Bound by Blood

by Mia West

  “Don’t.”

  “I have to.” Her knees turned toward his. “I…didn’t stumble upon you and Arthur by accident that first day.”

  He looked up to find her watching him warily.

  “Your father hired me.”

  He flinched away from her. “Hired you? When?”

  “When he visited Lord Rhys. I lived there—worked there. In the brothel.”

  Bedwyr’s gut rolled. “You fucked him?”

  “No.”

  Relief hit him before he could understand it. “Why else would he hire you?”

  “To distract you.”

  “From?”

  “Arthur.”

  He stood and backed away a few steps. “I don’t understand.”

  “He said you were forming an unhealthy bond with your shieldmate—”

  “Unhealthy bond!”

  “—and he wanted to nip it before others began to notice.”

  His father had seen it? How? They’d been careful. Hadn’t they?

  “For what it’s worth,” she said, “I knew from the first that my task would be impossible. I’ve rarely seen two people so devoted to each other.”

  A bitter laugh scraped up his throat. “Devotion. You go on about that. Well, I got my fill of it just now when Arthur accepted my sister’s troth.”

  “Bedwyr, he had no choice.”

  “Every man has a choice.” He wanted badly to punch something. “Why hire you? Why not just confront me himself? Is he such a coward?”

  The whites of her eyes shone back at him, and he looked over his shoulder on instinct. He’d never said such a thing about his father.

  Elain rose, her hands pressed together in front of her. “I believe he thought I might make you happy.”

  “And why would he think that?”

  “I was born a man.”

  “What?”

  Elain drew a breath and squared her shoulders before rushing on. “I live as a woman. I feel like a woman. I prefer to move through the world as a woman. But I still have the body I was born with and, well, I use it.”

  He stared at her. “You’re a man?”

  “No.”

  “You just said—”

  “I’m not.”

  “But…you have a cock? And stones?”

  “Yes.”

  He waited for this to begin making sense.

  “If a person picks up a sword, are they then a warlord?”

  “No,” he said. “But no one’s born holding a sword.”

  “If a man loses his stones in battle, does he cease to be a man?”

  He thought of those he fought with. “Some would say yes.”

  “Are you among them?”

  Those light blue eyes watched him intently. When he hesitated, they flicked down to the stump of his right arm and back up. He set his jaw and raised his arm. “This nearly ended me as a warrior.”

  “But it didn’t. Because being a warrior is as much a matter of mind as of body. And even more about what you feel in here.” She tapped a knuckle against her chest.

  As difficult as the work had been, he couldn’t argue that. Overcoming the obstacles in his own mind and heart had paved his path back. He was fortunate to have had help. Did Elain have as much?

  “That’s how it is for me,” she said. “Inside, I’m a woman, and so I am in the world too. I realize it may be difficult to understand, and you may choose not to. But here’s the crux: I think your father thought that if you were with me, you’d have what you wanted—someone with a cock—and you could have it publicly because I appear a woman. Everyone would simply take me as your wife.”

  “That’s mad.”

  Elain took a step toward him. “I’m so sorry, Bedwyr.”

  How had his father even conceived of such a scheme? Why hadn’t he simply denied Bedwyr what he wanted—who he wanted? And to reduce everything to a prick. “I’m not with Arthur for his cock,” he blurted, then growled in frustration. “Not only for his cock. I want it, yes. But there’s more to it than that. More to him.”

  “You don’t have to convince me.”

  Something else came clear to him then: Uthyr didn’t care if Bedwyr fathered a son. Or any children at all.

  He no longer considered Bedwyr the continuation of his name.

  “What is he paying you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing!”

  Elain shook her head. “I swear it. If I succeeded, he said, I’d be the daughter-by-law of a powerful warlord. I’d never want again.”

  He looked at her for a long moment. At her slender frame. At the prominence of the bones of her face. It didn’t take much effort to see hunger there, for more than food. A want for security so strong that she’d put herself in danger to get it. “You had no idea what I would be like. No, strike that—you had my father’s character to judge me by. Elain…” He laughed, at a loss. “Are you a fool?”

