CHAPTER 3
C HAPTER 3
S ETH COULDN’T TAKE IT. He couldn’t fucking take it. He tried to tell himself that a man who had killed his own lover deserved to suffer nightmares. On a certain logical level, he believed that.
But he couldn’t handle the way Raider was flinching in his sleep, couldn’t listen to the awful sounds he was making. So Seth gathered himself up from the cold, lonely spot of ground he’d chosen. He intended to shake Raider and withdraw, to be harsh even in his mercy, but that wasn’t what he found himself doing. As though something other than his brain was controlling his body, Seth knelt beside Raider.
Seth was surprised, in these circumstances, that Raider had fallen asleep. Seth hadn’t been able to.
The sand serpent fight must have exhausted him. It had exhausted Seth too but not on the same level. Raider had killed that ancient behemoth by letting quicksilver rip through his body. It had burst from within to encase him in spectacular pearlescent armor, spearing out from him to fight the sand serpent like a creature itself.
Though the quicksilver had been implanted in Raider’s body for the purpose of murder, less than twelve hours ago, Raider had used it to save hundreds, even thousands, of people. And that brutal quicksilver had both exhausted and wounded him. It had even, Seth forced himself to recognize as he thought back on Raider’s silence in the aftermath of the battle, frightened him.
And he was frightened now. When Seth laid a hand on Raider’s shoulder, Raider unconsciously flinched away. A sound of distress escaped his lips and the words, “ Please—don’t. ”
It was those words that did it.
Those awful words that Seth had heard Raider mumble so many times during his nightmares. They cut straight through all the doubt and confusion and anger that had cluttered up Seth’s mind for the past twelve hours.
The instant he heard those words, Seth hated himself. Fiercely and abruptly. Because the truth was so fucking obvious and he’d been so fucking blind.
For the love of the gods, how many of these nightmares did he have to witness to figure it out? How many times did Raider have to risk his own life for others before Seth would actually understand the kind of person he was?
Seth didn’t know how everything went together in Raider’s past, but it didn’t matter. It should never have mattered. All that should ever have mattered was that Seth knew this man. Facts aside, Seth knew him.
Whatever had led to the quicksilver implantation, whatever had led to the death of the emperor, it could not have been any kind of evil in Raider’s heart. Because there was none. Not once, ever, had Raider displayed any.
That realization raised a question, one that should have occurred to Seth earlier. It hadn’t because it suggested something too horrifying to be real, too nightmarish.
And yet …
As soon as the question entered Seth’s mind, he was pretty damn sure of the answer.
Fingers trembling at the horror of that possibility, Seth reached out to stroke Raider’s hair, hoping to ease him into peaceful sleep, but Raider woke with a cry. He wrenched away and scrambled around to face Seth.
Seth couldn’t see as well in the dark as Raider could, but he didn’t need to. He could hear the ragged breathing. He could feel Raider’s fear.
“It’s okay,” Seth said quietly. “It’s me, it’s okay.”
Raider didn’t move. Gods, Seth hated hearing him breathe like that, like he could barely get any air.
Seth was right. He knew he was right. It wasn’t even a question anymore. It was a terrible, unbearable truth. It made his eyes sting and his throat tighten. It made him sick with himself.
“Please come here,” Seth managed to choke out. “Please come back to me.”
He wanted, desperately, to reach for Raider, but he didn’t. He didn’t know where Raider’s mind was, whether it was actually here or still caught in his nightmare. More than that, Raider needed to be allowed to choose for himself—and he had every right to not choose Seth.
But he did.
Too many times tonight, Seth had felt his heart break, and it broke all over again when Raider made that first, uncertain movement toward him. Seth couldn’t hold back after that. He reached out and gathered Raider to him, hauling him in. Raider’s arms closed hesitantly around Seth in return. Seth hated himself for that hesitation, hated that the way he’d treated Raider had made him so damn unsure of what this meant. Seth had to hold Raider for a long time before he rested his face against Seth’s shoulder, longer still before he stopped shaking.
When Raider started to relax against him, Seth got him to lie down. Seth stretched out behind him, tugging Raider close until their bodies aligned. Then Seth buried his face against the back of Raider’s neck. Where it belonged.
