31. Royal Interference #2
My irked “gaah” must have been louder than I’d intended, though, because Leah looked past Dain’s shoulder and gave me a brilliant smile.
“Alluin! War room! Dire consequences!” I reminded them, lifting and turning my ears as I made a face at Dain.
The words were much lighter than I felt, but I didn’t want to sully their sunlit joy.
They were both surely riding the high of balancing.
The horror and terror would come due, battle drop taking its toll, but there was no reason to hasten it along.
“But, Zhiolas, think of all the sweet nothings Leah and I could coo at each other,” Dain said in a teasing purr as Leah walked to Nephinae’s corpse where it lay sprawled in the throne.
I knew him well enough that I could see the exhaustion and sorrow dragging at him. I matched his tone, though, knowing he was keeping his responses light for Leah’s sake. She wasn’t a soldier; the death and violence surely hadn’t sunk in yet, kept at bay by relief and love.
It would. I knew it would. But we didn’t have to invite it to drown us.
“‘But Zhiolas,’ nothing,” I told him, crossing my arms over my chest with a tired smile.
“The two of you are filthy, exhausted, and covered in blood, and Alluin is on the verge of falling apart. Save your sweet nothings for after you deal with tens of thousands of corpses and all that damn iron Leah strewed everywhere.”
“You’re welcome,” she called sweetly, taking her crown before turning back towards us.
Honestly, I was deeply grateful for the iron Leah had strewn everywhere, but I wasn’t going to thank her for it.
There was no need to complicate the fealty and friendship I already held for my Queen with the sort of loyalty Alluin and I shared, and especially not when she and Dain had only just balanced.
We could sort out how far towards ‘beloved family’ the four of us wanted to fall once the royals had gotten some time to be in love without the shadow of war over them.
I wouldn’t take that time away from my Dain.
I trailed after Dain and Leah as they made their brisk way towards the war room.
‘Brisk’ wasn’t in my physical repertoire after three days of fighting.
The cocktail of stimulants and painkillers in my blood would probably keep me going for another few hours, if needed, but if my body didn’t have to perform any physical feats, I wasn’t going to see how much more damage I could accumulate just for the sake of looking spry.
When I finally made it to the war room, Leah and Alluin were gone, and Dain was making plans for housing several thousand bone-tired soldiers alongside his courtiers.
He was still naked and covered with gore, and to my amusement he had an arm over the shoulders of one of the more tedious lords of the high court.
The man looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him whole.
Dain looked up when I walked in and gave me a tired smile.
“Leah took General Xilsatra back to our rooms so he could have somewhere safe to sleep.” Dain raised his brows in a meaningful expression.
“I don’t need you here for this, Commander, so if you’d be willing to check in on our general, I’d be appreciative. ”
Appreciative of what, he didn’t say, and I suspected that it was more along the lines of ‘appreciative that you’re finally doing anything that I suggest to you about your relationship with Alluin’ than ‘appreciative of you doing something for me.’ I didn’t care, though.
I couldn’t bring myself to go find sleep without seeing that Alluin was safe with my own eyes.
I gave Dain a military bow, hand over my heart, and left, moving with a little more speed than before.
At least the way to his suite from the war room was shorter than the distance from the throne room to the war room, though every step felt further than the one before.
The fighting hadn’t made it this deep into the palace, but the halls had been set up with baffles as fallbacks.
It made the trip take significantly longer than usual, and I didn’t have a lot of endurance left.
The door to Dain’s room was closed when I arrived. I couldn’t hear anything on the other side of the door, nor on the other side of Leah’s door, but that didn’t mean much. They were thick wooden doors, set in stone walls, and there was an entry room and another door between me and the bedrooms.
I was too tired to even pace. I stood in front of Dain’s door, trying to work up the courage to knock, for at least ten minutes before Leah opened it, still armored and covered in blood.
Her eyes widened when she saw me, obviously surprised to have my haggard, armored self standing exhaustedly outside her door.
“Alluin,” I said, needing an answer—needing to know that he was alright. That he was safe.
