The Bond

 

Watermead

Something brushed Alec’s hand and he opened one eye, expecting to see Illia or one of the dogs.

Nysander was standing beside the bed.

“Go after him,” Nysander whispered, his voice faint as if it came from a great distance.

Alec lurched up, his heart pounding. Nysander had disappeared, if he’d ever been there at all.

Worse yet, Seregil was gone. Alec slid his hand over the sheets where Seregil had slept. They were cold.

Whether dream or vision, the urgency of Nysander’s warning grew stronger by the second.

Scrambling out of bed, Alec hauled on breeches and a shirt and headed for the door. His bare foot struck something as he crossed the threshold. It was a thick roll of parchments bound with plain string.

Untying it, he quickly scanned the familiar flowing script covering the first page.

“Alec talí, remember me kindly and try—”

“Damn!” Pages scattered in all directions as Alec ran for the stables.

Too much to hope that Seregil had gone on foot; Cynril was missing from her stall. Mounted bareback on Patch, Alec searched for and quickly found Cynril’s tracks, the distinctive print of the slightly splayed right hind hoof plain in the dust of the road outside the courtyard gate.

Kicking Patch into a gallop, he rode down the hill and across the bridge, reining in where the two roads met to see which way Seregil had gone.

But there was no sign of Cynril here. Cursing softly to himself, Alec dismounted for a closer search, then walked back onto the bridge and scanned the hillside, looking for telltale lines across the dewy meadow. Nothing there either, or on the hill trail. He was about to ride back for Micum when a patch of freshly turned gravel on the stream bank above the bridge caught his eye.

You went up the streambed, you sneaky bastard! Alec thought with grudging admiration. The bridge was too low to ride under and there were no other signs downstream. Upstream lay Beka’s otter pond, and the ill-fated pass that Alec had crossed to Warnik’s valley.

And beyond that, the whole damn world.

Mounting again, Alec rode up the trail. The streambed grew steeper and he soon found where Seregil had been forced to come up onto the trail. Judging by the tracks, he’d traveled quickly from here.

Heedless of the branches that whipped at his face and shoulders, Alec kicked Patch into a gallop again. When the clearing around the pond came into view ahead, he was both relieved and surprised to see Seregil there, sitting motionless in the saddle as if admiring the morning.

Alec’s first reaction to Seregil’s letter had been only the desperate desire to find him. He realized now that there had also been a generous leaven of anger mixed in. When Seregil raised his head now, looking back at him with an expression of startled wariness, the anger took over. It was the look you’d give an enemy.

Or a stranger.

“Wait—” Seregil called, but Alec ignored him. Digging his heels into Patch’s sides, he charged Seregil, bearing down on him before he could turn his own horse out of the way. The animals collided and Cynril reared, throwing Seregil off into the water. Alec leapt down and waded in after him. Grabbing Seregil by the front of his tunic, he hauled him to his knees and shook the crumpled note in his face.

“What’s this supposed to be?” he yelled. “‘All I have in Rhíminee is yours now’? What is this?”

Seregil struggled to his feet and pulled free, not meeting Alec’s eye. “After everything that’s happened—” He paused, took a deep breath. “After all that, I decided it would be better for everyone if I just went away.”

“You decided. You decided?” Furious, Alec grabbed Seregil with both hands and shook him. The wrinkled parchment drifted across the pool, hung a moment against a stone, and spun away unnoticed down the stream. “I followed you over half the earth to Rhíminee for no other reason than you asked me to! I saved your damn life twice before we even got there and how many times since? I stood with you against Mardus and all the rest. But now, after moping around all summer, you decide you’re better off without me?”

Color flared in Seregil’s gaunt face. “I never meant for you to take it that way. Bilairy’s Balls, Alec, you saw what happened at the Cockerel. That was my fault. Mine! And it was only thanks to Ashnazai’s twisted vanity that you didn’t end up dead with them. Micum’s crippled for life, in case you didn’t notice, lucky to be alive. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve almost gotten him killed before? And Nysander—Let’s not forget what I did for him!”

“Nysander sent me!”

Seregil went ashen. “What?”

“Nysander sent me after you,” Alec told him. “I don’t know if it was a dream or a ghost or what, but he woke me and told me to go after you. Illior’s Hands, Seregil, when are you going to forgive yourself for just doing what he asked you to?”

