By Chance Met (32 page)

“Only you would be generous enough to show compassion for the Deir who cost you your family and sought your life as well,” Reijir dryly remarked. “Thank Veres for that. I pray that side of you never changes.”

Naeth smiled and planted a soft kiss on his jaw.

They lapsed into companionable silence. Naeth laid his head against Reijir’s shoulder, his eyes on the leaping flames before him. Reijir watched him with some uncertainty.

He wondered if he would be able to sleep well this night. What if Naeth decided to bolt after all? What if Reijir woke up the following morn to find the youth gone? His hand crept over Naeth’s and clasped it tightly. He pulled Naeth’s hands to his lips and kissed the youth’s knuckles. He tensed when Naeth turned his face to look at him.

“I’m staying,” Naeth whispered. “There’s no reason to be afraid.”

Reijir swallowed hard. “Isn’t there? After the way I treated you?”

“You misunderstood my intentions,” Naeth softly pointed out.

“And you nearly left me as a result.”

“I didn’t know you loved me. I thought I had a no place with you.”

Reijir winced, thinking how a simple act of omission had nearly cost him his one true love. He hugged Naeth closer, needing to assure himself that he had righted the wrong he’d done the youth.

He murmured, “I don’t know if I deserve you, but I’m never going to let you go.”

Naeth looked searchingly at him. “What exactly do you mean by that?” he

uncertainly asked. “Forgive me but I just want to know what I am to you. What you want me to be.”

“As is your right,” Reijir pointed out. “Don’t ever apologize for that.” He kissed the tip of Naeth’s nose. “I want you at my side forever. I want you to rule Ilmaren with me and to sire children on you—as many as you care to give me. And I hope and pray you want the same thing.”

It was a roundabout proposal, but its impact was no less profound than a more straightforward one. Naeth was briefly rendered speechless.

“But I’m only a baronet,” he blurted finally. “Aren’t you constrained to wed someone as highborn as yourself?”

“Who told you that?”

“Your uncle the Hamir. He said a mere
serl
wouldn’t do for a Herun.”

“True, such unions were unheard of until only very recently,” Reijir conceded. “But Rohyr upended the old rules when he married Lassen. If the Ardan himself broke with tradition, what’s to stop others from following suit? Besides, my sire beat the desire to

blindly obey out of me.” Reijir squared his shoulders as if to shake off the pain and humiliation Rodeth had inflicted on him. “If I was constrained in any way, it was by my own fears. Darion’s betrayal cut deep, and it’s only now that the wound has finally healed. But it was simpler to just let people think I was extremely selective rather than explain my reasons for refusing to indulge in more than casual affairs.”

“You certainly didn’t exclude me,” Naeth said with a little pout.

“You gave me reason to doubt you,” Reijir countered. “When you didn’t tell me you were with child.” Abashed, Naeth bit his lip and nodded. Reijir remarked, “I think I was in love with you even then, but keeping such a secret from me made me fear that entrusting you with my heart might only lead to its breaking anew.”

Naeth groaned. “To think I would have learned long ago that I’d already won you!

Ruomi was right. I should have told you at once. Ah, what an idiot I was.”

Reijir grinned. “Idiot or not, I still intend to bind to you.”

His reiteration of his proposal charmed an elated smile out of Naeth.

“When?” he asked, his eyes brimming with joy.

“Autumn’s end. That should be enough time to put together a decent wedding.”

Naeth gaped at him. “So soon! Why don’t we wait until after I graduate from university?”

Reijir snorted. “Nay. I’m not taking any chances given your penchant for leaving me and thinking you’re doing me a favor when you do!”

Naeth could only grin sheepishly at Reijir.

After a moment, Reijir stroked a finger along the curve of Naeth’s left ear until he reached the pierced lobe, the absence of his two-stoned leman’s earring testament to his belief that he was no longer entitled to wear it.

“By the way, why didn’t you ask me to lift my imprint on you?” he asked. “Even had you succeeded in reaching Sidona, you would have remained enchained to me and that would have enabled me to trace you.”

Naeth did not reply at once. When he did, his embarrassment showed in the

burgeoning rosy glow in his cheeks.

