Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
‘Because you have changed me,’ the Fox said,
‘in such a way that I have somehow become
more myself.’
The Fox’s Tears,
translated by Idwal gan Hywel
FORTY-FIVE
The knot in Meilyr’s chest tangled further as the night drew in.
The symbol of Y Ddraig Goch rested, hidden, against his heart where it belonged. Where Deryn had retrieved it for him, wide-eyed and without comment.
Other than the things he had already left in Osian’s rooms, there was nothing else he would take with him.
With a squeeze of her hands, Deryn left him alone.
It was not long later that the door opened. The instant it did, Meilyr rose, wanting nothing more than to go to Osian.
He stayed still as Osian moved to his desk. ‘Everything is prepared,’ the prince said. ‘I was able to accomplish what you hoped. As soon as it is time, we can begin.’
He was holding back, shutting himself behind those walls – the ones he thought Meilyr wanted. A mechanism to protect them both, except there was no protection from this.
Gods damn it.
Meilyr went to him, stepped close enough to make him look at him. ‘Come with us.’
Osian’s eyes widened. The walls began to crumble as he studied Meilyr’s face. ‘I cannot. My presence would endanger all of you.’
Meilyr touched his arm. ‘Come with us.’
‘Meilyr…’
Meilyr touched his lips with his fingertips, wanting to capture the sound of his name, to feel it for an instant longer. His words were barely more than escaped breath. ‘Come with me.’
With care and regret, Osian held and kissed his fingers. Kissed the small cuts that would one day scar, and down his palm to the base of his thumb, where their oath still burned.
Meilyr forgot how to breathe.
‘I cannot,’ Osian said. ‘Though you will be branded traitors, the hunt will not be unending. If I accompany you…’
Meilyr cupped his jaw with his free hand, drawing him to his gaze. ‘I do not care.’
Osian shook his head, other hand resting naturally on Meilyr’s waist. He was still part awe, part grief. ‘I do. I cannot risk you, I will not. Not for my life. Not for anything.’
‘Then I am staying.’
‘Meilyr.’
‘Come with me.’
‘Meilyr, you cannot—’
Meilyr pulled himself up against him and kissed him.
There was no hesitation this time. Osian wrapped his arms around him, fingers in his hair as they both went liquid and hungry into the kiss.
A needing noise escaped Meilyr’s throat, and Osian chased it like a man drowning for air.
Meilyr pushed him against the desk and pressed flush to him, wanting.
‘Come with me,’ he repeated into his mouth, opening his own split lip and not giving the prince a chance to reply.
Osian groaned in frustration, and Meilyr wanted to eat the sound.
In a rush, Osian grasped him and turned them, gripped his hips and lifted him easily onto the desk.
The prince pressed himself between Meilyr’s knees as Meilyr opened them to pull him close.
The angle, the contact, shot stars through Meilyr’s vision.
Another desperate noise loosed into Osian’s mouth as he wrapped his legs around him.
The friction was dizzying. Maddening. Osian’s hand low on his back, holding him right where he wanted him, still not close enough.
‘Meilyr…’ Osian kissed the side of his mouth, his jaw, his throat. ‘Meilyr…’
Meilyr clung to him, dug his fingers into his soft hair. ‘Come with me.’ It was desperate, breathless. ‘Come with me.’
Something shifted. Osian stilled.
Meilyr let out an unsteady breath. He felt it too, the pain in the desire, as Osian sank his head to his shoulder. Meilyr wrapped his arms around him and pressed their temples together, a pained embrace Osian returned.
This hurt. It hurt so much he thought his chest might buckle.
‘Come with me,’ he whispered, one final time.
Osian held him close, almost to the point of pain. Then he kissed his hair and temple and cheek in answer. The only answer he was ever going to give, even as Meilyr’s heart keened in protest. ‘You should get ready,’ Osian murmured into his hair.
Neither of them moved.
Finally, Osian withdrew. Meilyr let him set his feet back on the floor, and their eyes met before the prince stepped away towards the bedchamber, where Meilyr’s things waited.
He still could not move. His blood thumped, want pulsing with pain. Not-yet grief.
He did not want to leave Osian. He wanted Osian to come with him, wanted them to be gone from this place, and this danger and the beast of Khaim. He wanted him to come with him. He wanted him.
But Osian was right, damn them both, he was.
Eventually, Khaim would find the sorcerer.
Whatever happened with the Marcher Lords would happen, and Meilyr certainly had no power to stop it.
Eventually, the search for him and Celyn would end.
That could never happen if Osian went with them.
A deserting prince, he would be hunted to the ends of the world. He would be hunted to his death.
