Aisling 2: Dream Read online

  Shit, shit, shit. What had the whole thing with Wil been? What the hell was Dallin doing making Wil an 206

  Carole Cummings

  erotic player in his apparently too-active imagination?

  It had been too long, that was all it was. He thought back, trying to bring to mind the last time anyone had touched him with intent. That night when Corliss had introduced Dallin to her brother at her birthday party, and it hadn’t lasted long after…

  Mother’s mercy, had it really been more than a year ago?

  Dallin flung an arm over his eyes. Groaned.

  Kissing Wil.

  “Holy. Fuck.”

  “You’re awake.”

  It was low and sonorous, gravid. Dallin jolted up, almost not even noticing the sharp pinch and flaring burn of the still-healing wound, and pitched his glance to the doorway.

  Backlit by the sconced light in the stone passageway, Wil’s lean silhouette slanted against the frame, hair disheveled and loose shirt open. Smudges of low torchlight slipped fingers of gold and carmine through black hair, smoky flame flicking slower than it should over skin pale as the moon, but all Dallin chose to see was eyes. Wil stood there, staring at Dallin for what seemed years, waiting for invitation, maybe, then, when Dallin remained mute, Wil pushed himself away from the door, prowling silently across the small room. He merely looked for a moment, measuring silently, then one leg came up, flung over Dallin’s hips, and Wil was kissing him again, pushing him back into the hard pillow.

  It wasn’t a dream this time. The body against his was solid and real.

  Reaction shot right through Dallin, and he arched just a little. Groaned when Wil responded by pressing down, shifting, digging his fingers into Dallin’s shoulders.

  What the hell are you doing? This isn’t a dream, you can’t do this.

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  Long fingers slipped into Dallin’s hair, spangling little tingles leaching from them and flushing hot over his skin.

  Yeah? Why the hell not?

  Without thought, Dallin’s hands came up, slid inside the open shirt, fingers tracing ribs that were well-padded with muscle now, sliding around to track the dip that plunged just below the knobs of the spine. Dragged Wil in tighter.

  Wil hummed, pulled back slowly, like he didn’t really want to, and looked down at Dallin through the darkness, breath light and fast. The fitful light spattered one side of his face, gilded its angles. A small, crooked smile lifted one corner of his mouth.

  “Why did you do that?” Dallin asked.

  What a stupid question. What did it matter, really?

  This was a man who reached for what he wanted with no compunction or shame, and what he was reaching for right now was Dallin. Did Dallin really want to argue?

  Wil’s smile curled wider. “I wanted to see if it was different,” he whispered.

  Dallin almost snorted, but then curiosity got the better of him: “And was it?”

  “It was nicer without this.” Wil’s fingertips slid over Dallin’s cheek. “You don’t have it over there, y’know.”

  Dallin hadn’t known that, but he didn’t pause to worry about it. “No?” was all he said.

  Wil shook his head. “No. But this will do.”

  Without even a moment’s deliberation, Dallin decided the beard had outlived its dubious usefulness. He smiled, tugged Wil back down.

  “I’ll shave it in the morning,” he promised. Pulled Wil in close and kissed him again.

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  Chapter Five

  He’d wanted it. He’d wanted it, so he’d taken it.

  Life. A moment of stillness. Forgetfulness. Pleasure where there was so little. An empty mind—

  all heat and motion. Oblivion, however temporary. Un-complicated animal desire.

  Except he hadn’t expected the animal to… purr. A low, rumbling growl somewhere inside him he’d never known existed, and now that he knew, he wanted to shove the thing back into its shadowed den. And maybe cut its throat.

  He hadn’t expected the sweetness. The intimacy. His own failure to back away from either. The refusal to blush at the sounds that had been wrung from him, and the eager asking that wound from his own throat, raspy and demanding. The willingness to allow those wide hands to guide him into an arrangement of bodies and limbs that wouldn’t tear at sutures, and then rock into it all with as close to abandon as he’d ever been.

  It wasn’t as profound as when his fingers had been healed—it was the intent behind the intimacy that was different. Real emotion. Authentic caring. Then he’d backed away.

  You’ve never called me by my name, he’d said… after.

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  Wil had already been distracted, trying to drag himself from the morass of alien emotions skidding through him, so he’d just let his mouth take the lead: Would you like me to?

  No one calls me by my first name. Slow musing in the dark, like it was a revelation. Even the Tanners call me Brayden or just lad. Not even Manning. And then he’d turned, pierced Wil with a weighted stare. Yes. I’d like you to.

  It was like boulders on his back, that stare, but Wil had juddered a smile, said it for him, Dallin, and grew inexplicably warm and lightheaded at the slow curl of a smile he’d got in return, discomfited by the way the name coiled about his tongue and tripped off it so easily.

  Sleeping now, perhaps even waiting for him; Wil stared at—

  He shut his eyes, clenched his teeth.

  Dallin. His name is Dallin. You can do him that one courtesy, considering. It’s only a name, after all.

  Wil sucked in a low breath that shook just a little, despite him. Just looked.

