Page 15 of Demon of the Dead


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Cold-faced, sore, and happy inside from flying, Oliver paused in one of the lower hallways of the palace to check his reflection in the looking glass hung above a sideboard. His cheeks and nose were pink from the cold, and his hair a tousled mess – his eyes were bright, though. He barely recognized himself.

Carefully, he pulled the ties and beads loose from his braids, finger combed his hair – it brushed the tops of his shoulders now, the curls loose and wild, burnished copper in the glow of the cressets to either side of the mirror – and set about re-braiding it. He wasn’t as good as a Northerner, but he’d been practicing on Erik, his broad shoulders pushing Oliver’s thighs wide as he sat before him on the rug in front of the fire. His face heated as he recalled those close, quiet nights alone with wine and unlaced shirts and privacy.

“Shouldn’t you be letting Uncle do that?”

Oliver was a little proud of the way he didn’t startle beyond a widening of his eyes in his reflection. He turned, and found Leif approaching from the direction of the lower staircase – the one that led down to the baths…and the dungeons. He’d been to see Ragnar again, then.

Oliver hadn’t heard his approach, and indeed, as he closed the distance, he moved silently, lightly for such a large boy. No, a large man. All remaining traces of boyishness had vanished from him, from his expressions, to his smiles, to the way he carried himself. Even his voice was rougher, less courtly, more…wild. A low undercurrent of a growl threaded through it always, now.

Oliver’s heart ached for him, for what he’d lost, for the gentleness he’d left behind.

But he smiled and said, “Well, he’d do a better job, certainly.” He faced his reflection again. “We’re meeting in the office for supper. Birger, and Bjorn, and us. Erik wants you to join.”

Leif drew up behind him, and in the mirror, Oliver watched him frown before answering; he looked like a blond Erik in that moment, but in an alarming way, with none of Erik’s carefully guarded softness. “I’ll join. I need to speak with him anyway.”

Why did he make it sound so ominous?

To Oliver’s relief, he moved on, and Oliver finished and tied off his braids alone. But relief was quickly replaced by trepidation. Erik wanted to gather them all together to talk of the war, the one in which they were now most certainly mired. Last night, or this morning, rather, in the quiet hours before down, with the wind pressing at the black window panes and the fire only a line of orange in the dark, Erik had gathered him close and confessed. “I always thought should, gods forbid, Aeretoll ever marched to war, that Leif would be my general. My right hand, as my heir. But now…”

“Now?” Oliver had stroked his bare chest, slow drags of his fingertips.

“Now I don’t know what he wants.”

That was the problem: no one knew. Oliver found that he was dreading this meeting.

He smoothed his burgundy velvet tunic, gave his love beads one last tweak, and headed upstairs.

In the corridor just outside Erik’s study, he found the man himself standing with arms folded, leaning against the window embrasure and gazing out at the sunset through the diamond panes.

Oliver paused a moment, before he was noticed, to simply look and appreciate. They weren’t new anymore, the two of them. Oliver wore his ring, and his braids, and had been acknowledged and accepted by the kingdom as His Lordship, Consort of the King. They’d grown familiar and comfortable. No, theirs wasn’t a decade’s long union, but, by all rights, Oliver should have stopped feeling the flutter of butterflies in his stomach every time he laid eyes on him. He didn’t think that was ever going to change, though – and he hoped it didn’t.

Today, Erik wore blue velvet beneath a black, silver-studded leather jerkin. The tail of his belt was too long, and hung down nearly to his knees. He wore a braid over each ear, layered with lover’s and king’s beads, the rest of his heavy mass of black hair tied back into an intricate, single plait. The fading sunset light coming through the window winked across the gems in his many rings, and he stood with one fur-topped boot crossed over the other.

Oliver drank him in, warm and pleased and proud to know that he was his.

And then he noticed Erik’s expression: contemplative carved marble touched with melancholy.

What, Oliver wondered, was he to do with all these brooding Northmen?

He put a smile on his face and walked forward. “You look as if you’re thinking very kingly thoughts.”

Erik turned to him, and his face immediately softened; his gaze, the glimpse of concern that Oliver first caught in it, melted into something warm and affectionate.

Gods, but he loved this man.

“Hm,” Erik agreed. “And you’ve the hair of a lad who’s been flying all afternoon.”

Oliver twitched a sheepish face and reached to pat the top of his head. “I thought I didn’t do too badly taming it.”

He reached Erik, and Erik reached for him; set a large, warm hand on the inward flare of his waist and drew him in, the other hand smoothing back along the crown of his head. “Not too bad…for a Southerner.”

“Oh, you wound me, sir.”

Erik bundled him in close, and Oliver went happily, slipping both arms around his waist and resting his cheek on warm, fragrant leather. The dense muscle beneath was softened by a padding of warm clothes, but still very much detectable.

“It’s odd when you call me ‘lad,’” Oliver teased. “It makes us seem mismatched.”

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