He paused as another thought dawned on him. “When are you going to forgive Nysander?”

Seregil glared at him wordlessly, then pushed Alec’s hands away. Sloshing up to the bank, he sank down on a log overlooking the pond. Alec followed, settling on a rock beside him.

Seregil hung his head and let out an unsteady breath. After a moment he said, “He knew. He should have told me.”

“You would have tried to stop him.”

“Damn right I would have!” Seregil flared, clenching his fists on his knees. Angry tears spilled down his cheeks, the first Alec had ever seen him shed.

“If you’d done that, we’d have failed,” Alec said, moving to sit beside him on the log. “Everything Nysander worked for would’ve been lost. The Helm would have taken him over and he’d have ended up as their Vatharna.”

For an instant Alec thought he felt the wizard’s touch against his hand again. “I think he must be grateful to you.”

Seregil covered his face, giving way at last to silent sobs. Alec wrapped an arm around him, holding him tightly. “You were the only one who loved him enough not to hesitate when the time came. He knew that. In the end you saved him the only way you could. Why can’t you let yourself see that?”

“All these weeks—” Seregil shrugged helplessly. “You’re right, right about everything. But why can’t I feel it? I can’t feel anything anymore! I’m floundering around in a black fog. I look at the rest of you, see you healing, going on. I want to, but I can’t!”

“Just like I couldn’t make myself jump that time at Kassarie’s keep?”

Seregil let out a small, choked laugh. “I guess so.”

“So let me help you, the way you helped me then,” Alec persisted.

Seregil wiped his nose on his sodden sleeve. “As I recall, I threw you off the roof into a gorge.”

“Fine, if that’s what it takes to show you that I’m not about to let you slink away like some old dog going off to die.”

The guilty look that crossed his friend’s face told Alec his worst fears had been correct. “I’m not letting you go,” he said again, gripping Seregil’s sleeve for emphasis.

Seregil shook his head miserably. “I can’t stay here.”

“All right, but you’re not leaving me.”

“I thought you’d be happy at Watermead.”

“I love everyone there like my own family, but not—” Alec broke off, feeling his face go warm.

“But not what?” Seregil turned and brushed a clump of damp hair back from Alec’s face, studying his expression.

Alec forced himself to meet Seregil’s questioning gaze squarely. “Not as much as I love you.”

Seregil looked at him for a moment, grey eyes still sad. “I love you, too. More than I’ve loved anyone for a long time. But you’re so young and—” He spread his hands and sighed. “It just didn’t seem right.”

“I’m not that young,” Alec countered wryly, thinking of all they’d been through together. “But I am half faie, so I’ve got a lot of years ahead of me. Besides, I’ve only just begun to understand Aurënfaie, I still don’t know one style of snail fork from another, and I can’t jigger a Triple Crow lock. Who else is going to teach me all that?”

Seregil looked out over the pond again. “Father, brother, friend, and lover.”

“What?” A coldness passed over Alec’s heart; Mardus had spoken almost those same words when asking about his relationship to Seregil.

“Something else the Oracle of Illior said that night I asked about you,” Seregil answered, watching an otter slip into the water. “I kept thinking I had it all sorted out and settled, but I don’t. I’ve been the first three to you and swore that was enough, but if you stay on with me—”

“I know.” Catching Seregil off guard, Alec leaned forward and pressed his lips to Seregil’s with the same mix of awkwardness and determination he’d felt the first time. But when he felt Seregil’s arms slip around him in a welcoming embrace, the confusion that had haunted him through the winter cleared like fog before a changing wind.

Take what the gods send, Seregil had told him more than once.

He would, and thankfully.

Seregil drew back a little, and there was something like wonder in his grey eyes as he touched Alec’s cheek. “Anything we do, tali, we do with honor. Before all else, I’m your friend and always will be, even if you take a hundred wives or lovers later on.”

Alec started to protest but Seregil smiled and pressed a finger across his lips. “As long as I have a place in your heart, I’m satisfied.”

“You always have to have the last word, don’t you?” Alec growled, then kissed him again. The feel of Seregil’s lean body pressing against his own suddenly felt as natural and easy as one stream flowing into another. His last remaining worry was that he had very little idea about how to proceed from here.

