Chapter Five
THE TWO OF them, Eric and Ixthan, made their way to the study with no further mishap – aside from Ix’s ungainly walk – mostly because Eric refused to open his mouth and let himself stick his foot in it again.
The healers had left, though Eric couldn’t tell if they’d taken anything with them.
The room was a wreck from the magical whirlwind, with cushions and papers flung across the room, decorations spilled across the floor.
Someone had righted the ink pot and tried to stem the spill but left the ink-smeared handkerchief on the desk.
The rug where Ix had fallen over was still damp from the melted ice, squishing unpleasantly under Eric’s boots until he skirted it.
Ixthan didn’t seem much enamored by his human feet as he picked his way across the floor until he was in front of the mirror.
Eric tensed. He had no idea what he could possibly do if something went wrong again, but he could at least be on the look out for it.
But nothing happened, no flash of movement within the mirror or strange temperatures.
As Ix reached out to touch one of the symbols, he stopped before his fingers made contact. “Who meddled with it?”
“Could have been the healer mages. I left one of them in here.”
“You let them in my study?” Ix snapped at him.
The most bizarre thing happened. Eric felt it like a crack in his chest, realized what was about to happen mere seconds before it did and by then it was too late to stop himself: his eyes welled up and he started to cry.
He didn’t even know why. And from the astonished look on Ix’s face, he didn’t know why either.
Eric wasn’t afraid of Ix, had never been even when Ix had been learning magic when they were children and kept exploding things.
Ix hadn’t even shouted at him. But it was just everything, all at once.
He hadn’t even had a chance to tell Ix about the execution, and he’d collapsed, and then Ix had changed; and of all days, Ix had chosen today to acknowledge Eric’s feelings, which he’d been doing so well in keeping under control and —
“Of course I let them in!” shouted Eric as the first tears leaked over, blurring his vision.
“And if you had told someone too, they might have been able to do something when you collapsed! Maybe no one has told you this yet but when I found you, you were frozen. See this wet patch on the rug? You were exuding ice. I thought you were dead. Your father was at your bedside for hours! I had no idea if you were going to wake back up! If I’d known any information that was capable of healing you, I would have turned over your entire study to find it! ”
It was like vomit. Once Eric had expelled it all from his body, he felt better.
Still shaking, he turned to face the wall, because he didn’t want to look at Ix right now and he had no idea what his face was doing.
He could feel the hot tears that had leaked down his face.
Even if he was the prince’s oldest friend, there was no situation in which it was acceptable for him to shout at royalty.
A stupid solution perhaps, but Eric didn’t have it in him to deal more maturely with this right now.
“Eric.”
Eric didn’t answer, couldn’t answer since his throat had closed up. He hadn’t cried at his father’s execution, why in the gods’ names was he crying now?
“Eric,” said Ixthan again, and this time it was from right next to him.
An arm, heavy and insisting, wound around his shoulders and pulled him away from the wall.
Eric refused to lift his face but Ix was stronger, wrestling him around and then yanking him forward so that Eric’s face was pressed against his shoulder.
A hug, crushingly strong and just painful enough that it squeezed the air out from his lungs. “Eric, I’m sorry about your father.”
Exhaling everything in one great shaky breath, Eric let himself slump into Ix and cry it out. Ix’s arms wound tight around his back, his smell flooded Eric’s nose, and Eric clung back for dear life.
Sometime later, they ended up in Ix’s bed.
It didn’t mean anything in particular, but somewhere between the uncontrollable sobbing that got more awkward the longer it went on and the way Ix had started swaying on his unfamiliar feet, Ix had hauled them both back to bed.
There was plenty of space for the two grown men, they could have spread out easily, but they’d silently ended up pressed together in the center.
Now that the tears had dried up, Eric was starting to feel the exhaustion kicking in.
He should be feeling mortified. He knew that was the right emotion for this and in any other circumstance, he would have been beet red and hiding in his own rooms. But with his head was pillowed comfortably on Ix’s bicep with Ix’s other arm slung across his neck, his fingers carding soothingly through his hair, Eric just couldn’t find it in himself to care.
