“Do you still have all those oils from our wedding night?”
“They’re here somewhere.”
“Use them,” Derek said, spreading his legs wide in an unmistakable invitation that did nothing for Callan’s straining self-control.
Thankfully, the oils and washcloths were still there, discreetly tucked away inside a chest of drawers. Callan took out a small bottle and, returning to his place kneeling between Derek’s legs, applied it liberally to his fingers.
Derek’s breathing changed, coming out in throaty gasps, louder and louder, as Callan’s gentle probing became deeper, more intimate in his search for the right spot to make his lover wholeheartedly welcome the intrusion. He was successful, at last, because Derek arched with a moan, bunching the sheets in his fists.
“If you continue to do that, I’ll come all over you,” Derek warned.
Callan smirked and twisted his fingers, making him whimper. “You’re saying that as if it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s not. But I want to come with you inside me,” Derek said, watching him through half-lidded eyes with an expression that could reasonably be called leering.
“If you continue to talk like that, I’ll come all over you.”
“That would rather miss the point.” Derek leaned back, bucking impatiently against Callan’s hand. “Please, Callan. I’m ready for you.”
He needed no further encouragement before he withdrew his fingers and covered Derek’s body with his, seeking his mouth, craving to be enveloped wholly in his warmth.
The sun set slowly somewhere far to the west, shrouding the room in dusk in its wake as they moved against each other, with each other. Derek’s fingernails dug into Callan’s skin, and he bucked up, meeting Callan’s thrusts with his own. The rest of the world fell away, leaving just the two of them, locked in a rocking rhythm as old as the crashing of the waves. In that moment, in each other’s arms, they evoked a kind of magic that was no less potent for its simplicity.
“Callan, I…” Derek whispered in his ear, his voice hitching.
“I have you, love,” Callan murmured without thinking. “You can let go.”
Derek gasped and arched, clinging to his shoulders like a man desperate to find purchase in a storm. True to his word, Callan held him as pleasure rippled through Derek’s body.
“Come to me,” Derek panted, his eyes glittering in the gathering shadow like dark jewels.
The raw emotion in his voice broke the dam, releasing the heat pooling in Callan’s groin like a flood, draining him of all the fear and pain that had been pent up inside for so long. He collapsed on top of Derek and heard him grunt through the daze. He wanted to apologize, but words seemed so distant. Strong arms enveloped him, and he finally let himself drift away, lulled into a deep sleep by an almost forgotten sense of contentment.
Chapter Fifteen
DEREK NEVER IMAGINED, when he’d first come to Irthorg, that he’d actually be enjoying his stay in this stark place. But the unfamiliar faces around him were starting to become friendly, and there was hardly any opportunity for solitude.
His ankle, which thankfully hadn’t been broken, was slowly healing, but he couldn’t bring himself to spend days on end lying in bed or sitting by the fire reading. He thrummed with a joyous, boyish energy, and it drove him outside, to explore the grounds and take in the breathtaking vistas only visible from the highest points of the keep and its ancient fortifications. Callan often joined him on his walks, despite his admonishments not to overexert himself, showing him spots that offered the most beautiful views. And sometimes those spots held no other attraction than being secluded enough for Callan to push Derek against a wall with just the right amount of roughness to turn Derek’s blood to liquid fire and do things that left them both breathless and spent.
The weather grew colder every day. That morning, the wind was too strong for Derek’s liking to enjoy the upper walkways, so after breakfast, Callan and he descended into the lower levels. There was an area of greenery behind the storage sheds that bordered the smaller yard the guards used for archery practice. Once a lush garden, it had been left untended, and now weeds and brambles grew wild. The few apple trees were heavy with fruit, but no one bothered to pick them, and many had fallen to the ground to rot.
“This is a pretty patch of wilderness,” Derek said, stooping to run his hand over the tallest grass blades. “Seems almost out of place. Everything else is kept in such immaculate order.”
