Guarded (13 page)

Soft footsteps padded against the floor, then stopped near the doorway. “You want
me
?” asked Berhanu.

“Yes.” His answer was slightly muffled by his palms.

“Because I’m a prince?”

Volos snorted. “I wouldn’t care if you were the man who mucks out the pigsties. I’d still want you.” A tiny sob tried to escape, but he swallowed it.

Berhanu moved closer, crouched beside him, balanced himself with his hands on Volos’s leg. “Why?”

“I always have,” Volos admitted with a heavy sigh. He still hid his face. “From the first time I saw you. You were beautiful and… you had this
light
to you. It drew me like a moth. I thought,
This is a man powerful enough to let me protect him and strong enough to take me.
I thought, with you, maybe sometimes I could let my guard down at last. Except you hated me.”

“Gods, Volos. I never hated you.”

Volos lifted his head and gave Berhanu a very skeptical look. Berhanu barked a short laugh in return. “Yes, I know. I treated you like garbage. Called you names. I was a complete and utter shit. Still am.”

“You’re not like that to everyone else.”

Berhanu sighed. “Not generally. Gods, Volos. When I saw
you
for the first time, you were perfect. So handsome, and a true warrior. Brave— everyone says what a hero you are. I wanted to seduce you. But I didn’t know if you were… seduceable. And even if you were, I wouldn’t have had any idea what to do with you. You’re not remotely like the pretty little whores I usually have. So I asked around about you. Subtly. And I found out you liked to go to the Thieving Goose and fuck the effete twits who take it up the ass from a hulking brute, then scurry back to their shops to boast how brave they are.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Sorry. Being a bastard again.”

“You are,” agreed Volos, somewhat amused despite everything.

“Yeah. I tend to do that when I feel defensive. My father says my tongue is sharper and faster than my blades have ever been. I’m sure the boys at the Goose are lovely people. It’s only… they aren’t me. They’re nothing like me.”

“That’s true.”

“I assumed they were what you wanted, and therefore you’d never fancy me. So I tried to tell myself how much I detested you. ‘Filthy Kozari,’ I said. But by all the gods in heaven, I swear I never meant it.”

Volos’s hands were clasped in his lap. “All right,” he rasped. He’d never in his life had a conversation anything like this. He’d possibly have rather gone into battle.

Berhanu chuckled. “For a Kozari, you’re a tight-lipped son of a bitch.” He suddenly sobered. “But sweet gods, Volos— what I’ve been doing to you these last days! Maybe I can be forgiven for speaking harshly, but not for—” His voice broke. He stood, walked to the doorway, and leaned his forehead against the smooth wood of the frame.

After a moment, Volos stood and followed him. He pressed close, with one hand on Berhanu’s bare shoulder. “I could easily have stopped you if I wanted to. I didn’t want to. As you pointed out, I got off on it.”

“How?”

Volos closed his eyes. He smelled the citrus oil and soap they used in the tub and the slight odor of wine from Berhanu’s breath. It was a heady combination. It made him dizzy.

“After I escaped from the Juganin prison, for a long time I couldn’t bear for anyone to touch me. I didn’t even want them standing close. It was a lonely way to live. I was still a young man. Eventually I went to taverns or brothels, and I’d choose partners who were very small, and I’d fuck them hard. But it didn’t… I’d be pounding away at someone, and suddenly I’d picture the Juganin and… and sometimes I wondered if I was so very different from them.”

“You’re nothing like them!” Berhanu snapped.

“Maybe. But I wasn’t convinced. And more than that. The more often I fucked these men who’d never fight back, the weaker I felt.”

“I… I understand that.”

Although Berhanu couldn’t see him, Volos nodded. Then he nestled his forehead into the crook of Berhanu’s neck. “Eventually I got the courage to ask men to fuck me. It was very difficult at first. I didn’t even get hard. But gradually… I realized that although I was the passive partner, I was controlling what happened to my body. I was receiving them by choice, not force. That’s when I began to enjoy it. When I felt as if I’d got my own body back.” His smile was a little bitter, but it was real. “I’d lay there and I’d think,
Look at me now, Juganin. You’re dead and I’m alive, and this man’s cock is inside me because I want it there and it feels so fucking good
.”

“Sex as a victory dance.”

“Perhaps.”