“Hey. When did you lose your shirt?” mumbled Eric, suddenly realizing that his cheek was against bare skin and the coarse rub of hair.
That, and the full expanse of Ixthan’s chest in front of his face now that he’d blinked away enough of the tears to see.
He’d imagined this so many times over the years; none of his fantasies had involved crying.
“Some time after you emptied a cloud onto my shoulder,” said Ix, but with amusement.
“Sorry.” A pause. “Ix. If I’d asked you to come to the execution with me, would you have?”
“Of course.” Ixthan sounded puzzled. “But you didn’t.”
“No. I didn’t want to watch it, I certainly didn’t want you to have to watch it. But also, yes. Maybe,” Eric mumbled.
“Then I’ll join you for the next one.” Ix said it so dryly that it caught Eric off guard, and before he knew it, he was laughing.
Ix pulled at one of Eric’s curls until the strand of hair straightened, then let go.
Eric usually set his hair with pomade so that curls were kept tight to his head, but he’d had that bath earlier and was hopeless at it without a servant’s help so they were soft and bouncy now.
The curl sprang back into shape, so Ix did it again, and Eric watched him do it, alarmed by the immense fondness swelling in his chest. Oh, no.
It was as if a dam had broken. He had so neatly bound his emotions up for the last few months so that he could keep everything together for Petra, for himself, and now it had come back to haunt him.
“What are you doing?” asked Eric.
“What does it look like? This hair is delightful.” Ix flicked another curl.
“Says the man with the most enviable hair in the kingdom,” muttered Eric. That didn’t even count as a compliment, it was simply true. There were people who had immaculate wigs which weren’t as full as Ixthan’s hair and it was doubly infuriating that he needed to do nothing to maintain it.
Today had already been the most strange day of Eric’s life; he couldn’t be blamed if he reached out and petted Ix’s hair in return.
It was just as soft as he thought it would be.
He imagined pressing his entire face into it and nuzzling it, running it across his bare skin.
He had to stop himself, else he would go mad knowing so much about what he couldn’t have.
Their faces were so close Eric could feel the warmth of Ix’s breath on his cheek, and that was new too.
Ix never ran warm. When Eric dared flick his glance up, Ix was just watching him.
He was waiting for Eric to come to him. Like a predator, knowing that his prey would creep closer and closer.
Well, Eric wasn’t prey. He stared back defiantly. “What?”
The laughter rumbled in Ix’s chest, his eyes hooded with amusement. “Coward.”
Eric was about to protest – he wasn’t a coward, he just had a healthy sense of what was appropriate behavior or not, and making any sort of flirtatious move on a prince did not count as appropriate – when Ix slid his hand around to Eric’s waist. He immediately lost all concept of words as Ix brushed the sensitive skin there, back and forth with his thumb.
Only a light shove at the hip and Eric was on his back with Ixthan looming over him, that waterfall of hair draped over one shoulder.
Before Eric even had time to admire it, Ix leaned in and closed the gap between their faces.
Eric gasped and then his mouth was full of Ixthan, the press of his lips sensuous and slow, his other hand strong as he cupped Eric’s face and kept him from pulling away, the slide of his tongue teasing as Eric opened his mouth eagerly.
Eric pulled him in close, one hand digging in to the meat of Ix’s shoulders, the other roaming down the bare skin of his back, feeling the planes and grooves of his muscles as if he couldn’t decide where to cling or to desperately touch as much as he could get his hands on.
Ix bore his weight onto Eric, pressing him into the bed from the waist down with his hips and Eric groaned.
“Hells, Ix,” said Eric as Ixthan did it again and heat flooded his body. It had been an embarrassingly long time since he ha bothered to touch himself, given, well, everything. And it had been even longer since he’d allowed himself to think of Ix as he did so.
“Eager,” Ix commented as he pressed a hand lightly over Eric’s breeches. He didn’t move, didn’t stroke, didn’t do anything apart from watch Eric get redder in the face, savoring his reaction.
“I can feel you too!” Eric spluttered, resenting the implication that he was the more desperate one. It was true, he could feel the shape of Ix’s cock pressing against Eric’s thigh getting harder, so close he wanted to thrust up and rut against it.