Heart of Winter (The Drake Chronicles Book 1)

by Lauren Gilley

  Lars nudged Magnus in the ribs. “We should be thinking about bed, too. We’ll have to be up before dawn to tail this one.” He nodded toward Erik.

  “Your insolence is astounding this evening,” Erik deadpanned.

  Magnus groaned, but stood, and the two brothers waded to the steps and climbed up and out of the pool, streaming water.

  Belatedly, Oliver realized what was about to happen.

  “Wait!”

  Magnus glanced over his shoulder, frowning, as he reached for his robe.

  “You don’t have to leave. It’s early yet.”

  Magnus regarded him a moment, and Oliver thought he might frown – but then his countenance was easy again, and he shrugged on his robe saying, “Dawn comes early enough. We’ll see you tomorrow, Oliver. At the council if not before.”

  “Right.” He swallowed. “Goodnight.” He watched them pack up the basket and retreat around the corner, until they were out of sight. And then he stared at the wet tracks they’d left on the stone, because he was alone now with Erik, and if he looked at him, with no witnesses around, all would be lost.

  Quiet reigned for a spell, broken only by the gentle lap of water, and the distant plinks and drips from deeper in the caverns. He heard the murmur of voices back toward the entrance, too far to make out any distinct words.

  Erik said, “Should I be jealous?”

  Pulse thrumming, belly squirming with excitement, knowing he was doomed, but thrilled about it, Oliver turned his head.

  Erik sat with his elbows braced behind him on edge of the pool, large hands dangling into the water. His hair lay in wet ribbons down his chest, framing his face; droplets clung to his brows and in his short beard. The torchlight lent his wet skin a high sheen, so that each dip and curve of muscle stood out in stark relief, as if painted. His gaze was piercing, unforgiving.

  Oliver wet his lips, and watched Erik’s eyes follow the dart of his tongue. A shiver went down his back. “Jealous how?”

  Erik’s head tipped in that maddening way that left him looking out from beneath his brows. “Do you wish it was Magnus here alone with you?”

  Oliver would have laughed, if he could have gathered the breath to do so. “If you truly suspect that, I’m not sure you’re competent to serve as king.”

  Erik’s responding smile was quick, and sharp – predatory – and gone as swiftly as it had appeared, leaving him open-mouthed, and pink-cheeked, and…hungry. He sat forward, shoulders rolling, arms slipping down into the water; coiled and ready to pounce.

  Oliver wanted it so much, but was in such disbelief that it was actually happening, that he lifted a dripping hand and choked out, “Wait.”

  Erik waited, settling down lower in the water. His voice was the low, rumbling purr of a hunting cat when he said, “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s – what’s wrong?” The laughter came, then, high, and breathless, and unhappy. Almost maniacal. “What’s…in case you’ve forgotten, you are a king. You are the king of this nation, the one I’m petitioning for an army, and an alliance. And I’m – I’m a bastard. Around here, I am the bastard. And you are a warrior, and I am a bookworm, and we are…”

  Erik straightened, and took one gliding step across the pool toward him. His voice was still low, but almost gentle when he said, “Are we going to list one another’s most obvious traits? Because that could take a while.”

  Oliver swallowed past the lump that had formed in his throat. His insides felt full of trapped birds. He was panicking, panicking, and he didn’t know how to stop it, how to reach out, and be honest, without getting in his own way. “I don’t – I don’t–”

  Erik took another step.

  “I don’t get what I want. Not ever. And I’m fine with that, normally, but now…”

  Another step.

  He swallowed again, with difficulty. “I don’t get what I want,” he repeated.

  Something in Erik’s gaze softened, heartbroken. “And what do you want right now?”

  Madness, it was madness, it was… “You. I want you. More – more than I have ever wanted anything in my life.”

  Erik said, “Don’t move,” and closed the final distance between them with a few charging strides, displaced water slapping and overflowing the edges of the pool.

  Oliver choked on his own breath; tremors overtook him, a cold chill, despite the heat of the water. “We can’t – you can’t – it won’t–”

  Erik cupped his face in both big, warm, wet hands, thumbs smoothing across his beardless cheeks, silencing him. Soothing him. His eyes were gemstones, and his breath was hot across Oliver’s lips. “You said so yourself,” he murmured. “I’m the king. And I can have what I want.”

