by Anna Zabo
Rhys wrapped his fingers around Silas’s wrist and pulled Silas’s hand away. “You’re blaming yourself again.”
“Who else is there to blame?”
No one. Guilt twisted in Rhys’s stomach. Not too long ago, he was heaping similar words on top of Silas. He let go of Silas’s wrist. “You could let me help you. I mean, really help you.”
Color touched Silas’s cheeks. “I don’t want to.”
Yes. Obviously. “Why?”
Silas stroked Rhys’s cheek again. “I chose this path for me. I took the Messengers’ sword. My life…” He withdrew his fingers. “Blood and ash and nights and death. That’s the heart of my life, Rhys. It’s far from the normal life of a fae. Why would I want to drag someone I love into that?”
Rhys fingered the burned edges of his tux’s sleeves. Pieces of fabric broke off and fell to the tile floor. “But I’m already here.”
Silas swallowed hard. “I know.” Voice tight, he looked down at Rhys’s arms. “And I’m so very sorry I’ve done this to you. If I’d known—” He croaked a bitter laugh. “Ah, gods.”
Rhys leaned forward and kissed him, pushing his tongue against the other man’s lips until Silas relented and opened his mouth. Rhys plunged in, shifting to find a less awkward angle. He cupped Silas’s face and kissed him until Silas uttered a deep groan. Then he pulled back. “If I’d known, I still would’ve chased you down that hall.”
Breathing hard, Silas lay his head back onto the bench. “Impetuous, rash—”
Rhys took his mouth again, just to shut him up. Energy swirled around them with the sweet smell of summer apple blossoms. But small lifeless spots hovered around them—and thin lines of pain. Not his own.
Silas. He broke the kiss. “Let me help you heal.”
“I’m fine.”
“Liar.” He touched Silas’s side, his arm. “I can feel—see—where you’re hurt. Where you’re dying.”
Silas stilled for a moment. Then sighed. “That’s far from fair. How am I supposed to stoically lie to you about my injuries now?”
“You’re not.” Rhys brushed a curl of hair out of Silas’s face and sat back on his heels. “Besides, Stoics aren’t supposed to lie.”
“How would you know that?” A hint of amusement entered into Silas’s rough voice.
“I read Marcus Aurelius in college.”
“You don’t know Latin, but you’ve read Aurelius?” Silas rubbed his face. “Americans.”
He poked Silas in the side—hard. That elicited a painful hiss from his fae. “You are such an arrogant jackass sometimes,” Rhys said.
“I’m an arrogant jackass all the time.” He coughed a laugh and massaged the spot Rhys’s fingers had hit. “It’s just that some of the times you enjoy it.”
True. Some of the time, that arrogance made him furious with rage—and sometimes it made him rock hard with desire. But most of the time? Most of the time, Silas’s whole being made his heart squeeze tight and his mind tangle itself into knots. Right now, it was a bit of all four. He placed a hand on Silas’s chest. “Will you let me help you heal?”
Silas caught Rhys’s hand and kissed it before replying. “Yes.”
The last of Rhys’s anger melted away. He touched his lips to Silas’s. This time he didn’t need to badger Silas to respond—he did, deeply and passionately. But beneath that…
God.
Silas’s veins burned with poison. Muted pain rippled through Rhys. He reached for the energy of the garden and pushed what he gathered into Silas.
Silas moaned and broke off the kiss.
Shit. He let go of Silas. “Sorry, I thought—”
Silas caught his arm and gently pulled him back. “Just too much, too fast.” His face had lost color—or rather had become jaundiced again. “I’m not as strong as you.” He paused, and spoke lower. “I’ll never be as strong as you.”
The inside of Rhys’s skull itched. Quarter-fae. What would happen if he forced too much energy into a fae? Best not dwell on that. He reached for his element again but this time pushed a tiny stream toward Silas.
“Better,” he said.
The damaging fire of the poison in Silas lessened, like a riverbed drying up. The festering death eating at Silas’s side stopped and reversed. So slowly, though. So much pain in Silas. Rhys laid his head on Silas’s stomach. “You shouldn’t be conscious, let alone walking.”
Silas stroked his hair. “Well, one good thing Anaxandros gave me was a very high tolerance for pain.”
Rhys couldn’t stop the shudder. “I hate that thing.”
