Chapter 21 #2
“I would never do anything like that.” Gallmau’s words wouldn’t have rung true when they first met, but Sinan had lain dying and helpless on an icy floor as the prince tried to comfort him, and he believed him now.
“You saved our lives on the lake, you fought against Rerek with us—we’ll watch out for you.
I’m sure that death magic thing you do will come back. You seemed awfully good at it.”
“I was planning to kill you.” Meri sounded every bit as sincere as the prince. “Especially since I thought you were helping Rerek torture me.”
“I did help him, but not intentionally.” Sinan needed to be honest with Meri and Gallmau and needed them to be honest with him in order to have chance to survive this quest, much less save Rixende. Not too much truth at once, though. “It would help if we could share information.”
“We could share many things.” Meri ran her fingers up Sinan’s neck and began to play with his hair.
It was a deliberate seduction, and he wanted nothing more than to surrender to it. He glanced over at Gallmau, who was doing his best not to look at either of them. Sinan wondered if the two were lovers who also bedded other people or fighting companions who went off to find their own partners.
“I’d like to know about that death witch with the antlers.” Gallmau rose to get more food and came back with a small box and a bottle tucked under one arm. “How did Rerek wipe the floor with us, then get taken down by little kids?”
“Meri tried to save three lives.” Sinan had to be careful about what he told the two of them.
The Lioness, in particular, might not take the full truth about her sister Sanura well.
“The dead children haunted Rerek, and were part of the assecula daemonium and fighting it at the same time. They each gave Meri one year of life, trying to protect her. When Rerek drained my powers he made sure to take away my poison protection sigil. His appearance was timed so he could make Meri watch as he killed the two of us, then torture her to death. Revenge against her meant everything to him, but he failed to account for the children also taking the power I had stored up. They used it to destroy him.”
“Sanura wouldn’t leave me.” Meri’s voice cracked as she said her sister’s name. “She kept petting that ghost rat of yours and saying I was still in danger. Do you think”—she choked on the words, then regained control—“she’s in Paradise now?”
“I don’t know.” Sinan chose his next words with care. “Sanura presented as a powerful corporeal spirit, and they often cross over the Veil to Chaos only when they choose to.”
“Who was the fourth child?” Gallmau asked. “The little boy they pulled out of the death witch’s body.”
“That was Rerek.” Sinan didn’t know if Meri and Gallmau could accept that monsters weren’t born, they were made. “As a young child, suffering through what he would later put others through, perhaps, or maybe as who he could have been. Sanura helped him and the other two victims cross over.”
Meri drew her knees up and hugged her chest. “She shouldn’t have saved me. I failed her. I failed those two little boys.”
“She loves you.” Sinan watched as Gallmau came over to Meri’s other side and slid his arm around her.
The simple act of offering someone comfort through physical touch had been impossible for Sinan so long that he hesitated before realizing he could rest his own hand on her other shoulder.
“There are ways to tell if she’s crossed over or to communicate with her if she hasn’t.
I know you don’t like our magic, but we know a good deal about ghosts. ”
“We need to celebrate, Meri.” Gallmau patted the bottle beside him. “We always do, after a fight. Even when we lose, and even when we lose someone close to us.”
Meri gave a laugh and wiped her eyes. “Is that why you brought out that bottle?”
“Yes, for me and Sinan.” Gallmau pulled away and uncorked it, and a familiar scent of alcohol and pears wafted out. “Some Deathless Spirit I found in my father’s wine cellar here. Quite appropriate, I think. Will you drink with me?”
Sinan nodded and took the cup Gallmau offered him. This time he didn’t try to avoid touching the prince’s hand as he did so. There was no discomfort, only a pleasant tingle with the contact.
He knocked back the liquor, savoring the flavors. “What about Meri?”
“I found some sweets for her.” Gallmau produced a small box lined in velvet—he must have been quite busy scouring the chateau for useful items while Sinan had been incapacitated by Rerek’s poison.
Inside were fanciful creations made from almond paste—a plump pig, plums and apples, and even what might have been a mouse or rat, complete with a square of confectionary cheese.
“Maybe we can save the rodent one for Sinan’s little ghost friend. ”
Meri reached up to touch Sinan’s face. “I’d like a tumble rather than candy. You can get drunk now, and it’s been years since you bedded someone. What do you say to that?”
Sinan had started to sip the second cup of the brandy Gallmau poured for him, and he coughed some of it out in surprise.
