Andrew closed his eyes and took a deep, but shaky breath. He met Rory’s gaze once more and said as steadily as he could, “Fleming is dead.”
Rory slid out from behind the oar so fast he startled Andrew into stepping back. He looked angry, furious, standing over Andrew with a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “Are you certain?”
“I am.” Andrew said these words, cautiously.
“We’ll see.” The captain strode away, boot heels loud on the deck.
Malik caught Andrew’s eye. “Oh, Coinin, that was not news I would have had you deliver.”
“I didn’t want to, either, but it had to be done, Malik,” Andrew answered, sadly. “Why do you keep on?” he asked, indicating that none of the men had stopped rowing.
“We won’t stop until the captain tells us. If he says we man the sweeps until we crash into Tunis, we oblige,” Jack said. He had tears on his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Andrew told him, told them all. He swept their faces, each of them. “He was a good man and I wish it had not happened.”
“You should pray,” one of them said.
“Aye.”
“A prayer.”
Andrew wanted to deny them. How could he pray for Fleming, when he would no longer pray for himself?
“Please, Andrew. It would help us all. You, as well,” Malik said. He nodded wisely when Andrew put one hand on his shoulder.
“Malik, what was his first name?” Andrew whispered.
The big man chuckled. “Charles, after our King. He wouldn’t use it after the fool lost his head.”
Andrew took a deep breath and spoke, in English, forsaking the Latin so that the weight of the words would be easily understood by everyone.
“We lift up your servant, Charles Fleming, o Lord. May Angels lead you into paradise; may the Martyrs receive you at your coming, and lead you to the holy city of Jerusalem. May a choir of Angels receive you, and may you have eternal rest.”
“Spare us your paradise, your eternal rest,” Rory growled, returning to the deck. He closed in on Andrew who warily watched his approach, but did not move.
“Tread carefully, Coinin. This one cut deep,” Malik told him softly.
Andrew took the warning seriously. “The prayers offer comfort to the living, Captain,” he said, gentle, soothing. “I mean no disrespect.”
Rory loomed over him then, but he did not retreat. He did clutch at Malik’s shoulder, an impulse he could not control in the face of Rory’s anger.
“Captain, should we continue on, or go about repairs?” Malik interrupted, not looking up at them. He kept his pace and his voice steady.
Teeth clenching, Rory took a step back and looked around him. Andrew noticed that none of the men raised their heads from their sweeps. Not one wished to face his wrath. After a moment, he called, “Pull the sweeps! I want her clear for running!”
The men stopped rowing all at once. They pulled in the oars with perfect unison and stood to stow them along the rail. Andrew made leave to get out of the way, but Rory grabbed his arm. “You, follow me.”
Malik watched them go, his face grave and concerned. Andrew tried to send him a consoling smile but Rory pulled him along, ignoring his stumble. Rory’s fingers bit into his arm when he fell into the man’s side. He was dragged to the captain’s cabin and flung down into one of the sturdy wooden chairs.
“Stay here,” Rory snarled, shaking him brusquely before leaving the room.
Andrew rubbed his arm, frowning at the table top and wondering why this anger was cast at him. His mind supplied memory, then, of the few times he had gone with Father Armand into the village to tend to the dead or dying. He remembered the soft drone of his voice as he comforted the ones who were left, audible beneath the raving of sad and bitter men or the wails of mothers who lost their children. It was this that Andrew clung to as he sat there, waiting.
Rory returned, throwing the bar across the hatch loudly. Andrew did not turn; instead he sat calmly and waited. He heard the slow heavy fall of Rory’s steps and the slosh of liquid in a jug.
Rory’s eyes were hard with fury and pain. He met this calmly. He could face this anger.
Rory spoke. “He was alive when I left him. He was still talking, laughing.”
“Yes.”
“Then how did he die?”
“Bleeding.”
“Why didn’t you get the wound packed?”
“He was already weakened before he was brought below. Cook did what he could, but the wound could not be closed. Even if it had been stitched, it would have only delayed what was to come.” Andrew kept the soothing tone as he spoke, remembering the way his mentor had helped those grieving ride out their pain.