  She gave him a small smile. “You’re very protective, you know.”

  “So people tell me.”

  She shrugged. “I had little to lose. I figured I would decide when I met you. If I didn’t care for what I saw, I’d run and be no worse off. But when I saw you with him, I knew I was in no danger.”

  “How could you have known that?”

  Her eyes dipped away. “Your head was in Arthur’s lap. You were serving him. If you’d been demanding service, I probably would have run.”

  “And what about when I’m angry or drunk? How would you have known?”

  “How often do you get drunk?”

  Not often. “Often as any other man,” he said, defensive.

  “And angry?”

  “I’m angry now.” That was true enough.

  “And I’ve deceived you in collusion with your father, and still you’re not threatening to harm me. I’m a fairly good judge of character.” She lifted her hands and let them drop. “Not that it’s done anyone any good.”

  He crossed back to the bench and sat heavily. “Fuck.”

  Elain settled next to him, and they passed a few silent minutes listening to the distant murmur emanating from the meeting hall.

  Bedwyr spread his fingers, curled them into a fist, flexed them again. “So now what? I watch Arthur marry Gwen?”

  Beside him, Elain’s hands clutched each other. “And I watch Gwen marry Arthur,” she said softly.

  He studied her profile, lit by the moon. Clean lines and, despite everything, honest ones. “You’re the fifth and sixth?”

  She nodded.

  “Gods.”

  It was true that Gwen had never seemed all that keen on a husband. Bedwyr had thought she held the sentiment generally, that she wasn’t ready to be a wife or didn’t care for the prospects she’d met. All along, she’d only wanted to meet a like-minded woman. Had she now? Just in time to be promised to a man?

  “Does Gwen know? About where you come from? Who you are?”

  Elain glanced at him before her gaze fell on the ground before them. “She only knows as much as you did before tonight.”

  “What do you feel for her?”

  Her hands curled into bony fists. “I’d do anything for her,” she whispered.

  As would he. “I’m going home. As soon as you can pull Gwen away, bring her to me.”

  She looked up at him and blinked. “Bedwyr?”

  ~

  Time stretched, but eventually the rumble from the meeting hall quieted, and then so did his father, who retired to his bedchamber with Eira, humming some tune about young lovers. When the rugs parted and Gwen stepped into Bedwyr’s sleeping space, he patted the mattress. “Elain too.”

  Gwen sat down and reached for his hand. “I’m sorry, Bed. I don’t know what happened.” Her face was flushed and her breath smelled faintly of the ale she must have been toasted with. Except for the worry line etched between her eyebrows, she would have looked like any other newly betrothed girl.

  “I think I do know what happened.” He squeezed her hand. �
�But put that aside for a moment.”

  “All right,” she said, her brow still creased with uncertainty.

  “What do you feel for Elain?”

  Gwen straightened, surprised, but when she moved to look at the woman seated behind her, he gripped her shoulder.

  “Tell me.”

  She frowned slightly but then said, “I wish I could be with her.”

  Elain, seated behind Gwen, was watching her closely.

  “Be with her in what way?” he asked.

  Gwen gave him a sad smile. “In the way I’m now meant to be with Arthur.”

  When he nodded, she took the opportunity to glance over her shoulder at Elain. They shared a soft look.

  He cleared his throat, and Elain’s gaze snapped to his. She drew a deep breath and faced Gwen again. “I need to tell you a few things.”

  Gwen turned to her, setting a hand on Bedwyr’s outstretched legs. He put his arm around her waist in solidarity. He had no notion how she might react to the revelations Elain had made to him.

  By the time she finished confessing, Elain was trembling in voice and body. Gwen, however, was steady. Giving Bedwyr’s knee a squeeze, she lifted her hand to cup Elain’s jaw. He could see only Elain’s eyes, which looked enormous and wary in the dim light. Then Gwen leaned forward and kissed her, and the other woman’s eyes fell shut.

