Wolf's-own: Koan (12 page)

Got it
? Yeah, Jacin got it. And the worst part was that he hadn't actually needed to be told, and yet still, here he was, naked and debauched in soiled sheets with the man who was fucking him in every sense. Worse—even with Malick's stark proclamation, Jacin had no intention of changing the current arrangement. He'd let Malick fuck him again right now, just to make it stop for a little while, and they both knew it. And they both knew Jacin would
enjoy
it.

"Fucker.” Jacin's teeth clenched and his jaw quivered in helpless fury. “You don't want me to blame myself for Caidi, so you'll threaten Morin and Joori?” His eyes spilled over, and he didn't bloody care. “You said...."

You said you loved me.

Stupid to throw it between them now, when Jacin never dared believe it anyway.

"It's no threat, Fen—it's a promise.” So strange, the way Malick's eyes glittered cold and his words struck sharp and precise, yet his voice was still so soft, full of concern, and his hands were gentle, soothing Jacin's skin even as his words ruptured Jacin's heart. “And make no mistake—I'll do whatever it takes to keep you here, because you're not done. Perhaps you've not pledged to Wolf, but I have, and he wants you saved, little Ghost."

The epithet, coming now and from Malick, made Jacin snarl. Malick, the bastard, just ignored it. “I let you die now, and we've both failed. So yeah, if I have to make it clear to you that you're what's keeping your brothers protected by my oath, I'll take the chance that you won't deem fucking me a more attractive alternative to listening to me anymore.” He ran his hand, hard and rough, over Jacin's chest, up to his throat. “This may be very,
very
nice,
Jacin
, and I'd miss it terribly.” His fingers settled loosely around the base of Jacin's throat, and he cut his glance upward, smirked a little. “But it's really not the point."

With a contradictory light stroke of callused fingertips, Malick grinned, that hard, cruel, predatory thing he trotted out when he wanted you to pay real close attention; the one that reminded Jacin that Malick could be an entirely different person between one breath and the next.

"Unless you maybe want me to blow you now to get your mind off it all for a minute. I know how you get off on shutting me up. We can pretend I won't bring it up again just long enough to bring us both off, nice and dirty. Think you can get it up again this quick?"

Jacin's teeth were clenched so tight his jaw was starting to throb. Because he'd flinched back there somewhere, a sickening lurch as his mind had tried to shy away from the razor-sharp candor of it, the precision of the verbal evisceration. And worse, his groin had tightened just a little, like some primal, ingrained response over which he had no control whatsoever.

"You're a fucking bastard."

"Yeah,” Malick agreed. He dropped the grin, like it was a mask he could put on and take off at will, and the almost sad expression that took its place made Jacin want to scream. Or punch the shit out of him. Or kill him. “But I'm the fucking bastard who loves you."

"
Liar
."

Malick raised an eyebrow, tilted his head. “Ya think?” A shrug and he pulled his hand away. “Believe what makes you feel better."

"I don't love you.” Snarled out and venomous. Because he didn't. He
wouldn't
.

"Believe what makes you feel better,” Malick repeated.
Bastard
.

Malick rolled away and sat up, his back to Jacin as he scrubbed both hands through his hair. Jacin curled in a little, couldn't help but stare at the wide, vulnerable expanse of muscle beneath Malick's skin and imagine how easily a knife would slip in, right between the ribs. As if he knew, Malick peered over his shoulder at Jacin, another smirk curving his mouth, but this one was more like the ones Jacin was used to seeing on him—all smartass cockiness and infuriating confidence.

"The gods aren't done with you, Fen. I really am sorry. If I could give you this choice, I would. You will be what you are, or you'll fail the Cycle. I can't let that happen. For either of us."

"What the hell does that mean?” Jacin snapped.

Malick didn't answer at first, only stared at Jacin over his shoulder for several long moments then shook his head and looked away. “I brought you here to Tambalon—Mitsu in particular—because you've a choice I can't make for you. You were born under Wolf, but you're not truly his. You're not anyone's but Fate's until you choose a god and pledge yourself. Until then, you are more or less up for grabs to all of the gods, and any of their
Temshiel
or maijin who might be sent to persuade you. Unfortunately, you're also vulnerable to any of them that might decide an Incendiary is too dangerous and try to get rid of you. You're under my protection, but my magic only worked on you the once and only a little at that. I can't veil you, and I can only protect you so far.” He turned back again to look at Jacin, jaw set, gaze harsh. “You see where I'm going with this?"