Berhanu squirmed around until he faced Volos. They wrapped their arms around each other in a tight embrace. Gods, Berhanu felt so good and right against him!

“I can’t…” Berhanu began. His throat clicked. “I’m not ready for a victory dance, Volos.”

“Of course not. It’s been only a few days.”

“I want to give you… what you want. What you deserve. I want to love you.” His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “I want to be
your
guard, Volos.”

Although the room— and the embrace— were quite warm, Volos shivered.

But then Berhanu pulled away. “I’m not sure I’d have been capable of that ever, and I’m certainly not now. I can barely keep my own pieces together.”

“I understand.”

“I might… I might never be what you need. And I don’t expect you to wait for me.” He stood straighter, squared his shoulders, and lifted his chin. “But I’m sure as all hells going to try.”

Volos felt a smile spread across his face. He executed a brief but perfectly sincere bow. “Being afraid, being uncertain you’ll succeed, but going ahead anyway— that’s what makes a hero, Berhanu.”

****

Chapter Twelve

The carriage that Queen Draga lent them was luxurious. The interior was spacious, with clever fold-down tables on which to place food and drinks. The walls were paneled in precious woods in an intricate inlaid pattern. The seats had good springs, a thick layer of cushioning, and plush velvet upholstery. And they didn’t stop at inns like regular people. Instead they spent two nights in mansions that may or may not have belonged to the queen, where armies of servants fell over themselves trying to cater to Volos and Berhanu’s every need.

Volos had never journeyed in such comfort and probably never would again. But he was miserable. He had traveled with a broken body before, but traveling with a broken heart was worse.

There was Berhanu, so close to him for league after league. And at night, beside him in bed, protecting him from nightmares. But they spoke very little, and Berhanu’s eyes were dark and haunted. Volos wanted to hold him tight all the time, to keep him close until all the shattered bits fell back into their proper places. But he suspected that the more protectively he acted and the more desperately he clutched at Berhanu, the more irreparable the damage might become.

“We wasted all that time,” Berhanu said suddenly as they neared the border. He was staring out the window and his voice sounded far away.

“What time?”

“These past years when I was too stupid to understand what was right in front of me. We could have been fighting together, fucking… loving.”

Volos’s thoughts had been along similar lines. “But suppose you had spoken to me, Berhanu. You’d have had me with no effort at all. One soft look and I’d have fallen at your feet.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Not at first. But eventually you’d have learned what happened to me when I was a prisoner. I wouldn’t have told you the details and… I doubt you’d have been able to comprehend it all. But you’d have heard my nightmares and you’d have known enough. And then how would you have felt about me?”

“I would have—” Berhanu stopped and covered his mouth with one hand. He closed his eyes for a moment, as if he were in pain, and when he opened them again they glistened. “I would never have understood, Volos. I might I have tried. But you know me— I’m impatient and stubborn and fucking spoiled. I would have wrecked us.”

Volos nodded. “I need… I’m a guard. I’m strong. I’d protect you to my last breath. But I need someone who… who’s there for me if I start to crumble a little.”

“Even a dragon has his limits,” Berhanu said with the shadow of a smile.

****

When they reached the border, Berhanu sent a messenger on a fast horse to the castle, letting the king know they were on their way. He and Volos had to give up the queen’s fancy carriage for a much more prosaic one with sagging seats and a pervasive smell of old cheese. They were trying to travel incognito because that was simpler, but the innkeeper that night must have smelled money in the quantity of their luggage and the cut of their expensive Kozari clothes. Instead of pallets on the floor of a shared room, they were given a small private chamber with a lumpy bed and tin washtub.

“Do you want a bath?” Berhanu asked, eyeing the tub doubtfully. “I’ll pay extra for it.”

“No, thank you. I’ll go to the baths when we’re back home.”

“Home.” Berhanu rubbed his chin. “For a while, I was certain I’d never see it again. I missed it much more than I would have expected. Where did you think about when you were in that prison?”

Volos sat on the edge of the bed. His bones were still rattling from the journey, and his head ached. “I didn’t have a home then. So I thought about the home I’d like to have someday.”

“Not a barracks, I assume.”

“No.”

Berhanu walked to the washbasin, poured some water from a pitcher, and splashed his face. He frowned at himself briefly in the cracked looking glass before turning around and beginning to undress. “So what
did
you imagine? A castle? A hut in the wilderness? A Kozari palace where they cover you with gilding if you stand still too long?”

