by Aldrea Alien
Dylan’s stomach twisted at the mention of fish. “Did you have to drag fish into this analogy?”
Tracker chuckled. “Actually, fish is a good one to use, you would never eat it bad.”
I’d never eat it at all. “So…” Dylan frowned, trying to wrap his head around the analogy. “If I understand you right, you’d prefer to try everything from the menu?”
“Until I found something I liked a little more than the rest? Yes.”
“And where do I fall on this menu of people? What food am I under?”
Tracker shook his head. “That is not how it works. It is just an example. You are not food.”
Grinning, Dylan leant against the man. “Then why do you keep trying to devour me?” he whispered.
The hound tipped his head back and laughed. “You have me there.”
He gave the man a little nudge with his shoulder. “Come on, you must have had something in mind when you started your little comparison. I promise I won’t laugh. Much.”
Tracker hummed for a while. “Stew,” he finally said with a smirk. “The type that has been simmering for so long that the meat melts in your mouth.”
Laughter snorted out of Dylan’s nose as he tried to muffle it. “That was terrible.”
“You are the one insisting I compare you to food.” Tracker chucked another log on the fire. “Come, it is my turn now. What do you see me as on your great tavern menu?”
“Flat cakes.” The words were out before he’d considered them.
The hound’s nose scrunched as he gave Dylan a puzzled squint. “You asked for those in Whitemeadow. What is the obsession?”
Where did he start? The familiarity? The sense of home? The warmth that always ran through him when he saw that plate? “I used to get a stack of them covered in syrup and cream every year on my nameday.” Tricia always pretended to be surprised the plate was there, or that it was so full. And every single time, he would stuff himself to the brink of nausea.
“So I am a rare treat?” Tracker’s question broke Dylan’s fond recollection.
Warmth raced through his cheeks. He lifted his gaze to meet the elf’s. There was perhaps a grain or two of truth to those words. “Maybe.”
The hound grinned. “And I also… taste sweet?”
The gentle flush in his cheeks turned to an overall inferno. Had he really implied that? He tried to speak, but all that came out was a small, hesitant groan.
A brief, low chuckle rumbled through the man’s chest. Tracker tipped his head to one side, his smile crooked. “But how could you possibly know if your lips have never ventured that far south?”
Dylan’s gaze flicked to the man’s crotch and back up. “Not like that.”
The hound shuffled along the small space separating them until their thighs touched. “Then perhaps you should explain it to me, yes?” he breathed.
Reflexively moistening his lips, Dylan cupped the hound’s jaw. “It’d be easier to show you,” he whispered. It took little effort to draw Tracker closer. He’d meant for a brief kiss, something that had little chance of being caught by the others, but the reason behind his intentions vanished the moment their lips met.
Tracker moaned against him. The hound’s palm slid up Dylan’s thigh, then his side. Those long fingers grasped at Dylan’s clothes, dragging him closer, seeking a way beneath the skirts.
Leather and metal bit into Dylan’s hands. The soft jingle of a buckle loosening drew him back to his surroundings and the realisation that they still sat before the fire. He relinquished the elf’s lips. It took a great deal more effort than he cared to admit.
Clearing his throat, Dylan shuffled down the log and threw a branch onto the dimming flames. His new seat wasn’t out of immediate arm’s reach, but it was better than nothing. Fortunately, none of the women had materialised. “Did you learn that analogy amongst the other hounds?”
“Yes,” Tracker murmured as he buckled his belt. Odd that the man had been able to do that and keep a firm grip on Dylan’s clothes. “We are perhaps raised a little less sheltered than spellsters.”
“I’m not that sheltered.” Even though the guardians would punish those caught in the act, they did teach them about sex. The bare minimum, granted. He’d learnt more under the healers’ guidance.
“True, you did seem to have some idea of what you were doing. To think, you were so quick to flirt back. If you had not told me, I would not have marked you as never having been with a man.”
