WHEN THE time came, they let Dit stumble into Barrett’s wagon, already groping for the blankets as Barrett, with a fond, weary smile, closed the laces at the back.
Tarn pulled Gard into Hireth and Jirell’s wagon. There was a nest of mats and blankets in the back, and Hireth came and showed them how to tighten the laces to block out the light before telling them to make themselves comfortable. As the wagon heaved into jolting motion, the instruments above them swung, chiming and humming slightly with the motion.
“I’m tired enough to think that’s pretty,” Gard murmured. He wearily peeled off his borrowed boots and then, with a yawn, stripped off his shirt. He dropped back into the blankets and grimaced, wrinkling his nose. “It would be ungrateful to complain that they’ve been putting this bed to excellent use, wouldn’t it?”
“Very,” Tarn said. “Just turn the sheets and hush.” He stripped down himself, layering his shirt above the grubby mats. Then he loosed the rag that tied his elflocks back from his face.
“That’s clever,” Gard murmured and rearranged his own clothes. Then he looked up and smiled. “Pretty.”
“Eh?” Tarn said. He was beginning to despair of ever keeping up.
Gard reached out and touched the end of one of his elflocks, rubbing it softly between his fingers. “Pretty, for a dragon.”
Tarn felt the blush rise right out of his belly. Trying to keep his dignity, he said, “Sleep, will you? There are more battles to come.”
With a yawn, Gard snuggled down. “And you? Or are you just humoring Ia? Do dragons need to sleep at all?”
“In this body, I do,” Tarn said and lowered himself into the blankets behind Gard. “Stop yapping.”
He got a hurt sniff, and then Gard muttered, “See if I talk to you again, then.”
“Gard,” Tarn growled in warning. This close, he could smell the man, the cinnamon scent that clung to his hair, the faint scent of dust and sun and musk. It was a good smell, one that let the worry seep out of him and made his cock stir warmly. He sank slowly toward sleep, his eyes falling closed.
“Do you think that if the wind blew in the right direction, the instruments would play a recognizable tune?”
Tarn reached around without opening his eyes, grabbed a pillow, and tried to hit Gard with it. He failed, mostly because Gard was lying on said pillow, but it did send a warm and loose-limbed desert rolling into his arms.
“Mmm,” Gard said, pillowing his face against Tarn’s bare shoulder. “Better. Sleeping now.”
And then, to judge by the slowing of his breath and the almost snores that escaped him, he did just that.
Tarn, his whole body flushed from the contact and his cock slowly filling in anticipation, swallowed his groan and threw his arm across his eyes, willing his erection to fade so he could sleep.
Chapter 11: Rousing
TARN WAS hard again when he woke, his cheek resting on the soft, slightly scratchy mass of Gard’s hair. With one long leg laced between his, Gard was twitching against him, his breath coming fast and frightened. One hand was knotted in Tarn’s hair, and Tarn was embarrassed by his erection, when Gard was clearly in distress.
Distress, shivering against him with hot gasps, felt much like sex, however, and Tarn’s body was yearning for this. He had wanted to conquer the desert and make all that lived and loved within it his. He had not expected to see it take such an appealing form. He wanted to put his human hands on Gard, conquer him in an entirely different way.
Right now, though, his fierce desert spirit needed comfort. Gently, Tarn rubbed a hand down his back, stroking him. His skin felt very soft, unmarked by age, and Tarn slowed his touch, savoring it.
“Sssh,” he whispered. “It’s a dream, just a dream. You are safe under my wing. Sssh.”
Gard came awake with a start. For a moment, he just shook in Tarn’s arms.
“You’re safe,” Tarn murmured again. “You’re with me. Bad dream?”
Gard shuddered. “I was in the desert… I dreamed it…. The moon was bright. Then a shadow came between me and the stars, until it had blotted every one of them out, and I was lost and cold and alone.”
“You’re not alone,” Tarn promised. “Never again.”
Gard sighed, as if that meant nothing, and shifted slightly. Then he froze, and Tarn realized with a sudden flush that Gard’s thigh was pressed against his erection, a teasing pressure even through the cloth of their breeches.
“Ignore that,” Tarn tried ordering.
