“Look at you,” he breathed, and Tarn raised his head enough to meet his gaze, smiling as Gard’s eyes widened further. Slowly, because his ass was still tight, Tarn found the energy to spread his legs in blatant invitation.
Gard closed his eyes, obviously trying to slow his breathing, though it hitched a little. “That’s really not fair, Tarn. I had a plan.”
“Your plan’s too slow,” Tarn complained. His voice surprised him, coming out low and soft and satisfied.
Gard opened his eyes to glare at him. “Fine.” He turned away, crossing to the pitcher on the windowsill to rinse his mouth out. Then he returned to the bed and crawled between Tarn’s legs, scowling a little. “If you don’t like my plans, I could always just tend to myself.” He ran a hand down his front, cupping the bulge of his erection through his breeches, his eyes fluttering closed. “Maybe I should just pull this out and come on your face. Imagine my seed smeared across those flushed cheeks of yours, Tarn. Imagine how I’d taste on your lips, how disappointed you’d be that I hadn’t fucked you.”
“You could do both,” Tarn suggested, sliding his hand up Gard’s thigh, trying to reach under his shirt. “We have all night.”
Gard pushed his hand away and bent forward, kneeling over Tarn without touching him. “Or maybe I should kiss you. You like to be kissed, don’t you? You like my tongue in you.”
“I do,” Tarn agreed, and lifted his head to meet Gard’s kiss. Only their lips were touching, but that didn’t make it chaste. Gard’s mouth pushed against his, hungry and demanding, nipping at Tarn’s lip and then invading his mouth, tongues battling, until Tarn sank back and took the kiss, his body beginning to warm again.
When Gard pressed down against him, it was a shock, the cloth and rough embroidery of his tunic an unbearable tease. Tarn arched up, wrapping his legs around Gard, trying to urge him closer as Gard kissed him down into the pillows, his whole body hard and pressing, his mouth demanding and his hips thrusting hard.
When Gard broke the kiss and knelt back, Tarn surged up after him, only to be pushed back against the pillows as Gard started to strip his clothes off. He cast his shirt aside first, closing his eyes as he pinched his nipples between his fingers with a sigh of relief. Tarn wet his lips, his own breath starting to quicken again, and reached down to stroke his swelling cock.
Gard’s eyes flew open. “Don’t. I want to touch you.” He grabbed Tarn’s hands and shoved them roughly above his head. “There.”
Tarn grabbed the headboard without arguing, but he made sure to meet Gard’s gaze, letting the fires shine in his eyes. Slowly, he lifted his hips, making his cock strain up toward Gard.
The rest of Gard’s clothes came off less smoothly, cast over the side of the bed in a rush as he crawled forward, shoving his knees between Tarn’s thighs to press them apart. He leaned down off the side of the bed, a move that made his cock brush briefly against Tarn’s in a featherlight flare of heat, and came back up clutching the pot of oil. He slicked his fingers generously and reached between Tarn’s legs. The first press in burned a little, and Gard murmured, “How many centuries since anyone did this to you?”
“Five,” Tarn growled, lifting his hips to push down on Gard’s finger. Then he remembered how long he had slept and corrected himself. “Fifteen.”
Gard froze for a moment, the hunger in his eyes replaced by wonder. Then he pushed in farther, his finger reaching up eagerly to crook against the tender nub inside Tarn. Over the years Tarn had forgotten how good this felt, and he surrendered to the shimmer of pleasure with a sigh, rubbing his thigh against Gard’s and rocking up onto his fingers.
The second finger was even better, and he fell back against the pillows, his hands going slack as he lost track of everything except the lovely sweet burn inside him and the tight hard pulse of his cock. He didn’t even realize he was calling Gard’s name until a soft kiss silenced him.
Gard’s lips clung to his even as they parted, and Tarn smiled at him with all the smoldering fondness he carried inside him, lost in a haze of pleasure.
For once Gard seemed beyond words. He pulled his fingers out, and Tarn heard the slick slide of oil on skin, and braced himself, shivering in anticipation.