“As do I.”
In his ear, Silas’s heart beat a steady but quick rhythm, but his breaths came in shallow gulps. Memories—not his own—stirred in Rhys. “It’s stuck its hand inside you before.”
Silas stilled his hand. “Yes.”
“Did it—did they—” Rhys didn’t know if he wanted to ask this question. But now that he’d thought of it, he couldn’t stop. “Were you raped?”
Silas’s breathing slowed. “I suppose it depends on what you mean.” He took another handful of breaths before continuing. “The soulless have no sexual capacity or ability. They can stir our desires, make us want them, but they themselves?” Rhys felt Silas shrug. “On the other hand, everything Anaxandros ever did to me was about taking power and will from me. About degradation.”
Silas’s voice was so calm, but underneath Rhys heard an unbridled wail of fear and pain. He sucked air in through his teeth.
Silas resumed stroking his hair. “There’s nothing you can do to change my past.”
“I know.” The streams of poison in Silas were nearly dry. Another question nudged at Rhys. “What about Vasil?”
“He should feel better in a few days, as I said.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Rhys lifted his head and sat back. He kept the trickle of energy seeping into Silas, though. “It bit him.”
Silas’s confused look gave way to one of clarity. “You can’t become soulless from a bite.”
“But the legends…” Then again, if someone could, Silas would probably be a vampire, given the flashes of memory Rhys glimpsed. Heck, he’d be one too.
“You can’t lose your soul or have it taken from you. To become soulless is a choice.”
“No accidental angsty vampires?”
“No. They—every last one of them—chose to be what they are.” Silas sat up.
The sickly color had fled, leaving a somewhat paler but much healthier-looking Silas behind. The muscles in Rhys’s back unknotted, and he broke off the stream of energy. Exhaustion slammed into him. He leaned against the bench. “Is it morning yet?”
Silas caressed the back of his neck. “Look.” He pointed up.
Rhys tilted his head back. Through the glass of the roof, streaks of blue and golden clouds painted a pale sky with luminescent color.
Dawn.
“Your place or mine?” Rhys said.
“Mine.” Silas reached under the bench and pulled his sword out. “The bed is bigger.”
“I’m not really up for anything other than sleeping.” Rhys climbed to his feet, using the bench for support.
“Likewise.” Silas rose, and caught himself on the back of the bench. “Mercury’s balls.”
The poison in Silas’s blood was gone, as was most of the damage to his liver. Rhys steadied him. “I don’t understand.”
Silas twisted his mouth into a bitter expression. “Lost too much blood. Not a damn thing I can do about that.”
Silas had told Vasil the same. Rhys wrapped one arm around Silas’s waist. “Together, then?”
“For as long as you wish.”
Rhys pondered that answer while they worked their way through the ship to Silas’s cabin. He turned it over in his mind when they undressed, heaped their bloody clothes into a corner of the bathroom, and washed blood and ash off themselves in the shower.
When they crawled into bed, Rhys finally spoke. “For as long as I wish?”
<
br /> “True Thomas never lies.”
“You’re not Thomas.” Rhys snuggled into the length of Silas’s warm body. “And you do lie.”
“Yes, but not well. And not now.” Silas spoke the words into Rhys’s ear. “I promise not to leave you if you wish me to stay.”
“And if I wanted you to be with me forever?” He breathed in the scent of shampoo on Silas’s wet hair and kissed the curls stuck against Silas’s forehead.
Breath tickled Rhys’s neck. “Then I best not get myself killed, eh?”
“You’d better not. Te amo.” He paused and then added, “Je t’aime. Seni seviyorum. Ich liebe dich…” By the fifth phrase, Silas trembled. By fifteen, Rhys’s eyes stung. Only this time he couldn’t pretend that the salt water on his cheeks and on his lips was sea spray.
He kept speaking, up to the fiftieth language. With daylight streaking across the walls of the cabin, he whispered that phrase one last time into Silas’s ear. “I love you.”
Chapter Eleven
For the first time in decades, Silas didn’t wake from a nightmare. Isatis’s lemur wasn’t standing in the shadows of the room. Strange. Strange, too, was the delightful sensation of another person burrowed against his side and the smell of pine and sea grass that permeated the room.
Rhys.