  He looked away for a few seconds, a strange sensation growing in his chest. Relief, certainly, but also something very near to hope. Nudging Gwen’s ribs, he got the women’s attention.

  “I think I know how you could be together.”

  They stared at him.

  It was possible he was as insane as his father. But what did he have to lose?

  “I have an idea,” he said. “Hear me out.”

  Chapter 10

  The damned hill got steeper every time, which didn’t make sense.

  But none of this made sense. It was supposed to have been a simple contest: devise a strategy to repel Saxons. Simple. Then, when he’d realized it wasn’t, the truth had been so stark, so right, that claiming the sword had seemed drastic but necessary—not just the best course but the only one. And then it had worked so well, he’d found himself presented with a prize he couldn’t refuse. To do so would have insulted Uthyr and Gwen, and it would have left her at the mercy of her father’s next choice. Would it have been Cai?

  Didn’t matter. All of that was secondary to the blank expression Bedwyr had worn when it happened. How he’d spoken to Arthur woodenly and left the hall, as if he couldn’t be in the same building with him. His hands had itched to grab Bed’s sleeves and stop him, to explain why he’d done it, but Lord Uthyr’s sharp eyes had been on them and Arthur’d had to play his part, the confounding role of future son-by-law. He’d looked for Bed afterward, slipping into all the dark corners they’d exploited over the summer, but he’d found them empty.

  Then, this morning had brought Elain to his parents’ door with a request for some remedy or other and a whispered time and location. Arthur looked up ahead and wondered if Bedwyr had insisted on this place because Arthur couldn’t speak lies here.

  Right, left.

  When Arthur came to where the ground leveled off, Bedwyr was there. He sat on the ground before the tomb, leaning against the stone slab at its front, his features etched in hard lines. Everything Arthur had prepared to say died in his throat.

  All but, “I’m sorry.”

  Bedwyr’s glare measured Arthur’s height, as if he resented Arthur looming over him.

  Arthur knelt. “I swear I didn’t know he planned to do that.”

  “I don’t think he did plan it. I think he made the decision on the spot.” Bedwyr looked at him. “You certainly impressed the warlord.”

  “I only wanted the house, Bed.” He studied his hands. “I was going to give it to you.”

  Bedwyr was silent for a long moment, then, “Why?”

  “Because you should have the second largest house in the village. It’s your due.”

  “My due?”

  “As Lord Uthyr’s son and heir.”

  “He seemed close to proclaiming a new heir last night.”

  You’re the son I never had. Uthyr’s words from the winter past formed frost over Arthur’s skin, despite the mild day. “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “He only found a husband for Gwen.”

  “Is that what you’ve wanted all along?”

  “No.”

  “Really? All those years, you’ve only been friends?”

  “Your sister doesn’t want me.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  Arthur shuffled forward until his knees touched Bedwyr’s leg. “I don’t want her as a wife. She doesn’t want me either.”

  “Good match.”

  “I don’t want a woman, Bed, and Gwen doesn’t want a man.”

  Bedwyr looked at him skeptically. “Since when?”

  “Since always.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me.”

  “Why didn’t she tell me?”

  Finally, a crack in the monolith. “Did you tell her you wanted men?”

  Bedwyr looked away. After a moment he grumbled, “I can’t believe she told you, the way your mouth runs off.”

  Grasping at the opportunity, he pushed closer. “I can keep a secret if it’s important.”

  Bedwyr’s dark eyes flashed back to him. “I’d say neither of us did good work of it. Did you know he hired Elain to distract me from you?”

  “Hired her? From a convent?”

  “A brothel.”

  “Elain’s a whore?”

  “I’ll caution you not to use that term for my future wife.”

  He stilled. “Your what?”

  “I’ve asked Elain to marry me, and she’s accepted.”

  “When?”