 

***

 

 

It was almost like an ordinary day at Watermead after that, the same as any other visit. Only it wasn’t. Even after their admission by the otter pool, Alec could sense the lingering sadness that still clung to Seregil. It was too much to hope, he supposed, that all that had happened this morning was enough to heal the wounds his friend carried. When Seregil noticed Alec watching him, he always brightened and smiled, but when he thought no one was looking the light faded a little. So Alec kept an eye on him and kept his own council. He caught Seregil watching him, too, looking a little worried. He wondered if he was beginning to regret his words that morning.

Anything we do, tali, we do with honor.

Things had changed between them, at the otter pool.

They might have changed in a worse direction if Alec hadn’t gotten there in time. The thought of Seregil trying to leave him behind still hurt.

Seregil seemed determined to keep them busy around the farm, carrying in water and firewood for Kari, helping Micum tend a horse with a sore on its leg, and driving a wagon to a field where the hired men were haying. As they rode back with a load, Alec seized the opportunity.

“Were you going off to die this morning?”

Seregil was quiet for a moment, staring down the track ahead of them, reins slack in his hands. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Maybe. I’m sorry I scared you.”

“Don’t do it again.”

“I won’t.” Seregil turned to him, his expression solemn. “You have my word, Alec. Rei phöril—”

Alec clasped his shoulder. “Don’t. I don’t need any oaths from you. You said you’d never lie to me, and I believe you.”

“Thank you.” Seregil smiled—a real smile—and kissed him.

Alec’s breath caught in his throat; it was the first time that Seregil had initiated a kiss between them. He had questions of a different nature, too, but he couldn’t seem to find the words, out here in daylight.

Anything we do—

He couldn’t help thinking of the night he’d found Seregil lounging in that green light brothel in the Street of Lights and the first stirring of attraction he’d felt then—for now Alec understood what that had been. The highly detailed murals on the walls there had left him with no doubt as to the sort of pleasures men found with each other. Some of it wasn’t all that different from what he’d done with Ylinestra and Myrhichia, only—who did what to who when it was both men? Despite occasional good natured teasing, Seregil had never touched directly on the subject in any detail, and Alec was left with nothing but a vague mix of anticipation and unease, and concern for Seregil. This morning he’d been ready to go off and die. Maybe Alec was expecting too much?

By supper time he was willing the sun to sink faster, so that they could finally be alone to sort things out. As he sat with Seregil and the Cavishes by the hearth afterwards, holding little Gherin for Kari so she could knit, he began to feel increasingly nervous and awkward. Seregil was yawning, obviously worn out.

 

***

 

Alec grew more and more quiet, the closer they got to the end of the evening, and Seregil was aware of the way Alec’s gaze fixed on him when he thought Seregil wasn’t looking. It was more than ale or the hearth fire that kept that persistent pink flush in his friend’s smooth cheeks. It deepened to an outright blush when old Arna asked Alec if he felt all right.

The certainty Seregil had felt that morning was slipping. It’s too soon. I have no right.

But his traitor memory played the words of the Oracle over and over again: Father, brother, friend, and lover. Alec’s poignantly innocent kisses on that Plenimaran beach and today left him with no doubt that they were no longer merely friends, much less master and apprentice. They’d forged a bond built on shared trust and hardship. They owed each other their lives. Seregil wasn’t exactly sure when he’d fallen in love with Alec; it had taken him this long to admit it.

Friend. Lover?

Seregil remembered his first hesitant embraces with Ilar, the mix of fear and thrill and muddled desire. As much as he’d later come to hate the lying son of a bitch, he had to admit that Ilar had been the perfect first lover: gentle, patient, and asking for so little. There hadn’t been much opportunity for privacy at that summer encampment. They’d never even been naked with each other. All the same, Seregil had loved him and lived for his caresses until Ilar broke his heart and changed his life forever.

It hadn’t really prepared him for his first night in Prince Korathan’s bed, less than a year later. It wasn’t love that put him there, but desperate loneliness. The young prince had been kind, too, but less patient and far less restrained than Ilar. Only then did Seregil realize that his love making with Ilar had been little more than foreplay. Korathan expected—and got—a lot more than that from Seregil, right from the start. Seregil had hardly been able to get out of bed the first few mornings. Fortunately Korathan had been as careful to give pleasure as he was determined to receive it. Seregil hadn’t loved him, but was grateful for the sense of peace he’d found for a little while in the young man’s strong arms. And that had ended abruptly and painfully, too, when Phoria caught them together one night.

