A Suitable Bodyguard, page 14
“Hmm,” Mil said without actually agreeing.
Zelli rubbed his chest, then growled a little and tore his hand away. It was caught and held in one of Tahlen’s warm hands and Zelli dropped his head to exhale in relief. He didn’t care what the outguards thought. He was already strange to them, more fae than human.
He laced his fingers with Tahlen’s before lifting his head again. “I’m afraid I don’t know much of anything about the—about that side of my kin. They’ve never explained themselves and I’ve never noticed any patterns in their dealings with me.” He didn’t believe he was part of any sort of fae plan. One of the fae had been feeling lusty and Zelli was the result of that bit of carelessness. But he looked at Mil with interest. “What does a moonrise vine flower look like?”
“If I may?” Arden extended a hand toward Tahlen again, who was more riled wolf than Zelli. “I mean this as a gift that may come back to bless me one day. Some advice for dealing with your seemingly absent kin: be honest in your dealings—emotionally honest if nothing else. Once you start doing that, their reasons will become slightly more clear. They do not see as we do, but they see true enough. And farther, I think.”
“I have often wondered at which requests get answered,” Zelli admitted. “Feelings and intent matter, but maybe so does the person asking.”
“They see far,” Arden said again, as if his experience with the fae was extensive indeed. “And do not feel in the ways that we do. If say, Tye of the Villucatto honored them and gave them something interesting, some of them might be inclined to answer her.”
“Their answer might not be what she wants.” Zelli had been told that many times in his life and truly understood it now.
Arden smiled. “Yes.” His gaze slid to Tahlen, then down to their joined hands. “But, and here I only guess, I do think certain types appeal to them. Certain stories.”
Zelli also gazed at Tahlen, someone Arden thought the fae would be drawn to. “Some people are complicated, maybe even difficult, but also trustworthy and straightforward in ways many others are not. Honest, as you said, if not open. Why should they be open, when the world has hurt them so?”
Tahlen seemed open now, eyes wide and warmer than Zelli had ever seen them.
“Been a long day,” Arden remarked, sounding very far away, but when Zelli turned, Arden hadn’t moved. “We should probably try to rest.”
Mil opened his mouth only to say nothing. He and Arden exchanged another look.
“Ah well, that’s a different story indeed,” Mil finally said, tone regretful. “But I like the idea of doing a favor for one such as them, and, do you know, I’ve a desire to see the stars tonight.” Zelli looked out at the fog, thinking stars would only be glimpsed at best, but Mil didn’t allow him to voice his concerns. “You ever really lie back and look at the stars?” Mil asked, glancing from Zelli to Tahlen. “It’s a worthwhile way to spend some time, even for brutes like us.”
Arden laughed, a gentle sound. “You continue to surprise me,” he told Mil affectionately, then got to his feet in one smooth motion, his rolled blanket and sheathed sword already in hand. “Have a good night, and safe travels on the morrow.” He inclined his head to Zelli, winked at Tahlen, which Zelli thought was a bit much, and then, confusingly, went to the edge of the firelight, barely beneath the roof of the waystation, and laid out his blanket.
Mil gave them each a nod before following his husband to their chosen spot, where it would not be much warmer than outside and they would not see many stars. But they sat close, and Arden fell against Mil almost immediately. Whatever they murmured to each other made Mil laugh, then slip an arm beneath Arden’s traveling cloak to wrap around his back.
Zelli realized he was staring at the wily Arden, now just a weary man curled up with his husband, and Mil the brute, cradling Arden ever so carefully, and tore his gaze away. But it went back almost immediately. His heart pounded and his fingers hurt with how tightly he gripped Tahlen’s hand, so he winced and pulled his free.
His lower lip was swollen, as if he’d bitten it too often during their odd conversation.
There was no reason for his heart to act this way. No reason for his face to be warm except the fire. He tugged his hand to his mouth to chew his fingernails and jolted when Tahlen’s arm was suddenly before his eyes.
Tahlen’s forearm, specifically, still covered in its leather vambrace.
Zelli looked to Tahlen himself, shifting on his stone seat when Tahlen kept his arm where it was.