Leah looked at me with a considering expression for a long moment before her mouth kicked up. “You’re in love with him,” she said, like she’d just figured out something that had been bothering her for months.
I looked away, embarrassed, and nodded.
“Does he know?” she asked in a soft voice. Leah stepped forward and her fingers touched my jaw, turning my face back towards her.
He didn’t. I knew he didn’t. Things could have been so different if he had.
“I’ve never told him. How could I?” I said, forcing the words through the tightness in my throat. I’d told him I loved him, told him I wanted him, but I’d never told Alluin that I was in love with him—that I wanted him as a lover, as a life-partner, as a gods-damn husband.
The regret rose up again, choking me. I needed to say something—to explain myself to her—and so I did, all the long excuses coming to my tongue.
“He’s noble and kind, the sort of man who deserves someone serious by his side, to be a pillar alongside him.
And I’m…” I shook my head, feeling the bitterness on my face as I met her eyes.
“I haven’t had a lover who lasted more than a few months in centuries, Leah.
I’m the sort of man who falls over waterfalls and writes atrocious love poetry. Hardly a paragon of virtue.”
The words sounded hollow, paper-thin in the face of reality. He’d almost died. I’d almost lost Alluin forever, and I’d never had the guts to simply tell him how I felt—to ask him what he wanted from me.
Leah smirked at me like I’d said something charming. “Uh-huh,” she said, obviously unconvinced. “Have you considered that perhaps Alluin would enjoy someone writing him atrocious love poetry?”
I looked away, unable to bear that look on my Queen’s face.
“My friend,” she said, her voice going gentle. “How long have you loved him?”
My chest went tight. “More than two hundred years.”
She exhaled, not quite a laugh, but with fond amusement in it. “And did you ever think that maybe your mayfly lovers last only a few months because you already love someone else?”
I looked back over to her, meeting her dark eyes. I knew she was right. My mistresses. But if I told Alluin, I was risking everything. When you’re all-in, it’s all too easy to lose every chip you’ve set on the table.
You almost lost everything already, I thought, that terrible sight of the wooden spar jutting through his gut flaring in my mind’s eye.
“C’mon,” Leah said, her smile spreading.
“I’ve already got Alluin’s clothes in a heap on my floor.
Get undressed, wash your face off, steal a pair of Dain’s pajamas, and go curl up with Alluin in my bed.
” Her lips curled up with catlike satisfaction, like she knew there was no way I would refuse.
“If nothing else, he could use a measure of comfort.”
“Is that a command, my Queen?” I asked, some of the despair easing away in the face of her kindness.
She flashed me her teeth. “It is. You can even tell Alluin that, if you chicken out. But I strongly suspect that if you want to offer him more than a hug, he’ll answer you with affection.”
He would. I knew he would. I still couldn’t bring myself to take that final step and risk that final corner of my heart—but when I held out my hand to Leah, she took it, and my Queen led me across the threshold.
Getting cared for cracked the careful walls I’d put up to survive the horrors of fighting the dead.
Seeing my own war-weary face almost broke me, the soot and grime standing out starkly on my pale skin, but she drew me away from it.
Leah washed my face and brushed my hair like I was a child, the generous care of the Antlered Palace poured out on me.
She’d done this for Alluin, too, I thought, fighting back the tears. She’d been there for him. He hadn’t had to be alone.
Leah took me into her bedroom and asked Alluin if she could put me in bed with him. I knew he would say yes—I knew—but my chest still went tight with fear that he might refuse me. He’d almost died. Gods, he’d almost died.
“I would like that a great deal,” Alluin said in a throaty voice. An invitation. A desire.
I still couldn’t make myself move, but Leah didn’t let me break. She led me the last few feet towards the bed, my eyes adjusting to the darkness, and let me see him.
Alluin looked up at me with raw yearning, his brows slanted and ears low. I knew that expression—had seen it once before, when he’d been caught in the full force of my allure geas on the night Phazikai had fallen. Unrestrained, endless want.
“Alluin,” I breathed, starting to tremble. “Alluin, Alluin, Alluin—” And then somehow I’d fallen into bed with him, had my body against his and my mouth on his, and everything else ceased to matter.