“When I’m back in shape, I’ll make it even better,” Hen promised into his lips.
“If it gets much better I’ll pass out.” Dagan laughed and leaned back on both hands.
There were small scratches on his hip from where Hendrik had held him, and several little pink dots against the flat of his belly and around his navel. Bright marks against his moonlit coppery skin, little reminders that he’d offered himself up whole, that he’d given himself over completely. Hen smoothed the oil over the arc of Dagan’s lower belly and into his hip.
Dagan hummed and watched from above, his hair long behind him, his gaze heavy-lidded. “Those rings are perfect.” He licked his lips.
“Jak always said he had a toy for everyone.” Hen chuckled. “They do work well, though. Did I go too deep?”
Dagan shook his head. “You can go deeper, sometime when we aren’t traveling. Or maybe just…more.”
Hen traced little crescent moons of oil over the marks on his belly. “I didn’t think you’d want them near your cock, but that was really, really hot.”
“Mmmm, it was, wasn’t it?” Dagan’s smile went crooked, self-satisfied. “Can’t say I’d like it scratched but getting close to it is…” He licked his lips again and scooted his hips forward. His prick, lazy and dark against his inner thigh, stirred slightly. “But I couldn’t reach you with my mouth, love, what with you banging me senseless.”
Hen handed over the vial of oil, stoppered up, and held out his arms. Dagan climbed into his lap and straddled it, wrapping his thighs around Hen’s middle. He made a face when he sat, a little wince. “Ow. Fuck, how am I gonna ride that pony tomorrow?”
“Very, very carefully?” Hen guessed, pulling him close with one arm.
“Worth it.” Dagan buried his face in Hen’s neck, kissing and sucking gently. “Where should I nibble on you hardest, now, darling?”
“Depends on whether you want anyone to see it or not.”
“Oh, I do, so long as you don’t mind?”
“I’ll be so fucking proud, are you kidding?”
“I liked the old one; it was very pretty. So I’ll do the other side.” Dagan licked his collar bone, then up to his shoulder slowly.
Though his body was entirely exhausted, Hen’s prick still had the audacity to stir against the back of Dagan’s thigh, because of course it did. Hen grabbed one of the blankets and wrapped it around them both, cocooning them together. Dagan let his head rest against Hen’s shoulder beneath the blanket. Then bit into him. And sucked.
“Nnngh,” and other inarticulate noises escaped Hendrik as Dagan worked. Teeth and tongue and lips, carefully calculating, drawing blood to the surface and leaving their mark. Hen clutched at Dagan’s backside, holding him close, head lolling to the side to provide better access.
When he finished, Dagan sat back to admire his work, lips red and puffy and wet. “Oh yes, very nice. I think it’ll keep for a few days.” He poured a few drops of oil on it, releasing the sweet green scent again, and rubbed it in. “Does it hurt?”
Hen shook his head. “It feels good.”
“I doubt that very much.” But Dagan laughed. “I understand, though. Perfectly.”
After he restoppered the bottle, Dagan leaned into him, resting their foreheads together and wrapping one arm around Hen’s neck. With the other, he traced the lines of the burn scar across Hen’s bicep, all the way down to his forearm.
Hen used to hate that scar. But if he’d never experienced that funeral pyre on the beach, maybe even if he hadn’t halfway rolled into it atop a priest, he might not have known about the oil. It had made him so sick at the time, and then to smell it again in the tunnels beneath the See. And then it saved them all.
They sat like that, in their rosemary-scented blanket, minds foggy with the lovely aches and satisfying pleasures of what had just passed between them and the slow but steady stirring of renewed, if somewhat lazier, lust. Soaking each other in like they’d dreamed of so often.
“I think you do,” Hen whispered after a very long silence.
Dagan’s eyelashes fluttered against Hen’s cheeks. “What’s that, love?”
“I think you understand perfectly,” Hen clarified, flushing a little. “What I want. Who I want to be. I think you understand better than I do.”
“No, but I’m open to it in a way you can’t be,” Dagan reasoned, rubbing his smooth cheek against Hen’s unshaven one. “I’ve seen some of your history now. I know why it holds you back. But I also know how it makes you who you are, and I love that.”
“The longer we were there, the more I felt just how little I understood that place,” Hen said with a sigh. “And everyone in it.”
“That was by design, darling, not any fault on your part.” Dagan kissed his cheek. “And you weren’t the only one. If you ever feel yourself slipping away here, let me know, and I’ll help you find it again.”
“I know.” Hen squeezed him tight. “And you too; whatever it is you need, just know I’ll do anything to help you get it. Anything at all.”
“What else could I possibly need?” Dagan wondered with a little smile.
“If we’re lucky, we’ll get to grow old, Dags. Who knows what you’ll need on the way?”
“Oh, my sweetheart,” Dagan’s voice was breathy as he leaned into Hendrik. “Is that a promise to grow old with me?”
“Yes,” Hendrik replied immediately. That was precisely what it had been, even if he hadn’t realized it before he’d said it. “And you don’t have to—”
“I accept. And I
promise to take care of you, adore you, and try to become the man
you think I am. The man you deserve.” Dagan kissed him again,
melting in his arms. “As long as I breathe, I promise you
that.”
Two Moons Later: Black Walnut Grove Settlement, Full Cold Moon
“They’re going to call it the Year of the Alliance.” Dagan held up a mug of his mother’s perfect elderberry wine, warmed and spiced with some exotic bark from the islands, as was apparently a Cold Moon tradition. “Here’s to the Stone City and the Heart Wood, friends at last.”
Helen, Alexia, Erron, and Hendrik all raised their own mugs and drank deep; as if on cue (and it probably was), Tiber began to play his fiddle on the platform stage tucked into the corner of the winery. It was too frigid to celebrate the full moon outdoors, so most of the settlement had packed into the winery’s great hall, which was festooned with glowing paper lanterns and evergreen garlands.
Black Walnut Grove Conservancy’s settlement was far, far busier than the Wildcrafter one had been. It had more the feeling of the Apricot Grove settlement, pulsing with trade and activity within its borders as much as the forest that surrounded it pulsed with life. Even in the thick of winter, with ice on the trees and frost on the ground, warmth pervaded the market clearing and central trade hubs like the winery. Bonfires glowed, well-tended and contained, and people paused to talk in doorways heated by large fireplaces in grand halls like the winery’s.
“It doesn’t seem fair for you to bring us Hendrik and then steal him away again, though,” Alexia pointed out over the rim of her mug. Fresh-faced and teenaged, Dagan’s youngest sibling reminded Hen forcefully of his own sister. It hurt to look at her…and yet he loved it.