Instead, Gard pressed his thigh in a little harder, making Tarn choke out a gasp as pleasure shot through him. Gard chuckled, low and dirty, and leaned forward to breathe in Tarn’s ear. “Is this what we are to each other, then? Are we lovers?”
“Not yet,” Tarn murmured, frowning as Gard moved his thigh away. Then he gasped again as Gard’s hand closed on him, the sensation barely dulled by the cloth. “I came here to court you.”
“And what does the dragon king want with me?” Gard asked, running a slow fingertip up Tarn’s length. “What aren’t you telling me, Tarnamell? What do you want?”
“The desert,” Tarn choked out. “Under my protection, with the Shadow cast out. I need your help for that.”
“Just another battle for power, is it?” Gard asked, his hand stilling.
Tarn looked up at him. The sun had risen while they had slept, heating the air, and Gard’s dark skin was damp with sweat. A thin trail of black curls led down from his belly to the top of his breeches, promising more. His mouth was soft, his lips damp and full, and his eyes were hungry. In the dim light, Tarn couldn’t see if he was hard, too, but he hoped so.
“And you,” he said. “I want you.”
“You barely know me.”
“I know enough,” Tarn said, and slid his hand up Gard’s thigh. And, yes, he was hard under his breeches, jerking forward as Tarn’s hand covered him, his silver eyes falling half closed.
Then Gard shifted his hand again, unknotting the ties of Tarn’s breeches and exposing him to the warm air. Tarn sighed and lifted his hips into Gard’s grip, arching his back in delight at the first firm clasp around his swollen cock. Every brush of air over him felt like a tease now, and Gard’s slow steady pumping filled him with another rush of pleasure. This was the best reason to take human form.
Or one of the best, at least, he reminded himself, and worked his hand into Gard’s breeches to get a handful of his own. Gard’s cock was hard and hot against his palm, prickling with damp heat, and Tarn began to stroke him, trying to match Gard’s own slow rhythm.
When Gard groaned and pulled away, he leaned up unthinkingly to pull him back. Gard was only kicking his clothes away, though, and he came crowding back into Tarn’s embrace to settle against him, chest to chest and cock to cock. As Tarn pressed up against him, sliding his hands across the taut rise of Gard’s ass, Gard reached between them and wrapped his hand around both their cocks, working them together.
Tarn freed one hand from its explorations to close over Gard’s, entwining their fingers and quickening the pace.
Gard kissed him then, his mouth sweet and lax. He tasted like the desert, like spices and sunshine, and their tongues slid against each other as their bodies rocked together to a bright and inevitable conclusion.
Afterward, slumped lazily around each other, it occurred to Tarn to say, “We’ve been very poor guests.”
“Just burn the evidence,” Gard muttered from where he was pressing slack kisses to Tarn’s shoulder. “I’d offer, but I’m not sure a sandstorm would help much in this case.”
It had been a while since Tarn had last exerted such precise control. He concentrated, though, feeling the smears on their skin and against the sheets collapse into dry ash.
“Tickles,” Gard protested and then lifted his head to grin at Tarn. “Do it again.”
“No,” Tarn said, locking his arms around the wriggling menace. “I’m sleeping now.”
“No fun at all,” sighed Gard, but curled in next to h
im, a comfortable armful as the wagon jolted on.
LYSON WOKE them later. The wagon had stopped moving, and there was a soft murmur of conversation.
“Ia wants Gard to hex the sand again,” he explained. “There’s food cooking too. Go and feed yourself up before the fun starts.” Then he paused, shaking his head. “Funny how seeing other people using your belongings makes them look different. I could swear those sheets are cleaner now than they were last night.”
“It’s Tarn’s righteousness,” said Gard, stretching with a groan. “His very presence cleans the sin from the air and the filth from the—ow!”
Tarn stopped pinching him to nod thanks to Lyson and drag his shirt back on. “Our thanks for the bed. We were in need of sleep.”
“A very good sleep,” Gard murmured, and, with a cackle of laughter, squirmed away from Tarn’s glare.
THE NIGHT went much like the one before, with the dead catching up to them just after sunset. There were fewer today, and many were older bodies, skeletal and dragging.