Seth smoothed his hand from Raider’s abdomen up to his chest. Raider had discarded his tunic, reverting to the simplicity of his silk pants, those borrowed in Aqarat, and his travel-worn kaftan. Seth had never appreciated that simplicity more than he did now, able to touch Raider’s skin, able to feel the beat of his heart.
Raider whispered, “I’m sorry I lied to you.”
Seth’s throat tightened. “I don’t think you’re the one who needs to say you’re sorry. Because … I think I know why you did.”
Raider didn’t say anything. Just like he’d never said anything. He’d never breathed a word of the truth—because the truth was unbearable. No wonder Raider didn’t speak of it.
But Seth had to. He had to. “This …” Seth’s hand slid to Raider’s left shoulder, where the quicksilver most often emerged. Raider started shaking even before Seth said quietly, “It was done against your will.”
Raider’s chest started heaving against Seth’s hand. Seth squeezed his eyes shut against the back of Raider’s neck. Fuck.
Fuck.
“It’s okay, baby,” Seth soothed as tears leaked from behind his own closed eyelids. He rubbed at Raider’s chest. “Just relax, it’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay, of course. Nothing about this was okay.
Slowly, Raider calmed down. His breathing returned to normal. His heart stopped pounding against Seth’s hand.
“It’s …” Raider trailed off and was silent for so long that Seth didn’t think he would finish what he’d started to say, but eventually he whispered, “It’s easier to pretend that I don’t remember.”
Seth couldn’t reply, not with his throat so damn tight, not with his heart twisting like it was.
Then Raider asked hesitantly, like he was worried, “Do you … understand?”
“Yeah, baby,” Seth gasped. “I understand. And I’m so fucking sorry. For how I acted. For how I talked to you. I’ll never forgive myself.”
“But you got me out. You came back for me.”
Seth’s arms tightened around Raider. “Of course. I wasn’t going to leave you there. But … there’s something I said to you that I need to talk to you about.”
Raider whispered, “That you wished you’d never met me.”
Seth’s heart sank at how quickly Raider leaped to that, like it had been whirling around in his head.
“Gods, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I only said it for Malik and Rahim, so they wouldn’t suspect I was coming back for you. But I should have told you, the instant I saw you again, that I was sorry for those words and had never meant them.”
“Even when you were angry?”
“I never meant them, and I’m really fucking sorry that I hurt you with them.”
A harsh breath juddered into Raider’s lungs. “Fuck, Seth.”
“I’m sorry, baby.”
Raider was still gasping when he said, “I wish I’d handled it differently. After I found the book.”
Seth thought back to what Raider had said about that, how he’d found the book right before the sand serpent fight. A few details slotted together.
“You were outside the bookshop that Malik had taken me to. When the sand serpent struck the wall, when it shook the buildings, I stepped outside the shop and saw you. Then you were gone, racing toward the fight. You had come to find me, hadn’t you?”
“But I wasn’t thinking clearly. My head was such a mess and I kept throwing up—”
“Ah, shit, Raider.”
“—so I don’t know if I would’ve talked to you or not. But then there was the sand serpent fight and my head got even more messed up because of—” Raider cut himself off.
“The quicksilver,” Seth filled in. When Raider didn’t respond, Seth added, “I’d never seen it like that before. It scared you.”
Raider still didn’t say anything, and that was answer enough. It had scared him. It had scared Seth too, and it hadn’t even been his body. To think that such a thing had been forced on Raider, done to him against his will …
And then what? How had the emperor’s death really come about? Because this changed the whole picture.
But right now, the answers didn’t matter. The anger coiling around Seth’s heart at what had been done to Raider didn’t matter.
Right now, all that mattered was that Raider was here in Seth’s arms. And even if Seth didn’t deserve this second chance, he wasn’t going to waste it.
He said, “You needed me today, but you didn’t think you could trust me, and I’m really, really sorry for that.”
“It’s not your fault, Seth. You hadn’t done anything wrong. I’m the one who—”
“It is my fault. Because maybe if I’d told you how much I love you”—Raider sucked in a breath—“things would have been different. Maybe if I’d told you how much I love you”—Raider’s chest started heaving against Seth’s hand—“you would’ve understood that I would never, ever hurt you like you were imagining.”
