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“I have no reputation to uphold,” Connor said. “But you do. I will try to be less–”
“It’s not that,” Reggie finally gasped out. “I can’t–” He couldn’t look at him, when he said, so he turned his head, though he stayed within his grasp, and stared at a fraying spot on the wall of the tent. “Everyone knows what happened to me,” he said. “They all see the scar on my neck; they heard the rumors that spread. A ransom note was sent to my mother, and it was…graphic. One of the maids got hold of it.”
“Gods,” Connor swore, softly. “I never heard.”
“You wouldn’t have. You were off in the forest playing at bandits.”
“Reg.”
“They know I was defiled. That I wasn’t man enough to fight back against them.”
“You were aprisoner of war,” Connor said, harshly. “There is no fighting back against that.”
“They know,” he insisted. “And when they find out that I’ve bent over for you, then they’ll know that it wasn’t merely circumstance last time. They’ll know that I – that I crave – that I want to be subjugated. They won’t respect me as a man, nor as a commander. I’ll–”
“For gods’ sakes.” Firm fingers gripped his chin and pulled his head back around, so they faced one another. Connor’s expression had gone stern – nearly lordly, despite the long hair and scruffy jaw. “Stop saying what you’re saying – stopthinkingit, because it’s all bollocks. What you do or don’t want to do in bed has nothing to do with being a man or a commander. Anyone out there” – he aimed his free hand toward the field beyond the tent – “who disagrees can answer to me.” His hand became a fist, knuckles cracking as it tightened.
He radiated aggression, enough to startle Reggie from the numb, downward spiral of worry and shame, familiar as his own face in the mirror by now. Being defendedwasn’tfamiliar, though. He wasn’t sure he liked it – what it implied about needing that defense – but in the moment, there was a certain sharp sweetness to it. One he could fall into, if he wasn’t careful; the sort of thing that could become addictive, and the last thing he needed was to depend on Connormore.
“That’s very chivalrous of you,” he began.
And Connor swooped in and kissed him. The sort of immediately bold, and heated, and slippery kiss that left his head spinning.
Connor drew back a fraction, his face a blur, his breath warm and wine-scented across Reggie’s lips. “Stop thinking so much,” he murmured, and when he kissed him again, Reggie reciprocated, hands tangling in long hair and holding tight.
~*~
Amelia ought to have been in bed, resting up for the next day’s patrolling. Instead, she sat in the window seat of the bedroom she’d taken for her own, gazing out across the slowly-dying campfires, thinking of romance, and the unlikely ways it manifested under stressful conditions.
She was still stunned by the notion that Leda had taken up with her stepson, of all people, and hoped her face didn’t show it each time Leda walked into a room and Amelia remembered Colum’s reverent, pained expression all over again. She wanted to blame it on proximity, because Leda could have had any man she wanted, and yet she’d picked Colum. But proximity wasn’t to blame for the tenderness in Leda’s touch against his face, nor the warmth in her gaze when she looked at him. Love was a strange spell, not easily blamed on superficial conditions.
Connor and Reggie were less surprising, in truth. There’d been tension between them from the first, always sniping at one another, hurling insults with a kind of fervor that left everyone around them wondering who would throw the first punch.
It had been a kiss instead, apparently.
Were they together now? she wondered. Out there in Connor’s tent? Did their tempers flare in the throes? Or were they gentle with one another, all the temper an act and a display of misplaced ardor?
She gave herself a shake. She shouldn’t bewonderinganything. It was their private business, and none of hers.
She stood, drew off her dressing gown, and climbed into bed.
But she couldn’tstopwondering. She didn’t wish that she’d taken Connor up on his offer weeks ago, didn’t wanthim. Didn’t want anyone in particular – she wanted Mal,oh, Mal,no, no, no– but she wanted…something. Was restless and hungry in a way she hadn’t been since Mal had…
No, no. She couldn’t think of that. Of him. She couldn’t afford to get stuck in memories, even happy ones, or she might not climb back out of this bed the next morning.
She tossed and turned, fluffed her pillow, and must have fallen asleep, amidst all that restlessness, because the next thing she knew, she stood at the border of a now-familiar forest, the sun hazy white overhead, the sky the washed-out color of dirty linen, the forest floor between the tree trunks a preternatural black. Fireflies winked and flittered in that darkness. Low branches rustled; twigs cracked.
It was becoming a habit, coming to this place in her dreams. She twisted around and saw the wide, slick surface of the pond, but no sign of her drakes this time. She frowned, but it was curiosity more than fear that nagged at her. She’d begun to suspect this was no ordinary dream, but being the only one in her current company with any sort of magical leanings, she had no one to ask for advice.
She missed her sister and cousin fiercely. Wanted to sit with them, laugh with them; to talk with them over the wild ways their lives had turned sideways in the past few months.
She sighed, and turned back to face the forest.
And there they were. The wolves.
They stood closer now than they ever had before. With their strange gray-gold coats, one two shades darker than the other, and their blues eyes, identical in color, differing only in sternness. She could tell, in the short distance of grass that separated them, which was the boss of the two. The alpha, she supposed.
Just as she knew this wasn’t a dream, she sensed that these weren’t truly wolves. Not normal ones, at any rate.