  He really was quite handsome. Features in perfect proportion. Straight nose; strong jaw; kind mouth; dark, intense eyes; wonderfully wide and fit. Anyone who looked at him, regardless of any bias, would have to acknowledge his general attractiveness. The breadth and strength that had been so intimidating once had abruptly turned intoxicating. Sweeter and more generous in the intimate dark than anything Wil had ever experienced, and his experience was hardly limited, and yet the carnal power had nearly taken his mind.

  He’d asked Wil once what he slept with men for, and Wil had answered truthfully, if not wholly—he’d never slept with anyone for money. Not out of any kind of absurd moral conflict, but because accepting money 210

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  from the wrong person could mean a quick arrest and immediate induction into a workhouse, if one couldn’t pay the fine, so he’d never taken that kind of chance. For survival, though, he’d take any kind of chance, and one night of allowing another to grunt atop him for a while was now and then a fair exchange for not freezing to death. Anyway, it wasn’t as though he didn’t get his own gratification out of it—everyone generally got what they wanted, or at least what they thought they wanted.

  Perhaps this had been survival of a different sort. Survival of the soul, though that sounded a bit melodramatic.

  Certainly, there had been the physical fascination, but that had barely entered Wil’s consciousness before now.

  He hadn’t felt an actual want… need until…

  His head was starting to pound. That isn’t a headache; it’s your brain trying to claw its way through the stupidity.

  He tore his eyes from Dallin’s sleeping face, pushed his knuckles into them and pressed hard.

  Sorry. I’m a user, didn’t you know? I’ll use you to make sure I don’t get exiled from my own mind, and I’ll use you to make myself feel better after having extracted the promise. Just because you actually care doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t alter your usefulness; in fact, it rather enhances it, doesn’t it?

  So, why did it set every emotion Wil possessed—and some he hadn’t known he possessed—into some kind of gyrating spasm?

  Because you mean to betray him, and you both know it, and he’s going to let you, and you bot
h know that, too. And it won’t make him stop caring, and that’s… it’s like…

  Like a chain about his neck, constricting, cutting off breath, making it clench in his chest like a mailed fist wringing the juice from a ripe berry. Sweetness spilling over cruelty, making the ache of it burn bitter and darkly 211

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  gentle. Damn it, all he’d wanted was to forget for a little while.

  Slowly, trying not to jostle or disturb, Wil sat up, peeled himself from out the wide grip. Eased himself from the tangled bedding and limbs, and collected his clothes by the guttering light. Tried not to look down at the sleeping face, tried not to see too much.

  Dallin. His name is Dallin.

  Wide and tall, and gold and handsome, and yet there was the air of the lonely sort about this strange Guardian who’d made himself more worthy man than Mother’s Soldier. Not lonely in a morose sort of way, or sad-eyed and breathing soulful sighs. The sort who preferred his own company. The sort who chose partners who appealed to his intellect, as well as his nethers.

  The sort who needed a shared evening to Mean Something, who would be prudishly offended if offered an empty tryst… the sort who’d be hurt to realize he’d just had one.

  If this evening was any hint, Wil judged a little bleakly that Dallin’s last encounter had likely been a while ago—

  he’d been so bloody intense. He’d likely be horrified to receive an offer of a tup in exchange for a warm spot to sleep. And then he’d give up his warm spot to sleep and hand it to the one who’d offered… then sleep in the rain, if he had to, just to keep another from selling his soul.

  Wil expected his cheeks to flame, but they remained cool.

  Because you haven’t sold your soul, you bloody stupid idiot—you’ve gone and given it away. Don’t you know you need it?

  He plunged into the trousers and threw on the shirt.

  Still looking and trying not to, still planted to the spot and trying to walk away.

  I should have run. I should have taken off that first 212

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  day in the rain.

  And now it was too late. Now he was caged in a way he’d never even imagined.

  “Damn you,” he whispered unsteadily, trembling a little with things he didn’t understand, didn’t want to know about.

  Damn you for making me glad your eyes will be the last thing I see. Damn you for making me so bloody sorry for it, too. Damn you for making me wish there could be more. Damn you for being so sure there could be.

  And damn you, damn you for showing me what hope is.

  Wil scrubbed at his face, surprised and chagrined that his fingers came away wet.

  “Sorry,” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure exactly what for, then turned and made his blurry way out of the room.

  His own little hovel in the makeshift cellar surgery wasn’t much of an improvement, though he was alone there, so there was that. Alone with his thoughts, such as they were. More like a centralized chaos, but still. His and his alone.

  The bed was rumpled from when he’d more-or-less flung himself out of it, arrowed down the damp stone passageway, aiming for what his brain had been shouting against but his body had been altogether too eager for.

  And bugger if he hadn’t got exactly what he’d thought he’d wanted. He didn’t climb back in; the too-new remembrance of what had been tumbling through what passed for his mind when last he’d left it was just too…

  something. Raw. Instead, he just sat in the dark, on the floor, back propped to the cold iron bar that supported 213

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  the small cot—twin to… the other. Same damn sheets, same damn blanket, same damn hard pillow, except this one didn’t smell like—

  “Just stop it.” He clenched his teeth. “It wasn’t anything. You’ve more important things to worry about.”