  Oliver clutched at his forearms, felt the solid steel of them, and the flicker of muscles in reaction to his touch – to his touch. This gorgeous, glorious king was reacting to him. “Oh,” he breathed.

  Erik ducked his head, and Oliver’s lashes lowered, already anticipating a kiss.

  But Erik pressed his lips to his temple, instead, and one hand shifted to card through his hair. “I want your hair through my fingers,” he whispered. His lips trailed down to Oliver’s ear. “I want it on my pillow. I want to wake up with my face buried in it.”

  His hand slid down to cup the side of Oliver’s neck. And he kept whispering. “I want to see the marks of my teeth in your throat.” Callused fingertips strummed over his pulse, across his collarbone. “I want to drape you in gemstones and fine furs. I want you in my bed.” His hand opened against Oliver’s chest, over his galloping heart, and Oliver was helpless but to press into the touch, whimpering. He was melting against him.

  Lower, throatier, while he crowded in closer: “I want to know what you taste like. I want to get on my knees for you.” The tip of his nose traced the edge of Oliver’s ear. “I want to be inside you. I want to keep you.”

  “Oh.” Oliver moaned and swayed forward against him, his imagination vivid and wild, his blood deliciously overheated. “That – that, all of that – you can have it. You can have everything. Please–”

  Then Erik kissed him.

  It was shockingly gentle. A faint brush, a gentle press, a careful swipe of a tongue against the seam of Oliver’s lips. It was a question, rather than a demand. Can I? Will you let me? Oliver had all but swooned into his arms, had told him to take everything, and here was this big man with his big hands, reverently stroking his face, fingertips dancing across his chest in little frantic patterns that told the story of his want, and of his restraint.

  Oliver reached up to wind both hands in his long, wet hair, and pulled back just far enough to hear the sharpness of his breath, and to say, “I may be little, but I won’t break, sweetheart.”

  Oliver watched his pupils blow, until there was only a thin ring of bright blue around them. Erik shuddered all over, a full-body twitch like a horse shaking off flies. Then he gripped the hair at Oliver’s nape, tight, growled low in his throat, and kissed him like he meant it.

  It was savage: wet, and messy, sharp at the edges with teeth, and exactly what Oliver had pictured kissing him would be like. There was nothing to do but submit, open to him, and gladly be invaded.

  Erik’s tongue slid against his, and Erik pressed him back against the edge of the pool, the hand on his chest sliding boldly down his ribs, and around his hip to cup his ass. When he pulled Oliver’s hips forward, he went willingly, gasping a glad sound against Erik’s mouth when he felt his hardening cock against his stomach.

  He was like a tide, sweeping Oliver along, and Oliver clutched at him, trying to hold on: broad shoulders, thick arms. He raked his fingers through the hair on Erik’s chest and earned a growl in response, one that vibrated through the kiss, and down Oliver’s throat.

  It was–

  “Erik.”

  …being interrupted.

  A throat cleared from somewhere above them, loudly.

  Erik lifted his head, panting, chest heaving beneath Oliver’s hands
. He closed his eyes a moment, and rested his forehead against Oliver’s, so that all Oliver could see was his face, blurry and too close. All he could feel was the tight grip of Erik’s hands: one in his hair, one on his backside. Oliver’s heart hammered, because they’d been caught, and oh, gods, but he didn’t pull away, he wouldn’t, not so long as Erik kept holding him.

  He was the king, and he got what he wanted. If he wanted to keep holding Oliver, in front of witnesses, Oliver didn’t have the strength of will to protest that.

  Without lifting his head, Erik snarled, “What?”

  Bjorn’s voice answered. “There’s been another break-in.”

  Erik was silent a long moment, still save for his rough breathing. Then he swore, softly, and lifted his head. “Of course there was,” he muttered.