Jacin glared, refused to answer.

Malick snorted a little and nodded, like there'd been some kind of agreement. “Yeah. You're going to have to actually try to stay alive, Jacin. Sucks to be you."

"Fuck.
You
,” Jacin seethed, incensed that... well, he didn't really know—there were so many things to be incensed about that he couldn't pick just one. And he was sick and bloody tired of being assumed to be and accused of being suicidal when he'd already failed repeatedly to drag up the courage to prove them all right. “You don't
know
me, you don't know what I think, you have no idea what—"

"You're right.” Malick turned his glance away again, rubbing at his brow. “I only know what you show me, and sometimes that's too bloody hard to read. Except sometimes you show me more than you want to, and one of the things I see is that you have no idea if you want to live or die, but you think you
should
want to die, so you'll hand over that choice to the first person who makes it for you. So until you're ready to handle that choice yourself, I'm taking it away from you. You'll live, Fen. Because
I
choose it."

There was no answer for any of that. Jacin couldn't even pretend to bluster through a bullshit response that would at least leave him a little dignity. The horrifyingly shameful truth of it all was choking him.

Malick shifted on the mattress until he was looking at Jacin straight again, and he didn't seem to care that Jacin couldn't meet his abruptly softer tawny gaze. “I know that you
feel
, Fen. I know that everything hurts you more than it should, and I know that this whole business is probably bloody killing you. I wish I could change it, I wish I could take it away for you, but I didn't do this to you, it wasn't my choice. But I
have
chosen to help you, Fen. Let me."

The anger was still there, lumping in Jacin's chest and at the back of his throat, making it hard to form words, form the thought to make them. “I don't know what that means."

A long, heavy intake of breath expanded Malick's chest, momentarily broadening his shoulders until he let it flow out on a weary sigh. He slumped. Jacin didn't know why, and it pissed him off that it should even occur to him, but the hint of defeat in Malick's posture shamed him.

"I know,” Malick said. “We'll deal with it when you figure it out."

Cryptic bastard. How was Jacin supposed to answer that? And why did he keep feeling like he
should
answer?

Sad, furious, confused, Jacin turned his face away. Damn it, why couldn't he make himself just get up and walk away?—from this room, from this inn, from Malick, from Morin and Joori... from everything.

"The solicitor's finally found us a house,” Malick said quietly. “We move in tomorrow. He'll come for the others while you and I begin at the temples in the morning. You should decide which one you want to start with."

Jacin frowned, sat up, and shot Malick a murderous glare. Temple? He had no intention of going to a temple, let alone “beginning” with one and all that implied. Fuck the gods, what had they ever done for him but torment and punish him and take away the people he loved?

"It's why you're here, Fen.” Malick stretched his arm out and brushed the tangled fringe from Jacin's brow, letting his fingers linger down over the little plait that held the hair back from Jacin's left temple, until Jacin smacked his hand away. Infuriatingly, it only made Malick smile. “You start again when you make a choice. I won't make this one for you, and I won't let anyone else, either. From this moment on, you go nowhere without me, you go nowhere unarmed. If you don't want to pick up a weapon, then you sit your ass here behind my wards like you've been doing until I personally drag you out. The holiday's over. Tomorrow we start at the temples."

"You don't
own
me,” Jacin snarled.

"You're right, I don't. And I won't, even if you almost want me to.” Malick smirked a little when Jacin flinched. “But I do love you."

"Stop
saying
that!” It was too much. Didn't he care what it did to Jacin every time he said it? “You don't, you
can't
, and I don't want to hear you say it anymore.” Except he did, and he was fucking pathetic, because he kept trying to believe it, kept trying to pretend he flew as he fell.

Malick's eyebrow went up, a mockery of ingenuous curiosity. “Yeah? Why can't I?"

"Because there's—”
nothing there
! Jacin choked it back. And didn't know if it was because he didn't want to say it out loud and make it true, or because he was afraid of how Malick might answer it. “It was a trade, and I don't want it anymore. Stop
pretending
, I can't... I
won't
.... This....” He paused to suck in a breath, because air was coming a little harder than it should. “This, all of it—all it is... it's just another opportunity... another way to... to...."

