Bound by Blood

by Mia West

  Arthur shifted under him, the taut lines of his back flexing.

  “Spread your legs.”

  Arthur’s back rose on a breath, and then he complied. Bedwyr shifted to kneel between his legs. A shiver ran over his own skin at the sight of Arthur laid out before him like a feast. Inch upon inch of skin to be touched and scraped and licked…

  “Bed.”

  He glanced up to find Arthur looking at him over one shoulder. His gaze was heated, but Bedwyr saw the uncertainty there too. They’d not had the time or safe place to explore like this—not since the shepherd’s hut. But they had it now, with the women keeping watch for them. He would owe them, and he’d pay the debt gladly. He smoothed his hand down Arthur’s hip and nodded. After a couple of seconds, Arthur turned back to set his forehead on the grass. The trust in the gesture made a fist around Bedwyr’s heart and squeezed tight.

  Cradling Arthur’s thigh with his wrist, he stroked his fingers over one buttock. Arthur clenched, but when Bedwyr gave him a light slap, he relaxed. Bedwyr eased his fingers closer to the cleft until he was skimming them shallowly down the furrow. On each pass, he delved deeper until he rubbed across the puckered skin of Arthur’s hole. Arthur writhed under his touch, moaning into the earth when Bedwyr’s fingers brushed lower over smooth skin again. He leaned down and pressed his mouth to one cheek.

  It wasn’t a kiss, exactly, or a lick or a suck or a nibble, though it soon became all of those things. He couldn’t resist opening his jaw, swiping his tongue over Arthur’s damp skin, taking that bite he’d wanted on the walk to the tomb.

  Arthur gasped, his fingers clawing into the grass.

  Bedwyr eased up the pressure, soothing the reddened skin with softer touches of his lips and beard. He paid tribute to the perfect shape under him for several minutes, gently exploring both sides from the small of Arthur’s back to the furry skin of his upper thighs. His cub still moved under him, but now his grinding spoke of restlessness and wanting more.

  Stretching out along the ground, Bedwyr settled on his elbows. He gave Arthur one long moment in which to wonder what he’d do next, and then gave him what he knew he wanted. Holding the cheeks of his arse apart, Bedwyr swiped his tongue from Arthur’s stones to the top of his cleft. Arthur’s answering groan fired his hunger, and he went in for more.

  Every rough drag drew a new sound from the man under him. Arthur’s skin here was as sweet, as tangy as the rest of him, and Bedwyr found himself wanting to lick harder and deeper, to drive Arthur into the earth with the force of the lust building in him.

  He drew back to catch his breath, to temper what felt like a brutal urge. In the absence of touch, Arthur pushed his hips up, seeking, offering. Bedwyr brushed his thumb over his hole, and Arthur shuddered.

  “Yes.”

  He looked at the tight pucker and couldn’t imagine pushing his cock through it. Well, that wasn’t exactly true; he’d imagined what it might be like—thinking of it had fueled many furtive late-night tugs. But faced with the reality of the opening, compared to the aching thickness of his prick…the thought of hurting Arthur quenched his fire a bit. But he could give him something. Spitting on his fingers, he slicked them over the sensitive skin.

  Arthur pushed back and whimpered. The skin under Bedwyr’s fingers pursed, like a kiss. Centering one finger, he pressed until his knuckle was being gripped by Arthur’s muscle. Arthur moaned again, the sound louder and almost plaintive. Bedwyr answered by pressing his finger in as far as it would go, and Arthur cried out.

  He waited, watching the flex of Arthur’s ribs as he panted. He’d risen onto his elbows, his head hanging between them. Then his voice came, raw and pleading.

  “Fuck me, Bed. Please.”

  Bedwyr gritted his teeth against the urge to bury his cock in this heat. Pulling his finger out, he spit on it again and pushed it back into Arthur, who shouted. Over and over, he pumped his finger through the tight muscle, and soon Arthur was on his knees, rocking, his cock smacking his belly. Eventually, he wrapped a hand around it and fucked his fist even as he drove himself onto Bedwyr’s finger. Then his back arched like a cat’s. The muscle around Bedwyr’s finger tightened even more, and then Arthur was shooting seed onto the grass under him.