“Oh, fuck, Seth,” Raider choked out, rolling over in Seth’s arms, “I fucking love you too.”
The tears came out of nowhere, and Seth’s chest hurt so damn much from everything that rushed into it that for a second he couldn’t even feel anything but that beautiful ache.
Raider always did this. He opened the way for Seth. With his vulnerability. With his forgiveness. Seth didn’t deserve it, but he was so damn grateful for it.
Then Raider started kissing him, and Seth let himself surrender fully to the man he loved. Raider’s tongue swept into his mouth, stroking against Seth’s, centering him. His desire for Raider, always just barely held in check, surged hard and fast, heating his body, thickening his cock.
Seth kept one hand on Raider’s back and slid the other down to his ass, hauling him closer, needing every inch of contact. He slotted one leg between Raider’s then moaned when Raider’s erection pressed against his own.
They rocked against each other and, gods, it felt good. It felt right . Nothing in Seth’s life had ever felt right like Raider did.
Seth reached between their bodies, sliding his hand down Raider’s belly and inside his pants. Raider sucked in a breath when Seth’s hand curled around his cock. Seth stroked leisurely, just wanting Raider to feel good, wanting him to feel how much Seth loved and cared about him.
Raider let out a shuddering breath and pressed his face into Seth’s neck. It was the most beautiful feeling, having Raider accept the unhurried pleasure that Seth gave him, feeling the way Raider’s fingers tightened on his hip, feeling every puff of Raider’s breath against his throat.
Seth massaged Raider’s balls with his fingertips before stroking upward again, loving the thick, rigid length of his cock, loving the sounds Raider made as Seth stroked the broad, flared head.
Seth didn’t even want sex. He just wanted to feel Raider enjoying his touch. He wanted it to last forever.
But it ended abruptly when Raider froze. Which made Seth freeze. Then Raider pulled free of Seth’s grip, rolling away onto his other side.
“Raider, what—”
When Raider scrambled up, Seth was so stunned that for a second he could only stare after Raider as he bolted away, vanishing into the night shadows of the olive grove. Then he heard crashing through the undergrowth and Raider’s shout and also a high-pitched, yowling shriek.
Seth launched himself to his feet and raced toward the fight. His first thought was that Rahim’s men had caught up with them, but the yowls sounded more like an animal.
Lacking Raider’s arcane night vision, Seth tripped and stumbled through the scrubby undergrowth and deadfall until he reached the scene, dimly lit by the moon. Raider was being dragged across the ground by—
The ifrit!
It was in its true form. About the size of a large cat, which was its other form, the little blue creature was vaguely human-looking from the waist up. Its lower body was a wafting tail of blue smoke.
Raider had a hold of one thin limb. He was clearly trying to keep the ifrit from escaping, but the creature dragged him with a strength out of proportion with its size.
Seth raced to intercept it, but just as he got in position, Raider lost his grip on the spindly wrist. Abruptly released, the ifrit came flying straight at Seth’s face. Seth got one glimpse of startled, slightly glowing citrine eyes. It probably got a similar look at his own right before it collided with his head. There was a solid thump but also a brief sensation of tiny, scrabbling fingers and the bizarre semi-solidity of its smoky tail.
Seth didn’t have time to snatch at it, however, because Raider crashed into him like a ball in a game of pins, taking him out at the knees. Falling over top of Raider, Seth hit the ground with a jarring thud. Raider rolled to a stop a few feet past him.
Seth scrambled up and spun to track the ifrit. The little creature hit a tree and bounced off. It hit another tree then wobbled through the air and vanished into the night.
Raider, who had burst up and run a few steps after it, gave up. He bent over, bracing his hands on his thighs. “Fuck!”
“It’s okay,” Seth said, surprised by Raider’s reaction. Even if Raider had managed to subdue the ifrit, it probably wouldn’t have told them where Julian was anyway. At least now they knew he was here somewhere.
