Brute (19 page)

Aric wondered how the son of a sailor came to know the royal library so intimately, but didn’t ask. Instead, he watched the other man slurp his dinner and then use the bread to mop up the last of the sauce. “I saw the prince in the library today,” Aric said.

Gray froze in the middle of handing his empty bowl back. “A-Aldfrid?”

“Yes. He… he asked after you.”

Gray’s expression—always a bit difficult to read anyway—became very guarded. “Oh?”

Aric took the bowl but didn’t walk away with it. He hadn’t eaten yet himself and was very hungry, but something told him this discussion was important. To whom it was important and why, he couldn’t have said. “I think… he seemed distressed about you.”

“D-d-d-d-d—Fuck! D-distressed I’m s-s-still alive.”

“I don’t think so. I think… he cares about you, doesn’t he?”

Gray’s jaw worked for a moment. “H-he did once.” Then he folded himself into a ball in the corner of the cell, and Aric decided it was time to steer the conversation in a slightly different direction.

“He let me borrow a book from the library. He said I could read it here, and when I’m finished with it, I can exchange it for another.”

Gray didn’t answer, although Aric could tell by the set of his shoulders that he was listening.

“I’m going to have my dinner now,” Aric said, “and then I’m going to read. If you want, I can try to read out loud. I’m… I’m still not very good at it, but—”

“I’d like that,” Gray interrupted with a soft voice. “I m-miss reading. I miss so damned
much
!” Aric pretended he didn’t hear the sounds as Gray worked hard to suppress sobs. Sometimes a man wanted comfort, but sometimes there was greater dignity in being left alone.

The fish stew was good. It filled his belly comfortably, along with the rest of the bread and two small, crisp apples. When the food was gone and his usual tankard of ale empty, Aric washed up at his basin and removed his boots. The green book was sitting on the mattress, which was still bare of blankets. He grabbed the book, tucked it under his arm, and then took the largest of his candles off the shelf. He returned to the cell, which he hadn’t bothered to bolt.

In the warm, flickering light, Gray looked very young. He gave Aric a weak smile as the larger man settled beside him, and then Gray scooted a little closer so that their shoulders just barely touched. “Wh-what’s the book?”

Aric hadn’t even looked, and now that he did, he saw that the cover and spine contained no title, only the embossed and gilded drawing of a boat. He opened the book. The pages inside were thick and yellowed, and the printing looked a little smeary and old-fashioned. There weren’t any illustrations. “There are a lot of words here,” he said uncertainly.

“B-but you only have to read them one at a t-t-time.”

Well, put like that, the challenge did seem slightly less daunting. Aric squinted at the first sentence, not yet having the courage to say it aloud. But when he deciphered its meaning, he couldn’t help a startled little gasp.

“Wh-what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s only that I think this book is about those giants—Lorad and Lokad.”

Gray’s laughter was warm and hearty, and it loosened something tight in Aric’s heart. “I g-guess I’m not the only one who s-s-sees you that way.”

“Prince Aldfrid was making a joke.”

“M-maybe. H-he liked to tease. He wasn’t cruel, though.” Gray sighed. “N-never cruel. Come on, Aric. Read to me.”

Aric did. Haltingly, and with many mistakes. Sometimes he couldn’t figure out a word at all, and then he had to spell it to Gray, who would tell him what those confusing letters meant. But Gray was patient—urging Aric to continue whenever he got frustrated enough to want to give up—and Aric found that after a few pages the task came a little more easily to him. He read about Lorad and Lokad, who were fathered by lightning and birthed from a crevasse in one of the mountains to the west, and who suckled on tree sap and dew. When they were grown, they took pity on the humans, who were suffering from a crop-killing drought. First the giants tried to shake water from the clouds, but then the clouds dried up and blew away. Then they tried to water the earth with their own tears, but their tears were too salty. Finally, an eagle told them of a place to the east where the soil was fertile and the rain plentiful and where, even in drought years, people could feed themselves from the sea. But there was a problem: a terrible monster lurked near the shore, and it would prey on any people who came too close.