“You’ll do less damage here,” Tahlen suggested, keeping his voice low. “The leather can take it more than your hands.”
“It…” Zelli flushed even hotter, miserable, itchy, aching for a tender embrace under the stars that he would never know. “I shouldn’t need to do it,” he confessed sadly. “I don’t know why I do.”
“Do you want me to take it off first?” Tahlen asked as though this had only now occurred to him and he had offered expecting Zelli to gnaw on his arm like a teething puppy.
A wolf pup, Zelli thought, with slightly less misery than before. Perhaps that was how Tahlen saw him.
Shyly, Zelli pulled Tahlen’s arm closer, thrilling a little at the heat from Tahlen’s body and the smell of the leather, then hiding his face behind it after giving in to the first urge to bite down.
Tahlen turned more toward him, not exactly shielding Zelli from sight, but letting Zelli twist away from the fire as much as he could. Tahlen touched Zelli’s cheek with his other hand, exhaling roughly at how hot Zelli must feel. His eyes were warm again, although not as open as they’d been moments before. He was watchful now, yet still offering the leather brace for Zelli to turn his head and sink his sharpest teeth into.
Zelli did, only just keeping himself from growling.
Tahlen made a small sound, pleased or shocked, Zelli couldn’t tell. But he opened his hand so that his fingertips grazed Zelli’s cheek as Zelli bit down again.
The leather was quite satisfyingly resistant and the brush of Tahlen’s fingertips kept Zelli’s chest from aching. His scrawny growl faded to nothing.
But his face stung and his cheeks and Tahlen’s leather were wet with spit. As time went on and he made more faint marks from his teeth and had to stop to swallow, he thought that Tahlen would say something, or ask about his inhumanity as Arden and Mil had. But though Tahlen turned his head to keep an eye on the two outguards, he was silent.
When Zelli finally let go, too content to need to bite any longer and suddenly so very tired, Tahlen relocated easily to the spot behind the stones, with the wall at his back and the fire still near, and sat cross-legged, with his sword near his free hand, and indicated Zelli should lie beside him.
Nine
Zelli woke to Tahlen’s faint stirrings and a whispered conversation somewhere close. He opened his eyes to a lightened but still clouded sky, and raised his head from Tahlen’s thigh, only to be distracted by the fact that his head had been on Tahlen’s thigh.
Tahlen’s eyes were open. Though he was resting against the wall behind them, Zelli suspected Tahlen had stayed awake through the night.
He was unsurprised to see the outguards gone and the fire very low. He turned back to Tahlen, sleepy, with the chill nipping at the edge of his awareness, and irritable for reasons that had nothing to do with either of those things.
But there was no point in chastising Tahlen now for choosing not to sleep. Zelli simply raised himself up and said, “There’s some time until dawn and we’re not in a terrible hurry. Get some sleep now and I’ll wake you if I need to.”
Tahlen had stubble on his jaw and a slight glaze to his tired eyes, but he studied Zelli, then sighed and moved, putting more of his weight against the wall. He shut his eyes, apparently thinking he would sleep like that.
“Honestly,” Zelli grumbled as he got to his feet. “Lie down and do it properly or I’ll tell Esrin.”
Tahlen’s eyes flicked open, then narrowed. But exhaustion meant he didn’t protest, he just stared oddly at Zelli while lying down on his side and pulling his cloak over his legs. “Only for an hour,” he grumbled, then was silent except for his breathing.
Zelli stared at Tahlen’s sleep-softened, unshaven face for far too long before he forcibly turned around to stare down the rest of the world. Tahlen trusted Zelli for this small duty and Zelli would see to it with everything he had.
Of course, poking around a waystation with nothing to do gave Zelli perhaps too much time to think. And recalling how he’d used Tahlen’s vambrace, in front of Tahlen no less, made him pace for a while and think of how he was going to explain chewing on his grandmother’s favorite guard to her. Even if she did believe Zelli ought to take Tahlen as a lover, that was surely crossing a line.
Tahlen was so patient with him, was so good about it. It was only going to make Zelli’s feelings, as Grandmother called them, worse.