“They’re rather sad,” Ia said, surveying them grimly.
“Still deadly,” Tarn said. “Just be thankful there have been no children among their number. I lost good men to that once—they stayed their hands out of pity, and the dead tore them down.”
“Don’t say that too loud,” she snapped. “My people don’t think they’re living in a war yet. I had tears and guilt today, and that was just from the ones who aren’t scared of me.”
“You would have fought well in the wars of old,” Tarn told her. She reminded him of some of the best generals he had overseen.
She sighed. “There’s a part of me wishes I were thirty years younger. The world’s turning back toward an age of legend, isn’t it, and I’m just a little too old for it. Look at me…. I was half planning to stop in Istel on the way back and go off in search of the Court of Shells. Now I’m fighting off the dead with the king of the dragons. Lady Fate seems to think she’s funny.”
“The Court of Shells?” Tarn asked.
“After your time, that story. It’s where the sisterhood go when they don’t want to die abed. They say that Myrtilis herself is waiting in the desert in the Court of Shells, which was once the palace of the king of these parts. There’s one or two in every generation who just vanish into the desert. And, over the centuries, more than one of our own great heroines has come out of the desert and refused to say where she learned to swing her sword so well.”
“This was an ocean in Myrtilis’s time,” Tarn reminded her.
“That’s part of the story too,” she said, watching as another stumbling horror went down in a swirl of sand and shattered skull. “When the earth tore, after your last battle, the land here cracked and tipped. The plain of Emala was swallowed by the sea, and the Gulf of Gardalor ran dry. The story says that Myrtilis bargained with the king of the sea to win his palace in exchange for the home she had lost below the waves.”
He had seen Myrtilis fall on the field of Astalor, in the final hour of the battle, and be carried off the field with mortal wounds. He would not tell Ia that, though, so he simply remarked, “If she won it, it was at dice. Or drinking.”
Ia barked out a short, incredulous laugh. “Our Bright Lady? No.”
He grinned at her. “She should have been born a dragon, that one. I loved her, foulmouthed, openhearted, lion-bold general that she was. She would have liked you.”
“I’m not sure if I’m flattered or appalled,” Ia muttered.
Gard appeared at their shoulder then. “Talking to Tarn? I think both are entirely natural reactions. Was anyone else keeping count? I think we had more coming from the direction of Istel than from behind.”
“Shit,” Ia sighed. “If the fucking trade post has fallen, we’re done. We’re almost out of water and salt, and even though we’re retrieving as many arrows as we can, we’re running low.”
“Fear not,” Gard told her, smile quirking up. “At the worst, we can all climb onto Tarn’s back and he can fly us home. I think he’d make a very fetching pack mule.”
“People fall off,” Tarn said flatly.
“Tie them down,” Gard suggested. “Where’s your creativity, lizard man?”
Tarn narrowed his eyes. “Some of them vomit.”
Gard patted him on the shoulder. “It’s hard to be a hero, isn’t it?”
THAT NIGHT, Gard fell into Tarn’s kisses as soon as they made it to bed. It felt easy this time, their hands wandering across bared skin, though Gard grumbled at the cold as the blanket slipped off them.
“You’re mine,” Tarn whispered to him as Gard settled between his legs, straddling his lap to rub against him slowly.
Gard looked up to meet his gaze, his face suddenly solemn. “No one owns me, Tarn.”
“No,” Tarn agreed, “but you are mine to protect.”
“I protect myself.” Then Tarn reached around to press behind his balls, and he shuddered and dissolved into wordless sounds again. Soon Tarn had him on his knees, and was sliding a spit-damp finger into him as he sucked slowly on the round, dark head of Gard’s cock.
Someone flicked across the curtain at the front of the wagon, said, “Oh!” and then left again in a flurry of giggles. Tarn ignored the interruption, to tease the rough flat of his tongue across the warm firm head, nudging Gard’s foreskin farther back before he slackened his throat and began to slide down. He had learned long ago what this form was capable of, and he thought Gard would like this.
By the time he had Gard lodged in his throat and his cheek was brushing soft skin, Gard was whimpering, his head thrown back and his hips quivering. Closing his eyes in concentration, Tarn crooked his finger, searching for that sensitive spot within.
