Dreamspinner Press Year Five Greatest Hits

by Tinnean

  “How so?”

  “You are covered from head to toe. No one sees you, and yet they care not. Everyone would have you, and my mind seeks to understand this.”

  “Because you find me so loathsome?”

  “No!” Gareth protested too loudly. “Nothing could be further from the truth. I find you… I… I….”

  “My lord?”

  “Truly, consul, I am barely able to think of any but you. I pray you do not find that confession a horror to your ears.”

  The truth, uttered there, quietly between them, with the faintest breath, washed heat through Daemon Shar.

  “I mean only to speak to you of my heart.”

  “Heart indeed,” Daemon chuckled, pressing against Gareth, sliding his thigh between the other man’s legs, wedging them apart. Gareth could not contain the moan that wrenched itself free of his throat. He was painfully hard, and now Daemon knew it.

  “Daemon….”

  “Your heart, it seems, is not that which craves audience with me.”

  The consul leaned in closer, and Gareth saw the edge of the darkness in the moonlight, the difference between the cloaked figure and the night.

  “You—”

  “Speak plainly,” Daemon ordered, his warm breath through the cloth ghosting across Gareth’s face. “Do you desire me, or am I merely a curiosity?”

  Gareth’s voice cracked. “You, Daemon Shar. I desire only you.”

  Quick, smug grunt, and Gareth was about to take offense when Daemon suddenly fell to his knees before him. He gasped at the ferocity of it, the tug on the laces of his breeches, the roughness, and the warm breeze on his cock, had his balls tightening the moment Daemon touched him. It felt good to be wanted. This was his last coherent thought before the consul’s hot, wet mouth engulfed him.

  “Daemon!”

  It was an assault, brutal and savage, and Gareth cried his pleasure at the violence of the act. The tongue that swirled and ran the length of his cock was coarse, but that only added to the feeling of submission. He was sucked and laved, swallowed down the back of the smaller man’s throat with a practiced ease that was a gift. The pressure, the movement, the fingers and lips moving quickly over sensitized skin, was too much for the son of the baron.

  “Daemon, you must cease, or I will spill my seed and… Daemon!”

  The suction only increased, and Gareth came undone under the wicked onslaught, rocking forward into the consul’s mouth, uncaring if he was bruising the back of the man’s throat. It felt too good. He was too far gone. As he roared through his climax, Daemon swallowed around his shaft, drinking down his release. He licked the man clean, and only when Gareth was completely drained did he finally let the spent cock slip from between his lips. Gareth had been ravaged and wanted to voice his request to be so again.

  Daemon rose fast, standing in front of the panting, trembling son of the baron.

  “Shall I not do the same for you, consul?” he managed to say after several moments.

  Daemon grunted. “It was my pleasure, Gareth Terhazien, as now I know that you do indeed taste as succulent as you look.”

  His heart was in his throat—the man found him pleasing. “I would have you in any form that you would give to me, consul… for even as I ache to look upon your sweet face, if you come to me so cloaked and do not wish to peel away your layers, I would not ask it of you.”

  Daemon was silent.

  “I want to sit with you, talk with you, kiss you, and hold your cock in my hands.”

  “This is all you hope for?”

  He caught his breath. “There will come a time when you will no longer be able to bear keeping your skin from mine; I will wait patiently for you to confess your desire.”

  “That day might never come,” Daemon said sadly. Gareth Terhazien, breeches around his ankles, slouching against a wall, eyes heavy-lidded in the moonlight, was enough to stop his heart. Daemon wanted to eat him.

  “I beg you, consul,” Gareth began, shuddering as the last tremor of his spine-tingling orgasm rolled through him, “just one kiss.”

  Daemon shook his head once and was gone.

  “By the gods, man,” Ehron growled, appearing seconds later. “Put your shaft away after you take a piss. That’s the right of it. How drunk are you?”

  Gareth watched his brother lurch past him, a chambermaid under each arm, and slowly slid down the wall. He needed a second to gather his thoughts. The long grass tickling his bare backside reminded him that he was half-naked.