“How is it fucking okay, Seth? That thing must be Malik’s. It’s going to—”
“Ohhhhh. Shit.” Seth realized suddenly how much Raider hadn’t been privy to, locked in Rahim’s dungeon. “Raider, the ifrit is Julian’s.”
Raider straightened abruptly. “Come again?”
“I should catch you up—”
“Yeah, maybe fucking so. It scared the hell out of me, Seth. I thought they’d found us.”
Seth winced. “I’m sorry. I was caught up in other things.”
Raider exhaled noisily. “Yeah. Me too.” He sounded calmer but still annoyed.
“Are you okay?” Seth asked. That mattered more than the facts, and Seth wasn’t going to forget it again.
“I’m fine,” Raider said shortly, still standing several feet away.
“Then get over here like you understand that I’m sorry and I’m trying to fix things.”
Raider let out a little huff and shook his head, but he did, thank the gods, walk over to Seth. Seth pulled him in and buried his nose in the wavy mess of Raider’s hair. When Raider sighed against him, yielding, Seth murmured, “I know I’m an asshole.”
“You’re certainly very bossy. I don’t know why I can’t just be in a bad mood after running through the woods with a stiff dick. It wasn’t enjoyable.”
Seth chuckled. “Okay, that’s fair. I was in a similar state, you know.”
“Mmm, I know.” Raider turned his face and nuzzled behind Seth’s ear. Seth sucked in a breath as his body hummed in response. Raider nipped Seth’s earlobe, sending a bolt of lust to Seth’s cock. Then Raider pulled away and headed back toward their gear.
Seth closed his eyes, willing his body to settle. Somehow, he’d forgotten what a damn tease Raider could be.
“You said something earlier about being after Julian, but I wasn’t really tracking,” Raider said when Seth had caught up. “So he left Aqarat?”
Seth’s heart twisted at the reminder of their argument and all his assumptions. Raider had never been after the book, and he wasn’t after it now. But Seth was—and it had nothing to do with returning that book to the Arcanum. Not anymore.
Stepping over a fallen branch, Seth explained, “The ifrit helped Julian get the book back from Rahim and Malik. I was assuming Julian would leave Aqarat with the book, but I wasn’t sure until now.”
It was a brief gloss, but Raider didn’t ask for any details. He didn’t say anything at all.
Seth added, “At least we know Julian is close by. Since the ifrit was spying on us.”
“I’m not sure that’s what it was doing,” Raider said. “I mean, yes, it was spying, but I think it was more voyeuristic. Ifrits crave human experience. They’re drawn to sex. Violence, too. But they’re only partially corporeal and can’t feel much of it, unless they’ve consumed human blood. Which that ifrit must have done, because it was dead drunk. But they can’t take blood without consent. Julian must be letting it feed from him.”
They had reached their makeshift camp. Raider scooped up his scimitar and strapped it around his waist.
Seth picked up his sword harness. “That sounds … unwise.”
“It is.” Raider snagged his pack from the ground and slung it over his shoulder. “It’ll just want more. But at least we know Julian is likely at the vineyard. I didn’t see him there when I stole the food, but I wasn’t looking for him. I could easily have missed him.”
Seth shrugged into his sword harness and buckled it at his chest. Usually, its familiar weight across his back settled him, focused him. It meant he had work to do. Right now, he hated it. He didn’t want to deal with Julian or anything else. He wanted time with Raider. He needed to feel things heal between them. They’d made a start, but the connection felt tender, a little fragile.
But there was no time, not right now. There was Julian and the book. There was also the possibility—the likelihood —that Prince Rahim would pursue them.
And yet, it felt desperately important that Seth stop Raider as they left the grove. It felt absolutely essential that he hook his arms around Raider from behind, pull Raider against him, and hold tight for a moment.
A huge breath expanded Raider’s chest. He let it out and relaxed against Seth. His hands came up to rest on Seth’s forearm bracers. He leaned his head back slightly.
Seth spoke quietly into Raider’s ear. “Everything’s going to be okay. We are going to be okay.”
He heard Raider swallow. “I wish we could just …”
“I know,” Seth said when Raider trailed off. “Me too.”
Raider sighed. He rested against Seth for a moment. Gods, Seth loved the weight of Raider’s body against his own.