  Oliver blinked, eyes refocusing, and saw Erik lift a glance up at his general, expression sliding from fervent want to steady, businesslike hardness in a moment. His hands shifted to Oliver’s waist – but, still, he did not let go, not even in front of Bjorn. His grip tightened, a steadying squeeze that kept Oliver on his feet, and grounded, when every instinct told him to run and hide. They’d been caught! But Erik didn’t seem to care about that. If anything, he pulled him in closer, snugging him up against his chest. “Where?” he asked Bjorn.

  “North gate. I’ll show you.”

  Erik sighed. But said, “Fine. Give us a minute, and we’ll join you.”

  We.

  Oliver listened to Bjorn’s booted footfalls retreat – he’d been too caught up, his pulse pounding too hard to notice his approach, before.

  His pulse was still pounding, but it was fueled by fear, now.

  “Erik,” he whispered, throat threatening to close, fingertips digging into Erik’s chest.

  “Shh.” Erik kissed his forehead, lingering there, and petted Oliver’s ribs with slow sweeps of his palms. “It’s all right.”

  “But he–”

  “Bjorn is my oldest and best friend.” Erik pulled back and caught his eye, his expression one at war: jaw set with determination, clenched in anticipation of some new problem. But eyes so gentle, and soft. Reassuring. He lifted a hand to cup Oliver’s jaw. “Don’t worry on his account.”

  He waited, holding his gaze until Oliver finally let out a shaky breath and managed a nod.

  “Come. Let’s go and see.”

  They climbed out of the water and made use of the towels waiting on the bench. Erik had a dressing gown there, a crimson one resplendent with silver embroidery. He pulled it on, and, when Oliver fumbled with his own, turned to pull it snug across his front and secure the belt for him.

  Oliver’s hands were shaking. “If we go out there – together – people will know. They’ll know what we were – doing.”

  “Let them know.” Erik offered him a smile that was more ferocious than reassuring. “Come.”

  There was nothing to do but follow.

  Bjorn waited just beyond the corner, standing with arms folded, huge and imposing. Oliver imagined he looked disapproving, but he fell right into step with Erik and said, in a low voice, “We’ve caught the bugger this time.”

  “You have? Good. Whose man is he?”

  “He won’t say, but wait until you see how he’s dressed.”

  The baths weren’t nearly as crowded as they’d been, but a few bathers lingered, lounging and chatting quietly. All of them spotted the king, heads turning to follow his progress, which meant all of them spotted Oliver, too. There was no mistaking the narrow glances he received, nor the way friends leaned together to whisper to one another.

  Erik and Bjorn marched on, heedless, and Oliver hastened to keep up, face flaming.

  The dressing room wasn’t empty – but Bjorn turned to the two gray-haired men sitting and gabbing on a bench and barked, “Get out.” He was completely transformed from the jovial figure who’d met Oliver and Tessa on the pier that first day.

  The men scrambled to comply, and Bjorn took up a post in the doorway, arms still folded, shoulder braced against the wall.

  Erik went for his clothes, and Oliver did the same, tugging them on with nervous, trembling fingers.

  “He was caught in the act, then?” Erik asked, and Oliver’s heart stopped.

  The thief, he reminded himself, with a mental shake, and laced up his tunic.

  Bjorn said, “Aye. He’d picked the lock, and the tools still in his hands when my boys found him. He’s refused to tell us anything.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “The cells.”

  Oliver tugged on his second boot, and made to slip away.

  “Oliver.” Erik’s voice brought him up short. And Erik’s expression, when he turned toward him, was etched with faint confusion. “It’s this way.”

  It wasn’t a command. He didn’t say you’ll come with us. Oliver knew that he could beg off and flee to his chamber if he wanted to.

  But Erik had kissed him, had said all those things to him – wanted to keep him – and he was including him in this now, in official, potentially dangerous royal business.

  Oliver took a breath and said, “All right.”

  Bjorn led the way out of the bathing chamber, back down the tunnel, and turned down a darker hallway. The cressets burned lower, here, were spaced farther apart, so that the shadows crowded in closer. An uninviting passage, and Oliver supposed that was the point of it.

  Erik walked alongside him, still emanating warmth from the bath, hair still wet on his shoulders.