  He needed to find and speak to Daemon Shar.

  Rising after several long minutes, he cinched up his breeches and headed toward the consul’s room. He realized suddenly that he had lied—he could not wait for Daemon to decide if he wanted him; he craved the man now. He wanted Daemon naked beneath him, spread out over his bed. Now that he knew what it could be like between them, now that the question of Daemon’s interest had been answered, his desire was not quenched, the flames only fanned. He would make Daemon his.

  He moved faster as he tried to think of what he would say that would not sound idiotic. They had just met, and Gareth wanted to keep him? It was madness. Gareth could only hope that Daemon was just as enchanted as he.

  WHEN THE revelry finally came to an end only hours before dawn, everyone had taken to their beds or to the road for home. Daemon never saw the inside of his room, and so he had no idea that the baron’s son had been waiting there all night. He did not sleep but kept the watch outside with the others as he had promised the baron.

  Three

  THERE WERE two routes to the capital city. The first was a more expedient and direct course that Torbald had wanted to take, and the second was a wider, more scenic, less direct one. After much discussion and urging, the baron had been persuaded, by his son’s consul, to take the longer, less-traveled path, as Ehron, it was said, would do better at a slower pace.

  “Why do I need to travel so slowly?” the prefect had snapped at his consul. “Have I taken ill and know not that I am infirmed?”

  “I beg your pardon, my lord; I had ceased listening. Did you speak?”

  And with that, Ehron had thrown his hands in the air in defeat.

  Gareth hated traveling, the endless riding, the warm, sticky air, the boredom, and worst of all was the way Daemon utterly ignored him.

  He had fallen asleep in the man’s bed only to be woken by Amelina the following morning. She had come to wake Daemon and instead found her brother. They had stood there in the small room, staring at one another in awkward silence, until Ehron had walked in to gather Daemon’s few scattered belongings.

  “Where is Daemon?” Gareth had asked.

  “He kept the watch as father bid him.” Ehron squinted at him.

  And Gareth understood at once why the man had never appeared. Duty called. He hoped that as they rode together that he would be able to draw the consul into a quiet conversation or at least ask to speak to him privately. It was not to be. Daemon was in far too great demand, and it was the man’s own damn fault.

  Daemon’s stories were skillfully told. He imitated voices of others and had the baron’s family rolling with laughter over Ehron’s misadventures in the desolate, icy wasteland that was Crosas. War was horrifying, but the taking down and building of camp, the pitfalls of falling asleep on horseback and of low, overhanging branches were hysterical. He was much too diverting a companion for the others to allow Gareth even a moment of time alone with him.

  Ehron was glaring at his consul, threatening him with torture, and sputtering by the time Daemon began asking for the names of the different flowers and trees that they passed. Apparently the fauna was suddenly of great interest.

  “I think we’re close to winter home of the archlord,” Odessa commented.

  “Are we?” Daemon asked innocently. “How thrilling.”

  “I was told by one of the maxims that the daughter of the archlord would be making her pilgrimage back to the capital city soon,” Amelina announced. “Perh
aps we will see her and could all travel together? Would that not be exciting?”

  A sudden thought struck Odessa, and she turned and squinted at her son’s second. “Daemon Shar.” She lowered her voice so that only he could hear. “Is this the reason for our present course? Are you hatching some form of plot?”

  “Me? Plotting?”

  She laughed at him, not for a second believing the incredulous tone of his voice.

  Ehron scowled at his consul, his dark cobalt eyes firing.

  “Perhaps we should stop and eat,” Daemon suggested.

  “What a marvelous suggestion,” Penn agreed quickly, as he was close to starving.

  “You should wash your face and hands first,” Daemon told his prefect. “In the river.”

  “Daemon, I—”

  “You’ve been riding all day.” Daemon’s voice was coaxing. “It will refresh you.”

  “I certainly don’t need to be refreshed like some sort of beast of bur—”

  “Oh no?”

  He growled at his consul. He was being baited, but to what end? “If I needed to wash, well you know that there are servants to bring the water to—”

  “My lord, would you not go to the water instead of straining another’s back for your ease?” Daemon asked sadly.

