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“And one hell of a secret it is.” Ren gave a low whistle, beginning to prowl around the hut in what was perhaps supposed to be intimidation, but I knew was just him being a nosy prick. Not that there was much to look at other than a bed and a few shelves: it was clear the man lived a sparse life. “A living Hearken. Capable of reading our fucking thoughts from our heads.”
Even standing before the man as proof, I was still reeling from the impossibility of the information Astrid had divulged, her voice lowered to a whisper and the words uttered in Quarehian to minimise the chance of us being overheard. For Riehse Eshan believed the Hearken, the fifth type of Blessed in addition to those with the Touch, Sight, Scent and Voice, to be long dead. None had been born in over a century, and while the sense-based abilities of the Blessed could manifest almost randomly and later in life, with my own gift as evidence of such, it was always one of the other four magics that emerged.
I hadn’t thought anything Astrid could have said would have made up for the absence of her army at our backs – and that of Temar – but if this was the value she was placing on friendship with Ren and the south, then she was truly serious about achieving peace. It was one hell of a gift.
Except people couldn’t be owned, so if we wanted any chance of unseating Welzes we had to be ready to beg for this stranger’s help.
“Close proximity,” the man said to me just as I opened my mouth to ask him what he needed to work his magic. “Not exactly voices, but close enough not to bother explaining it any other way,” he added, seemingly anticipating my next question about how he read a person’s thoughts. “Name’s Dima. White sparks – they blend with my hair so you can barely tell in the daylight. Yes, I’m doing it now. No, I can’t stop it. Yes, I expect that constant drain on our magic is why we died out. Your sympathy for that is not needed; I never knew any others of my kind.”
I sucked in a startled breath.
“Hmm,” Ren mused, although I noticed he kept himself as far away from the man as was possible in the tiny room. “It would have been a lot easier to get you into my bed if I’d had that little handy trick, Mathias. You wouldn’t have been able to feign disinterest nearly as well.”
“Feign, right,” I said, because with how accommodating and agreeable I’d been to him last night, he deserved me playing hard to get today.
Dima shuddered, reaching into his pocket and stuffing something dark green and leafy into his mouth. He chewed quickly, his lips turning down as if the flavour was unpleasant, only when he spoke again I realised it wasn’t the leaves that he was finding distasteful.
“I have already seen far too much of your naked bodies than I am comfortable with,” he said sourly, glaring at each of us. “If more of this is what I am to expect on our journey, then I shall have to change my mind about helping you.”
“I…”
I glanced helplessly at Ren, who for once, didn’t seem overjoyed about being able to torment someone with sexual implication.
“Then avert your fucking eyes,” my prince hissed. “Mathias doesn’t like to be looked at, and he’smine.”
Dima crammed more leaves into his mouth, chewing and swallowing like he couldn’t get it down fast enough. “You think if I had a choice in the matter, I’d want to see what you two…whatanyone…”
“Do your best, Hearken, before I turn my thoughts decidedly nastier and drown both them and you in blood,” my lover spat at him.
Ah, a line. I never thought I’d find one, not when it came to Ren and oversharing, but apparently there was a difference between encouraging someone to use their imagination about what he and I got up to behind closed doors, and actuallyseeingit.
I shivered, feeling uncomfortable and violated. All those moments were private,precious, andours.
But when Dima swallowed and dropped his head as if attempting to comply with Ren’s order despite the futility of physical movement against such magic, I realised that the violation wasn’t one-sided. To have other people’s thoughts thrust into your head without your consent, unable to stop whatever was in their own minds from polluting yours…fuck, no wonder the man lived so remotely.
I tried my best not to think about Ren without clothes, but of course, that’s all my mind would latch onto. The older man shot me a hateful glare from underneath his thick, bushy eyebrows.
“See us?” I asked hurriedly, hoping to distract both my thoughts and his. “You said it was like voices, before, is it-”
“I saidclose enough,” he snapped, and then sighed. “Think of it like a book, with words that conjure mental images. You two are particularly graphic in your descriptions of each other.”
Sorry.
Dima sighed again. “I know you do not intend it, Mathias. Your apologies do not need to be quite so loud and insistent.”
Then he glanced at my lover. “And Ren, I see you make none at all even though youaredoing it intentionally.”
It was odd hearing this stranger refer to us so familiarly, as though he’d been with us the whole time. I supposed, in a way, he had.
I swallowed down that thought and hoped the Hearken wouldn’t comment on it either.
Ren shrugged, sticking his hands into his pockets. “I’m not thinking of you, Mat,” he assured me, and then winced, closed one eye, and peered at me gingerly through the other. “Except for now. And…now. Shit, sorry.”
Dima swayed on the spot, his hands crossed and clutching at his ankles where he was still seated in front of the fire. “I assure you that I am not as bigoted as many of my people. With all minds laid out to me, it would be difficult to judge something that everyone has imagined or fantasised on at least once, but that doesn’t mean Iwant to see it, Ren!”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking about us both being men, or the kink, but I reallyreallydidn’t want to hear the answer. My mind lurched, desperately trying to pin down something to change the subject to, but it flailed helplessly in a sudden void of desolate befuddlement.
“You said you’d help us,” the prince blurted out, looking ratherun-Ren-like as he lost himself in his own panic. “We need you to-”