  Oliver hadn’t lived thirty years without learning how to stow all his various anxieties away when the time called for it. He stuffed down all his lingering shakiness and uncertainty and focused on the moment at hand. He was still him, and Erik was still his kingly host – his friend, even – and he could act like a man grown about this.

  “Bjorn said ‘another break-in,’ didn’t he?”

  “Aye.” Erik sounded grim. The hard note in his voice elicited a pleasant shiver that Oliver covered with a cough. “We had one just before you arrived. I’ve had all my people questioned, and all claim they know nothing about it. Nothing’s been stolen, no one is missing, but someone’s stealing his way onto the palace grounds.”

  “Hm.”

  Erik sent him a questioning look as they walked.

  “It’s only – subterfuge is a Southern game. I imagine Northmen are more about hooks, and ladders, and outright sieges.”

  Erik smirked. “For the most part.”

  The hall ended in a series of heavy iron doors that a waiting, stern-faced guard unlocked with keys, a different one for each door. When they were through the last one, a guard handed Bjorn a burning torch, and, holding another, led them down a long hall studded with barred doors. The only light came from behind them, at the main doors, and from the sputtering torches, their uneven glow dancing and spitting across the stone.

  Depravation. Of light, of comfort, of company.

  Oliver chafed at his arms against a sudden chill.

  Erik’s hand landed, briefly, at the small of his back. A warm, grounding touch, supportive and comforting.

  Then they arrived at the correct door and the guard picked a key off the ring he carried. He paused, before he unlocked it, and glanced between Bjorn and Erik. “He’s…well, you can see for yourself, your majesty.”

  The door opened soundlessly on well-oiled hinges, and Bjorn stepped through, ducking beneath the low lintel. The guard stayed in the hall.

  Oliver took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and when Erik glanced back over his shoulder, checking on him, he nodded, and followed him into the cell.

  It had been carved out of the rock of the cave: stone walls, floor, and ceiling, though there was a stool, and a cot, and a pail, and fresh straw had been laid.

  The torchlight flickered across a man sitting on the floor, with his back to the wall. His head was shaved save for one fat, pale braid that ran down the center of his head and trailed over one shoulder. Starkly pale eyes peered
out of a face that was streaked all over with blue and black pigment of some sort, a thick paste that made it hard to pick out any of his features, an unnerving mask of paint. He was dressed all in furs, and bits of old, cracked leather. A necklace of various bones and teeth hung around his neck, some the long fangs of bears or wolves, others alarmingly human in shape.

  “Look, Erik,” Bjorn said, voice thick with disgust. “It’s a little bear cub.”

  The man shifted forward with a rattle, and Oliver realized he was chained to the wall, thick iron manacles around his wrists.

  “Beserkir,” Erik said, and then spit on the floor at the man’s feet. “What did your master send you to steal?”

  The man stared mutinously up at Erik, and kept silent. Everything about him bristled with a challenge, and Oliver’s belly clenched – unpleasantly, this time. All the heat of the baths had left him.

  Erik took the torch from Bjorn, and crouched down so he was on eye level with the prisoner. Slowly, he reached out with the flaming end of the torch, closer and closer to the man’s face, until Oliver caught a whiff of singed fur. The light chased the shadows from the prisoner’s painted face, so they could see the shape of his nose – broken at least twice before – and thin lips, the narrow jaw and slanted cheekbones. He was young – as young as Leif, or maybe even Rune, his beard still thin and patchy.

  “You’re too young to have been there,” Erik said, and his voice had taken on an edge that Oliver hadn’t yet heard. “But you’ll have heard of it – they’ll have told you. You know what happened to your clan brothers when they set upon a man of Aeretoll on the road.”

  The man – boy – kept his composure admirably, but his eyes widened a fraction, and his throat jumped as he swallowed.

  “Your people killed my brother-in-law. My sister’s husband. And then I lined them all up, bound hand and foot, and I took their heads. One” – he lifted the torch in an arc over the boy’s head – “by” – swept it in close, flames licking at the end of his nose – “one.”

  The prisoner shrank back, baring his teeth, whining in his throat like a cowed dog.

  Erik pulled the torch back a fraction. “Why are you here?”