Then Raider said, “We should run.”
“ Run? ” Seth echoed, recoiling slightly.
Raider’s head lifted. “Um … yes?”
“You think that’s necessary?”
“I mean, we’ll get there faster. Why, what’s—” Raider twisted in Seth’s arms, facing him. His hands started roaming over Seth’s body. “Wait, are you hurt?”
“No, it’s not that. I just … I hate running.”
“Oh.” Raider chuckled and pecked Seth’s lips with a kiss. Then he took off.
Grumbling, Seth set into a jog behind him. Raider, obnoxiously, tried to talk to him as they ran. He drew unnecessary attention to how heavy footed Seth was by pretending to be sympathetic about Seth having more gear and weapons to carry, blah, blah, blah. (Seth didn’t hear all of it. He was concentrating.)
But even in his misery at the mile-long jog to the town, past the town, and all the fucking way to the vineyard, Seth had never been so happy to be annoyed. Because every time the moonlight caught Raider’s face, it revealed a grin that said Raider was very much enjoying giving Seth shit.
And after a day that had been just a little too fucking hard? It amazed Seth to see it. It also reminded him that all this shit had been in Raider’s past the whole time Seth had known him.
All along, Raider had been dealing with this. Seth didn’t know the details, but he knew, he realized now, that it was pretty fucking bad. Yet somehow, despite that, Raider was more full of life than anyone Seth had ever known.
How the hell had Seth gotten so lucky to find this man?
Raider, thankfully, slowed to a walk as they reached the vineyard, where a large house commanded a hilltop above the rows of vines. Several outbuildings dotted the sleepy property.
Seth dug the arcane shackles from his pack and clipped them onto his utility belt for easy access.
When Raider pointed, Seth followed his finger to the pale shape of some kind of pavilion at the vineyard’s far edge.
“I can see the ifrit,” Raider whispered when it was obvious that Seth had no idea what he was looking at.
“Ah.”
That telescopic arcane eye. Had that, too, been done against Raider’s will? Seth’s blood ran cold at the thought.
As they drew closer, making their way between rows of fruiting vines, the multi-level pavilion revealed itself to be a winepress. In a few months, grapes would be piled into the crushing pit and stomped. Channels cut into the rock would carry the juice to the fermenting pools below.
The ifrit, Seth could now see, was lounging beside one of the empty, wine-stained fermenting pools. A jug large enough to have held several gallons of wine lay broken on the pavement. The ifrit was crouched over a curved shard of the jug and lapping from it like a cat.
That jug had undoubtedly come from the shed a little way up the slope. Given the building’s low profile, indicating that most of the structure was belowground for temperature stability, it was a wine ageing shed. Julian must be in there.
After all these months. After all these miles. Was Seth really about to accomplish what had seemed an impossible task? Was this really the end of his mission?
It felt surreal.
It also felt entirely unimportant.
Only Raider mattered. But, for Raider, Seth needed that book.
Noticing their approach, the ifrit drifted drunkenly upward, its smoky tail trailing through the spilled wine. Its citrine eyes blinked lazily, then a look of surprise came slowly to its face, and it shot toward the low building.
Seth and Raider sprinted after it, racing up the slope as the drunken creature careened wildly. Missing the open doorway by at least a foot, the ifrit ran straight into the wall.
When it bounced off, Raider made a grab for it, but his hand passed through its smoky tail. It blew a raspberry at him before zipping away into the night.
Seth saw no more than that. Commotion inside the building had him leaping through the open doorway and down the stairs into the dark, recessed space. He heard a startled scream before colliding with a body much smaller than his own.
They landed on a mudbrick platform. Seth’s quarry was squashed beneath him. He groped around for the man’s hands before realizing they were pressed limply against his chest. Seth reared back and grabbed two slender wrists in one hand, using his other to snatch the shackles from his utility belt.
As he clapped the first cuff onto one of the slender wrists, his quarry let out a garbled cry and tried to yank away. Seth pinned the man’s squirming torso to the platform and clapped the other cuff onto the remaining wrist.
At the top of the steps, the door shut with a light thump. Raider’s voice came down through the darkness.
“ This is your ruthless killer?”