Sy wanted to do better, though. “Let me make you a cuff,” he said as he kicked his smallclothes into the corner.
Deyvid frowned at him. “Are you a child? Put those in the basket where they belong; don’t make things harder on the staff.”
Deyvid was the best of them when it came to keeping things tidy, a consequence of growing up, “in the middle of nowhere with nothing but what he could carry, poor bastard,” as Petur liked to say. Sy tended to agree with Deyvid, though; he hadn’t moved into the castle until he was twelve, and plenty of early scoldings from his mother meant that he knew better than to leave a mess for someone else to clean up. Petur was the only one who didn’t give a damn, arguing, “It’s their job! Am I the only one who wants to ensure they have work to do?”
Sy tossed his clothes into the basket of dirties, then turned around just in time to watch Deyvid lay back in the tub until he was sunk up to his chest. “This feels so good,” he said with a bit of a moan. “Thanks for heating it up, sweetheart.”
“Mmhmm …” Words, why were words so hard sometimes? Sy joined Deyvid in the bath and almost climbed right up onto him before he remembered there was something he should pass on, something important …
“How’s Bee?” Deyvid asked.
Of course!“Her fever broke,” Sy said gratefully. “She was settling into what’s likely her first good sleep in a week when I left her with Mistress Deane.”
Deyvid beamed. “That’s excellent! She was down with it for so long I was beginning to get worried.”
“My father says it’s normal for red fever to affect young children so.”
“It usually hit the clans in waves,” Deyvid recalled. “We’d go years without it, and then all of a sudden, everyone under the age of five would have it all at once.”
How curious. “Was there a catalyst that you can think of?” Sy asked. “Visiting a certain location, or eating a particular food …”
Deyvid tilted his head back as he mused on it. “I only remember the cycle happening three times in the Windwest Clan,” he said. “Four occurred while I lived there, but the first time I was only two and have no memory of it. The only thing I recall specifically is that it seemed to touch us in the early spring after a severe winter. When the foals came without enough grazing ground ready for them, we had to barter for feed from other clans. Red fever seemed to come with it.”
“Huh.” Something in the feed? Carried by the animals? Passed on by the people who tended to them? Whatcausedred fever in the first place, really? It might not have a magical root, but Sy was nothing if not a thorough investigator. “I should talk to our own medics, see if they’ve noticed some kind of rhyme or reason to—oof.”
All of a sudden, he was drawn forward to sit in Deyvid’s lap, with Deyvid’s arms wrapping around his back and pulling him in until their bodies rested against each other. A flash of desire left Sy breathless as he spread his legs and pressed in even tighter.
“That’s all fascinating, but I believe it’s something best saved for a later time.” Deyvid’s voice was a low rumble, his blue eyes—blue, not barren gray, not since his soul had returned—intent on Sy’s face as one of his hands slid between their bodies. He wrapped a loose fist around both of their half-hard cocks and stroked, soft but with intent. “If you feel up for it, that is.”
Sy almost always felt up for it when it came to being with his lovers, but they hadn’t had much time for intimacy since Bee got sick. He leaned in and captured Deyvid’s mouth in another kiss, open and wet, as Deyvid’s hand moved on them. The moment was tender and warm, their bodies ramping up slowly for a slow, slick orgasm, but when Deyvid slipped his tongue inside of Sy’s mouth, Sy felt a spike of desire for something different.
“Wait, wait,” he said, pulling back to make the space to speak.
“What, sweetheart?” Deyvid asked, staring up at him with hooded eyes as his hand kept moving. “What do you want? What would make you feel good?”
That was just like Deyvid, always first asking what everyone else wanted. He was rarely comfortable saying exactly whathewanted, especially with Sy, and so Sy had learned to read the cues and find a middle ground that worked well when it was just the two of them.
When Petur was there, of course, all bets were off.
Sy leaned in and pressed his lips close to Deyvid’s ear. “I want you inside of me,” he whispered, feeling a corresponding ache inside of himself. Hedidwant that, gods how he wanted it; it had been five days since he’d taken either of them, and all of a sudden, he was breathless for it. Judging from the way Deyvid’s cock flexed as he inhaled sharply, he wanted it too.
Deyvid nodded. “Stand up, then, and we’ll—”
“No,” Sy said and grinned when he saw Deyvid’s eyebrows rise. “I want you here,” he clarified.
As expected, Deyvid shook his head. “Water is no replacement for slick.”
Sy grabbed one of the small bottles on the table beside the tub. Time for an experiment. He checked the cap to make sure this was the right one, instead of one of the aromas Petur claimed not to prefer but liberally sprinkled into every single bath he took,then lifted Deyvid’s free hand out of the water and drizzled it down over his fingers.
Deyvid still didn’t look impressed. “Oil isn’t much good when it washes right off.”
“Just try it,” Sy said, putting the bottle back and rising up just enough to give Deyvid room to slip a hand beneath him. Deyvid, bless him, complied, and a second later, his fingers, still coated with a thick layer of slippery oil, pressed against Sy’s opening.
Sy groaned with satisfaction as Deyvid rubbed over his hole, teasing him with one finger before sliding it in a little ways. The new oil workedperfectly; he was glad he’d added the right reagents this time. The last one had given him an awful rash when he tested it on his arm, butthis—
Deyvid chuckled. “Did you make magical lube?”
“Not … exactly,” Sy said, losing focus as Deyvid slid a finger all the way inside of him. “Oh please, there, just—” His head fell back as Deyvid pressed against the spot that sent sparks dancing up and down his spine. “Deyvid, oh …”