“This was Mother’s favorite spot,” Callan said. He picked his way to the crumbling outer wall where a stone bench stood half-hidden by a briar bush. “When I was little, I used to climb the apple trees while she’d sit here with her needlework. After she died, everybody sort of forgot about the garden. It’s too out of the way. Father remembers it, but he never comes here.”
“Why not?”
“He loved her very much. I think the memories are a bit too vivid here.”
Derek could understand that. The place where a person spent most of their time was always filled with their energy, even after their death. He’d felt it too, in his father’s study after he’d been killed. The memories were etched into every floorboard, every piece of paper. Derek had had a hard time being there without him, half expecting him to turn up at any moment and inquire irritably what Derek was doing in there. It must have been more difficult for the duke, whose feelings for his late wife must have been very different from the trepidation Count Johan had instilled in most of his family.
Reconciling Duke Bergen’s hard image with tender feelings and genuine grief was a challenge, but it wasn’t impossible. Derek had already observed enough of the man to know he loved his children dearly, even if his love often became overbearing. But it certainly wasn’t the lack of caring that made the duke act the way he did.
“But you come here,” he said as they both sat on the bench.
The roar of the sea against the high cliffs was barely audible, and the tall mossy walls created the illusion of being ensconced in a bubble of lush autumn, the kind filled with the fragrance of fruit and berries and decaying leaves. Derek could see why Callan’s mother had favored this corner of the castle rather than a chamber overlooking the infinite expanse of sky and deep water.
“Only recently,” Callan said. “There were times I needed to be alone.”
For a while, they sat quietly side by side, with only the chirping of birds interrupting the silence. Derek kept stealing glances at the man sitting next to him. After a week of recuperation, the bruises on Callan’s face had faded into dirty yellow, but they still did nothing to detract from his handsomeness. His dark hair had grown just enough to get into his eyes, and he kept tossing it back impatiently. These were the kinds of details Derek would hardly have noticed before but now seemed to command most of his attention.
“I don’t usually talk about it, but when Idona died, it shook me rather badly,” Callan said at last. He picked up a dry twig and twirled it in his hands, focusing on it instead of looking at Derek. “I blamed myself for letting it happen. I still do.”
“Is that why you let the rumors about her being killed run so rampant? Because you were feeling guilty?”
“Yes. I figured the gossip wasn’t so far from the truth, and people would talk anyway.”
“You’re so quick to accept punishment for anything bad that happens around you. Not everything is your fault,” Derek said gently.
“I can’t think otherwise. If I don’t control my fate, how else can I protect the people around me?”
“You can’t always protect them.” Derek placed his hand on Callan’s arm, the muscles tense under his fingers. “Sometimes, people do awful, stupid things you can neither anticipate nor remedy. And sometimes, they’re faced with forces they can’t overcome. None of that is the fault of those who love them. We can only do our best and hope that it’s enough.”
Callan finally turned to him. His blue eyes were serious, their expression almost too intense, and De
rek found himself unable to look away. Sometimes those eyes were dark whirlpools of lust he yearned to drown in, and sometimes they were chunks of ice so sharp they could cut, but now he could see something else in them, something fragile and vulnerable, like a tender flower blooming from under a thick blanket of snow.
I love you. The thought came with sudden clarity. He wasn’t surprised by the emotion. He’d been lost to it, completely and irreversibly, for a long time, before they’d come back to Irthorg, before their mad dash through the hostile island, maybe even before they’d held each other aboard the pirate ship. He couldn’t deny it, and he couldn’t hold it back any longer.
He opened his mouth, his heart pounding in his chest with a mix of anxiety and excitement, but before he could say the words, Callan leaned in and kissed him, so thoroughly Derek’s thoughts scattered, and his breath caught.
