think you don’t want poetry or any comparison to lambs’ wool.”
Gawain cringed, and Palahmed smiled.
“I’ll spare you those things. But your namesake is apt.”
“How?”
“My father employed a falconer. A quiet man. Stern. I used to lurk just outside his rookery, watching him tend to his birds. He sent and received messages, of course, but it was the moments in between that fascinated me, when he’d hold out his wrist and one of them would hop onto it. He’d feed them scraps and stroke their heads. So, of course, he caught me spying one day. Said, What are you about, young master? Well, I crept out of my hiding place and mumbled this or that about the birds. Fortunately for me, he was a kind man, and patient. Showed me how to offer my arm as a perch and then how to feed the creature when it took hold. While it worked at the bit of meat, I stroked it from the crown of its head down to its shoulder.” He did so now to Gawain, causing him to shiver. Palahmed met his eyes. “It was the smoothest thing I’d ever touched. So smooth I almost couldn’t capture the sensation of it on my fingertips. When I pressed harder, the bird pecked at me.” He pulled up his sleeve to reveal a small, crescent-shaped scar just above his wrist.
Gawain touched it. Palahmed’s skin was warm, the hair on his arm soft. “Could be I’ll mark you too.”
“Could be I’ll deserve it.”
When he looked up this time, Palahmed’s eyes seemed to have grown darker. Which was impossible; Gawain knew their exact shade, in every sort of light.
Embarrassed to admit even to himself how much he’d watched this man, he glanced down to where his fingertips were stroking Palahmed’s wrist. He might have stroked higher, but Palahmed wore a double layer of wool, the sleeves hiding his arms.
Not his neck, though. The collars of the tunics rode his collarbones, leaving a wide swath of warm-looking skin between them and the lower edge of his beard. Gawain reached up and rubbed his thumb over Palahmed’s pulse. He could see it beating but couldn’t feel it, just as Palahmed hadn’t been able to feel the falcon’s feathers. But here he held an advantage that a man stroking a bird of prey wouldn’t dare. Did he dare?
Evidently he did because Palahmed groaned. Softly, but sound didn’t matter when Gawain could feel it in his lips. Holding his breath, he brushed them across Palahmed’s throat again. The coarse hair of his beard tickled, but his skin was as warm as he’d imagined, and tasted—
Palahmed cursed.
—of salt. Sea spray, most likely, but maybe some sweat too. Gawain closed his eyes and licked again, and there—just there—was something else. Something underlying the salt. It reminded him of the spice cakes to be found in Gwen’s kitchens. They made his mouth water, and he could never get enough of them.
“You’re going to kill me.”
Gawain lifted his mouth from Palahmed’s throat, his lips buzzing from the words. Straightening, he took in the strangely high color on the man’s cheeks, the way his jaw had dropped so that Gawain could see the edges of his teeth. The rosy swell of his tongue. “So defend yourself.”
“I don’t want to.”
Doubt jabbed his ribs. “You don’t want—”
“Come here, you fool.”
It came on a low rush of breath, and then Palahmed was hauling him forward, half lifting Gawain until he straddled the man’s hips, and then closer still. He came to a stop pressed hard, belly to belly, Palahmed’s hands large and hot on his back. This close, his eyes didn’t just look darker. They looked drunk. It made him feel…powerful. “You’ve caught a hawk. What are you going to feed me?”
“Anything you want.”
“I want your tongue.”
Palahmed’s eyes glinted at him. “You lashed it, remember?”
The challenge rang up his spine like swordsong. A tremor went through Palahmed’s body, too, and he realized it was because the man was holding himself rigid, muscles locked against acting on whatever impulses were causing his pulse to beat harder. Gawain could see it in the firelight, a faint shadow ticking rapidly in his throat, almost shouting for Gawain to free it. Leaning in, he licked a slow, deliberate stripe across Palahmed’s lower lip.
He heard one hitch of breath, and then Palahmed’s tongue was his, swiping and thrusting and curling around his own. He pushed closer, delving deep for more of that spice, and Palahmed answered by pushing his fingers into his hair again, clutching tight and sucking on his lip. Gawain moaned.