“It was the only way I could leave,” he confessed. “So long as I could still feel you in my mind, I thought I could bear parting from you—at least until you insisted that our link be broken.”

Reijir stared at him in some amazement. “And what if I chose to never release you?

What then?”

Warm color suffused Naeth’s face and ears nigh to the roots of his hair. That elicited an incredulous chuckle.

“You little idiot…” Reijir’s low, throaty voice made a tender caress of the pejorative, and Naeth could not stop the shiver that resonated through his body. “So you would have made an adulterer of me after all.”

”I don’t know what you mean,” Naeth mumbled.

“Did you think I would have able to resist the temptation to bed you again?” Reijir pointed out. “Especially when I alone could have you whenever and wherever I wished and I knew you would spread yourself for me without a moment’s hesitation. If you think me possessed of the strength to desist, then you have the wits of a simpleton.”

Naeth averted his gaze, unable to meet his lover’s searching gaze.

Reijir’s huffed. “Or perhaps not,” he commented. “You
knew
I would search for you.

That I would seek your bed again!”

“Nay, I only hoped!” Naeth protested. He gulped when Reijir eyed him

speculatively. “I didn’t even know if you would want me again. And even if you did, I wasn’t sure if your scruples would allow you to-to—”

“Tup you senseless while wed to another Deir,” Reijir finished for him. “You thought that of a Deir who would have counseled his own son to take a leman if he didn’t love his spouse. Where were your wits,
ariad
?” He grinned when Naeth beamed at his use of the endearment. “Verily, it has been long since I brought my scruples to bed with me. Nor have my partners been worth the effort of observing such niceties. With one exception.”

Reijir cupped Naeth’s face and affectionately rubbed their noses together until Naeth giggled. “You alone tested my restraint to the limit, and when I failed the test time and again, I was torn between happiness and guilt as I have never been before.”

“You were torn? You certainly never showed it.”

“You think so only because you don’t know me as I was. But Keiran quickly saw the signs of change in me and so did Ruomi.”

Naeth stared at him. “Ruomi did say your moods had grown almost as unpredictable as Keiran’s,” he admitted. “And then he said he was glad of it. Is that what you mean?”

Smiling ruefully, Reijir nodded. “They suspected you were no longer a mere

indulgence to me but a necessity. Yet stubborn fool that I am, I refused to admit how much I needed you even to myself.”

“You’re not a fool!” Naeth indignantly said. “Well, stubborn mayhap, but that seems to be in your blood. Keiran is just as bad. Maybe worse.”

“So loyal,” Reijir remarked with a grin. “Well, whatever your reasons, it was most fortunate for the both of us. Else I wouldn’t have known that you’d left the main road.”

“You mean you used our link to locate me?” Naeth asked, awed.

“Of course.” He ran his thumb along Naeth’s lower lip and smiled when Naeth instinctively pursed his mouth to draw the finger in. “By the way, shall I lift my imprint today or on our binding night?”

Naeth raised his eyebrows in surprise. He released Reijir’s finger. “Why bring that up now?”

“I said I would do so when I wed,” Reijir reminded him. “And soon I will.”

“Oh.” Naeth looked at him a little anxiously. “Will I-will I still feel you when we bind?”

Reijir smiled and nodded. “Even more strongly than you do now.”

“Then I want to wait,” Naeth decided. “I don’t ever want to feel your absence.”

Reijir’s smile widened. “Then we shall wait,” he agreed.

He leaned forward and caught Naeth in a gentle kiss. But the kiss soon turned hard and torrid, boding further intimacy. Naeth eagerly lay back and pulled Reijir between his legs.

There was little foreplay. There was no need after the thorough plowing Naeth had borne earlier. Reijir paused only long enough to ease oil into Naeth and smear a generous amount on himself.

The pleasurable friction of ample flesh sliding up his backside rendered Naeth wantonly pliant. No word of protest or complaint escaped him when Reijir spread him wide for deeper penetration, only a litany of semi-incoherent pleas to be cleaved as

thoroughly as needed to make him indisputably feel Reijir’s ownership.

Naeth groaned when, upon spotting them at the dining hall entrance, Keiran

exclaimed, “Sweet Veres, kitten, did my brute of a brother let you sleep at all?”