If Meilyr could have kept him safe, he would have damned it. Would have pulled him with him, no matter how long they would have needed to run for.
But Osian would never be safe. Celyn would never be safe. None of them would ever be safe.
Meilyr could not risk them, just for the sake of his own heart.
In a daze, he moved to the bedchamber. Osian was needlessly checking the bundle of items set on one of the dressers: a nondescript woollen cloak and their plainest clothes, Meilyr’s dagger, several small pouches of medicines and poultices, useful plants and supplies, a different pouch of food and a waterskin.
It was very dark outside. The rain chased itself relentlessly down the windows. In the dim light from the hearth and the candles, Osian’s hair was woven starlight and gold. The certainty of his broad shoulders seemed so very far away, across the chasm at Meilyr’s feet.
He had to leave him. He had to leave without him.
But it hurt.
He had to shut his heart away. He had to…
Osian turned, and whatever the prince had been going to say died upon his lips. Behind his walls, behind his attempts at shielding Meilyr from his own wants and desires and his fears and aches, he felt it too. He was coming undone, even as he tried to bury it.
Gods, how little he allowed himself to be.
Just like Meilyr.
Meilyr went to him, letting the tide pull them together. It was a strain to stop before him, not yet touching. But he had to talk, had to find a way to tell him. To show him.
‘On that first day, you told me you would never force someone into unwanted physicality.’ Heat stole his voice but he pushed on, holding Osian’s beautiful, questioning gaze. ‘You would not do anything I did not want you to. Is that still true, here? Now?’
Osian’s reply loosed like an arrow shot through his own chest. ‘Yes.’
Meilyr’s pulse thrummed. ‘Would you sit on the bed for me, please?’
Osian went, not taking his eyes from him.
Meilyr came to stand before his knees and deliberately – giving him time to stop him – touched his hair, his temple. The small braid that ran from it, symbolising their vow.
The tips of his fingers buzzed with the slow build of static, the pull to maintain, to deepen.
Gods.
‘Ask me.’
The dazed look on Osian’s face piqued the hunger in his flesh. ‘What?’
‘Ask me what I want, My Prince. Ask me.’
Recognition bloomed, heat beneath it. Osian was cautious, saying it slowly. ‘Meilyr… what do you want?’
Meilyr slid his knee onto the bed and climbed into his lap.
Osian wrapped his arms around him, the tempest gathering in his eyes.
Less than an inch from his lips, Meilyr answered, ‘I want you to kiss me.’
The seawall cracked.
Osian surged up and kissed him. It was deep and needing and urgent – stole Meilyr’s breath and filled his mouth with iron. Their hands grasped, desperate.
It was so unlike anything before. Anyone before.
Osian lifted him in his lap and turned, tossing him onto the bed. Came with him, never letting go, returning at once to the ache of the kiss.
Meilyr’s heart spluttered. That wonderful, devastating pressure of Osian’s body above him – against him – meeting him in all the right places. Even more fierce as Osian ran his hand down him and gripped his thigh, coaxing it around him, so he could settle between Meilyr’s legs.
The feeling as they both began to move tore another sound free. Osian chased it with a hungry one of his own, his grip on Meilyr’s thigh jolting, deliciously sharp.
‘I want you,’ Meilyr gasped as Osian moved his mouth to his throat. ‘I want you—’
Teeth grazed his skin, dissolving every other thought in his head.
‘Do not say that,’ the prince all but growled, so close to feral it pulsed want through Meilyr’s entire body. There was something dangerous in that voice – the flash of a wolf’s fangs beyond the ring of firelight. The edge of the cliff into the dark sea. ‘Do not say that…’
Meilyr gripped Osian’s hair and arced his body more firmly against him, hips setting a rhythm. ‘I want you,’ he told him, close to his ear. ‘I want you.’
Osian let slip another noise of torn frustration and lunged into the kiss, grinding against Meilyr so firmly there was no denying how much he wanted him as well. ‘Meilyr.’
Meilyr reached for his chest as the prince pulled back, enough to reach for his. Together they made a fumbling, impatient mess of tugging open buttons – kissing – damn, why were there so many buttons—
Meilyr was tugging free Osian’s belt when the prince stopped.
The symbol of Y Ddraig Goch lay on Meilyr’s bared chest, over his heart.
Tentatively, Osian traced it with his fingers. There was a surprising lack of panic in Meilyr’s mind as Osian trailed the pendant aside to kiss it, then his chest, brushing his lips down until the tip of his tongue caught the edge of Meilyr’s nipple, exposed by the hem of his robes.
Meilyr jolted, grasping Osian’s hair.
Osian withdrew at once. ‘Are you all right? I am sorry if—’