by Joey W. Hill
It was unexpected, Kel offering his lap for a pillow while he slept. When Uthe hesitated, Keldwyn lifted a brow. "Do I need to make it a condition of our agreement?"
Uthe snorted. "If I say yes, you will make everything part of it." What had him hesitating wasn't that, but how appealing it seemed. When Kel extended an imperious hand, his gaze fastening on Uthe's, he decided not to argue further. He lay down, stretching out so his head was propped on Kel's thigh. He emitted an uncertain sigh as Keldwyn's hand fell on his brow and began to soothe. Uthe inhaled the smells of the desert and the earth scent of the Fae Lord: a hint of cool stone, spring flowers waiting below the winter ground, and snow clinging to mountain tops.
"That's new," he observed. "I smell winter on you, my lord."
"The Fae have an affinity for a particular season, but there is some overlap, especially as one ages. I have a far greater connection to winter now than I did earlier in my life."
"Does that mean a miracle might eventually happen and your ice queen will discover the lighter touch of spring flowers?"
"Do not be disrespectful of her, vampire. She would say that is my job."
Uthe smiled as Keldwyn flicked his ear. "Yes, she would." Then the humor died away as he thought of the sorceress once more. "God be with you, Fatima," he muttered. Closing his eyes, he began to say the paternosters that took the place of compline. He could say them on her behalf, and the rhythm of it would soothe him into a short sleep to replenish him. Keldwyn's fingers wrapped around his shoulder, a light hold. It occurred to Uthe that Keldwyn had stood as his protector before Cai, staying watchful of both strange vampire and wolf as Uthe questioned them and learned their mettle.
"You know, I can take care of myself," he said tiredly. At least for now.
"You are more than capable of it," Keldwyn agreed. "I never said you weren't, my lord. I simply have a vested interested in contributing to that intention."
"Hmm."
"Your father was a Trad, wasn't he?"
Uthe's fingers dug into Kel's leg, a jerk of reaction. "Don't."
Kel's hand paused on his shoulder. He'd been tracing the roundness of it, fingers slipping over the bunched curve of Uthe's biceps, testing their resilience with firm, caressing pressure. "You do not wish to speak of it."
"No. Not before sleep. It brings nightmares."
"Then we will speak no more of it. Will you tell me a story of your sorceress, though? It may help you sleep, and celebrate her life."
"You owe me a story before I give you another. I want more of your life, Keldwyn."
"Information is power. You intend to keep the playing field level between us."
A statement laden with meaning. The warning beneath it was a drawn sword, the slip of steel out of supple leather, an erotic threat. Keldwyn's touch had moved from his shoulder to the side of Uthe's throat. His fingers slid up Uthe's carotid to the hinge of his jaw, and then back down, tracing the pulsing arteries and veins, moving around to the jugular. He slowly wrapped his hand over it, then released Uthe to start over. It wasn't an idle touch. Keldwyn was even now gathering knowledge, absorbing Uthe's reaction to the contact. Uthe put his hand up over Keldwyn's, curving his fingers into the spaces between the Fae's. It stilled the movement, holding pressure on his throat so he felt the beating of the blood beneath their combined touch. "And if I said yes to that?"
"When a chessboard is tipped over, all the pieces scattered, the game is over. All that is left are the two players, facing one another with nothing between them." Keldwyn bent so his breath slid along Uthe's temple. He didn't look up, but he knew if he did, the Fae's dark gaze would be close and large as a full moon at early twilight, tempting the viewer to think it could be touched. "I relish showing you how pleasurable a tipped playing field can be, my lord. I will give you a story eventually, on my own terms. But tonight let us honor the dead. Tell me of your sorceress."
Uthe suppressed a sigh. "To do that, I go back to the beginning. To Haris, Fatima's ancestor."
Haris had been built strong, with masculine features. She was quick, lissome as an eel with a blade. In hand to hand, she was almost a match for Uthe's vampire powers. He'd discovered that on their initial meeting, an ambush where Haris and her companions had been sent to assassinate King Louis III. It was during the Second Crusade, when the Templars had been charged with guarding the king and his army as they headed for Damascus. Louis's commanders had little knowledge of how best to navigate the Holy Land terrain or the dangers there.