Dylan eyed the elf. And there been a hint of a question in those words? “Do you think I would lie about that?”
The hound scoffed. “Such a thought did not even cross my mind. But when you told me, I just assumed your lack of experience with men was a sexual one. You have truly never kissed a man before me? Surely there must have been at least one such encounter. A brief one, perhaps?”
He shook his head. Definitely not whilst sober. And if he’d ever attempted such with Sulin whilst drunk, he would’ve known come the next morning.
“Truly?” There was a definite squeak in the man’s voice and Dylan swore he caught the flicker of panic flash across the elf’s face. “Not even that? Why did you not tell me this sooner? If I had known, I would have taken things a little slower.”
“What things?” A mouth was a mouth, no matter where it was placed. The same could be said for hands. “It’s not as if I’m some celibate Tirglasian priest. There really was only one thing you could’ve showed me that I hadn’t already done.”
Tracker hummed, tilting his head in an obvious attempt to shield his face. There was a definite cheeky note to the vocalisation. “I can think of a few more. Whether you would be willing to try them is an altogether different matter.” Again, he cleared his throat. “So who was your first kiss with?”
Dylan leant forward, trying to make out the man’s expression with the campfire shadows obscuring half of it. “You’re being especially curious about my past tonight.”
“I just…” The hound’s head swung back around, his shock visible for an instant. “You wish to talk, yes?”
“You first, since you’re so interested.”
Tracker rolled his eyes. “So picky. My first kiss was at nine years of age with Nine-twelve-eighteen-sixty-seven and he—”
“He?”
“You were expecting a woman? I told you, they kept us segregated beyond training and temple visits. I did not possess the type of stealth needed to sneak out until my early teenage years. Young elven men were easier to come by. I would have thought you were the type to come to the same conclusion in your tower.”
He had but… “Sneaking about the tower must’ve been easier than I thought.” Certainly not as tricky as leaving whatever building they housed the segregated units of hounds in training. “Was it any good?” His own first kiss had been a clumsy thing, winding up with his nose in her eye.
Tracker snorted. “Utterly dreadful, actually. I had no clue what I was doing and he… Well, he was rather insistent. It took quite a few years before I gained the level of talent I have now.” His gaze slid to the fire. The fondness of memory that curved his lips suddenly fell. “He has been dead for some time. His skills failed to improve enough to make the cut to be a hound, so…” He shrugged.
Dylan frowned. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he asked, but certainly not that. “Track…”
His head jerked back around and, like a mask, the smile returned. “I believe it is your turn now, yes?”
Dylan bit his cheek. He was starting to see that odd expression more and more. Clearly, something gnawed at the man. Whether Tracker would choose to tell Dylan was another matter, but he wasn’t about to push the hound. “Nestria. We were twelve and I…” Even after all these years, he wasn’t sure who had made the first move. “We’d kind of grown up together.”
Now he thought on it, she’d been his first in a lot of things, just as he’d been for her. If there was anything they wanted to experiment with, they were often the first pe
rson each other went to. That’s how he had discovered the lightning trick Tracker seemed to enjoy so much; through Nestria using him as her play thing.
“Another elven name, I see.” Tracker grinned. “Drawn to a certain type are we?”
He arched a brow at the man. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Elves.” That cheeky note in his voice grew a touch more pronounced. “It would seem you are attracted to them.”
Dylan’s mouth dropped open. “That’s an unfair assessment.” He’d spoken of one. Yes, there was Authril, but her being an elf didn’t really come into it.
“Is it? The way I hear it, we are considered quite beautiful. And from where I am standing, you are four for four.” He held up his hand and wriggled his fingers.
“Three,” Dylan amended. Although, there’d been far more than the hound could readily display on his fingers, both human and elven. “You know of two others beyond yourself who are elves that I happened to have been intimate with.”
“And what of Sulin?” Tracker purred.