  Bedwyr scarcely had time to pull out before Arthur turned on him with a growl. He found himself rolled onto his back, his cock swallowed by the hot bliss of Arthur’s mouth. He was being more aggressive than usual, but Bedwyr was so hard he welcomed it, giving in finally to the urge to thrust. Arthur took him, one hand gripping his hip, the other scraping up through his belly hair. The thought of those long fingers and how they might feel sliding into him brought him off.

  He opened his eyes when a drop of rain landed on his forehead. Clouds had gathered overhead in a woolly mass. In his hand he held a clump of grass and soil he’d torn loose. Arthur’s head rested on his thigh, his breath warming Bedwyr’s sac.

  “Come here.”

  Arthur crawled up alongside him. “Sorry about that.”

  “About what?”

  “I wasn’t very gentle.”

  He smoothed his wrist over Arthur’s hair, feeling drowsy. “No harm done. At all,” he added, smiling. Rain was pattering against his skin in bright, cold drops. “We should make our way back.”

  Arthur nodded and began to sit up.

  “In a moment.”

  He pulled Arthur back, and they kissed for long minutes, ignoring the light rainfall. Bedwyr drank up the feel of Arthur pressed against him, not knowing when they might find their next moment. He could have enjoyed a lazy nap very much just then, twined up with his cub, but their lookouts on the other side of the hill were getting rained on. He settled for nuzzling Arthur’s ear.

  “You going to tell me why you were feeling today so keenly?”

  “Because I was about to get you into a lake, naked and to myself?”

  “It wasn’t only that.”

  “Could have been.”

  “But it wasn’t.”

  Arthur combed his fingers through Bedwyr’s beard. “Maybe I wanted to borrow some courage.”

  He drew back to study Arthur’s face. “For what?”

  “To best Cai.” Arthur gave him a conspirator’s smile. “I’m close to doing it.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight, if all goes well.”

  The story fire. Bedwyr looked from one gray eye to the other, then pressed his forehead to Arthur’s. “Courage, then,” he said. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  A breath of wry laughter over his lips made him shiver.

  “Hold,” he said, warily. “Why do you need courage?”

  Arthur sat up and reached for his shirt. “Doesn’t every man need courage?”

  To best his brother? No.

  To impress Uthyr? Maybe.

  To do both before the entire village? All right, he’d concede that.

  But it didn’t soothe the tingle of unease that lingered on his lips as he watched Arthur walk away from him, alone, his shoulders set with determination.

  Chapter 7

  Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

  That ruled out…a lot of things. Including what Arthur had in mind, probably.

  Most likely.

  Certainly.

  Bedwyr would never take such a risk for himself, and if Arthur had laid it out for him, the man would be on his heels right now, hounding him to reconsider. Maybe even putting his stalwart body between Arthur and his goal. A shame, when Bed’s body had such better uses.

  He could still feel it, the soreness Bedwyr’s fingers had left him. When Arthur had found Gwen at the well the day before, he’d thought only to get Bedwyr alone, to feel how his big hand roved across Arthur’s skin as if claiming it for himself, saying, This is mine, and this, and this too. He’d wanted an hour, nothing more or less, because an hour of Bedwyr’s attention was worth a dozen from anyone else. He’d needed only to ba
sk in the warmth of it to be ready to carry out his scheme.

  But what he’d gotten…

  Gods.

  It had started innocently enough. In fact, if anyone had happened upon them early, they might have taken them only as two friends enjoying a swim. A good tussle in a chilly lake, enough to stay warm. Of course, he’d planned to take things further than that—they both were as thirsty for it as if they hadn’t had any water for days. A good suck, he’d thought, and a tug, and then the return of the favor.

  Then Bed had ordered him onto his belly.

  It wasn’t as if he didn’t think about it; he did. Or hadn’t tried it with his own finger; he had, imagining it was Bedwyr’s thicker one. Imagining it was his cock.

  But Bed had used his mouth. His tongue. And gods help Arthur because he’d tried all spring and summer to be careful, but when Bed’s wet heat touched him, surrounded by the brush and scrape of his beard, Arthur had thought, Fuck caution.