“You don’t know that,” Rory snarled.
“His lips were blue and his hands were growing cold, Captain. The damage was done,” Andrew responded. It was more difficult than he’d imagined, accepting the blame, but he restrained more impassioned denials. The anger was usually only temporary, but was necessary for the grieving to move past the initial pain.
“It would have been better had he died on the deck, sword in hand. Not below in the shadows, tended by a useless catamite.”
The word was not unknown to Andrew. He paled at the reference.
“I’m a fool. I’ve been blinded…by your lips, your eyes. I should have seen what you are from the start. You’re a priest; a curse and a symbol of death and dying.” Rory stood then and circled him, stopping at his back. “Had I let you burn on that Saracen schooner, Fleming might still be here.”
Andrew closed his eyes. The words rallied his own pain, brought back the miserable longing for his home, and compounded his sadness. “I was not a priest. I am not a priest.”
Leaning over, trapping him between arms and table, Rory said in his ear, “No, you were the kept pet of a cloister of aging pederasts.”
The slur against his family he could not stomach. “Enough!” Andrew cried, pushing back from the table. He stood and turned to face Rory, his own eyes blazing. “I will bear your anger if it will bring you comfort, but you will not speak in this manner of the men who raised me with love and honor! They did you no injustice, no harm at all! They did no harm to anyone and you debase only yourself by insulting their memories!”
“They did me no good, either, if they couldn’t even teach you how to tend a bleeding wound!” Rory stepped closer but Andrew stood fast.
“There was nothing to be done for him! Nothing save retreating from that ship before the damage was done!”
“I do not retreat!”
It was on the tip of Andrew’s tongue to tell him that was his mistake, but he resisted. He was here to help, not harm. “It would have saved him. That is all I can say to you.”
Rory raised his fist high, his eyes blazing with anger and hurt.
Andrew lifted his chin. “Do it, if it will bring you comfort,” he repeated, meeting the man’s furious gaze with quiet, if hard won, calm.
He watched the wrath fade from Rory’s eyes and grief fill the space within. “There is no comfort,” Rory said, lowering his arm.
“You can take solace in the fact that he loved you. You were in his last thoughts, your welfare, your happiness,” Andrew told him. He was weak with gratitude that the blow had not struck and sagged against the table behind him.
“Thoughts of me…” Rory laughed under his breath. It was a bitter, unhappy sound. He righted the chair and took the jug of rum. When he had two healthy swallows in him, he turned once more to Andrew. “What were they, then? Tell me.”
Andrew recounted Fleming’s last words. “That you inspire people to follow you, to remain loyal regardless of their circumstances or the outcome of those loyalties. That you were his friend, his brother, and his savior.” He waited while Rory took another mouthful of rum. “And his lover, for a time.”
Rory ran his hand over his face, swiping at his eyes. “He would have told you that. Damn it.”
“He didn’t say it, at first. I
inferred it from his words and he confirmed.” Andrew was deeply disturbed to see him weeping. It made him want to commiserate, but he was the one who needed to be calm. “He said that he couldn’t give you what you needed. He called you broken, but not destroyed, and said that you needed a strong hand to keep your pieces together.”
Rory’s shoulders shook but he made no sound. Andrew longed to stroke his hair, to wipe the tears from his face. “Did he happen to mention that while I found great pleasure in his form and face, I could never give him what he wanted? That I am too damaged to return his feelings?” Rory asked, eyes on the floor. “There is the true tragedy in his story…that I did not, could not, give him the same joy.”
His misery compelled Andrew to go to him, to kneel beside his chair. “He did not regret it, even at his last breath,” he said. Andrew wanted to touch him but was so unsure, hesitant to do it wrong and only add to his sorrow. His hands were raised halfway to Rory’s knees but he lowered them in indecision.
“Go away.”
“I know that you loved him…love him still. Perhaps not as he would have wanted, but your loss is just as grievous,” Andrew whispered, edging closer.
“Leave me,” Rory said, his face hidden behind his hair. It did not disguise the thickness in his voice.