It was one of their earliest encounters with the Saracen version of the Templars--the Assassins, a sect who served Allah and the Old Man of the Mountain. They would have succeeded, except for Uthe's vampire senses. He'd detected their infiltration into the camp, around the king's tent. He remembered the shadows against the fabric, the clash of steel as they'd engaged in that small area, the king's personal guard getting the monarch out of harm's way. Two of his brethren slew two of the assassins, and then the third had ducked free of the tent, cutting the cords as he rolled free.
Uthe was quick enough to slip out of the potential net. He'd pursued the assassin outside the camp, on foot, which meant he should have gained on him, but the short male stayed an impressive length ahead of him, until Uthe boxed him in among the more rocky terrain. Then the assassin turned, drew his curved blade, and waited for him.
That was when Uthe caught her full scent and knew he faced a woman. Then she was on him, her blade flashing like a serpent's tooth. When he finally made full contact with her weapon, the power that sang up through his arm, practically dislocating it from the shoulder, told him her already considerable abilities had been augmented by magic. He backed off and stared at her. She was doing the same, as if she'd expected the magic to end him.
"Vampire," she breathed, startling him.
He tipped his head to her, his sword still raised and ready. "Sorceress."
"Not a sorceress, no. Protected by one. As well as by my skill with a blade. Almost enough to take you out, vampire." She had a rough, masculine voice. She sheathed the blade, surprising him. "We will meet again. This is not our day to die."
She bolted, running lithely through the rocks like a wild cat. He could have continued to chase her, should have. But he had not.
"You recognized her as something more like yourself," Keldwyn mused.
"Yes. That was part of it. In war, strange bonds can form. You remain enemies on the battlefield, but sometimes a respect is born between those who fight." Uthe paused. "I told you why I went to Jerusalem. When I joined Hugh's company, I discovered hope and purpose in faith. Protecting pilgrims from raiders, protecting those who sought that same hope and purpose, was what drove us. We had no fight with Muslims or Jews. For a short time, despite what had happened in the First Crusade, we were able to find that balance with them that had existed before it, no matter how uneasy at times. It was only later, when the Templars began to be tangled up in the ambitions of kings and popes, that purpose was lost."
He closed his eyes, seeing printed script. 'Each should remain in the vocation to which he was called.' There was an anonymous letter written to the Order early in its life, as if the author knew what would happen to us. They discounted the idea that Hugh wrote it, but I think he may have done so. He was the type of man who realized an anonymous letter might be considered more for its content than the author, if they had no author whose motives they could dissect. It spoke with the voice of someone within our ranks, someone who had more foresight and divine guidance than those who eventually led us. He said the devil tries to persuade men to desert their true role to chase the 'phantom of the higher good'. 'This is a delusion, for God desires a patient acceptance of the gifts which one has received.' In hindsight, I think that letter may have also been Hugh's penance, for he started the Order on the road to material success and power, though with the best of intentions."
Uthe opened his eyes, though in his mind he still saw the complicated tapestry of battles, decisions and multipl
e paths that could have been, against those that had been chosen. "Bernard saw the same possibility: 'The temporal glory of the earthly city does not demolish its heavenly rewards, but demonstrates them--so long as we remember that the one is the figure of the other, and that it is the heavenly which is our mother.'"
While he kept worn copies of the Rule and Bernard's De Laude, lately it was as if he was hearing them in his head as they'd first been spoken to him, rather than as an echo of what he'd read repeatedly and recently from his bedside. Since most Templars weren't able to read then, he'd sat in on oral readings of them often enough.
He brought himself back to the story at hand. "At the time I met Haris, we were starting to lose that vocation and our understanding of the gifts and the charge we were given. So I didn't kill her."
Collecting his thoughts, he returned the story back to the original point. "Haris was a male name. I never could get her to tell me what her birth circumstances were. Perhaps she'd been born to a family who'd wanted a boy or who'd had to conceal her gender and raise her as a male. Or she'd assumed the disguise herself because she wanted more freedom in a male-dominated society. Or, though she'd been born a woman, she felt more comfortable embracing a man's identity."
"We have those among the Fae. So you saw her again?"