The first blunt press of Gard’s cock was beautiful, and Tarn groaned and pushed up to meet him, riding the burn until Gard slid deep into him, filling him like a pillar of fire. Gard’s first few thrusts were slow and testing, but then he quickened to a steady rhythm, every thrust pressing more lightning through Tarn. Gard was grunting as he shoved his hips forward, each noise breaking away into a gasp, and Tarn couldn’t stop gazing up at him, caught between the rising swell within him and the sight of Gard’s shoulders tensing as he buried himself in Tarn, who had been writhing on the edge of orgasm for so long that it was a shock when Gard suddenly sped up, jerking forward quickly, his mouth hanging open, and the change pushed Tarn over the edge. He cried out as it blazed through him, making him convulse around Gard, and then consuming him until his hips slammed off the bed and his vision went white. He felt the rush of Gard coming in him and heard his scream, and then it was all he could do not to dissolve into fire.
When he came back to himself, he was clinging to Gard, their bodies entwined as if they could never be divided. Gard had pressed his face against Tarn’s neck and was shaking, and Tarn began to whisper love and promises to him, running his hands across Gard’s sweat-damp back, unable to stop himself.
It wasn’t until Gard lifted his face, his eyes damp and a little frightened, that Tarn realized he was speaking in languages that had been extinct for thousands of years. It took long minutes before he could find a modern word, and all he could manage was to snarl, “Mine.”
Gard dropped his face back against Tarn’s shoulder and went back to shaking.
It took a while to gentle him, slow steady strokes along his spine and gentle kisses pressed to the crown of his head, but at last Gard began to relax, slumping down onto Tarn, his arms loosening their hold around Tarn’s shoulders. Tarn rolled them onto their sides then, pulling the blankets up, and then clutched Gard close again, smoothing his hair and throwing his leg over Gard’s hip. He kissed Gard’s forehead, his cheeks, the tip of his nose, his closed eyelids, everywhere he could reach.
“My Alagard.”
Gard opened his eyes at that. In almost his normal voice, he said, “No, I rather think I conquered you that time.”
“We can always conquer each other,” Tarn agreed, amused by the metaphor.
He wasn’t expecting Gard to pull away so fiercely, rolling to sit up, his head in his hands. Puzzled, Tarn reached out for him, but Gard shrugged his hand off.
“You’re still forcing me to wear this form,” he said.
“For your own safety,” Tarn reminded him. He sat up, bringing the blanket with him, and leaned against Gard’s back. “I will not let you come to harm.”
“But you’re happy to separate me from the greater part of my power. You like me human and vulnerable, Tarn, but that is not what I am.”
“I know that,” Tarn reminded him, rubbing his thigh comfortingly, “but the Shadow has claimed you once already. When it is gone, I can release you from this bond.”
“And if we fail?” Gard asked. “How long will you keep controlling me? Let me go, Tarn. Please.”
Tarn closed his eyes, remembering Echta, dead too young in a cattle raid, his bright blood steaming in the cold morning, and Killan, who had waited his life away. He recalled Gard himself, bound and tortured in the sandstorm, screaming his agony to the winds.
“No,” he said, softly and finally.
He wasn’t surprised when Gard pulled away from him, grabbing the blanket and the pillow before he stormed across the room to curl up on the broad windowsill, presenting his back without another comment.
Tarn sighed miserably and settled down on his lonely bed, recalling the flame from the lamp to cast the room into darkness. He had hoped, after Gard had moved in him so ardently, that Gard m
ight finally relent and admit he belonged to Tarn’s hoard, pledge himself as Cayl had. It would not be tonight, though, and all the quiet triumph he had gathered through the evening flickered into nothing again. Tarn closed his eyes and slept, dreaming of the mountains of his old home and of the slow vanishing of his hoard to death and time until there was no one left to watch him sleep and he was alone under steel-gray winter skies.
Chapter 28: Defending
TARN WAS woken by a stealthy movement above him, and he reached out to block it before he was fully awake, clamping his hand around a slender wrist.
Esen’s thin, frightened cry woke him the rest of the way. He released her quickly, sitting up, and she scuttled across the room to where Gard was rousing, his voice slurred and sleepy as he asked, “Esen?”
“T-tarn?” Zeki’s quavering voice came from the doorway. He clung there, his shoulders visibly shaking even in the dim light. “You’re awake? Thank the Bright Lord.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t wake anyone up. I’ve been trying and trying, and they won’t move. And something’s wrong with Raif, something awful.”