“No,” Andrew heard himself say, unbidden. “I would try to…ease your burden, if you will allow it.”
As astonished as he was to hear himself say those words, Rory must have been doubly so. He turned to Andrew, unashamed of his own tears. “You don’t know what you are offering.”
Andrew was flushed, trembling, but he said with no hesitation, “I do, some.” He reached out to put a gentle hand on Rory’s knee.
Rory shook his head but did not brush his hand aside. “It would be too easy to hurt you, Andrew. I’m not wholly myself, at the present.”
“You will not.”
“You don’t want this now, Andrew.” Their eyes met and held.
Andrew made his decision, moving in to press his mouth to Rory’s. It was a mostly chaste kiss, the merest parting of lips and mingling of breath. “Yes, God yes, I do,” he whispered, his hand moving up to touch the man’s jaw.
Chapter Nine
Rory hesitated, eyes on Andrew’s lips as his tongue darted out to wet them. Then he was crushed, held so tightly to Rory’s chest that his breath left him. They kissed with equal passion. Andrew was as hungry as the man could ever wish. He tangled his fingers into Rory’s hair, loving the texture, the way it knotted and clung as if it were alive.
Rory rose to kick the chair away and yank Andrew’s shirt over his head. Kneeling, he drew them back together. They moaned as one as their bare skin met and Andrew held on as he was lowered to the floor. He was trapped between the deck and the man above him, overwhelmed by heat and weight and desperate want. Their hips were pressed tightly together and every shudder, every breath would cause them to shift. It was maddening.
He was arching up into Rory, seeking more pressure, more friction. Rory rose to his knees again, one hand holding Andrew steady by pressing on his stomach, the other deftly unstrapping his belt. The oversized britches were stripped from him, exposing Andrew’s…my cock, Andrew thought, at last, acknowledging the word in his mind. When Rory’s fingers closed around it, rough palm playing over the head, he gasped. One hard tug and he froze, breath caught in his throat as he spilled over Rory’s hand. He lay panting, dazed by the sudden release. He felt Rory swipe at the cooling mess on his stomach and opened his eyes.
One of his knees was lifted, pushed up to his chest. Rory’s other hand disappeared beneath him and he jerked when fingertips stroked down between his cheeks. They circled that hole, the place Acklie had breached, that had hurt and burned with the invasion. Rory did not press in, only rubbed and kneaded until he felt Andrew ease. When two fingers entered him he gasped, arching up but fighting the instinct to pull away. Rory groaned as he pushed further, twisting and prodding so deep Andrew thought he would draw out his heart.
“Oh! Oh, God, I…” Andrew cried, eyes clenching shut.
Rory removed his fingers and released his leg, placing his palm on Andrew’s stomach once more. “Stay easy, keep your eyes closed.”
There was movement above him; Rory leaned across to open one of the drawers beneath his bed, slamming it shut almost immediately. He heard the rustle of fabric, the thud and jangle of Rory’s belt dropping on the deck. Then his legs were lifted and parted, and Rory’s bare knees slid up to cradle his hips.
“Rory?” he called.
“Shhh…stay easy.”
It was hard to do; the feel of something wet and cool drizzling onto his hole startled him and return of those fingers caused him to cry out. They pushed in, pulled out and in again, easier now with oil coating them. When Rory grabbed his knee to push it farther up, he cracked his eyes to look at the man’s face.
He almost wished he hadn’t, but now he could not look away. Rory’s gaze was cast down to where his fingers breached him, dark and dangerous and so hungry. Rory removed his hand and leaned forward, his mouth falling open as he pushed and pushed until Andrew screamed.
The pain was white hot. It stole Andrew’s breath, broke his composure, and tears ran down his temples into his hair. It did not end, either, but moved onward, upward, until he felt Rory’s hips against him. He bit his lip, hard, harder still, desperately seeking another point of focus. Swallowing his cries only made them more pitiful, whining and keening until he felt Rory touch his chin.