  He might have said it too. Might have shouted it, for all he could remember now. He’d wanted nothing in that unmeasured stretch of minutes except to keep feeling Bedwyr push against him, swiping and tickling.

  And the noises he’d made, as if he couldn’t get enough. He’d been growling back there, and between that and his tongue and his lips and his teeth, Arthur had thought it might be possible for a man to die of a hard cock. He’d been torn between pushing back into Bed and rutting into the grass. When Bedwyr had left off using his mouth and started using his fingers, Arthur had stopped thinking at all.

  Which, as it turned out, was exactly what he’d needed. He hadn’t slept the night before, his mind roiling with the reality of carrying out his plan, and with its implications. Even if they hadn’t shed a single piece of clothing, it would have calmed him just to walk beside Bedwyr.

  But to have his mind emptied of everything except want and more had gone so far beyond that. Soreness aside, he was minutes from doing something unheard of among civilized folk, yet he was able to breathe normally and keep walking, every breath and step bringing him closer. The way ahead of him and what he had to do was as clear as a high mountain stream.

  We should fuck right before battle, he thought and imagined the expression Bedwyr would give him if he ever suggested that. Bed always got sleepy after he came. Not Arthur. After he shot his seed, he always felt as if he could spot an ant from across a meadow. From across all of Cymru. What might a man do with that sort of vision? Become a lookout, he supposed. Except that lookouts served their shifts alone, and he’d had too good a taste of Bedwyr to be alone now. Training his sharpened eyes ahead, he sighted his destination and picked up his pace.

  The rain had stopped falling by the time he reached the bottom of the hill. The great rock above glowered down at him as if it knew what he was up to. Thick clouds still scudded overhead, giving the top of the slope what looked like stern gray eyebrows, which seemed appropriate.

  They were in there, after all. He would see them. They could see him, right now, probably. Would they gather their forces, whatever those amounted to where they existed, to keep him from doing this?

  He shoved the thoughts aside and began to climb, right foot, left foot.

  Only Bedwyr mattered, so Arthur had to win this contest.

  Right, left.

  He had to best Cai.

  Right, left.

  He had to impress Lord Uthyr.

  Right, left.

  And this was the way.

  He reached the entrance to the tomb without being struck down, so he took off his small pack, pulled out the pickax, and set to work.

  The blackberry brambles were tenacious, their roots having pierced the stone long ago. He pried them loose, though he couldn’t bring himself to clear them completely. His aim was the rubble and cement sealing the tall fissure in the stone, so he tore away only as many vines as necessary.

  Still, when he’d finished, they hung forlorn and accusing. Watchful. Maybe they would grab him, bind him up against the rock, and hold him there for crows to peck at his flesh. He would deserve it. He told himself he wouldn’t be the first person to crunch a pick into the smaller stones filling the gap and pull them away. Tiro had done it before him. Of course, Tiro had had the blessing of their people.

  Two years before this day, Grandfather Marcus and Papa Wolf had made a trip to their cave. They went often, and Arthur hadn’t given it much thought, as focused as he was on training and earning his place among the fighting men. But when his grandfathers had been gone several days longer than expected, Arthur’s father began to worry. Cai was on patrol, so he bid Arthur accompany him. Carrying all sorts of supplies, in case one of the men had broken a leg or met with a wild animal, they hiked to the hideaway.

  When they arrived, they found Grandfather sitting outside the cave alone, his weathered face calm but sorrowful. Papa Wolf had died in his sleep. Grandfather had been waiting for them, unwilling to leave his husband unguarded.

  He had decided, while he watched the sea, that the cave should serve as Wolf’s tomb. Arthur’s father asked him if he was certain.

  “It’s so far away from the village,” he said.

  Grandfather had given him a curt nod. “I can still walk. Besides,” he said, looking up at his son, “he’s waiting for me now. I’ll be here to stay soon enough.”

  So the body was bathed and wrapped, and the village gathered at the cave for the sealing of the entrance. Grandfather Marcus insisted on doing the work himself. They all stood there, watching as he jammed each stone into place and then, with a slightly unsteady hand, scraped a mixture of daub over and among the rocks. He dropped the trowel as soon as he finished and pressed his palm to the damp surface.