He meant to do better than that by Alec.

Seregil wanted more than that.

He hardly realized how far his mind had strayed until Kari set her knitting aside and took Gherin from Alec’s arms. “Seregil, Alec’s about to go to sleep in his chair after the long day you gave him. Go to bed, both of you.”

She smiled as she said it, but it felt like she’d read his thoughts. Was it his guilty imagination, or did her look hold a warning?

Micum stood and stretched, then scooped up Luthas, who’d been playing with a horn spoon at his feet. “Good night! And remember; I want a sword match with you tomorrow, Alec!”

“I’ll be ready. I still have a few patches of skin that aren’t bruised.”

Finally alone, Seregil and Alec sat staring into the fire in silence. Knowing they’d probably spend the rest of the night like that if he didn’t do something, Seregil stood and held out a hand. Pulling Alec to his feet, Seregil took him in a loose embrace.

Alec hugged him back, but there was hesitation in his voice as he said, “You need some sleep.”

“It’s all right.”

Alec rested his head on Seregil’s shoulder for a moment, then took his hand and led him into the bed chamber they’d shared so chastely.

Arna had banked the guest room hearth. Warmth lingered in the air, and with it the scent of pine kindling and the mingled perfume of carved cedar wood and sweet strewing herbs. The night wind sighed softly in the chimney, making the tinkling embers glow red under a thin pall of ash. Mice stirred restlessly in the thatch over the rafters and a lonely cricket chirped from some shadowed corner.

Alec came to a halt beside the bed, then took him by the shoulders far more gently than he had at the pond and kissed Seregil again in that firm, earnest way of his. Unskilled as he was, there was a naked honesty to it that warmed even the coldest, most shadowed reaches of Seregil’s battered heart.

“Talí.” It was the only thing Seregil could think of that encompassed everything he felt right now.

Alec smiled. “You called me that by accident the first time, remember?”

“Unthinking, perhaps, but no accident.”

Alec’s cheeks went crimson as he declared softly, “You’re my talí, too.”

 

***

 

Something was going to happen tonight, Alec knew; something that would probably change the way they looked at each other forever. Seregil was his friend. Alec didn’t want that to change, and yet he did.

They stood there for a moment in each other’s arms. “What now?”

Seregil’s chuckle sent a tickling vibration through his chest. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”

“I’m not scared!” It didn’t sound very convincing, though, and he felt his face go red.

“You’re my friend, Alec, and my talí. You and no other. If you don’t want this, it doesn’t change anything for me.”

Alec tightened his arms around Seregil’s waist. He could feel Seregil’s heart beating hard against his own. Warm fingers caressed the back of his neck. Warm lips kissed his forehead. Seregil said nothing but Alec knew he was waiting for an answer.

He kissed Seregil and murmured, “What do we do now?”

“Bed.” Seregil released him, then shucked off his clothes. He was thinner than usual, thanks to his summer of mourning, but still as beautiful in Alec’s eyes as ever. Then he noticed with a pang of embarrassment that Seregil’s cock wasn’t stiff in that patch of dark hair. Neither was his, for that matter. “Something’s wrong.”

Seregil smile. “No, it’s not.”

Blushing furiously, Alec looked away and began to undress, but when he was down to his long shirt Seregil caught his hand and stopped him. “Lie down.”

Alec’s heart beat against his ribs as he pulled back the quilts and slipped between the clean, sun freshened sheets. It beat a little harder as Seregil climbed in beside him.

Lifting Alec’s right arm out of the way, Seregil slid under it to settle close beside him with his head on Alec’s chest and his arm snug around Alec’s waist. Then he yawned and Alec felt the tension leave his friend—his talí’s—body. Something of the feeling of their morning embrace came back to him; this felt easy and right. Heat settled in Alec’s belly as he stroked Seregil’s silky brown hair and watched the shifting shadows above the rafters, enjoying the soft rhythm of Seregil’s breath against his chest through the thin material of his shirt. He’d slept beside Seregil many times, but never like this.

After a few minutes Seregil looked up at him. “I still see questions in your eyes.”