"Yes. I often had separate tasks to handle alone, related to the quest we are on now. It was during one of those that she and I met again. We startled one another at an isolated oasis. Purely for form, we did our best to each kill the other. Then we sat down and spoke through most of the night. Her beliefs were strong and pure and, though she saw me as an infidel, she also had a touch of the Sight and the mystic influences of her aunt. Her aunt was the sorceress who'd given her the magical shield. When I met Shahnaz, she was quick to tell me that Haris's fighting skills were her own. The magic she'd bound to her simply kept her safe and augmented her strength when facing a preternatural threat like myself."
Uthe paused. "Shahnaz was as beautiful as Haris was plain, but a male relative had cut up her face when she refused to marry whom he demanded. She escaped to France with enough funds to set herself up as a reclusive widow of noble birth. She told me the lack of spouse suited her just fine, since it freed her up to pursue the study of magic. When I visited her there, a tanned skin was stretched over one wall, a beautiful piece of artwork, painted with magical symbols and elements of nature intertwined. To those who can detect such magics, like yourself, it formed a protection shield upon her and her home that was never challenged. Though her visitors assumed it was an heirloom of animal skin, it was human. From the way she touched the scars on her face when she was contemplating it, I knew it belonged to the man who'd injured her."
"One of the first complicated magics I learned was how to skin a man alive with one incantation," she'd mused. "Takes them a while to die that way. Horrible noise and quite messy. I wouldn't recommend doing it more than once and only when absolutely necessary."
"Not a woman to cross, obviously," Keldwyn said.
"Most of them aren't, my lord. At least the ones we know."
"So she was Fatima's ancestor."
"She was. The magic was passed on to the next female relative born with the gift, and so on and so forth. They compiled quite a body of arcane knowledge. Lines of dark and light magic can cross until they become so confusing..." Uthe trailed off.
When Keldwyn slid his hand over Uthe's short hair, Uthe sighed. "You are unexpected at times, my lord. I didn't expect you to be gentle."
"I am not." Keldwyn brushed his knuckles along Uthe's jaw. "Sleep. Think of things that bring pleasant dreams. Your Mariela's sweet lips, the comfort of your prayers, the things worth remembering."
Silken black hair sliding along his bare skin, Kel's serious profile as he contemplated one of Uthe's chess moves, the taste of a firm, heated mouth. Uthe turned over onto his back and lifted his hand, trailing his fingertips over that mouth, the fair brow. Keldwyn's arm circled him, bringing him up so their lips met. Uthe closed his eyes, muscles coiling like a snake writhing in the sun as Keldwyn found his way beneath the tunic, clasping Uthe's cock through the thin cotton pants. It was a leisurely exploration of what the Fae had claimed as part of the binding. It banished any shadows and replaced them with tight longing for a variety of things, the least of which was sex. Though that alone was a throbbing, constant undercurrent around the male.
With a vague embarrassment, Uthe realized Keldwyn had shifted him so Uthe's ass was planted between Keldwyn's spread thighs. The Fae was holding him in his lap. Uthe was of a similar length and breadth to Kel, so only by sitting on the ground like this would the position work, but there it was a secure embrace. Keldwyn's hand curved over his hip and buttock, the other arm wrapped around Uthe's back. His palm cupped Uthe's skull to deepen the kiss. Uthe curled his fingers in the front of Keldwyn's laced tunic, finding the lightly furred skin beneath. He savored the long columns of his thighs, one beneath Uthe's bent knees and the other against his lower back.
Keldwyn adjusted to a half reclined position against the rock, nudging Uthe into using the Fae's body as a mattress. His head was partly on Kel's shoulder, partly on his chest, his upper torso against the Fae's stomach and pelvis, the rest of him draped and tangled with his legs. His hand curved high over Keldwyn's thigh.
"Just rest, Varick," Kel said. "This is more comfortable."
It was. It was also the first time in his life that someone had held him while he slept. He'd held others, but he'd never been held. He should resist it, but his tiredness was not in the mood to play games he really didn't want to play anyhow.
He let sleep take him down, certain he was well-protected by the Fae Lord. Another first.
Keldwyn listened to Uthe's heartbeat even out. He stayed awake, watching over his vampire and the sleeping wolf. The creature's rumbling snore and Uthe's heartbeat filled the small, echoing space. He didn't listen for his own, though he was sure it thudded, sure and steady, an echo of Uthe's.