The previous day’s events rolled over Silas, waves of memories crashing over the moment of serenity, breaking it down and washing away his peace. Anaxandros.
Silas slid his hand down and rubbed where the soulless had ripped into his side. Smooth skin and an intact liver, thanks to Rhys.
He should be dead. They both should be dead.
Rhys snuggled closer in his sleep. Silas resisted the urge to run his fingers through that tangled mess of hair.
Very few people had handled his gladius and only with his permission. No one—not a single soul—had ever used it before. The Messengers had been rather explicit that this task was his and no other’s. But Rhys had been correct; Vasil would’ve died.
Still, watching Rhys burn because of his own inability to fight—that had been worse than Anaxandros’s claws crushing his liver. Worse than the humiliation of Rhys snatching the sword from his hand.
Silas rolled sideways to look at the man tucked under the covers with him. Glorious and blissful in sleep. Rhys’s fae nature—the copper strands of his hair, his narrow face—peeked out from behind very human stubble and a whorled mass of hair.
No, he’d not ever get tired of waking up to Rhys in his bed.
Silas’s dick, already semierect, hardened when Rhys’s lips parted and a content snore issued from him. Unable to resist any longer, Silas brushed a finger over Rhys’s rough stubble, savoring the glint of red among the brown hairs.
Rhys opened his eyes.
“Good morning,” Silas said.
Rhys stretched, his leg sliding against the hard length of Silas’s erection. “Is it still morning?” Vestiges of sleep slurred his words.
“No idea.” Silas cupped the back of Rhys’s head and drew him forward for a kiss. No resistance, just a murmur of pleasure that vibrated Silas’s lips. He plunged his tongue into Rhys’s mouth and sucked on each of his lips until Rhys squirmed against him. “Good morning,” he whispered again against Rhys’s swollen lips.
Rhys exhaled. “Very.” He rolled, pulling Silas on top of him. “God, you’re still here. This isn’t a dream.” Joy in his voice.
Silas didn’t reply. He set about devouring those lips and that tongue.
Rhys’s fingers scraped against his scalp and tugged at his hair. His hips thrust a rock-hard cock against Silas’s dick.
Want and need pooled in Silas. He ground himself into Rhys and bit at his bottom lip.
Rhys’s gasp and the deep groan that followed sent a spike of desire that tightened Silas’s balls. He shifted and rose up over Rhys, breaking the contact between them.
Slow. He had to pace himself. His wounds and the poison were gone, but he couldn’t say he was entirely over the attacks from last night. He felt better than he should’ve, but the tremble in his arms wasn’t from lust, nor was the rapid thrum of his heart entirely the product of desire.
The angle of the sun was high. They had time. And by the gods, he wanted to hear Rhys moaning beneath him, wanted to see him thrashing with pleasure. That much, at least, Silas could give to the beautiful man in his arms who’d said, “I love you,” over and over in all the languages Silas knew. And more.
Certainly that was a goal worth exhausting himself over. He leaned down and sucked Rhys’s kiss-bruised bottom lip again.
“Please.” Rhys’s voice was a mix of sleep and desire. “I want…” He slid his hands over Silas’s shoulders and down his back, warm fingers tracing pleasure over Silas’s skin.
“Everything.” Stubble scratched Silas’s lips as he drew his mouth over Rhys’s chin and kissed the cleft in the middle. He tongued those tiny hairs, nibbled at them, then wandered lower, kissing his way over Rhys’s throat. He tasted of sea salt and smelled of spice. Rhys swallowed, his Adam’s apple prominent for a moment. Silas licked at it.
Rhys hissed. The tug on Silas’s hair grew sharper, tighter. Rhys had probably balled his hands into fists, just as he had while fucking Silas’s mouth yesterday.
Silas slid his fingers over the sensitive skin on the sides of Rhys’s stomach.
Thrusting upward, Rhys growled when his cock met nothing but air. “Damn it, Silas! Let me—”
When Silas rolled Rhys’s nipple between his fingers, those words turned into an unintelligible string of syllables.
He’d pay for that later, undoubtedly, but it was worth the frozen wide-eyed expression of surprise. Rhys bucked and squirmed to get away from his ministrations. Silas flattened himself on top of Rhys and replaced his fingers with his mouth. Though hard, the nub of flesh yielded nicely to the play of his tongue as he licked and sucked it. Rhys’s wordless cry turned into gasps and whimpers. His hands tightened in Silas’s hair, and sparks danced over Silas’s skin.