Alec hesitated, screwing up his courage to finally voice his main concern. “Remember when I found you at that green lantern brothel?”

Seregil grinned. “It was quite the memorable moment.”

“Well—” This was as difficult as trying to make himself jump from the tower of Kassarie’s keep! But this time he managed it without being thrown. “It’s just—I’ve been thinking of those murals.”

Seregil raised an amused eyebrow. “You want a tavern board to choose from?”

“No! I just—I’m not so sure I want to do some of those things. A lot of those things!”

“Forget all that.” Seregil smoothed a stray strand of blond hair away from Alec’s cheek. “I think I know what you’ll like tonight. And you can always say so when you don’t.”

Alec paused, then shifted away just enough to pull off his shirt without elbowing Seregil in the face. Then he kicked back the covers.

Seregil’s eyes widened, no doubt surprised at this breach of Alec’s usual modesty. Then he leaned forward and kissed Alec, sliding the tip of his tongue lightly across Alec’s closed lips. Strange thing to do, but it felt surprisingly good, so Alec did it back. This won him a hum of approval. He could feel the long hardness of Seregil’s shaft against his hip now, and his own against his belly.

Pulling back a little, he gasped, “Show me.”

 

 

And Seregil, ever the willing teacher, did so, slowly at first, with fingers, lips, and tongue, touching him in ways that made Alec gasp and shiver. Seregil showed him sensitive places he didn’t even know he had: the side of his neck, the crook of an elbow, an ankle, behind his balls. Drowning in sensation, he lay there, letting Seregil do what he wanted; this was like nothing he’d ever felt, not even with Myrhichia. His cock ached but Seregil didn’t touch it, even when Alec began to move under his hands, trying to coax him there.

Seregil chuckled softly, then stretched out beside him and kissed Alec’s right knee. Then just above it, and a bit higher, and then a little higher, slowly working his way to the edge of the small island of dark blond curls at the base of his shaft. Alec’s breath quickened as Seregil swirled his tongue across the sensitive skin between there and his hipbone. Myrhichia had taken him in her mouth and pleasured him with her tongue. That had been exciting and pleasurable, but it was all the more so when Seregil did the same, and with skills rivaling those of the courtesan. Stroking Seregil’s hair with shaking fingers, he was half aware of his own whispered, incoherent pleas for release. But Seregil stopped too soon. Far too soon.

“Not yet, talí,” Seregil said, tracing the length of Alec’s shaft with his tongue one last time from root to foreskin. He guided Alec up to sit with his back to Seregil’s chest and began kissing and nipping at the back of his neck and across his shoulders, all the while caressing his chest and belly, just a few tantalizing inches from where Alec most wanted to be touched again.

Seregil murmured something in Aurënfaie against his skin.

“What?”

“My heart is yours forever.”

“So is mine—” Alec gasped as a thumb skimmed his left nipple. “Yours, I mean.”

Seregil laughed softly, a deep, rich throaty laugh, then licked Alec’s ear and teased the stiffened nipple again between two fingers.

Alec felt a little faint. Ylinestra had been domineering and had cheated with magic; Myrhichia had been sweet and kind. For the first time now, Alec experienced the confluence of love and sex and it was better than any magic.

Too good, in fact. When Seregil took Alec’s cock in his hand and stroked it as he nipped at that place where Alec’s neck met his shoulder, it was too much. Alec arched in his arms, vision gone white in a long agony of pleasure, and came all over his chest, belly, and Seregil’s hand. Mortified beyond words, he weakly tried to struggle free, but Seregil held him tight.

“It’s all right, talí. I take it as a compliment,” Seregil murmured against his cheek, then licked one glistening finger, like it was coated with honey.

Alec felt a fresh spike of desire . He found his discarded shirt and wiped away the mess. Then, twisting around in the circle of his lover’s arms, he cradled Seregil’s balls in one hand and ran his fingers up the length of his smooth, hard length with the other, amazed at the weight of another man’s cock in his hand. “Show me more.”

 

***

 

Seregil had never seen anyone look so innocent and so wanton at the same time, but somehow Alec managed it. That, and Alec’s amazingly sure touch, nearly undid him. Pulling Alec down with him, Seregil whispered, “Touch me the way I touched you.”