“We’re to ride for Bryluen tomorrow,” Callan said after releasing him. “Do you still want to come? The weather is changing, and it’ll be a hard ride. Your leg—”
“Is going to be fine,” Derek said firmly. “I’ve been walking on my own for days now. Of course I’m coming. In fact—” He leaned closer to Callan and dropped his voice to a suggestive whisper. “—if it isn’t too wet outside, we could slip away into the woods at night.”
“Why? Do you want to see the wolves again?” Callan asked.
A small smile spread on Callan’s lips as his fingers skimmed the length of Derek’s arm in a casual caress. After a week of sharing the same bed every night, Derek had become quite familiar with this smile, a private thing only reserved for those rare moments when Callan put down his guard and just let himself feel. And if that feeling was half as beautiful as Callan’s smile, Derek would count himself the luckiest man in all of Ivicia.
“No wolves. Just you and me,” Derek said. A shiver of elation went through him when Callan’s eyes darkened with desire. It was still hard to believe that he, of all people, inspired such ardor in a man like Callan, who could surely enjoy the charms of any person he wanted simply on the merit of his looks.
But by now he knew casual liaisons of that kind weren’t in Callan’s nature. Even without him saying anything, Derek deduced the last person to share Callan’s bed had been his late wife.
He reached over to Callan, brushing his lips against the other man’s. Callan responded eagerly, hungrily, deepening their kiss so their tongues were locked in an exploratory dance, courteous and heated at the same time. Derek moaned into his mouth, melting against Callan’s solid body as if he were a drop of rain clinging to his skin.
“My lord,” someone called from the direction of the gate, and they both jumped, untangling themselves like a pair of boys caught groping in the hayloft.
“Beg your pardon, my lord,” the guard said, addressing Callan. He had to almost shout to be heard over the expanse of the overgrown garden, but he kept a respectful distance, seeing their delicate position. “Commander Rema asks you to come to the stables to inspect the horses.”
Callan stood up. “I’m sorry,” he told Derek with visible regret. “I have to see what they want.”
“Of course.” Derek smiled up at him, hiding his disappointment. But Callan’s duties came first, and they still had the entire night ahead of them to gift each other pleasure. “I’ll see you later.”
DEREK SAT ON the stone bench for a few minutes, waiting for the heat of arousal to subside and listening to the birds singing in the apple trees. Callan was right; it was peaceful here, the little overgrown garden lovely in its unassuming shabbiness.
Finally, he pushed himself up with some effort. He was able to walk just fine, but with his foot still a bit swollen and sore, he wasn’t quite as hale as he tried to make Callan believe. But pushing through pain came naturally to him now, and he considered this nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
He took the long route back, slowly making his way around the storehouses for no better reason than idle curiosity. He was familiar with the running of the keep back in Camria, but at Irthorg—more a fortress than an estate—things were done differently, and he was glad of the opportunity to see the more prosaic side of daily life in a castle so large.
Nearing a corner of the farthest shed, he heard voices and paused. He recognized the slightly higher pitch of Medwin, the castellan, and risked a peek from behind the shed, reluctant for some reason to intrude on the conversation.
One of the men was indeed Medwin, the gilded chain of his post glinting in the morning sun against the somber black of his clothing, but he wasn’t the one who drew Derek’s attention. The man he was speaking with was standing with his back to Derek, but something about his stance tugged at his memory. Derek shrank farther back behind the shed, compelled by a mix of curiosity and uneasiness. It was hardly an honorable thing to do, eavesdropping on a private meeting, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he’d met the other man before, and his instinct told him to stay where he was.
“You know what will happen if the duke’s son is harmed again,” Medwin told the man, keeping his voice low. A furrow creased his forehead, and his mouth was curved in distaste. “You’re lucky His Grace didn’t have you hanged after the first time.”
“It won’t happen,” the man said. “Those Undin pricks got angry after he gave them a good beating. Wouldn’t hear of just leaving him be, especially not when there was somebody willing to pay for the privilege of gouging his pretty eyes out. Greedy fuckers. I don’t deal with them anymore.”