He washed his face in the nearby stream as he moped and then took care of the horses. He ate a little and walked around the waystation at least nine times rather than risk waking Tahlen with any stolen touches, and waited until a while after dawn—when any longer would possibly irritate Tahlen more than please him—and put out the fire before calling for Tahlen to wake up.
“They knew who you were,” was the first thing Tahlen said to him after rising to his feet.
Zelli crossed his arms tightly over the wrong and terrible need in his chest. “You deferred to me like I was… like I was The Tialttyrin.”
Tahlen observed Zelli in silence until Zelli wanted to snap at him. But all Tahlen said was, “Do you need to touch me?”
To which Zelli hissed, “Yes,” and couldn’t even be shocked at himself.
Stubble rasped wonderfully under Zelli’s palms. Tahlen’s hair was just as soft in the mornings as it was at night, although Tahlen braided it himself this time, efficient and quick before turning to attend to Zelli’s, which was back to being wild until Tahlen whispered to it.
Zelli watched Tahlen shave with cold water and caught Tahlen glancing curiously at Zelli’s smoother face. He insisted Tahlen eat something. Then they were on their way once more.
If they were to keep going in their current direction, they would eventually reach the other road following the length of the valley, although Tahlen would make them turn around before they went that far. Short of finding a friendly farmer or hunting some rabbits or field rats as the outguards might be doing, they would run out of food.
It did all feel ridiculous, in that respect. The need for more information was urgent, but Zelli hadn’t planned on being in the open for this long and they weren’t even sure where to look. The outguards had mentioned a wooded glen, but the spaces between fields were often left as chunks of wilderness for owls and deer and the plants that only grew among the trees.
Several hours had gone by when he and Tahlen began to pass heavy thickets of green vines off to the side of the road, some full of chattering birds happily feasting on the dark berries that must not have been ripe enough to pluck when the rest of the berries had been harvested.
Zelli turned his horse in that direction without thought. He slid from Lemon Blossom’s back in his excitement and was gathering blackberries over the sound of Tahlen’s bewildered, “You’re berry picking?”
Zelli had hunted for berries before in his life, although the small bushes down in village were nothing to the wild bramble in front of him, so tall that Tahlen would likely have to stretch to see over it. Zelli stood up on his toes to reach berries deep within the tangle, snagging his sleeves and then his hands on nearly invisible thorns. He ate some berries before gathering more, then, after fighting with the thorns to get free, brought spilling, sun-warmed handfuls over to Tahlen, who was standing beside Starfall and giving Zelli that odd look again.
“The last of summer’s gifts,” Zelli said, holding his hands up so Tahlen could take some berries. “It’s not childish,” he added when Tahlen hesitated. “We need food, and they’ve already harvested this patch, else there would be berries everywhere.”
“You’re bleeding,” Tahlen observed, but let Zelli fill his palms with blackberries.
Zelli’s hands and wrists were bleeding, in fact, but only in two places. The purple stains on Zelli’s fingertips more than made up for a few cuts.
“Barely,” Zelli dismissed this before devouring several more berries. “If a beat-of-four can wear a sword and risk being killed by one, I can bear a few scratches and have purple fingers for a while.”
Tahlen pulled in a long breath. “I wish more of them had your ideas.”
“No!” Zelli poured the remaining berries into Tahlen’s hands and pushed them up toward Tahlen’s face to fill his reckless mouth. “No wishing!” he ordered, not teasing, then snatched his hands away. “I should… I should offer some of the berries to them, though they can pick their own.”
He hurried back to the thicket, offending a few birds by taking more of their berries. No offering place was obvious, so Zelli brought his handful to a stunted and bare apple tree nearby and set the berries on the ground at the base of the trunk. “No wishes,” he told any listening fae, “only a greeting. We are family, after all.”
He’d known that. Everyone who saw Zelli knew that. But no one had ever called them that until Tahlen, and then two outguards. Even Grandmother usually only spoke of their shared fae blood, not of their shared fae family.