Keldwyn had never seen the vampire falter in his duty. All of those who had known him far longer showed him the great respect such responsibility warranted. He protected, advised and took whatever leadership or support role was needed to guide Lyssa, the Council and vampire kind. Though he'd not yet seen him in physical combat beyond the sparring with Daegan, Keldwyn did not doubt he was a fierce warrior who would not hesitate to sacrifice himself if the need came.
He recognized Uthe's capitulation to him, allowing him to watch over him as he slept, as the honor it was. Even if that honor was offered by a species that most of his kind, including himself, considered inferior. Inferior in strength and magic, perhaps, but not in character. Not this vampire.
His mixed feelings on that disturbed him. It had been some time since he'd felt such a strong need to bond with another. Having that feeling toward a vampire was problematic. Unprecedented, for him. Perhaps Uthe was not the only one losing his mind.
Keldwyn resisted the urge to increase his hold on the vampire, as if that would change his fate. Instead, he massaged the vampire's shoulder, resting his fingertips on the side of his throat, and half-smiled, a painful gesture, as Uthe murmured. His grip twitched on Keldwyn's thigh.
"You know my touch already, vampire," Keldwyn whispered. "Enough not to let it disturb your sleep. Take it into your dreams with you. Let me touch you there. Then you will know what I desire from you when you wake."
And maybe between now and that moment, Kel himself would figure that out.
* * *
When Uthe woke, Mordecai was back. He was at the other side of the cave, near the entrance, giving Uthe and Keldwyn whatever semblance of privacy the space afforded. The wolf was with him, splayed across his legs in a position similar to Uthe's with Keldwyn. Cai had left the steel collar on the wolf, but detached the chain. Moonlight filtering through the cave opening glinted off of the metal and the tips of Rand's fur. The lingering scent of fresh blood and human flesh told him that Cai had had good hunting. Bot
h he and his wolf had fed their hungers, at least for food.
From beneath his shirt, Mordecai removed an amulet, the stone a swirl of deep turquoise. While Uthe watched, Cai attached it to the steel collar. A thrum of magical energy shuddered through it, and then rippled over the wolf's thick ebony pelt. Rand shifted into an upright position, then jerked back down as the magic took effect, his body twisting. Cai held him, moved with him, a dance it was clear they'd done together before. Three blinks later, Uthe saw the remarkable metamorphosis complete, from wolf to man.
Rand's shoulders lifted and fell, chest expanding from the exertion. He was curled on his side facing the vampire, head resting on Cai's knee. His taut buttocks were tucked under, his legs drawn up before him. Yet even naked and vulnerable, the human was as intimidating as the wolf. His broad shoulders and back, the bunched muscles, were a match for Niall. The big Scot had been servant to Evan, the vampire Uthe had sired, for nearly three hundred years, but now Niall was a vampire fledgling. Uthe expected Rand matched Niall in height, over six feet tall, his shoulder width at least half of that.
As the shifter pushed himself up on an elbow, Cai gripped the steel collar. It was loose now, so he could get his whole hand around it, clasp it in a sure hold that captured Rand's attention. Cai's sardonic personality and smart ass wit were absent. The unrelenting gaze he pinned on Rand was pure vampire master, taking control of his servant and leaving no doubt who was in charge. Rand shifted against his hold, lip curling in a remarkable similarity to his wolf persona, a show of teeth. Cai locked eyes with him, forcing him finally to drop his gaze, though it was a stimulating battle of wills to watch.
Cai leaned in, brushed his lips over his temple in reward for his servant's compliance, then followed a leisurely path with his mouth to below his servant's ear, nudging aside a thick, curly mane of shoulder-length brown hair. In human form, Rand's eyes weren't bi-colored like his wolf's. They were both blue, though Uthe thought he could see flecks of gold in them. Rand's head dropped back as Cai nuzzled his throat, then moved over to his shoulder. As Rand's hand curled into a fist on Cai's leg, Cai bit, the erotic act making Uthe's loins tighten in pleasurable reaction. Mordecai might feed on brigands, but like most vampires, he preferred the pure, sweet blood of his servant.