  The impression of it had still been there a few months later when Tiro took a pickax to the cement and reopened the tomb to bury Marcus, who had gone quietly one night, sleeping between Arthur and Cai for warmth. Again the village watched one man do the initial work, but when the words were said and Marcus laid to rest, they shared the task of filling in the crack again, each person present setting a stone. No one pressed his handprint into the daub that second time, though Arthur had wanted to. He hadn’t been able to make himself do it, to show the sentiment he’d felt. He’d been a coward that day.

  He wouldn’t be so this day.

  In twos and threes, he pulled the rocks free. They clattered around his boots, some of them landing on his toes, but he only kicked them aside until the gap before him was large enough.

  He stood for a moment, staring into the darkness beyond. Fighting his craven instinct to hold his breath, he took a tentative sniff. To his intense relief, he smelled nothing. Closing his eyes, he pictured them again, as they’d been in life—Wolf broad and strong, if a bit hunched in the shoulders from years of smithing, Marcus more wiry of build. In his mind, their eyes shone at him sharply.

  He opened his own and exhaled. Tossed the pick aside and knelt to light his lantern. Then he stepped through the gap into the tomb.

  It did smell different inside, but only in the normal dank way of caves. He made himself hold his lantern high and look. Their shrouded forms lay side by side. There had been a bed of sorts dug into the ground there when they’d lived and used this cave as a refuge. Grandfather Marcus had filled it with a final ticking of dry grass when Wolf had passed. Marcus had later been laid beside him. Each man, at his own time, had been wrapped in plain wool cloth, head to toe, with a slight alteration: when Marcus died, Arthur’s father had cut a slit in the bindings along his right arm, and along Wolf’s left, so that their hands could be joined. They lay so now, the open curl of Marc’s palm cradling Wolf’s fist. Both had been reduced to clean bone, though whatever had done the reducing was thankfully not present.

  For as long as he’d known them, they’d slept just so, Wolf to Marcus’s right. If they’d been shieldmates, he’d have been blocking Grandfather’s sword hand. But in the context of bed, Arthur supposed it had put Wolf in just the right place for Marcus to touc
h him before falling asleep. Or to reach for him first thing. Sometimes, when Arthur was very young, he would wake even earlier than his grandfathers. On one occasion, he’d discovered their bedchamber door unbolted and had peeked inside to find Marcus lying in the crook of Wolf’s shoulder, his head on the smith’s chest. It had been a family joke that Marcus craved the body heat Papa Wolf gave off like a forge, and Arthur understood that now. He and Bedwyr hadn’t shared a bed since the past winter in the shepherd’s hut. They’d slept side by side in patrol camps all summer, close enough to hear Bedwyr breathing but not near enough to feel his heat, and Arthur missed it.

  He knelt beside them and tentatively laid a shaking hand on his grandfather’s shoulder. The wool was cool to the touch and still. He took a deep breath.

  “Forgive me, Grandfather.”

  His voice sounded strange in the cave, dampened by the earthen walls.

  “I’m doing this for Bedwyr. I have to.” He glanced at the broader form of Wolf’s shroud. “I hope you’ll understand.”

  And with that, he could no longer ignore the object that had brought him here. It lay between them, its crossguard just above their shoulders, its long blade between their arms. Their joined hands rested on the sword’s point.

  When Marcus died, the question arose: who would get his sword? It was an exceptional weapon, so who had the Roman decided should carry it?

  Cai claimed that Grandfather had promised it to him, though when the full story came out, it was that, in a rare moment of drunken belligerence, Marcus had told Cai he could have the sword if he ever managed to pry it from his hand.

  Arthur had felt he had a better claim. He’d grown up in the smithy, under the hand and eye of Papa Wolf, who had made the blade in the first place. Arthur said he would know how to care for it (which was true enough) and how to repair it (which wasn’t quite accurate) and that he was a better fighter than Cai anyway.

  Cai had refuted that last by punching Arthur in the jaw, knocking him down, and then busting his lip for good measure. Arthur had fought back with pent-up frustration and grief, dealing Cai a bloodied nose and two blackened eyes, and after they overturned the kitchen table and smashed two of their mother’s cook pots, she finally wrenched them apart with a snarl.