So Lorad and Lokad made their way to the land and they found the monster. They fought it, but although they were strong, it drew strength from the water, and they couldn’t drag it to shore. They withdrew to treat their wounds and strategize. It began to rain, and they saw how the monster hissed and moaned when the fresh water hit its scales. The brothers were heartened by their discovery, but disappointed when the monster simply sank beneath the waves.

“If we had more fresh water, we could defeat the monster,” Lorad said.

“Rain will not be enough. We need a river,” said his twin.

The giants set out in search of a river, and they found one: the Great River. Although it would surely have plenty of water for their needs, the Great River looped and twisted like a snake swallowing its own tail.

The giants used all their great strength to reshape the earth, in an attempt to coax the river along the necessary course. When the river still wouldn’t budge, they wrapped their great arms around it and wrestled it until it flowed where they wanted, straight into the sea. The sudden influx of fresh water killed the sea monster, and the people cheered.

But Lorad and Lokad had expended too much of themselves. Even as the humans prepared to settle in their new land, the giants collapsed into the Great River and were drowned. When the giant corpses were pulled from the mouth of the river, the people cried and begged the gods to return their heroes to them. The gods wouldn’t do that much—gods tended to be rather final in their decisions about death—but they did turn the bodies to stone so that the giants could stand forever at the mouth of the Great River, guarding Tellomer from dangers from the sea.

Aric’s voice was hoarse by the time he ended the tale, but he didn’t want to go to sleep. There was something so wonderfully intimate about sitting with another person like this, sharing a story, the candlelight flickering in the darkness. It was as if the rest of the world disappeared as long as the storytelling continued.

“Y-you read very well,” said Gray. “You m-m-must learn quickly.”

“I made a lot of mistakes.”

“Everyone does.” Gray rested his head on Aric’s shoulder. “D-do you see why Friddy chose that book for you? You’re a hero too.”

Aric snorted. “I’m not.”

“When y-you saved Friddy, is that when y-you lost your hand?”

“Yes.”

“D-d-did you almost die?”

“Maybe.”

Gray rested his hand on Aric’s knee. “Sacrificed yourself, j-just like the giants.”

“But I didn’t mean to! It’s only… the prince fell over the cliff, and I didn’t think at all, I just moved. I was the tallest and the strongest. I don’t think anyone else could have reached him in time. He was injured pretty badly. But I wasn’t a hero. I saw something that needed to be done, and I did it.”

With a low chuckle, Gray squeezed his knee. “Th-that’s what heroes do, Aric.”

“But I’m not—”

“You s-saved me.”

Aric shook his head and then gave a little tug on the chain that attached Gray’s collar to the floor. “You’re still a prisoner.”

“You
saved
me,” Gray repeated firmly to Aric. And then he kissed him.

At first, Aric was too startled to do anything except freeze. He was so focused on the feel of Gray’s warm lips against his that he barely noticed when Gray plucked the book out of his hand and then, presumably, set it aside. Aric parted his lips and, for the first time in his life, tasted another man—fish stew and something new, something he guessed was just Gray’s own flavor.

Gray wriggled out of the quilt and clambered onto Aric’s lap so that his naked chest was pressed against Aric’s shirt and his knees straddled Aric’s hips. He kissed Aric again, longer and more deeply. Aric’s hand hovered in midair; he had no idea where to put it.

Gray moved away, but only enough to drag his lips across Aric’s jaw and to just below his ear. “D-do you want this?” he whispered.

“I… I….” Aric was now the one with the stutter. “I-I can’t….”

“It doesn’t have to m-mean anything. J-just c-comfort given, comfort shared. Or it can mean everything.”

Aric’s lungs were refusing to work properly, and his hand stopped obeying him, settling on Gray’s back, just above the swell of his buttocks. “I’ve never done this,” he admitted.

“You’re a v-virgin?”