The fingers in his hair loosened abruptly. “I’m sorry—”
“No,” he said, “I want it.” He put a hand over Palahmed’s, tried to close his fist.
But Palahmed didn’t tighten his grip. His hold grew gentler, his touch soft. He nudged Gawain’s cheek with his nose, his breaths coming in puffs against his chin. Then Palahmed kissed him again, and it was a slow, swirling sort of thing, like an eddy in a receding tide, and all at once Gawain felt very, very tired. He gave Palahmed’s lips one more push and then slumped against him.
A warm hand came to rest on the back of his neck, and he closed his eyes.
“Rest, hawk.”
“Don’t need to.”
A low chuckle thrummed into his ear from the man’s body and, along with the heat from the fire, made him feel boneless.
“Maybe a little,” he murmured.
Palahmed said something, but it was too low, too soft, to catch before sleep pulled Gawain under.
Chapter 13
Gawain woke to a wet tongue on his cheek.
He smiled, thinking he was still at the brothel. But that wasn’t right—he hadn’t had company at the brothel. And whoever this was was whimpering. He opened his eyes.
The pup gave him another swipe, then nudged his chin with her nose and cried.
He tugged her close, stroking her neck, and looked about the chamber. Low bed. Low hearth. Low ceiling. Every feature set him more firmly in the waking world and more inescapably in his true surroundings. He was at Lot’s, in the chamber his mother had assigned to him. The chamber to which Palahmed had come last night. And then left.
Because Gawain had fallen asleep on him.
He pushed his head back into the bedding with a groan. Leave it to him to waste what would probably be the only time Palahmed gave him that opportunity, and for what? To doze off? Because kissing was so exhausting? The man must be in the hall at this very moment, chuckling about it with Arthur and Bedwyr and whoever else was up for a laugh. He groaned again, and the pup barked.
“Why, girl? Why am I such an idiot?”
She yipped once more and whined, and he sat up. Sure enough, over by one wall, a small puddle darkened the floor.
“Right.” He scooped up the hound pup. “Let’s go, you.”
The one good thing about this mission was that he knew this stronghold inside and out, and before he could have sung a single verse of a bawdy song, they were stepping out a little-used door and onto the tufty grass. Rather than setting the pup down—he needed to decide on a name—he carried her
across a stretch of ground to where a small stream began a steep tumble downhill toward the sea. With the practice of years, he stepped nimbly down the edges of the rill to the little beach below and set down the pup. She hopped and barked once, and then caught scent of something and scampered off to find it. Gawain watched her nose about for a moment, then closed his eyes.
The shush of water on the beach’s pebbles felt like the beat of his own blood. As much as he didn’t want to be in this place again, this sound soothed him. He stood and listened, letting it wash over his tumbling thoughts. Gulls cackled overhead and the pup growled at something and a salt breeze tickled his nose. Then came the soft crunch of footsteps too heavy to be the pup’s.
He turned to find Palahmed walking toward him.
Here came the teasing, in a mercenary’s boots. Who dozes off mid-kiss? he’d say.
And Gawain would answer…what would he answer?
I do.
No, that was stupid.
Mid-kiss? We were finished kissing.
Except they hadn’t been, not even close to it.
Maybe…maybe he’d say, If you’d given me something to stay awake for—
“Good morning.”
Gawain fought the urge to curl his hands into fists. “Morning.”
“That’s quite a path down.” Palahmed tipped his head toward the steep stream.
“Not a path. Not truly—can’t have such an easy way into the stronghold. I’m surprised you took it.”
The man turned away to squint at the beach, as if it might be doing something a beach shouldn’t. “How is she?”
Right. He was looking at the pup. Who was doing exactly what a pup should do. “Seems fine. Bladder works.”
“Name her yet?”
“In the time since I woke up?” He couldn’t stand it longer. “Have you come to give me grief?”
Palahmed turned back to him and frowned. “Grief? About naming your puppy?”
“No.” Gods, he was going to make him say it. “For falling asleep last night.”
“You were tired.”
“Aye, but…” He glared out at the water, then huffed a sharp breath. “I fell asleep on you. In your lap, like a babe.” He waved his hand. “So go on. Have your laugh and be done with it.”