Alec had always been an apt pupil, and this was no exception. Seregil swallowed something dangerously close to a giggle as he thought, if only he was this quick learning sword play!

Kneeling on the bed beside him, Alec ran his hands over Seregil’s chest and sides. The tips of the fingers on his right hand were slightly rough from pulling a bowstring. Seregil shivered deliciously as those hands roamed further afield, over his shoulders, down the insides of his thighs. He cursed softly in delight as Alec traced the arch of his foot with his tongue. Then he kissed him from throat to navel, soft blond hair raising gooseflesh as it brushed Seregil’s skin, but stopped just short of Seregil’s cock.

Hesitant, or revenge? Seregil wondered with amusement. It soon proved to be neither as Alec licked the tip and closed his hand around the shaft, stroking him in a perfect rhythm.

All too quickly the ecstasy shook through Seregil in waves, pulling a strangled snarl of pleasure from deep in his chest as he came hard and long in Alec’s hand. Helplessly undone, he laid there, chest heaving, as Alec lay down beside him.

He found Alec’s hand and gripped it. “Thank you.”

Alec grinned, looking rather proud of himself.

Happy. Seregil felt so damn happy. The despair and self pity of the night before seemed like a bad dream. They lay there together for a while, listening to the night breeze and the beating of each other’s hearts. When his head finally stopped spinning, Seregil rolled on top of Alec and kissed his way down the side of his lover’s neck. “Your turn.”

 

***

 

The night candle burned down to the socket and guttered out before they fell, sated, against the bolsters, sweat cooling on their skin. Alec yawned widely, eyelids already heavy. “Sorry.”

Seregil gave him a fond smile. “Nothing to apologize for, talí.” Turning on his side, he pulled Alec back against his chest and kissed him on the back of the head. “Everything was perfect. Go to sleep.”

Alec was, almost before Seregil had finished speaking. But Seregil lay awake a little longer, thinking of all the times they’d nearly lost each other. But Alec’s scent and heat soothed away the dark thoughts.

“Forever, talí,” he vowed softly. “No one but you.”

 

 

***

 

Something woke Seregil just before dawn. As he lay there with Alec asleep beside him, the sense of happiness was even stronger, like being filled with sunlight. He’d never felt like this before. It took a moment to realize that it wasn’t only his own emotions he was feeling. It was almost as if he could feel a second heartbeat under his ribs.

Alec stirred beside him, then his eyes flew open in obvious surprise. “Seregil?”

“You feel it, too?”

Alec sat up, one hand pressed to his chest, just below his throat. “What is this? I feel—you!”

Laughing, Seregil pulled Alec down into his arms, heart overflowing with shared joy. “The bond. The talímenios bond. Our spirits are joined. Chypta Aura! I didn’t think I’d ever experience it.”

“Really?”

Seregil felt a twinge of a disappointment not his own. It was a little unnerving, really. This would take some getting used to. “No, I didn’t mean it that way, talí. It’s just that I never dared think you and I would end up this way.”

“Can you hear my thoughts?”

“No, it’s not like that, but I can feel how you feel.”

“Me, too.”

Seregil stroked Alec’s cheek. “It’s beautiful.”

Alec closed his eyes and nodded.

“As I understand it, the sensations probably won’t be this strong all the time. But the bond will be there for as long as we love each other.”

Alec snuggled closer. “I don’t plan on that changing, so I guess you’re stuck with me.”

“Well, I can only think of one response to that.”

“Oh? Oh!”

 

 

***

 

When they woke for the second time, Alec could hear the clatter of dishes and fire irons in the house beyond.

“We’ve missed breakfast,” Seregil said with yawn.

Alec reeked of sex and his bladder was full, but suddenly the thought of facing their friends was daunting, especially in this condition.

Seregil understood without being told. Perhaps it was the bond again. “Get dressed,” he whispered.

Together they climbed out the bedroom window and snuck into the unattended stable for their horses. They didn’t bother with saddles, but rode bareback up to the otter pond for a swim.

It was still chilly, but Seregil stripped and dove into the water, only to come up sputtering. “Bilairy’s balls, that’s cold!”

A mother otter and her two pups watched them from the bank, apparently not welcoming this interruption of their morning fishing. Alec sank into the water, not finding it as bad as all that. He swam over to Seregil and wrapped his arms around him as they stood there in the chest-deep water. “You’re always cold.”

