Gods, Erik wanted to bundle him up and send him straight home. Wanted him piled with furs beside a warm fire, keeping Revna company while she painted or embroidered. An insult to Oliver and Revna both, neither of whom deserved tobe sidelined; Revna’s condition demanded it… just as Oliver’s status and magical abilities demanded he be here, now.
Erik just wanted himsafe. To spare him stress and harm.
And all he could do was hold him now, one arm snug around his waist, a hand cupped protectively at the back of his head. He realized, with surprise, that he was rocking them slowly, back and forth, back and forth.
Oliver tolerated it—no, reveled in it, if his low humming was anything to go by—for a time. When he braced his hands on Erik’s chest and pushed upright, Erik let him go with reluctance.
He didn’t go far. Sat with his hands loosely clenched in the front of Erik’s tunic, his face soft, and open, and hopelessly sad in a way it hadn’t been before.
Without conscious thought, Erik reached to cup his cheeks; to trace the edges of his sunburned freckles with his thumbs. “I would spare you this, if I could.”
Oliver’s mouth quirked, a fast flicker of a smile that quickly fell. “I know.” When he leaned down, Erik steered the angle of his head so the kiss was immediately deep, and sweet.
Erik couldn’t remember the last time they’d shared more than a passing squeeze, or a glancing press of lips before falling asleep. It was easy, in the crush of travel, and worry, and responsibility, to rely on one another for practical reasons; also easy to forget how much theyenjoyedone another.
Erik pressed a thumb to the hinge of Oliver’s jaw and urged him to open wider. When Oliver’s lips parted, he slipped his tongue between them, and Oliver made a wordless, pleading sound in the back of his throat.
Then Oliver pulled back, and it was Erik’s turn to murmur a wordless noise, a protest that was half a growl.
Oliver’s gaze was feverish. Desperate. “Shh,” he said, and slid gracefully down between Erik’s spread thighs and reached for the fastening of his trousers. “Let me.”
And Erik did.
3
“I’m having dreams,” Amelia confessed one evening, a rare moment when she and Leda were alone in her general’s tent.
Leda finished pouring their wine and nodded sagely. “Nightmares? That’s to be expected.”
“No. Not exactly.” Amelia’s face heated, and when Leda glanced up, and then lifted her brows, she knew she was blushing visibly. “Just dreams. Vivid ones. Of a rather… intimate nature.”
Leda grinned, her eye teeth nearly as sharp as one of the wolves’. “Ah. Carnal dreams.”
Amelia didn’t consider herself priggish and easily-offended; didn’t count herself among the sorts of tutting matrons who’d side-eyed the young noble men at every horrendous ball she’d attended before the war. But something about these dreams—about the men in them with her—had left her stammering and stupid, so much so that Leda had laughed and told her not to worry so much. Even to enjoy herself.
Amelia had no intention of doing any such thing.
But she couldn’t stop the dreams from occurring.
Like now, for instance.
The saving grace, she told herself, was that she knew it was a dream. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an unpleasant one, nor a well-defined one, so she didn’t startle awake when she felt large hands ghost up the insides of her thighs and spread them. She was naked, the air cool on her skin, goosebumps shivering across her chest and stomach. When she glanced down, she saw a pale head bent over her lap. Not gold, as it gleamed in the daylight, but pale silver.We’re beneath the moon, she thought, nonsensically, and then she woke up with a gasp.
Her eyes opened, as her lungs filled with air, and she saw that, no, she had not awakened. Not bodily, at least.
Gray-toned grass lapped around her knees, stirred by the same scentless breeze that lifted her hair. She was dressed as she had been earlier that day, in breeches, boots, and cinched traveling tunic, her black breastplate and pauldrons fastened overtop.
She was in the Between.
She was better at arriving here than she had been to start. Despite his hauteur and dramatics, Náli was a good teacher. It took time and concentration, and it still left her feeling lightheaded, but Amelia could find her way to this plane on her own now. Usually, however, she was pulled here by one of the others.
“Tessa?” she called, turning a slow circle. It was her sister who invited her to the Between most often; sometimes on official Northern business, but generally just to visit.
“No,” a male voice said behind her. “It’s me.”
She whirled and found Oliver standing several paces away, clothed in dusty, stripped-down Northern garments. He bore the distinct air of one who’d spent all day traveling; but his eyes weren’t weary. Rather, they sparked and brimmed with a kind of worry she’d never associated with her cousin. It was unnerving.
“Ollie. Are you well? Did you bring me here?”