“Zelli, come back here, if you please,” Tahlen requested gruffly, all his berries gone, his lips only hinting at a darker color. Zelli looked apprehensively at the corner of Tahlen’s cloak, which Tahlen had soaked with water, thinking Tahlen was going to tell him he had blackberry juice all over his face. But Tahlen took Zelli’s hands, one at a time, and washed away the trickles of blood and the worst of the purple.
It would stain the cloak, but Zelli would see it replaced if it could not be cleaned.
Tahlen focused on his work, so Zelli studied Tahlen’s bent head and the length of his braid fallen over his shoulder, and how he had to stoop to get near to Zelli’s level. Tahlen had nice ears. Zelli fantasized about covering them in cuffs like the one Arden had worn. Not gold for Tahlen, though Tahlen deserved it, but a shining metal like silver or platinum. Necklaces and cuffs and bracelets, with jeweled clasps climbing his braid.
Then Tahlen’s eyes came up and Zelli thought warmly that Tahlen needed no decorations. Maybe Zelli could pay a trader to bring him moonrise vine seeds so he could plant them and see the blooms for himself. Maybe, if his alliance turned him into the sort of beat-of-four to wear jewelry of his own, he would commission clasps in the shape of flowers, so he could imagine them in Tahlen’s hair.
Imagine only, he reminded himself.
He pulled his hands from Tahlen’s grasp and smiled shakily before returning to Lemon Blossom. “Thank you.” He had no idea how to get back onto his horse but only stood there in any case, listening to himself say foolish things because he didn’t want Tahlen’s silence to go on or to be broken by Tahlen asking him what was wrong. “Do you know, Tahlen, I think those outguards wanted to take you to bed.”
Never mind. He had changed Tahlen’s silence. It was tangible, almost like Tahlen grabbing a handful of Zelli’s cloak to forcibly turn him around.
Zelli risked a look back. Tahlen’s eyebrows were knitted in a such a way that Zelli suspected Tahlen didn’t believe him or couldn’t believe Zelli would mention it.
Zelli readied an apology, then heard himself continuing on in the same fashion as before. “Particularly Mil,” he added before turning away again. “I wonder who you reminded him of.” Mil must have known a hero too, in his time. Unless he’d meant Arden, which would mean Arden was a beat-of-four who had become an outguard and that was practically unheard of. There was only one song Zelli knew that mentioned anything like that, and that was about….
“Oh.” Zelli turned back to Tahlen on the heels of a revelation, but Tahlen had his brows raised now, in unhappy inquiry. “What?”
Tahlen watched Zelli carefully. “You could have gone with them.”
Zelli raised a hand to argue, then dropped it, thinking over the entire conversation. “Are you sure?” he asked at last.
Tahlen’s voice was flat. “Yes.”
There were nuances to flirting, Zelli decided absently, because he’d missed all of them. “But they spent all their time looking at you.” The objection was reasonable. “They only called me…” Tiny. Pretty. “Oh.” Tahlen’s steady, burning stare wasn’t the only thing making Zelli feel too hot. “But they’re so big, I’d—both of them? Really? But Mil was so handsome.”
Zelli realized he was staring dazedly at nothing while dreaming of being between Arden and Mil beneath the stars. Zelli had taken his own fingers before, as much as he could get when twisting his wrist and stretching, but he wasn’t at all sure that he could have taken Mil’s cock. That was, if Mil’s cock was proportional to the rest of him. Arden’s… possibly. Arden was near Tahlen’s height, and again, assuming proportions.
“Oh,” Zelli said again, thinking of Tahlen now, which he often had, but never like that. Tahlen might have watched them. Tahlen might have joined in, and then at least Zelli would have been able to see Tahlen be someone else’s lover.
The thought made his blood pound. It also stabbed Zelli right near his heart. “I don’t think I would like that,” he said in a whisper, meaning both allowing the two outguards to tup him and watching them with Tahlen. If he was thinking about that instead of the pleasure he might have had with two compelling strangers, then the pleasure they’d offered still would have not eased the feelings that the fae and his grandmother seemed to want him to face.
He chewed his bottom lip. “Would you have also gone off with them? If I hadn’t been there,” he anticipated Tahlen’s argument, “and it was the three of you, with no Zelli to protect, you could have. They looked at you in a certain way.”
