Wayland laughed, but the movement dislodged whatever clot had formed in his nostrils. Fresh blood splattered over his lips and his already ruined shirt.
At first glance Idris’s chambers were more or less identical to Wayland’s. But as he looked around in interest, he noticed small differences. A wall of hanging cavern plants arranged in a gradient of umbers and ochers and reds. Pots of brightly colored paints arranged in neat stacks beside hand-stretched canvases with their faces turned to the wall. Pallets of tiny button mushrooms growing in orderly rows beside a beveled window cut into the stone. Beyond, Wayland heard the sound of water rushing somewhere far below.
“Sit.” Idris pushed him. Wayland reeled back, caught his heel on the platform of the bed, and obliged with a thump. The bed was, perhaps unsurprisingly, meticulously made, each pillow fluffed and all the coverlets carefully tucked. Normally, this degree of orderliness would have compelled Wayland to disturb it by any means necessary. Preferably involving a great deal of disrobing and rolling around naked between the sheets.
Perhaps it was the blood loss talking, but when it came to Idris, Wayland couldn’t help but find such neatness charming.
He kept his bloodstained palms carefully upturned as he listened to Idris move around the rooms, rummaging in the bathing chamber and clattering in the wardrobe. After a moment, he returned with a bowl of steaming water, a stack of frayed rags, clean bandages, ointments, and a few long, narrow sticks.
“I know I said I enjoy some light punishment from time to time.” Wayland raised his eyebrows. “But I’m not sure about being whipped twice in one day.”
Idris flushed, but barely. He dipped one of the rags in the steaming water and leveled a no-nonsense gaze at Wayland. “Shut your mouth. If you even know how.”
Wayland obeyed, surrendering himself to Idris’s ministrations. The rag felt blisteringly hot on his skin, but Idris was gentle ashe cleaned crusted blood from Wayland’s chin and lips. Wayland winced when Idris wiped the tender, swollen flesh of his nose, but even that became tolerable after a few moments. Idris uncorked a few of the unguents, sniffed them speculatively, and selected one to pour onto a bandage. It smelled like cedar and spiced wine, and between the soothing scent, the sound of rushing water, and Idris’s cool, deft fingertips on his skin, Wayland felt suddenly and completely at ease. His eyes drifted closed, and he relaxed.
Idris closed his forefingers around the bridge of Wayland’s nose and shoved the whole structure back into place.
Renewed pain screeched from jaw to temples. Wayland’s eyes flew open as he grunted in pain, but Idris just smiled, calmly holding a new rag beneath Wayland’s nose to catch the latest gush of dark blood.
“Sorry,” Idris said, not looking even the slightest bit apologetic. “Just a mild sedative so you wouldn’t fight me. Unless you wanted a crooked nose?”
Wayland huffed. “Are you calling me vain?”
“I suppose I am.” Idris’s smile was the perfect level of crooked, giving his handsome face a haphazard impishness. “Very vain indeed.”
When the bleeding stopped, Idris broke one of the long sticks into shorter lengths, rolled narrow bandages around them, then gently splinted Wayland’s nose. He finished by affixing the whole contraption to his face with some kind of adhesive.
“Finished.” He sat back on his heels, his eyes lifting to collide with Wayland’s own gaze. Wayland inhaled. Despite all their hours together in the library, he could count the number of times he’d actually made eye contact with Idris. The other man so often kept his gaze downcast, his features hidden behind his spill of hair. But his eyes were beautiful—a deep, rich brown shot through with tiny threads of amber. Wayland had originally thought Idris did not share Laoise’s ember eyes. But while the heat in his gaze might be buried deeper, it simmered with an intensity that conjured an answering blaze in Wayland’s stomach.
“Now. Are you going to tell me who did that to you?”
“Irian.” Wayland shifted his weight and made a rueful face. “I deserved it. Although he didn’t have to hit me quite so hard.”
“Irian?” Surprise punched a fetching dimple in Idris’s cheek. “Isn’t he your… brother?”
“Foster brother,” Wayland corrected. “And if you don’t think brothers fight, then you clearly don’t have any.”
“No—only sisters.”Sisters… plural?“Why were you fighting?”
“Because—” Wayland almost told Idris about Fia, about the bargain they’d made. About the kiss, and the swift rejection that followed. About the blade-sharp sting of being second best. Runner-up in every race he’d ever run, every contest he’d ever competed in, every battle he’d fought. But with startling prescience, he knew how Idris would react—disgust at the whole sordid drama and then, most likely, pity. Wayland wasn’t sure he could bear seeing that kind of condemnation on Idris’s face. “Family is a funny thing, Red. Blood family is the tether we’re born with, but that rope is not always woven with love. Chosen family, though—some people stitch themselves into the gaps left by blood, and love by choice instead of duty. Even then, it’s a gamble. Those who choose to love you can just as easily choose to stop. And the ache of love unreturned is the most profound wound.”
Idris stared at him with surprise verging on wonder, as if he hadn’t realized Wayland knew so many big words. Gently, Idris dipped another rag in water, then took one of Wayland’s bloodstained hands.
“You believe the people who choose to love you are your real family,” Idris said carefully as he wiped away more spatters. “I believe they are the peoplewechoose to love—those we seek out as mirrors for ourselves. Those who reflect our best qualities back at us and let us forgive ourselves the worst. If someone chooses to stop loving us, it is not the measure of how undeserving we are of love. Rather, it must be the measure of their own lack.”
It was Wayland’s turn to stare. “You are wise for one so young.”
“I’m four-and-twenty.” Idris lowered the rag, but his hand lingered on Wayland’s wrist. “I’m not that young.”
Wayland shouldered through the brief, buzzing apprehension ofdangerous territoryinto the glossy, sugar-coated paradise beyond. The land of desire was a place he was intimately, gloriously familiar with, and it felt unspeakably good to return. He forgot the pain thudding in his face, forgot Irian and Fia, forgot the Treasures. His blood roused in his veins, throbbing and eager, and he slid his hand along Idris’s wrist, grasping him below the elbow and pulling him closer. The other man swayed toward him, steadying himself with a hand on Wayland’s thigh. When Idris looked up at him with those deep, burning eyes, Wayland dared to touch him—his thumb grazing over the elegant point of his chin, then ghosting over the soft pillow of his lower lip. Idris’s mouth parted, his breath warm on Wayland’s knuckles. Blood hammered at his temples and blotted out all rational thought, and he settled deeper into the tantalizing sensuality of touch. He lifted his other hand to Idris’s jaw, sliding back the curtain of hair—
Idris jerked, whipping his head away and throwing himself backward. “Don’t!”
Wayland froze, both arms arrested in midair. Confusion and alarm gushed over him like ice water. The imprint of Idris’s hand on his thigh felt like his own dashed hope—fading so swiftly it might never have existed in the first place.
“I’m sorry.” He meant it. “If you tell me what I did wrong, then I promise never to do it again.”
Idris, flattened against the wall and breathing hard, unconsciously smoothed the long side of his hair more securely over his face. Wayland began to understand.