Esen burst into speech, her voice high and frantic. Already rolling out of bed and dragging on his clothes, Tarn left her to Gard. He grabbed his sword and threw the strap over his shoulder, then reached out to touch Zeki’s arm in reassurance. “Your brother? What’s happened to him?”
“Esen says he tried to attack her,” Gard said, his arm around her shoulders.
“Check on Cayl and Aline,” Tarn snapped at him and strode out, cursing himself. When had he grown so complacent? How long did they have before the Shadow’s army descended to slaughter them?
Raif was unconscious on the floor of the main room, his hands tied tightly behind his back. There was a solid clay bowl on the floor beside him, and slimy traces of stew in his hair. Tarn couldn’t help raising an eyebrow. He hadn’t thought Esen had the strength in her to knock a grown man out cold, but he liked her a little more for it.
Hoping it was all a false alarm, he knelt and checked Raif’s pulse. The moment his fingers brushed Raif’s skin, Tarn shuddered and recoiled. The boy was cold, with the sort of empty, hungering chill that immediately began to steal the heart out of Tarn, reaching out in endless, greedy yearning for the threads that bound him to his hoard.
He had felt that cold before, countless times. In the days before he had slept, they had called it Astall’s Bane and wept for its victims, the good men the Shadow had overridden by reaching into their souls with thorny fingers. Raif had a strong will and had shown no signs of despair as they rode. Surely it couldn’t have had him long. Perhaps this was just a passing touch, a side effect of the way the Shadow controlled its armies and all the Savattin men who followed its promises.
Raif’s long lashes stirred against his cheek, and he murmured something incoherent and groggy. Then his eyes opened completely, and Tarn stopped hoping.
His eyes were blank, bloodshot, and full of shadows that spilled over onto his face, running like tears of tar down the curve of his cheek.
“I see you,” Tarn said softly and drew back. He had liked the boy, more than most mortal men, but there was little hope of casting the Shadow out, not when it had this much of a hold on him, and they had no time and too much at stake. Though his heart bled, Tarn drew his sword, hearing his reluctance in the way it rasped out of the scabbard.
“Don’t,” Raif said, and his voice was not his own, but reverberated coldly.
“He would have been mine,” Tarn said, wishing he had at least asked Raif into his hoard, rather than waiting. “Very soon, he would have been mine, and you could not have touched him. I had claimed him, and he was mine.”
“Of course he is yours,” the Shadow in Raif said. “I don’t want him. Put your sword away.”
“And leave a threat at my back?” Tarn asked. “I will face you soon enough. Are you so afraid that you must play this game?”
A noise from the doorway distracted him. Gard was there, holding Zeki and Esen back, his gaze fixed on Raif’s face. He looked sick as he said, “Tarn.”
“That’s my brother,” Zeki burst out. “What are you doing?”
“Get them out of here,” Tarn said to Gard. “I’ll be with you in a few moments.” He couldn’t execute the poor boy in front of his brother, not and still think of himself as an honorable being.
Gard shook his head. “What’s happened to him?”
“What happened to you,” Tarn said, trying not to make it too obvious to the younger two. Where were Cayl and Aline when he needed them? “But he does not have your strength, and the same methods will not work on him.”
Gard understood, but he didn’t just take the children and go, like Tarn needed him to. Instead, he stood up straighter and said quietly, “That’s Raif, Tarn, whatever is in him. I have known him since he was a boy, and he is under my protection. You can’t—”
“The Shadow is coming for us,” Tarn said urgently. “We don’t have time. Where are the others?”
“Drugged to sleep. I don’t know how to break it.” He met Tarn’s gaze, and his voice sounded inside Tarn’s head. “Namik’s dead. His lips are blue. Zeki doesn’t realize. Please, not his brother too.”
“We can’t leave them here,” Tarn snapped, panicking. No wonder he felt tired. Poison wouldn’t kill his body or Gard’s, but it had struck down the closest members of his hoard.
He had let his sword fall a little as he spoke, and now Gard slipped past him, scooping up the bowl and whacking Raif over the head again. Raif crumpled back against the floor, and Gard said, voice unsteady, “There. That will hold him for a while. Esen, your first knots were good, but I want him tied to something immovable.”