At some point, he’d let Rhys know just how much having his hair pulled turned him on. Right now? There were better things to contemplate. Silas scraped his teeth over the nipple. Beneath him, Rhys’s whole body shook. He pulled back and loomed over Rhys.
Rhys worked hard to catch his breath. His eyes were wide with expectation—and just a hint of fear.
“I’m going to teach you a word in Latin,” Silas said. After all, he’d only worked over one of Rhys’s nipples.
“What word?” Rhys croaked the question.
“Symmetria.” He descended on the other nipple with lips, teeth, and tongue and pressed his full weight down onto Rhys to keep him still.
That didn’t entirely work.
“Oh fuck.” Rhys trembled and dragged his fingers along Silas’s side. The heat and sting jolted like electricity to Silas’s balls. He thrust his cock into Rhys’s thigh. The sweet friction sent tingles of warmth through his arms and legs. He needed to feel more of that heat, but it could wait. It would wait. Rhys’s nipple, however… He sucked the nub between his teeth and tugged.
“God.” Rhys clawed at his back. “I can’t—”
Silas relented. “But you can. You will.”
“Please.” Rhys’s voice was breathless.
He sat up and traced fingers across Rhys’s chest, following the fine line of hair down to just before Rhys’s cock. “Do you want more?”
Rhys sucked in a deep breath of air. “From you? Always.”
Silas laughed. There was no doubt that fae blood lingered in Rhys. Wanton, lovely Rhys. “You’re utterly delightful.”
“And you’re sexy as hell.” Rhys wrapped a warm hand around Silas’s cock and stroked. “Let me suck you.”
There were very few things more enjoyable than Rhys’s mouth around his dick. But that wasn’t his aim at the moment. He brushed a finger over Rhys’s lips. “Later.”
Brash man that he was, Rhys took that digit into his mouth and tongued
it in rhythm as the hand he stroked up and down Silas’s dick. Gods. Lightning traced down Silas’s veins, and he very nearly abandoned his plans so he could sink his cock into the wet heat milking his finger.
Silas pulled his hand free, then caught both of Rhys’s arms and pinned them down to the mattress. “Later.”
Rhys smiled up at him. “I thought you liked coming in my throat.”
“Immensely. But I have other ideas for that lovely mouth of yours.”
“Such as?”
“Moaning, screaming in abandon. Gasping. Random pleading to deities.” He leaned down so that his lips hovered over Rhys’s. “And that’ll be before I actually fuck you.”
Rhys’s warm breath tickled Silas’s wet lips. “Promise?”
He chuckled and then stole a quick kiss from Rhys. “Yes.” He planted another kiss on his chin, his neck, his shoulder, sucking and nibbling down the length of Rhys’s body. He kept his hands locked around Rhys’s wrists.
When he dragged his teeth across the left side of Rhys’s taught stomach, Rhys twisted and moaned.
He loved that sound. Nothing got his cock tighter than Rhys’s exquisite babble. He worked his way to the dip of Rhys’s belly button and plunged his tongue in.
Rhys bucked his hips. The tip of his dick slid across Silas’s chest, leaving behind a trail of wetness that cooled against his skin.
“So demanding,” Silas murmured. He regretted having to let go of Rhys’s wrists—being caught seemed to excite Rhys even more than sex in public—but if he truly wanted to hear Rhys in ecstasy, he’d need his mouth and his hands.
He slid his fingers over Rhys’s thighs, then pulled them apart. He lowered his mouth to the sensitive skin under the curly hair near Rhys’s sac. Rhys tasted of salt and smelled of soap, pine, and grass.
Silas couldn’t help but utter his own moan. He pushed his cock against the soft, cool sheets of the bed. Amores above. The urge to jack himself off was almost overpowering. Even more so when Rhys’s fingers tangled in his hair and ground Silas’s head into his balls.
Randy bastard. Silas wrapped his hand around Rhys’s cock and ran his thumb over the slick head, while sucking one of Rhys’s balls into his mouth. Thick hairs tickled his tongue as he rolled it around the hard nut and swallowed the musky taste of Rhys.