Meri sounded giddy, as if relief that the veneficus who had killed her sister and possessed her was gone forever made her want to reach out for what she needed right now, and damn the consequences.
Even if what she needed was sex with a necromancer.
It was like Meri to be direct, and Sinan certainly wanted to be with her—and with Gallmau.
The prince squirmed. “I could leave the room.”
“Why?” The brandy had already given Sinan a pleasant buzz—he wasn’t used to being unprotected by his antidote sigil.
He considered that agreeing to sleep with two Tomb Fighters who had been contemplating killing him a day or so ago might not be the wisest decision, then plowed ahead anyway.
“I thought you’d be interested as well.”
“I guess so.” Gallmau gave Meri an outraged look when she giggled at his hesitation. “All right. Hell yes, I want to, but I didn’t know if you preferred men or women.”
The most important question should be if Sinan would consider sex with someone who wasn’t one of the Blessed, but the customs of Soissons were so different than those in Karakoncolos.
“I had men and women as lovers when I was younger. Many in Karakoncolos stay celibate, but it’s not required.
Not many would want to lie with an inimicus , but I—never minded. ”
“That means enemy, I thought,” Gallmau said.
Meri took Sinan’s convoluted response as a solid yes and began to run her hand over his chest, then strayed lower. She stroked his hard length under his trousers, her fingers warm and soft.
“It does.” Sinan took in a deep breath, his desire clouding his ability to even think. “We use the same word for people who aren’t the Blessed.”
“Both of you talk too much.” Meri reached over to pull Gallmau closer to them, lifted off his shirt, and undid his trousers.
“You and I have never—done this.” Despite his half-hearted protest Gallmau allowed himself to be undressed, and he was as erect as Sinan was, although not even tipsy. “Are you sure you’re well enough for this, Meri?”
“Kiss him and shut him up,” Meri told Sinan, which wasn’t a difficult order to follow.
He pressed his lips against Gallmau’s, the two of them sharing the sting of brandy on their tongues. Sinan shifted his weight onto Gallmau, which should have had as much of an effect as trying to topple a small mountain, but the prince let him push him onto his back.
The two of them broke off their kiss for a moment as Meri straddled Gallmau. She had already disposed of her clothing, and she ground against him with sinuous movements of her hips.
“Meri’s hard to say no to.” Gallmau gasped that out, then reached to pull Sinan down on top of him. “Kiss me again. Harder.”
Sinan laughed, the absurdity of their situation striking him, and pushed his tongue into the prince’s mouth. He ran his own hands down Gallmau’s chest, admiring the hard angles of the prince’s muscled torso, then traced a line of gold hair down the muscled expanse of his abdomen.
Gallmau somehow succeeded in removing Sinan’s trousers even with Meri thrusting on him. He ran his hands down the curve of Sinan’s spine, hesitating a moment before descending lower to cup the swell of his buttocks in his powerful hands.
Meri rolled off Gallmau, panting, and turned her attention to Sinan. “I want you between us.” The words rushed out of her in a gasp, and she had yanked him on top of her before he had a chance to tell her yes.
He kissed her, deep and slow, as she thrust her hips up toward him until she found the rhythm she wanted and let him slip inside her. Gallmau was on top of him now, the swell of his erection pushing at him from behind.
“Do you want me?” Gallmau whispered the words into Sinan’s ear, his breath warm and panting. “Tell me if it’s what you like.”
“Yes.” Sinan could barely get the word out, his own breaths coming fast, and the incredible sensation of being able to touch and touching back overwhelming him. “Don’t stop.”
Meri wrapped her legs around both of their thighs, and they ground together in a tangle of skin and sweat until all three of them were spent. Sinan lay there pressed between both of their bodies for a long moment, sweaty and gasping.
With a sigh of satisfaction, Meri rolled out from under them to curl up on top of the blankets, her eyes closing in exhaustion in seconds.
Gallmau pulled away from Sinan and found a soft shawl in the mess of fabric around them to drape over Meri. Her chest, still bound with the bandages over the slashes on her back, rose and fell in a steady rhythm as she slept. The two of them stared down at her, not saying anything.
“Well.” Gallmau patted Meri’s shoulders and looked up at Sinan with an amazed expression. “That just happened.”
Sinan pulled Gallmau’s head down for another kiss. “Find some oil and pour me more brandy, and it can happen again.”