“You can’t leave him!” Zeki burst out.
“The Shadow has him,” Tarn snapped. “He is in less danger than any of us.”
“Tarn,” Gard said quietly, tilting his head toward the door. “See to the others. The children trust me more than you.”
He went quickly, picking his way through the dark corridor to the room where Aline slept. Bending over her, he could hear how faint her breathing was. He reached through his connection to her, feeding her strength until her heart and breath steadied, and she began to toss and turn. He went to Cayl next, strengthening him and trying to ignore the quiet bulk of Namik’s body on the far side of the room. The dead felt like the Shadow, a great absence in the world where there should be none. There would be no more poetry or caustic social commentary from Namik Shan, and later, when he had time to mourn, Tarn would weep for that and all the other beautiful things the Shadow blotted from the world.
As he stood up and prepared to go back to Aline, satisfied that they were both going to live but needing them awake, he heard hooves in the street below and the first clang of metal against the gates. Those pretty, flimsy things would not hold long, so he reached for Gard. “Get the children out over the roofs.”
“Cayl and Aline?”
“I can hold the stairs for long enough to make it look convincing. If I can get them to take just me—”
“No!” At another time, the sharp fear in Gard’s mind would have been a comfort, but they were defenseless. How had the Shadow managed to seize Raif strongly enough to have him poison their meal without anyone noticing? How lax had Tarn been, distracted by Gard and forgetting that the Shadow always had plans within plans?
Leaving Cayl, Tarn rushed out into the corridor, assessing the stairway and the roof to find the best place to block the attack long enough to cover Gard’s escape. He could hear Zeki and Esen arguing, Zeki’s voice frantic with panic, and cursed Namik and Myrtilis and everyone who had played a part in sending them here with children in their party.
Then, over the sudden groan and noise of coughing vomit from Aline’s room, he heard the distinct scuff of footsteps on the roof.
“Gard!” he bellowed, and at the same moment the gate splintered open and soldiers spilled into the courtyard.
Tarn snatched up Cayl’s sword from beside the bed and tossed it at Gard as he whirled out of the main room. Gard caught it and drew with a smooth ease that surprised Tarn as Gard darted up the staircase to the roof to block the landing. Tarn took the lower half of the stairs, thinking quickly.
His hoard were injured. They were trapped. Their purpose, however, hadn’t changed. They had come to face the Shadow, and in the end, a sword was only metal. He himself was a greater weapon.
As the first man ran in from the courtyard, Tarn called fire, not bothering with fine control but letting it rage out of him, spilling from his hands and eyes to run up the walls in spitting sheets of flame.
The soldier below froze, his sword extended and the fire reflecting in his wide, dark eyes. He looked very young, barely older than Esen and Zeki, and he swallowed hard as the fire lapped across the ceiling.
Tarn grinned slowly, showing all his teeth. “Hold,” he said, barely raising his voice, “and I will not boil your blood in your veins or sear the flesh from your bones.”
There was no understanding on the soldier’s terrified face, so Tarn groped for the right words to convey the threat in Latai. Then, from behind him, Zeki spoke, his voice thin and thready as he translated.
The young soldier blanched, his cheeks suddenly sallow.
“I’m not so nice,” Gard said lightly to an unseen opponent above him. “Stand still, and I might not kill you.” Then he repeated it in Latai, somehow making the lilt of the language sound harsh.
“Get your commanding officer,” Tarn told the soldier below him, Zeki’s voice an echo of his own. Tarn wanted to reach back and reassure the boy, but all his focus was on the soldiers surrounding them. He held every shift of sound in balance, trying to read the situation—the uneasy movement on the stairs above Gard, the crackle of flames, Zeki’s shaking breaths, and, to his relief, Esen’s voice whispering comfort in Aline’s room as Aline coughed and gasped.
The soldier took two steps backward, and then another nervous boy came forward to replace him, and Tarn could hear his footsteps skittering across the dusty courtyard. This new boy looked just as vulnerable, but Tarn thought of Esen’s father growing cold on his own temple’s floor, the dead rising across the desert, and Namik, never to write of eternity again, and he locked down any pity.
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