Shrike knotted the silk with fingers that had just begun to tremble. No sooner had he finished than Wren plucked the silver knife out of the medicine chest and cut the cord without Shrike having to say a word. Likewise, Wren remained silent as he took up another linen towel and daubed away the beads of sweat that had gathered on Shrike’s temples.
“There’s a hand-broom on the sill,” Shrike forced out between clenched teeth. “Spin the cobwebs down from the rafters—if you can reach…?” he added, as it occurred to him Wren stood a full head shorter.
After a searching glance ‘round the cottage, Wren’s eyes caught on the broom across the way and the cobwebs above, and he leapt to retrieve both. His whole body stretched taut as a strung bow to bring the willow-and-lavender bristles to the cobwebs. A deft flick of his wrist gathered more than enough for Shrike’s purposes. Wren returned to Shrike’s side looking no less sceptical than when he began. His brow grew still more arched as Shrike plucked the cobwebs from the bristles and packed them against the wound.
“It staunches blood,” Shrike explained.
This raised still more questions in Wren’s face, but he voiced none of them as he picked up the roll of linen and began winding it around Shrike’s waist. The bandages pulled taut, bracing against the wound and the cracked ribs alike. Wren’s touch, however, remained gentle. Silver scissors clipped the linen off the roll, and delicate fingers tucked the bandage-end into its own folds to keep it in place.
His work done, Wren’s eyes fell to Shrike’s scars with a renewed interest that Shrike found unnerving—particularly when combined with his furrowed brow and the hard line of his mouth. His gentle hands reached out for Shrike again, his fingertips alighting on the pale starburst just beneath Shrike’s left collarbone and over his heart, left behind by an errant arrow in the Wild Hunt some decades ago.
For a moment, Shrike wondered if the scars disgusted Wren, whose own freckled flesh remained miraculously unmarred.
Then Wren bent his head to press a reverent kiss to the scar.
Warmth suffused Shrike’s heart. He slipped his fingertips beneath Wren’s chin and tilted his face upward to kiss him more thoroughly.
“Will you lie with me?” Shrike murmured against Wren’s lips when they broke apart for breath. “I’m yet wild with victory.”
Doubtless Wren could feel as much for himself, so near as he now perched—and Shrike felt his desire in return, stirring to life beneath the layers of wool between them.
Yet still Wren hesitated. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Nothing could soothe my wounds more than your touch,” Shrike replied.
Wren gave a breathless laugh against Shrike’s cheek. “Doubtful. But if you’re certain I won’t do you harm…”
Shrike answered him with another kiss, long and deep and languid.
“The Oxford rub,” Wren broke off to gasp. In response to Shrike’s puzzled expression, he added, “Between the thighs.”
Shrike grinned. “How sweet to die betwixt those thighs.”
Wren scoffed, but did so with a smile.
Having already stripped to the waist, it was a simple matter for Shrike to divest himself of his hose. Wren’s garments proved more complicated. Much had changed in mortal fashion over the centuries, but in the months since Samhain, Shrike had ample opportunity to gain familiarity with their fastenings and became quite adept in unbuttoning, untying, and stripping away waistcoat, trousers, shirt, and small-clothes to bare Wren’s beauty.
And it was beauty, indeed.
Wren’s slender clothed silhouette belied the strapping frame beneath. The arms that twined around Shrike clutched him close with powerful sinews. Laughing dark eyes grew darker still, fluttering shut as Shrike’s fingertips traced the delicate curve of his ear. Speckled lips plucked into a shy smile, then fell open in a gasp before Wren bit them to suppress further outburst. Shrike could restrain himself no longer and caressed his jawline to coax him into another kiss. He could never tire of this, the taste of Wren on his tongue, the weight of him in his arms, how the lightest touch or the faintest breath could draw forth a paroxysm of pleasure from his mortal lover.
Lying down beside him on the bed, Wren drew Shrike close before turning ‘round, nestling his back against Shrike’s front. His freckles fell like a mantle over his shoulders, their breadth once disguised by the heavy woollen coat, now revealed to sharp contrast with his soft and slender waist.
Shrike wrapped his arms around that same waist, trailing his fingers through the soft hair over Wren’s navel and on down to where his prick now stirred. All the while he pressed fervent kisses to the nape of Wren’s neck, tracing the freckled constellations with his lips, and delighted in the choked-off gasps and bitten-back moans Wren made in reply.
Then Wren reached behind to take Shrike’s cock-stand and guide it between his own supple thighs. Wren’s legs closed over Shrike like a vise. Shrike rolled his hips, unable to restrain a groan as he slid through the delicious grip. His own hand closed over Wren’s prick like the hilt of a well-balanced blade. A twist of his wrist brought forth drops of seed. A bruising kiss to Wren’s throat provoked a hushed exclamation.
“Shrike!”
The particular exquisite ecstasy of his true name in his lover’s voice—a pleasure Shrike, like most fae, had denied himself until now—broke over him and left him gasping in its wake. Each blissful breath punctuated by the stabbing pain of cracked ribs already on the mend. The contrast only served to heighten the sensation. With his cock clenched tight between Wren’s thighs, Wren clutched close in his embrace, Wren’s prick pulsing in his palm, seed spilling over through his fingers, and his true name on Wren’s lips, Shrike could last but mere moments. With a final frantic thrust, he followed Wren over the brink to plunge down into the dark and soothing waters of oblivion.
~
“Lofthouse!” cried Mr Grigsby. “I was just about to send the Horse Guards out in search of you!”
Wren froze on the office threshold. About an hour ago he’d awoken in Shrike’s arms to find the sun nearly at its mid-day crest. His pocket-watch confirmed the wretched hour and sent him into a frenzy of ablutions and scrambling for his clothes. Shrike roused halfway through this chaotic process and assisted not only in providing some much-needed calm but also in retrieving scattered pieces of Wren’s ensemble from about the cottage. He suggested breakfast, as well, but though Wren’s stomach growled to life at the thought of black pudding, eggs, bread, and cheese, they simply didn’t have time to spare. So Shrike had taken him out to the fairy ring in the forest and leapt through it with him to Hyde Park. While Wren didn’t dare embrace him as he so dearly wished to, their parting handclasp lingered, and carried with it all the longing of Wren’s heart. Only the promise to meet again on Boxing Day gave him the strength to let go.
It occurred to Wren as he half-walked, half-ran down Oxford Street that he hadn’t even taken a moment to ask after Shrike’s duelling wound, much less clean and re-dress it. In attempting to straddle two realms’ worth of responsibilities, he’d failed them both.