  “Daemon, a servant—”

  “Should never be abused,” he told Ehron. “Is that not so?”

  “Of course that is so, but—”

  “Then you need to go to the river, my lord, if it will not task you over much.”

  Ehron was too irritated to speak another word to his consul and stalked away without a backward glance. Before Daemon could follow, Gareth barred his path.

  “My lord?”

  “I would speak to you.”

  Instead of answering, Daemon clapped him on the shoulder. “I would do your bidding, my lord, but time is short, and I must act.”

  “Daemon, I—”

  “Interfere not with my machinations. I would not stuff you in a barrel.”

  His mouth dropped open as he stared at the darkness where Daemon’s smiling face should have been. And he knew that under the cowl the man was indeed smiling. He could hear it in the playful tone and in the low sound of his voice. He was so surprised that Daemon felt comfortable enough to tease him that he was, for a heartbeat of time, struck dumb.

  “Did you mark me, my lord?”

  Gareth heard the humor, and his stomach did a slow roll.

  Daemon reached out and slid his gloved hand around the back of Gareth’s neck, his thumb sliding along the strong jaw and down the long line of his throat. It was a simple gesture but intimate at the same time. Gareth liked Daemon’s hand on him, the familiarity, the warmth. He enjoyed being the focus of the man’s attention, even if for only a fleeting moment.

  “Now,” Daemon said, dropping his hand from Gareth to return his eyes to the back of his simmering prefect. “Remember to wash your face as well, my lord,” he called after him.

  “Indeed,” Odessa agreed, not sure what Daemon was hatching but happy to help even without knowing the outcome. “Listen to Daemon, dearest. In fact,” she said, voice rising to include her whole family, “let’s all wash for the meal.”

  His eyes flicking between his mother and the consul and then back to this mother, Gareth was certain he was missing something. Deciding quickly, he followed after Daemon, who had trailed after Ehron, to see the plot unfold. He found Ehron approaching the riverbank only to be redirected to another spot. Daemon wanted him somewhere else.

  “Why?”

  “Try there,” Daemon insisted, ignoring the question, pointing to a place that had to be approached from a bit of an incline.

  Ehron made a face, looking for the attack, unsure what was going on in the devious brain of his companion but knowing well enough that something was amiss. When he bent, leaning down toward the water, the foot planted squarely on the small of his back made perfect sense.

  “Whoreson,” he growled, turning fast but just not quite fast enough.

  Seconds later, he found his footing and stood up in the water, soaked and dripping, and eyed his consul. “You wretched man! What would possess you in the name of—”

  “Why are you holding your face?” Daemon called back, noticing the action.

  “I hit my cheek on a rock! Not that you care, you ungrateful bag of piss!”

  His language was already coloring. “Is that a snake?” Daemon yelled, sounding alarmed.

  Ehron jerked back, lost his balance, and fell backward into deep enough water that the fast-moving current that Daemon knew was there, just beyond where the man had been standing, grabbed Ehron hard. He shouted and was whipped sideways, suddenly sucked under for long moments before he broke the surface and was pulled quickly downriver.

  “Ehron!” Gareth yelled for him.

  “Perfect,” Daemon said under his breath, ending up chuckling over Gareth’s expression when the younger man turned to look at him. His face was a study in outrage.

  “You’re trying to kill your lord.”

  “A snake in the water.” Daemon made a noise in the back of his throat. “You know as well as I that, as large as the creatures grow, he would have seen it even before I. Truly, my lord, who is the foolish one?”

  “Daemon, this is a high crime you now stand accu—”

  “Please,” Daemon scoffed. “I’ve had better chances to kill him.” He sighed before jumping straight up in the air, moving fast, far above Gareth, lost to the eye in seconds. He had moved quicker than anything Gareth had ever seen, and the reason was obvious. Even though he was responsible for putting Ehron into the river, he was also making certain that the man didn’t drown. It was by far the most confusing thing Gareth had ever witnessed. Daemon was trying to kill his lord and keep him safe at the exact same instant. He was at a complete loss.