Reijir glared at him and said, “I assure you Naeth got more sleep than Ruomi ever does when you’re in rut.”

He looked at Rohyr with both eyebrows raised, daring his royal cousin to make any potentially discomfiting remarks. But Rohyr smiled and said, “It’s good to see you’ve straightened out your misunderstanding, Rei. May we expect another binding in the family before long?”

That swept away Reijir’s cautious mood, and he smiled back and said, “Indeed you may and soonest, too. My intended has a habit of getting misplaced if I don’t keep him under lock and key.”

Naeth pouted and nudged him hard in the ribs.

He seated himself between Reijir and Lassen and across from Eiren who promptly announced, “He seems none the worse for wear save for a slight hitch in his stride.

Telling but not surprising. Do be gentler next time, Rei. Naeth’s arse can only take so much attention.”

A muffled imprecation escaped Naeth.
Saints!
Even Eiren was as bawdy of tongue as his relations!

Lassen leaned over and said, “Best get used to it. It’s one of the hazards of marrying into this family. But you’ll count it well worth the blushes, that I can guarantee.”

Naeth chuckled in resignation. “I’ll take your word for it,
Dyhar
,” he murmured.

To his relief, the talk turned to politics and other events of current interest to the cousins. Naeth applied himself to having a good meal despite the growing difficulty of finding a comfortable position.

Try as he might, he could not keep from squirming in his seat. He did not regret the activities that had induced so acute a discomfort in his backside, but that lack of regret did naught to lessen said discomfort enough to allow him to sit still for any length of time. As Naeth carefully tested another position, he vaguely noticed Lassen conferring with Ruomi. The
sedyr
stepped out of the dining chamber.

Just as Naeth was wondering whether he would get through the meal without making a spectacle of himself, Ruomi suddenly appeared at his side holding a soft cushion.

He softly said, “Lassen-
dyhar
suggests you sit on this.”

Naeth refused to look up as he settled himself on the cushion. It was indeed a blessed relief for his arse but now he had to contend with the embarrassment of providing ample evidence of Reijir’s concupiscence and his own eager complicity in his obvious undoing.

He kept his eyes glued to his plate.

“Naeth seems to be nursing an ache of some consequence,” Rohyr murmured as he meticulously sliced a sausage. “You wouldn’t happen to have something for that on hand, Ren, would you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Eiren replied with a long-suffering roll of the eyes. “With

kinsfolk like you, it’s always best to come prepared.” He placed a small jar on the table and pushed it across to a crimson-faced Naeth. “Use it with a lavish hand. But don’t let Reijir administer it else you’ll wind up with a new ache before the old one’s been dealt with.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Althia, Ilmaren

Voices rose in song to the strains of gittern, harp and flute. Long boards groaned beneath the weight of a bountiful feast’s worth of food and drink. It was a celebration fit for a great Ylandrin fief-lord and his new consort and binding-mate.

Reijir and Naeth bedazzled their guests as much with the radiance of their smiles as with their resplendent attire. Clad in formal tunics of nuptial gold and cream with bejewelled belts encircling their waists and circlets of gold and silver upon their heads, they were the picture of a true love match, something the Ilmareni had not thought their distrustful Herun would ever make.

They had earlier wed in the temple of Althia, promising never-ending devotion and fidelity to each other through the many cycles of Deiran rebirth unto the final end of mortal life and beyond into the eternal halls of the Maker. Veres’ cool silvery flame flaring in their joined hands confirmed the validity of their union and sealed their oaths.

Naeth had been thrilled beyond description when he sensed the bridging of their minds, a joining that more than made up for the void left when Reijir lifted his imprint on him the night before. What had once been a one-sided link under Reijir’s control was now a two-way channel allowing Naeth to touch Reijir with his mind as well, a wondrous privilege unique to soul-mated Deira. He’d raised elated eyes to Reijir and thereby been humbled to see his proud lord-spouse shed silent tears as their hearts and spirits were bound in sacred union.

When the unearthly ecstasy of their souls’ binding faded, Naeth quickly retreated into Reijir’s arms, his luminous eyes and jubilant smile outshining the sconces on the temple walls, the ceremonial candles bedecking the altar and the blazing lamps that hung from the soaring ceiling of the cavernous chamber.