Derek clutched the wooden wall of the shed to keep his head from spinning. He knew that voice, tinged heavily with Sansian accent, the same one that had issued him curt directions when his kidnappers’ cart had stopped on a lonely rocky shore where their ship was waiting, right before Callan and Leandre had arrived and the night had erupted with screams and death and the clash of steel. There was no chance of him ever forgetting it.
But, for the same man to be speaking with the duke’s castellan, discussing the details of the duke’s son’s kidnapping? It was unthinkable. Yet here he was, wearing the modest garb of a local tradesman, receiving…orders?
“Make sure it’s done quick,” Medwin said and then proceeded to take a small leather pouch out of the pocket of his coat. The pouch made the distinctive metal clank of heavy coins when the other man snatched it from his hand. “But make sure there would be no doubt as to the ‘culprit.’”
“A Danulf arrow will do the trick,” the man said. Derek didn’t see his face, but he couldn’t mistake the smirk in his voice. “No need to go through the entire charade, snatching him up and whatnot. Clean and simple, it is.”
“I don’t want to know anything about it,” Medwin said sharply. He glanced around him nervously, but save for Derek, who was safely hidden from view, the place was completely deserted. “Just do it.”
The man bowed with an exaggeration that tipped into mockery. Medwin pursed his lips and nodded curtly, indicating the man to follow him toward the main yard.
Derek held his breath until they were well out of sight and then sagged heavily against the wall. A thousand thoughts raced through his mind, but he could only retain one of them—Medwin had been arranging a murder. And considering his insistence on Callan’s safety, Derek had a pretty good idea of whom the intended victim might be—as well as who was behind the scheme.
But he had to be sure. Perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him, and this was all some terrible mistake. Surely, a mistake would be so much more plausible than Derek accidentally stumbling upon a conspiracy to kill him?
With a renewed determination, Derek hurried in the direction the men had taken, but by the time he’d reached the main courtyard, there was no sign of the Sansian man anywhere. The open space bustled with the usual daily activity of a large keep, carts and horses and people all coming and going through the main gate. Finally Derek spotted Medwin, who was talking to a stable hand, and purposefully made his way to him.
“Who were you talking to back there just
now?” Derek asked, keeping his voice low but firm. Sometimes the best tactic was a direct and blunt offense, meant to throw his opponent off guard, but it was one he rarely employed, and now his heart was hammering with something close to anxiety.
“Pardon me, Your Grace?” Medwin turned to him, visibly startled. The stable hand bowed and scampered off.
“The Sansian. Who is he?”
Something flickered in Medwin’s eyes, gone too quickly to tell whether it was fear or annoyance.
“A cloth merchant. I was placing an order for new linen.”
Derek frowned. The answer was so readily offered as to sound rehearsed. And new linen hardly necessitated such secrecy.
“Then why were you discussing arrows?”
This time, there was no mistaking the alarm in Medwin’s eyes.
“Arrows? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Your Grace,” Medwin said, the agitation in his voice belying the polite words.
“I heard you,” Derek said, pressing his advantage now that Medwin was clearly nervous. “It was no linen you were ordering. You paid him to commit murder.”
“I did nothing of the sort, Your Grace. Now, if you’ll forgive me, I must be away on the duke’s business.” Without actually waiting for Derek to excuse him, Medwin wheeled around and strode off, almost running.
Derek started after him but paused. It’d do him no good pressing the castellan. Despite his status, he was a guest at Irthorg, devoid of any real authority. But he knew someone who had it in spades.
DESPITE THE DISCOMFORT it caused his ankle, Derek couldn’t stop himself from pacing. Callan’s rooms, as sparse as they’d seemed to him at first, had become intimately familiar over the course of the last week, but now he barely registered the furnishings and the warmth of the fire.
He was impatient for Callan to return, yet in his heart, he wished he could delay a little while longer. It wasn’t a conversation he was eager to have. There was no pleasant way of asking a man whether he knew his father was planning his groom’s murder.
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