The man tugged there until he released his trembling lip. Then he leaned down, bending Andrew at the waist and drawing out another startled sob. “Breathe, shhh,” Rory whispered, his mouth brushing Andrew’s. “I will make it quick.” And he moved.
Andrew shoved his fist into his mouth to stifle his wail. Rory pulled it away and kissed him, thrusting into him slow and steady, despite his promise. Andrew concentrated on the tremor in Rory’s arms, the flex of his thighs and stomach, and the kiss that went on and on. It worked, at last; their presence distracted him. The burn and stretch from Rory’s penetration lessened to a degree and his body responded by loosening incrementally.
He felt Rory moan, the vibrations tickling his lips, and the molten iron in his guts lessened further, becoming more of a pressure. A pressure which, now that he was weak and dizzy from shock and pain, began to build into something more. Rory’s mouth moved to his throat, teeth scraping Andrew’s skin and tongue following to soothe. Andrew let his head roll to the side, offering more, finding pleasure in Rory’s attention. Andrew’s hands uncurled from fists and rested on the flats of Rory’s ribs, barely touching, trembling.
Rory groaned again, slid one arm beneath Andrew and lifted him. His knees nudged forward, his thighs catching Andrew’s weight, and the next thrust felt…different. Andrew opened his eyes and found his vision crowded with the tangled strands of bright red hair that fell across his face. On the next, there was a flare of heat, low in his middle. He turned into Rory’s neck, gasping, as that flare grew brighter with each slide of Rory’s cock.
The brightening flare and the building pressure combined. He felt his mouth open, gulping in air only to have it forced out by Rory’s increasingly powerful thrusts. His back arched and he groaned a broken, startled sound that snagged Rory’s attention. The man propped up with one arm, the other still holding Andrew around his waist, and stared as he drew back to push in again. That same stuttering moan, from deep in Andrew’s chest, filled the room.
“Hell and damnation,” Rory muttered, his gaze raking Andrew’s body from his face down to where their bodies met. The man seemed dazed, his eyes wide and his skin flushed and shining with sweat.
Andrew looked, too, wondering what it was he saw. His pale chest was red, heaving above his fluttering stomach. The dark hair above his cock, which was twitching and filling as he watched, still sparkled with drops of seed. When Rory lifted his hand from the floor to place over Andrew’s tight, pink nipple, the scrape of c
allouses drew gasps from them both.
“Rory?” Andrew breathed, panting.
Rory’s fingers closed on his, pulling until they could wrap around his cock, together. “Keep your hand here,” he growled, and bent back over Andrew’s body, balanced on one elbow beside Andrew’s head.
His other hand gripped Rory’s shoulder, digging in as the thrusting resumed at a more frantic pace. He felt teeth at his neck, sweat drip onto his face, and the tickle of hair on his face and more scratching at this bottom but these things only fed into the unbearable heat blooming in his groin. The fingers of both hands tightened and his hips lifted of their own accord. He did it again, his skin sliding in his grasp, and Rory arced above him to thrust harder. The sounds in his ear, Rory’s snarling, his breathy moans, increased in accordance.
Andrew’s body began to tense, undulating up to meet Rory’s momentum. He heard his own startled yelps, felt the hot, hard flesh in his hand throb and thicken, and then the fire in his belly burned through to his back. He bent, arched like a bow and just as tightly strung, wailing as he was scorched from the inside. The lights behind his eyelids resembled the flames that shot through him and his only thought was of ash and cinder and Rory…
Andrew’s next recollection was of lying flat on the wooden deck, shivering, covered with the weight and heat of another. He opened his eyes and was surprised to see Rory’s face hovering close to his own. His hand felt sticky where it still held his cock, trapped between their stomachs. He could feel Rory’s heart hammering where their chests pressed together, as if trying to break free to join his own.
Rory lowered his head, pressing gentle kisses to Andrew’s lips. He licked them, licked up into Rory’s mouth, too, and asked, winded, “Was that…”
The man waited, close enough to taste his breath.
“All right?”
Rory laughed, and Andrew thought it was the most wonderful sound he’d ever heard.
***
The iron shackle bit into his skin, chafed it raw.
The Red King Page 7