When he found it, two light brushes had Gard tensing above him. His hips snapped forward as he choked out a cry. He flooded down Tarn’s throat, and Tarn swallowed, warmed with smug satisfaction.
Gard went limp above him, sliding into the blankets, and Tarn turned him, kneeing his legs apart to kneel above him and watch his chest heave with each ragged breath as his body sank away from ecstasy.
He touched himself as he stared down, his hand careless and fast on his own cock until Gard opened his eyes and caught his breath. At that, the heat rose through Tarn, and he thrust forward as he came, come splattering across Gard’s chest and cheek.
He fell forward, catching himself on his hands to hover over Gard, his hair spilling around them.
“You’ve made a mess again,” Gard murmured and reached up to curl his hand in Tarn’s hair and pull him down. “Come and share it.”
For a mouth that spilled out such infuriating nonsense all day, Gard’s lips tasted very sweet. Tarn could easily lose himself in this, kissing and kissing until he forgot the Shadow and the threat of the dead and just anchored himself in the hot embrace of the desert.
“So warm,” Gard sighed, wrapping himself tightly around Tarn. “Clean up, will you, so I don’t stick to you. I want to stay this close.”
“You’ll overheat when the sun rises,” Tarn warned, sending fleeting flames to turn the mess to steam and dust. He nuzzled kisses against Gard’s neck, rolling his hips slightly into the welcoming cradle of Gard’s parted thighs. When he felt Gard’s cock twitch against his, Tarn chuckled and kept his hips moving, savoring the soft jerks and nudges against him, the weight of Gard’s balls as they began to tighten, the rising of his nipples to press against Tarn’s chest, the quiver of Gard’s thigh.
Their cocks were brushing against each other, a little too dry for comfort, so Tarn shifted to reach out and grab his shirt. He had a little bottle of Dit’s oil in the pocket and he slicked up his hand as Gard began to jerk and quiver beneath him, and then Tarn reached down to coat them both in the thin stuff.
“Oh,” Gard gasped as their movements became smooth, every brush against each other a flare of sensation. “Oh, Tarn, please, oh.”
Tarn kissed the sounds out of his mouth and then stayed to twine his tongue arou
nd Gard’s as their bodies slid and writhed against each other. He felt the first jerk of Gard’s cock stiffening against his, and then Gard was arching up and slick heat was spurting around him.
Tarn groaned and pressed down hard, his own release rolling over him.
“So damn intimidating on first sight,” Gard was babbling. “I didn’t realize you could be beautiful, but oh, I’ve never seen anything like you. Not that I would know if I had, of course, but I know I haven’t, because I could never forget anything like that.”
“Hush,” Tarn told him, rolling them both onto their sides so he could get a pillow under his head. Then he kissed Gard slowly until his babbling stopped and his mouth went slack and they both fell easily into sleep.
The next morning he woke with his erection pressed hard between Gard’s ass cheeks, brushing at his hole. Gard was lying very still, his breath coming in quick gasps, clearly awake. Tarn pushed forward without thinking, and felt the soft resistance of Gard’s hole tease at his head. For a moment, Tarn wanted to just grab the oil, slick up, and push in deep and slow.
Then he remembered that he had a plan, and breathed, “Say you’re mine. Be part of my hoard.”
“I don’t belong to anyone,” Gard snapped back. “Will you pay attention to more, oh, pressing problems and just fuck me.”
“Not until you’re mine,” Tarn said and readjusted himself until he was lodged between Gard’s legs instead, his cock pressing in behind Gard’s balls.
“Tarn!”
“Sssh,” Tarn whispered against the nape of his neck and reached round to seize his cock. “You’ll like this.”
“I’d like to be fucked,” Gard grumbled, but then sighed out pleasure when Tarn began to move against him.
JIRELL WAS driving when they scrambled out of the back of the wagon the next afternoon. Gard bounced off to find Ia, but Tarn sat beside Jirell for a while. He hadn’t spoken to her much since he had shown his wings, and he was wondering how to gauge her reaction. She didn’t seem uneasy, so he sat awhile, enjoying the quiet and savoring the new aches in his body.
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