20. Battlefields #2
I beat back the wild desire to read more than tactile pleasure into those sounds.
I knew how Alluin was when he was tired, drunk, or heartbroken.
He loved being touched—needed it, craved it, was willing to accept any amount of suffering as long as someone he cared about would put their hands on him.
He’d very nearly destroyed himself going back to Nyland for it again and again, having sex with his former husband so that he could be held after.
I would never put a price on the comfort he sought, and especially not that one.
Alluin felt so good against me, though, warm and solid, like sunlight made into a man to be the vivid light in my life.
He’d once asked me to sleep with him so that he didn’t have to be alone, but now I was the hungry one, craving the smell of his skin and the way he’d mold himself to me in his sleep, like we belonged in the same body.
I knew I enjoyed it too much—knew that I shouldn’t fantasize about how it would feel if we were naked, the silk of his skin against mine and the heat of his inner thigh against my groin—but that didn’t stop me from doing it, anyway. Unlike Alluin, I wasn’t very good at being noble.
“I’ve got you,” I murmured, every inch of me aching from how good it felt to have my hand under his shirt, my fingers tracing the lines of his obliques and my palm flush with the smooth skin of his side. “I’m here, Lu. It’s alright.”
He nodded, melting up against me. “You’re so good to me,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
“I’m your shield-love,” I whispered back, stroking my thumb along his side. “I protect you, even from yourself.”
His hand crept along the path of my sword-belt—a piece of physical contact that my stupid prick very much wanted to pay attention to—until Alluin found a place to hang onto me, his fingertips hooked over my pants and the backs of his fingers against my hipbone.
“Stay?” he asked, the word shaky with exhaustion.
“I never planned to leave,” I replied.
Alluin nodded again, a tiny motion, so close to unconsciousness that I didn’t think he was going to remember this. It only took him a few more minutes of lying there with me before he fell fully asleep, his breathing slowing and grip laxening.
I didn’t go anywhere. I was fine with sleeping fully-dressed and reclining on a hammock with Alluin’s weight on my chest. Honestly, I would have been fine sleeping in most conditions if it also involved having Alluin curled up around me, but the hammock was comfortable enough that it wouldn’t be a hardship.
Dain walked in on us somewhere around midnight, rousing me out of my light drowse. Alluin didn’t even twitch, so deeply asleep that I wasn’t even sure battle would have woken him.
“Quiet,” I signed to him with my free hand before my prince could do more than raise his brows. “He needs to sleep.”
Dain smirked at me and sprawled himself out in Alluin’s chair. “On top of you?” he signed back.
I gave him an unamused look. “Yes,” I replied, making the sign with a sharp jerk of my wrist so he’d know I was being serious.
My prince held up his hands like he was conceding defeat. “Is that why my general’s been so harsh the past few days?” he asked, using a private glamor of his voice instead of signing. “I told him to get some rest. Did he ignore me? He’s not been sleeping?”
“He did. Took more stimulants,” I signed back with one hand, letting out a soft sigh. “Hard on him. He turns awful.”
“Hmm.” Dain examined us for a long moment, his ears shifting and his expression contemplative.
Then he flashed me a wolfish smile, sharp teeth glinting in the lamplight.
“So he’ll ignore his prince and high commander, but he’ll sleep with you if you ask him to, is that it?
Do I need to assign you to the same tent to ensure my brilliant general is in top form? ”
My expression went dire. “Don’t shame him.”
Dain looked abashed for a moment. “Allow me to ask the question with more formality, Commander,” he said with glamor, mouth not moving but the words still sounding like he’d spoken them.
“In your opinion, how can I best ensure that General Xilsatra has everything he needs to help us win this war? I need him, and if he needs you, I can do what’s in my power to ensure he has you. ”
If he needs you. Did he need me? I liked to think so. I certainly needed him. Soul-splice aside, being without Alluin was like being without sunlight. I could survive for a while, but it wore on me, and when I had the chance to be with him again, most everything else fell by the wayside.
I’d lost more than a few paramours that way. It was the rare lover who understood and accepted that Alluin always, always came first.
“Glamor silence for him?” I signed, dropping my ears into a more submissive pose.
Dain nodded, his serious expression easing.
I waited another moment before saying, “If it’s not a risk to the army, keeping me here isn’t a bad idea, my prince.
” My expression went rueful. “It was easier for him when there wasn’t a new kind of enemy, but he’s taking every death from the Furies personally, and, well.
You can see what it’s doing to him.” I shook my head.
“Neither of us want to put our friendship above our duty to Stag Court, but this isn’t good for anyone, and I can usually convince him to rest.”
“So I’ve noticed,” Dain said, the corner of his mouth slanting up.
I sighed and rested my cheek against Alluin’s hair for a moment, wishing I could do more for him. “It feels selfish to suggest, but if you align our schedules so that we’re off-duty at the same time, I would happily feed him and drag him to bed. I know it’s not always possible—”
“Done,” he said.
I blinked at him, shocked.
Dain leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs.
“Look. I know you don’t want my relationship advice, and I’m aware that I’m in little position to give it, but I’m not blind, Zhiolas.
Alluin loves you in a way he loves no one else, and you love him back.
Whatever shape that love takes, it’s a bedrock part of who you both are.
” He sighed through his nose, looking away.
“I’m your high commander. I have to be willing to use that for the sake of my people. Do you understand?”
I watched him for a moment, pride glowing under my ribs. That was all Alluin, that glorious self-sacrificial understanding of what it meant to be a good leader reflected in the man he’d helped become a prince. Our boy grew up so well, I thought fleetingly, starting to smile.
“My prince,” I said, meaning every word, “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”