He twisted on the log to face the hound, his throat making incoherent sounds before he could grasp the words. “I… I never slept with him.”
Chuckling, the elf shook his head. “What does that matter? You still felt attraction, yes? That you chose not to act on it is irrelevant. Or was this Nestria woman your lover?”
“My…?” He cleared his throat. “No, it wasn’t like that. We’re friends, old close friends, but nothing more.”
“I see. Well, I have had a few close friends myself. Why, there was this one rather energetic fellow who came from…” He frowned, all jovialness falling from his face. “Did you say your roommate was from Stonebay?”
“I did. Is that significant in any way?” Spellsters born outside the tower came from all over Demarn without any real pattern.
“Not really, I suppose.” Tracker rubbed at his chin. “But I wonder… How old would he be now? Your age?”
He shook his head. “Probably a year or two older than you. Why?”
The hound hummed. “When I was a boy, there was a great deal of talk amongst the hounds of an underground child market at Stonebay. Those who frequented the place would buy up unwanted children—boys, girls, humans, elves—and sell them to wealthy clients for… Well, let us just leave it that they were sold.”
Dylan could well guess what for. “That’s disgusting. Why haven’t they shut it down?” How could they have gotten away with selling people in Demarn? This wasn’t the Udynea Empire where slavery was everywhere.
“They did. Eventually. One of the hounds stumbled upon the entrance about twenty years ago. The king’s men raided the place soon after. Given the timeframe, it is likely Sulin was one of their products. They did find a number of hounds amongst the children, it is possible an alchemist could also have come from there.”
He remembered the first time Sulin entered what became their shared quarters. The alchemist had been so timid. It had taken years for the man to become the one Dylan knew. The thought of his friend having been sold to someone who used him for…
Bile slid up his throat before his thoughts could reach the sickly conclusion. He swallowed, gagging on the bitterness. “You’re just guessing.”
Smiling, Tracker gave Dylan’s leg a brief pat. “You are right there, yes. But it is an educated guess considering that I know nothing of your man other than—”
Dylan almost choked on his tongue. “He’s not my man. He’s not my anything.”
“Of course. He was a dear friend, nothing more. My point is that boys were very popular, elven ones especially. They started kidnapping them towards the end, to keep up with the demand.”
The mere thought of all those children being sold nauseated him. “There were that many depraved wealthy people in Stonebay?” What was the point of trying to hold back the Udynea Empire if the kingdom’s own people were equally corrupted?
“I doubt there were that many. On the other hand, it is a port city.” Grimacing, the elf rubbed at his neck. “My apologies. I somehow doubt this is conducive to helping you sleep.”
“Not really.”
They sat with the hushed breath of the forest surrounding them. The fire slowly turned to embers, glowing red and hot. With the moon concealed by thick clouds, his black-leather-clad companion became little more than shadows and the occasional gleam of an eye.
There was the faint scrape of wood as the hound shuffled along the log, then a spray of embers. The wood caught, throwing flickering shadows across them.
Tracker cleared his throat. “They started feeding me poison when I reached my fifth year.”
Dylan jerked back. “What?”
“You wanted me to speak of my past. I assume you wish to know more than my sexual exploits. I could stick to them if that is your preference. They are far more pleasant. Why, there was this time when I—”
“They poisoned you? I thought hounds were assets for the king?” Why was it even necessary for them to have such immunity? Did their mistress expect them to be set upon by spellsters with poisoned weapons? Or perhaps the ability to buy assassins? Both options seemed equally ludicrous.
“Do not take it the wrong way. It was nowhere near as gruesome as much of our training. They started small, you see, and our minder always had the antidote close at hand should we prove unable to handle the current dosage.” He leant back, stretching his legs before the fire. “By the time I was old enough to be tested for a ranking amongst the hounds, I was immune to seven types of poison.”
“When did you become a full hound?”
“My eighteenth year.”