Another way to fail.
And he couldn't say that, either. Even though it was the truest thing that was churning in his gut right now. Because he fucked up everything he touched. He even fucked up things he tried not to touch. And all this Incendiary bullshit, all the “love” distraction and probable manipulation—it only gave Jacin shiny-new ways to fall on his face and take everyone around him down with him.

As with everything, Malick refused to make facing too-obvious reality easy. “Let me help you,” he said softly, “and we'll figure it out together.” He sighed a little when Jacin ratcheted up his glare. Mouth set, Malick leaned in and wrapped his hand around the back of Jacin's neck and gave him a gentle shake. Kissed him, warm and rough. “There is no trade anymore, you're not nothing, you didn't kill Caidi, you're going to be the most beautiful-dangerous Incendiary the gods have ever seen, and I fucking love you. Deal with it."

She waited until Wolf and Raven and Dragon all completed their descent, leaving Owl's emerald shadow lurking behind the fire-mountains, staining the sky for the brief moments before the sister suns made her a vague ghost of a sliver in day's light. But she was there—quiet, ambivalent Owl, who shrouded her enigmatic majesty from the greedy grasping of her siblings and lent subtle insight to one with the prudence to seek it. A mind open enough to hear it.

Xari opened her eyes, took her hand from the stone, and peered closely. A shift in the depths of crystal quartz, a faint swirl of possibility, but there. Less murky than it had been only last night.

She sat back, thinking. The paint of her wolf's mask was drying out and beginning to flake; it itched. She set it from her mind and concentrated instead on the blank spot in the shifting fortunes spiraling beneath her fingers.

It wasn't difficult to recognize the influence. She'd seen it before, after all. The difficulty was in following each strand of it and trying to see the overall displacement of the pattern, figure out where it started and trace it to its probable end. It was wearying. Still, it was why she was here. A penance to Wolf, though he had not asked or required it of her.

A way to... commute a debt, perhaps. She owed the boy—the Untouchable that was no more; the Incendiary even now wending through the throes of long-delayed naissance. And he was, after all, the only way Kamen would ever accept the Sorcerer's mantle.

"Come, then, all you shy little possibilities. Show me your pretty faces."

She sent another humble appeal to Owl, a wish in the form of a prayer, and set a slow, delicate swipe to the stone with the very tip of her finger. Xari watched carefully, marked the too-brief clarity from the trail of her touch, and peered through it, squinting.

She shook her head.

Unfair. The child of Wolf who was not; the Fool who would refuse his fate. And the Eremite who held the Sorcerer's mantle and still disdained to don it. He'd refused it back in Ada, and he'd
still
managed to win through, when he really shouldn't have. There would be no reasoning with him now. And Xari knew what her god wanted of her, knew what he'd wanted of her even before he'd become her god.

"You do your Fool no good, Kamen Wolf's-own,” Xari muttered, mouth set grim as she waved away the murk and waited for the smoky lacework churning beneath her fingertips to build itself into something she could see. “Hand him too much, you do, and refuse to see the heart's purpose for which he has reached for too many lives."

Xari sighed a breath into the stone, then whispered Kamen's name to the flux and eddy of the tendrils of haze. Combined a spell with another prayer to Owl...

Sat back with a gasp and snatched her hand away from the stone.

"Kamen, Kamen, think yourself invulnerable, do you? Foolish child, moving too quickly for—"

"You will leave it, Xari."

Xari turned, brow furrowed, and peered at Imara with what had to be shock through the heavy paint of her wolf's mask. Framed in the archway that led out to the gardens behind the temple, Imara stood lambent in the first tentative rays of the suns, almost radiant.

"Imara, you don't know—"

"I can guess.” Calm and commanding, reminding Xari that here, in Wolf's temple, Imara was the authority, Xari a mere initiate, a priestess obscured behind Wolf's face until her induction was complete. Imara shook her head, her beautiful face pulled into what looked like true melancholy, but threaded with annoyance too. “Whatever fate it is you've seen for him, Kamen has brought it on himself. I will not be put into the position of fixing it for him. Nor will I allow him to pull you into something that would displease Wolf. He has accepted you to the Cycle, but you have not yet been initiated. I would not see you jeopardize yourself for Kamen's foolish choices."