Seregil shivered against him, but he was smiling. “You’re always warm. And as much as I’d love to make love to you again right here and now, I’m afraid your warmth is no match for frigid water.”

They contented themselves with helping each other wash. Then, dressed and refreshed, they rode back to the house and sauntered into the kitchen in search of food as if they’d just been out for an early ride. Arna was there, however. She took one look at the pair of them and burst out laughing. “So you finally came to your senses, eh?”

Alec’s face went hot and he was strongly tempted to turn tail and run.

But Seregil just laughed as he poured himself a cup of tea from the pot warming on the hearth. “Yes, we did. Any breakfast left?”

 

***

 

On the surface things were the same as they’d always been, but the looks Micum, Kari, and the servants gave him when they thought Alec wasn’t looking told another story. It was embarrassing, but he didn’t regret anything.

He sparred with Micum in the morning, grateful beyond words that his friend didn’t bring up the subject of the night’s activities, then he and Seregil helped him build a haystack in one of the fields behind the house.

The day turned warm. When Micum went back to the house to fetch them some water, Seregil pulled Alec around to the back of the stack and gave him a shove, toppling him over on his back in the crisp, fragrant hay. Grinning, Seregil straddled him and rested his hands on either side of Alec’s head. “I slept very well last night, thanks to you.”

“So did I, once you let me.” Even after everything they’d shared last night, Alec still wasn’t beyond blushing. There was more than embarrassment to it this time, though.

Seregil’s grin was crooked as he took in the sudden bulge in Alec’s breeches. He lowered himself slowly down to let Alec feel his own hardness.

“Here? No!” Alec gasped, trying to push him off.

“Just a taste,” Seregil murmured, overwhelming his lover’s protests with a kiss. Alec squirmed under him in a rather half-hearted fashion—which only made matters worse, of course—then gave in and kissed him back, tongue meeting tongue. That was still strange, but oddly intimate and exciting, too.

Lost in this soft give and take, neither of them was aware of Micum’s return until he threw a flagon of cold water over them.

“Bilairy’s balls!” Seregil sputtered, rolling off Alec.

“Someone else’s, I’d say,” Micum observed with a shrewd grin. “It’s a good thing I didn’t bring Illia back with me.”

Alec jumped up and pulled the front of his sweat-soaked shirt down, though Micum’s obvious amusement was quickly curing that problem.

Micum laughed. “Go clean up. You’ve got time for a wash before supper, and some more cold water will do you both good.”

Seregil flipped him a rude gesture as they walked away, but he was still grinning, apparently not embarrassed in the least. Alec’s face was burning and he suddenly felt a little sick.

Seregil’s smile disappeared as he laid a hand on Alec’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I should have thought—”

“It’s bad enough that everyone knows,” Alec muttered. “They don’t have to see, too.”

The minute the words were out of his mouth he knew he’d hurt Seregil, even without the bond to tell him.

Still, his lover’s grey eyes were kind as he said, “I understand, talí. I’m sorry. I should have realized.”

That just made Alec feel worse. “It’s just—”

“Still the good Dalnan?”

“After last night?” Alec made a conscious effort not to look around for people as he took Seregil’s hand. In the distance he could see Illia playing some game in the kitchen yard that involved a lot of jumping.

Seregil squeezed his hand, letting him know his unspoken apology was accepted. “I don’t expect you to change, Alec. I like you just the way you are.”

 

***

 

They turned in early that night. Alec had hardly latched the door before Seregil was in his arms, kissing him deeply as he backed Alec up against the wall by the door. He buried his fingers in Seregil’s still-damp hair as Seregil pressed against him, letting him feel his renewed arousal.

This time Alec didn’t object. Hoping to make up for his reaction at the haystack, he pulled Seregil’s shirt off over his head and licked his neck, tasting the lingering hint of salt from their day’s labors.

Seregil reciprocated as he steered Alec to the bed, dragged him onto it, and flopped down on top of him. The sensation of Seregil’s rising passion, coupled with his own, made him forget about worrying if anyone in the house knew what they were up to.

“Is this going to be a habit?” he asked between kisses, grabbing Seregil’s backside with both hands.

Seregil raised an eyebrow at him, grin a little crooked. “I certainly hope so!”