“No. There are—there were boys during the Harvest Moon Festival. I paid them double.” He realized that his words probably made little sense, but he just couldn’t be coherent with Gray pressed up against him, breathing against his neck.

“Whores? That’s all?”

“Yes.”

“N-not the same then. Not the same as when someone w-wants you. And gods, Aric, I want you.”

If Aric hadn’t been hard already, the throatiness of Gray’s declaration would have done the trick. As it was, he let his head fall back—hard enough for it to knock against the stone wall—and he moaned as Gray mouthed at his neck and ground their groins together. Gray was hard as well, but his skin was very soft under Aric’s hand, and the muscle of his ass was nicely pliant when Aric allowed his hand to drop a bit farther down.

Aric was much larger and heavier than Gray, yet somehow Gray managed to maneuver them both so that Aric was lying flat on his back on the quilts. Then Gray made Aric’s trousers disappear—maybe he truly was a witch—and
then
Gray was stretched out full length on top of him, like a wonderfully living blanket. A wonderfully
moving
blanket, actually, as Gray traced his mouth and fingers over Aric’s face, over his neck and collarbones and chest. Gray sucked and nibbled at Aric’s nipples, which made Aric gasp and grab the other man’s hair, just for something to hold on to.

“G-gods,” Gray panted against Aric’s chest. “I’m afraid I’m n-not going to last long.”

And for some reason, that struck Aric as funny, and he began to laugh. Gray wiggled back up his body, and he laughed too. The sound of their voices mingling was as good as the feeling of their bodies pressed together. “I’d l-like to dream of this tonight,” said Gray. “Dream of us. So g-good, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” answered Aric, who’d never even fantasized something like this. A beautiful man wanting him, valuing him, wrapping Aric’s body in pleasure instead of pain. It was more than anyone like him deserved, but he wouldn’t say so, not tonight, not when Gray was kissing him again and rubbing his hands on the points of Aric’s hips.

“Good gods!” Gray exclaimed.

“I’m sorry?” replied Aric, not sure whether that was the right response and not able to craft anything more clever. Gray’s fingers felt so strange around his shaft, warm and strong and soft, but not as soft as Petrus’s.

“A d-delightful challenge,” Gray said with a chuckle. Then he did something truly unexpected: he lined his cock up against Aric’s and held them together. “C-can’t quite handle them b-both,” he said with something suspiciously like a giggle.

If Gray’s hand had felt strange, his cock felt even stranger, although certainly not unpleasant. Aric wanted to touch it, to explore it with his fingers, but he only had one hand, and that hand—occupied with squeezing Gray’s ass—didn’t want to let go of its prize.

Soon it didn’t matter anyway. Gray stroked and rocked his hips, Aric arched his own hips upward, and they were both gasping out their climaxes as their combined spend flowed hot and sticky across their bellies.

Gray collapsed bonelessly atop him. “Fuck,” he said succinctly.

Aric was still too light-headed to do more than nod his agreement.

H
E
WAS
merely being kind, Aric told himself. The weather had turned very cold, and even with the stove lit, his chambers in the Brown Tower were freezing at night. He would have been comfortable enough in his bed, which was close to the stove, but Gray shivered and coughed on the cold stone floor of the cell, even with all Aric’s quilts. So Aric forsook the bed entirely and slept every night in the cell with Gray. They spooned together with some blankets below them and the rest above, and Aric’s big body kept Gray nice and warm. Of course, they made love—Gray’s term for it—almost every night, so their blood moved briskly right before sleep, and neither of them felt the least bit chilled.

Besides, with Gray already in his arms, Aric could do his job more efficiently. No more stumbling across the room, half asleep. Now, as soon as Gray began to stir, whether he cried or screamed or simply breathed raggedly, Aric was already holding him, immediately humming and stroking and murmuring words of comfort. And when Gray awakened soon afterward, he had only to whisper the particulars of his dream into Aric’s ear, and Aric would rush to tell the guard.