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“That’s why you need the humans.”
He nods. “I can’t use their maps. I could wander for years and not find anything.”
“I see both sets of stars.” Nur rolls the map back up. “I’ll navigate. You knew, didn’t you? That you would be lost without them.”
“Of course.”
“But you let them leave.”
He says nothing. He can’t pretend it was an act of selflessness—he did it as much for himself as for Nur.
Nur’s expression is hard to read in the dark. “You risked your mission.”
“I had to,” he murmurs.
Nur shakes his head.
“Come on.”
He lets Nur lead the way. They’re taking a shortcut, traveling more directly than the caravan is able to—the wagons have to stick to harder packed sand and stone. Instead, he and Nur travel over dunes and through valleys. The sands shift under their feet like a living thing. But the desert itself is barren.
“I know the stars of New Yden well,” Nur says as they walk. The sunrise melts away the icy black of night, making the sharp planes of his face gleam. “When the King didn’t need me, I used to go to the top of Mount Hythe and watch them turn. Night after night, the two sets of stars chased each other across the sky endlessly. Whose stars were winning? I never found out.”
They reach the top of the dune and Nur pauses for breath. Arsene is relieved to do the same. He doesn’t want Nur to see him struggle—the heat took more out of him than expected.
They walk almost all day and night, and when they finally stop to rest for a few hours he reaches for Nur as soon as they’re inside the tent. Nur sinks into his arms with a sigh.
“I want to try something,” Arsene says.
“Not something that requires a lot of bending, I hope,” Nur mumbles into his shoulder.
“No.” He hesitates, and Nur goes tense and sits up. Arsene wonders if he’s gone mad. “Feed me.”
Nur stiffens. “Why?”
“I need to know what it’s like to be full of you.”
“You’re not like me.” Nur pulls free, but not before Arsene sees him tremble. “And my ichor isn’t blood. My soul can’t nourish you. It can only corrupt.”
That’s the point. Arsene doesn’t say that, because Nur would refuse. “I can handle it.”
Nur twists away. “No, you can’t. You’re already exhausted just from walking. Why do you want this? Tell me the truth.”
He reaches for Nur again, encapsulating his wrists, and Nur stills. “Please, just trust me.”
With a growl, Nur wrenches free. He brings his wrist to his lips and bites down, letting ichor well up.
“There. Do what you will.” He holds his arm out to Arsene.
The bitterness is shocking at first. It coats Arsene’s tongue and fills his throat, much more potent than the tiny drops he tasted before. He swallows quickly, but swallowing only spreads it thickly across his palate. Then it’s trickling down inside him, so cold it burns all the way down to his core. He gasps. Nur pushes him off.
“That’s enough!” he snaps. But his eyes are bright and his cheeks dark with unmistakeable arousal.
“Not yet.” Arsene recaptures him. He ignores Nur’s protests and arranges his mate under him, pinning his errant limbs, and takes his wrist once more to his mouth to suck out the ichor that drips from it. He needs more, more, until it turns his arteries and veins to stone, until he’s corrupted from the inside out by Nur. His mind detaches from reality as Nur writhes under him, panting. He floats.Is this what Nur feels when he feeds?
Suddenly Nur gasps and goes stiff, and the bond spills over with fire. The spell is broken. Arsene shudders as hot and cold mix inside him, and without warning he’s there too, Nur’s peak triggering his own. He buries his face in Nur’s shoulder and thrusts mindlessly, too far gone to even get a hand on himself. Nur clutches at his back.
“Idiot,” he whispers.
