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“I think I might be jealous,” Ere went on.
“Amongst the three of us dragon brothers, the gods clearly favored you with looks. I think they did a pretty good job with me as the first one, but probably decided I looked too pretty. Moonstone scales and alabaster skin, you know. That hardly screams ‘dragon.’”
Yes, that was how Sai remembered Rai’s dragon and human forms.
“Then they went overboard with Kai, making him too butch,” Ere lamented dramatically, shaking his head.
“But they clearly achieved perfection with you, dear Sai.”
He beamed at Sai, and Sai felt as if he was witnessing the rising of a new dawn, despite the dark circles of exhaustion and grief under Ere’s eyes.
“Beautiful, magnificent man,” Ere murmured.
Sai blinked back at Ere, nonplussed. Well, the man’s irreverent sense of humor and propensity for embarrassing him certainly reminded him of Rai.
“You are Ere now,” he finally said.
The man nodded as the sudden burst of happiness seconds ago faded to a faint smile.
They looked at each other in silence for a while longer, simply taking one another’s measure.
They were of similar height and build. Ere was more slender, but hard as steel, like a rapier. Sai was leanly muscular, like an estoc.
He had not seen Kai in human form before, but if the dragon translated to man, Sai supposed he’d be more like a claymore ordadao, a gigantic curved sword used in the East.
Honestly, a sword might not be the best analogy for Kai at all. He was probably more akin to a mighty battle axe or war hammer, some sort of blunt force instrument that could break through iron gates and stone walls with a single blow.
“I am sorry for your sadness, brother,” Sai rumbled low.
“If you have need of anything I can provide, it’s yours.”
Ere’s mouth quivered, and he pressed his lips firmly together to still them. But he couldn’t dam the onslaught of emotions after all. A wounded, garbled cry burst out a moment before he threw himself at Sai.
Sai caught him readily in his arms as Ere hugged him tight, the other man’s face buried against his shoulder. Silent sobs wracked Ere’s too-thin body, shaking his entire frame.
Sai held him tightly, as Brigid’s love had taught him to do.
He’d never known physical touch borne of affection and comfort, and all the other shades and colors of love before her. As dragons, he’d played with his brothers, but it was always in the form of mock fights, rough and tumble. While he was imprisoned, there was no touch at all.
Only pain. Endless amounts of it.
Brigid was the first person he touched as a man. The first person who touched him in return. It had changed him in indescribable ways.
Shehad changed him forever.
He didn’t know how long they stood like this, simply embracing. He didn’t care. He would stay like this for as long as Ere needed.
He breathed the other man in, acquainting himself with Ere’s unique scent. He stroked one hand through Ere’s long, slightly tangled hair.
It was clear the man hadn’t taken care to groom himself in many days, for his clothes were also disheveled and wrinkled. He probably hadn’t eaten either, for his frame was far too thin. Sai could feel each bar of Ere’s ribcage pressing into his own body as the other man breathed in and out.
Finally, Ere heaved a long, shuddering breath and pulled away.
He wiped his eyes with a swipe of his forearm and drew his brows together in a scowl, as if angry at himself that he’d lost control like that.
“Sorry,” he muttered, looking away from Sai, not meeting his eyes.
“I’m not usually such a mess.”