“That’s…” Dylan had spent a large chunk of his younger years training against the target blocks before he was remotely ready to face an opponent. To be considered as fully trained to hunt down unpredictable people with magic? “…so young.”
“Mmm, not really, no. Most of us are granted the title in our mid-teens. I should have become one much earlier, but they had me spend several more years being retrained because…” He fell silent. A distant, and rather haunted, look dulled his eyes.
“Because?” Dylan gently prompted. Retrained? Was that when he’d been forced to work in The Gilded Lily? He spoke so fondly of the place.
“It is of no concern.” Tracker rubbed at his right arm where Dylan had done his best to repair the damage the bandit’s sword had made to the sleeve. “Not anymore.”
“Track, are you—?”
The hound shook himself and smiled. The expression, although readily offered, made no impact on his eyes. “Listen to us, wallowing in our pasts. Can neither one of us think of lighter topics to converse about that don’t revolve around sex?”
“Well, I wouldn’t consider kissing as a sexual act.”
Tracker propped his chin on a raised fist. His cheek plumped in a lopsided smile that creased his eyes. “Is that how you see it?”
“You mean you think of it that way?”
The man’s shoulders shook briefly. “Not all the time, no. It depends entirely on the kiss.” His voice grew husky. Those honey-coloured eyes flicked down, then back up. “And the kisser.”
“I—” Try as he might, words rather failed him. The hound sat so temptingly close, the heat radiating from his body just perceptible from the fire. It would take small effort on his part to eliminate the remaining distance and finish what they’d started earlier. “Um… I…”
“Yes?” Tracker breathed, the word caressing Dylan’s neck.
Dylan wet his lips. He’d already risked one of their companions witnessing him kissing the man, doing it again would only increase the chances of being spotted. “I should go. Back to my tent. To rest.”
The curve of the hound’s mouth softened. “Are you entirely certain your tent is where you want to go? Mine is bound to keep you so much warmer.”
Tracker’s question gave him pause. Surely, the man had no idea what thoughts were tumbling through Dylan’s mind right now. “Aren’t you meant t
o be on watch? We can’t endanger the others like that.”
“We? I never suggested we do anything. But since you brought it up, I am certain a quick tumble is unlikely to harm our chances of being attacked.”
“I really should sleep.”
“As you like. But before you go…”
Their lips grazed each other, slow and as unrelenting as the ocean on the shore. Warmth washed over his body, pulling him under. Dylan let it carry him away, surfacing only to gulp down another breath of air. Sparks trembled along his spine, setting his head to spinning. His stomach fluttered so hard that his chest started to ache.
In too short a time, it was over.
“Dylan?”
He slowly opened his eyes. His lips still tingled. “Butterflies,” he mumbled, a flush of heat infusing his cheeks. That’s what this strangely familiar sensation was. He hadn’t felt it years.
The hound frowned. His gaze flicked to the campfire. “Not at night. Moths, perhaps. Stupid things are attracted to the light.”
Dylan smiled. He wanted to laugh, to beat the man senseless for being so dense, to pin him to the ground and never stop kissing him. “No, I—” His voice squeaked. He cleared his throat and went to try again.
Tracker’s long fingers found their way to Dylan’s lips, gently tapping them to suggest he remain silent. “It is late, we have perhaps talked far longer than we should have—you indulge me far too much. You truly should go get some rest before your watch. Was that not what we were just discussing? Lack of sleep could lead to… unpleasantness and I would not wish for you to misjudge your target.”
Nodding slowly, he stood.
“We can talk more tomorrow night, if you desire.” There was a note of something on those final words. A question? A promise? “Sleep well, my dear man, and pleasant dreams.”
He shook his head, laughing softly to himself. “You utter tease. There is no possible way I can sleep now.” Not with his heart pounding like it was or the way his stomach refused to unknot. If the hound hadn’t been tied up with the watch, he could easily see himself sharing the man’s tent for the whole night just to get Tracker out of his head.