  “Last night. I said, ‘I can offer you my name and the protection of my sword,’ and she said, ‘I might as well.’”

  “You’re joking.”

  A deep line had formed between Bed’s eyebrows. Arthur’s thumb jerked against his own leg, wanting to smooth the crease.

  “Why?” Then a possibility occurred to him, and he felt a chill again. “Did it work? The distraction?”

  But Bedwyr only said, “Tell me about this new house of yours.”

  It was the sort of thing he might have said bitterly, but his voice was strangely neutral. As if he was already trying to put space between them. “It’s your father’s house.”

  “Not anymore, it isn’t. What’s the general look of it? How are the chambers set out?”

  “Why are you doing this? It’s already bad enough.”

  “How many does your new house sleep, Arthur?”

  He nearly missed it, but he’d been watching Bedwyr for so long he could see the slightest tic in his expression. This one played at the outside corner of one eye, and it sent a curl of warmth through Arthur’s belly. “Five, right now.”

  “I’d say that’s about one too many.”

  Arthur reached up and touched the man’s beard. “Bed.”

  Bedwyr pursed his lips, as if in thought. “I believe there are three of those just now, plus a pallet by the hearth, but you could reduce the number to two. Might be wise to build another wall, give the second bed its own chamber. And no one needs to know who sleeps where.”

  The warmth spread up to his chest until he was sure Bed could see it through his shirt laces. “That’s a lot of doors for one house.”

  “Blame it on your Roman heritage.”

  What would it be like, walking into that house as one of its heads? Once the door closed behind him, once he’d set the bar in place…

  “You’re imagining it, aren’t you?” Bedwyr’s arm came around his waist, pulling him to straddle his legs. Then his mouth was on Arthur’s throat. “Outer door bolted, inner door bolted, and you and me in the same bed. Every night.”

  Gods.

&nb
sp; Bedwyr chuckled softly. “Sound compelling?”

  It might work. Other families shared houses. They were usually two or three generations, married parents and a married son. Would it be so strange to have a house shared by two brothers-by-law? Two sisters-by-law? “Gwen and Elain just went along with this?”

  One side of Bed’s mouth quirked up. “Seems they’ve come to their own understanding. Right under my nose.”

  “Some guard you’ve been.”

  “Useless.”

  It was almost too good to be true. Sharing a roof would give Gwen what she wanted but couldn’t demand. And it would give him what he wasn’t sure he could live without.

  But his aim had been to protect Bedwyr’s future. This was at least five steps off the path and into a murky stretch of forest. He met Bed’s eyes.

  “You don’t take risks like this.”

  “I never saw the value in them before.” Bedwyr gathered Arthur’s shirt in his hand and tugged lightly. “Now I do.” He let his head fall back against the stone. “When you drew that sword in the hall last night, I thought it’d be the end of you. I thought, He’ll be bolt-struck right here. Or torn apart by the village. Or banished by my father. And I could see it on your face—you knew it too. But you stood there anyway, ready to face whatever happened. I’ve never been so damned inspired. Or blood-hard; I wanted to fuck you to the next full moon.”

  Arthur grinned. “New moon’s darker.”

  “Won’t need it. We’ll have a house.”

  Lord Uthyr’s house. Arthur’s enthusiasm faltered. “Your father will never allow it.”

  “He’ll have to. He’s about to use untold resources building a grand house for himself. It’s only wise for us to share the old one. Besides, he doesn’t want to raise suspicion, and his only other choice is to expose us. That would expose him. He won’t do it.”

  “You’ve thought this through, huh?”

  “Had to do something while I waited here.”

  He shifted on Bedwyr’s lap. “Think of anything else?”

  Bed’s hand slid up Arthur’s thigh. “A few things.”

  “Such as…”

  “The open sky. The breeze. The miles between this place and anyone who might hear us.”

  That big hand cupped Arthur’s arse. He grinned and began to peel off his shirt.

  “Which is why we aren’t going to do anything here,” Bedwyr added.