  Daemon knew from the loud, incessant, and heated slurs about his mother, his family, and his “pox-ridden sire” that Ehron was fine. He was furious, fit to be tied, but he was in no danger of actually drowning or freezing or cramping up and sinking like a stone. It was the middle of summer; the mountain water was chilled, but not cold, and he couldn’t sink as fast as the current was carrying him.

  Daemon was watchful, whipping through the tree branches, running above the forest floor as fast as if he were flying over the ground. It was one of the only gifts he had received from the transformation: unmatched, untraceable speed.

  He had charted the route of the river on a map and had spoken to several servants about the course of the river, how fast it ran, where the current was strongest, into what lake it emptied, and on whose land one would reach shore.

  “Daemon, I will have you beaten!”

  There was that possibility.

  Daemon ran ahead, the leaps he made like giant arcs, looking more like flying than jumping. He was able to float easily from the trees to the shore and, with the smallest of movement, soar high again on the breeze to finally land lightly on the marble veranda of the country villa that looked out onto the tranquil lake. The guards didn’t even have time to react before Daemon was suddenly there, having materialized, it seemed, out of thin air. He stormed out onto the grand portico, yelling for help. Had he been an assassin, the beautiful woman who looked like she was carved from alabaster, the faintest flush of peach on her cheeks, would have been dead.

  “Lady, help!”

  The men closed in around Daemon, but Llyan Tapal, the daughter of the archlord, lifted her hand and kept them back.

  “You poor dear,” her voice, like a caress, reached Daemon. “What is your distress, pilgrim?”

  He rose up, pointed down toward the shore. “My prefect was swept into the river when he knelt to drink, and now I fear he will perish from the chill.”

  She was terrified for the poor servant trying to save his master. Her heart swelled at the attire of the obviously diseased creature now prostrate before her. Perhaps he was covered in open sores, had the pox upon hi
m; she could think of no other reason to be so swaddled when it was so warm outside, and yet still he had come to her, risking death, just in the hope that she would aid his lord.

  Her voice lowered, grew commanding as she set her house on fire with her words, rallying servants and guards alike, yelling as she flew down the stairs, skirts flying, to reach Ehron Terhazien.

  Daemon leaned on the railing of the palatial balcony and watched the villa empty beneath him, looking with satisfaction at the havoc he had created. After several minutes, he yawned loudly. It was nice outside in the sun, the warm summer breeze stirring the fragrances of grass and flowers together; the bouquet was lovely. The never-ending stream of people following the daughter of the archlord probably had not noticed.

  Llyan Tapal came to a sharp stop when the carved specimen of manhood pulled himself from the water. He was dripping with water, his lips were blue, and he was swearing under his breath, enraged… until he saw the angel in front of him.

  She absorbed his violet eyes, the shirt that was sticking to his massive chest, his rippling torso, broad shoulders and strapping frame. His breeches were molded to powerful thighs and long, muscular legs. The stubble that lined his jaw, his thick hair running with water, his lips when he licked them, all of him was stunning, and she sucked in her breath. He was easily the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

  “Lady,” he said, his voice hoarse and deep.

  “Oh.” She tried to breathe. She really did. How she moved forward, she had no idea, but when he knelt to show her the proper respect as befitted her station, she was there, beside him, calling for a blanket to wrap him in. When he tilted his head up, the desire set upon Llyan twofold. At once she was tempted by deep, liquid sapphire eyes framed by thick, curling lashes, and seeing the wince of pain as her hand touched the injured cheek made her gasp. Maternal instinct and carnal appetite both focusing on Ehron, it was quite overwhelming for a girl of eighteen.

  As Daemon watched the most sought-after woman in the realm fuss and worry over his prefect, he was very pleased with himself. With gifts of game he had wooed the warlord’s son, and now he had managed an introduction to the daughter of the archlord. Oh yes, before he had to leave, he would make sure that the man who had saved him from death had a life others only dreamed of. He would make certain of it.