“Doesn’t matter. The… the structure could be anything with a roof. All I dreamt of was a place I could always go back to. Where somebody waited for me.”

“You still don’t have that, do you? Not really.”

“No.” Volos shrugged. “Maybe I haven’t made enough effort to find it.”

Berhanu drew his tunic over his head and carelessly tossed it aside. “Let’s sleep. We’ve one more day to go.”

****

Their messenger must have fulfilled his duty because a royal coach waited at the last carriage stop. Berhanu hurried into the coach with his head down, while Volos helped a porter transfer their luggage as curious bystanders stared. The coach hurried through the city. The capital of Wedeyta was smaller than Felekna and showed little in the way of garish magnificence, but there was also none of the wretched filth and poverty Volos had glimpsed in Kozar.

The coach sped through the castle gate without pausing, careened around a few corners, and came to a sudden stop near a door close to the royal quarters. Servants, guards, and various agitated men and women swarmed out to greet them, all of them seeming to chatter at once. Volos would have quietly snuck away, but Berhanu clutched his sleeve and dragged him into the castle, down a long hall, and then into a room with high vaulted ceilings. Someone slammed the door in the faces of the concerned retinue, leaving Berhanu and Volos alone with two other men— King Tafari and Prince Chidehu.

As the king and crown prince rushed over, Volos tried to drop to his knee, but Berhanu’s grip wouldn’t let him. “Stop doing that,” Berhanu grumbled at him.

And then Tafari and Chidehu were embracing Berhanu. Volos stood back to watch. He saw tears in the men’s eyes. For a few minutes, they weren’t a king and two princes, but instead a family— father and sons who loved and worried over one another. Volos’s heart ached and he had to look away.

Finally, with considerable throat clearing, the embrace ended. But the king kept a hand on Berhanu’s shoulder. “Are you well, son? You look…”

“I look like I’ve been dragged through the third hell. Feel like it too.”

“I’ll call for a healer and—”

“I don’t need one.” Berhanu attempted a smile. “Some Kozari friends tended to my physical injuries and I’m healing well. I just need rest now and some time to mend.”

King Tafari nodded, but then his expression darkened. “Those Juganin—”

“Are all dead. Volos killed them.”

Everyone turned to look at Volos, which made him acutely uncomfortable. He executed a rather stiff little bow.

And to his complete astonishment, the king bowed back. “For saving our son, we owe you our deepest gratitude.”

“We owe him for more than that,” said Berhanu. “He saved my stupid neck, and because of that, I was able to get to Felekna to parley with the queen. She’s agreed to support us, Sire. In fact, she’s agreed to better than that. She wants to negotiate an alignment of mutual defense and cooperation.”

King Tafari closed his eyes briefly as relief flooded his features, and Prince Chidehu raised his gaze to the ceiling in silent prayer. “With Kozar backing us, Mudedye won’t dare to continue offending us,” said Chidehu.

Berhanu nodded. “I know. Volos didn’t just win me my freedom— he’s won peace for us all.”

Volos fought the instinct to duck his head when everyone looked at him. He kept his chin up and shoulders straight but couldn’t avoid a slight blush across his cheeks. King Tafari strode closer and clasped his hand in a hearty shake. “Before you left, we promised you our gratitude if you were successful. It appears as if you have more than fulfilled your duty. Name your reward and it is yours.”

“I… Thank you, Your Majesty. But there’s nothing—”

“We can grant you a title. Land. Enough money to live extravagantly for the rest of your life. Whatever you wish. You deserve it.”

“Thank you,” Volos repeated. “I appreciate your generosity. But… please. I’d just like to return to my place as guard. There’s honestly nothing else I want.” Nothing he could have, in any case.

King Tafari gave him a very long look before slowly nodding his head. “Very well. But we remain in your debt, Volos Perun. If ever there is something we can grant you, we will.”

Volos bowed.

Berhanu had watched the entire interchange solemnly. Now he came over and, like his father, bowed to Volos. “I think you know how much I owe you, Volos. I hope… I hope someday to see you get what you deserve.” And then he pulled Volos into a fraternal embrace that didn’t seem to shock Tafari or Chidehu.