  He couldn’t think about this now. It was just too… too there. There were other things to think about. Like the whole reason why he’d sought forgetfulness in the first place.

  Father.

  There was this word people bandied about, talked about it sometimes like it was the beginning and the end, the only reason to be or do, or not be or not do. “Love.”

  Wil tried it on his tongue. He’d expected it to have a taste, but it didn’t.

  He’d seen what he assumed to be love in the eyes of Dallin’s mother when he’d stood inside her dying dreams as Lind burned around her, when she’d dragged her cold fingers across his cheek and made her request; had seen it in looks exchanged between parents and children, husbands and wives, friends and companions… He’d seen it but hadn’t ever held it, understood it, wanted it. Seen its imitation in the eyes of too many, mere lust and greed trying to hide behind it, but never quite succeeding. He was pretty sure there was nothing he loved. He grasped at life and freedom because he didn’t know how not to, but he’d never really had either, not yet, at least, so he couldn’t love them. Anyway, there wasn’t much to love about them, at least in his experience thus far. Both were too costly, and the price just kept getting higher.

  He loved Father, though. Or, at least, he assumed that the hurt and grief at hearing the things Dallin had told him were some form of love. Perhaps it was merely selfish fear. What was Wil supposed to do, after all, if He suddenly wasn’t there anymore? Would Wil wink out, 214

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  too? The world? Was all of this running and agonizing and fear for nothing? Was any of it going to matter in the end?

  “Stupid question. You know it doesn’t matter, at least not to you, and your end is coming a lot quicker than you’d like to believe, and only gets closer, the faster you run.” A growl and a quick jerk of his head. “Why am I even bothering?”

  And what of Her? Shouldn’t She be doing…

  some thing? The Father’s warrior-goddess, patron to shamans and healers—shouldn’t She be using Her own magic? Was that why Father couldn’t help Wil?—because She wouldn’t help Him?

  …Couldn’t?

  “She’s a bloody goddess.” Scraped upwards from the anger simmering in his chest, ground out through his teeth. “Couldn’t. Right.”

  He scrubbed at his face, blew out a heavy breath.

  Maybe He hadn’t told Wil because there was nothing Wil could do. Maybe He’d told Dallin because there was something Dallin could. Maybe… maybe…

  “There’s always got to be a sacrifice, hasn’t there?” he whispered, not as bleak as he would’ve thought—more cold and detached, resigned. “Is that what I am? Is that why he’s here? Some sort of reciprocity for the blood of that first Watcher? Balance out the scale?”

  “Devon,” came from the door, quiet and steady.

  Wil wasn’t even startled. He peered up, marked the broad silhouette leaning in the doorway, the failing torch just barely limning features set frank and measuring.

  “His name was Devon—your first Guardian,” Dallin went on, flipped his hand out, waved it, then crossed his arms over his chest. “It means defender. In case you wanted to know.”

  Wil hadn’t. He shook his head and let it drop to his 215

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  arms, folded across the tops of his knees. “I want to be alone,” he replied softly, wincing a little at the coldness of the dismissal. “I want… You need your sleep.”

  “When you’re alone,” Dallin told him, the barest hint of a smile in his voice, “there’s no one about to poke holes in your conspiracy theories. You talk yourself into all manner of dire scenarios, every one of them some evil plan to bring about your end.” He paused; Wil could almost feel the piercing gaze cutting through the darkness, flaring into his chest. “So, what was that before?” Dallin asked mildly. “Hedging your bets?”

  It made Wil’s head snap up and his eyes narrow, strangely indignant, despite… everything. “I didn’t hear you complaining,” he snapped. “Or protesting.”

  Dallin shrugged. “Wh
at man would?”

  You would, Wil thought but didn’t say. And you’re not nearly so unaffected as you’re pretending. Trying to make it easy for me? Trying to make me believe that everything I do doesn’t hurt you in some way, that when I choose myself for the last time, it won’t live behind your eyes for the rest of your life?

  His hands fisted.

  Why couldn’t you have been a selfish bastard like everyone else? Why couldn’t you have been a monster?

  Why do you have to make me give a fuck?

  “What do you want?” he whispered, shaken.

  Dallin paused for a moment, looked down. “I wanted to know why you were apologizing.”

  Wil gave a little start. “You were awake.” He didn’t know why he was so surprised. The only time he’d ever seen Dallin sleep deeply enough not to jerk awake at the slightest noise was when he’d been drugged enough to make his teeth swim and trying not to die. “How long have you been standing there?” And why was this great lummox of a man the only one in the world who seemed 216

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  able to sneak up on him? And how much had Wil said aloud?

  “Too long,” Dallin replied, distant. “Not long enough.

  Something in the middle.” His head came up, gaze once again slicing the darkness. “All of this…” He waved a hand between them then raised it to encompass… well, the universe, for all Wil knew. “It would be so much easier if you’d just be straight with me.”

  Wil sighed, ran a hand through his hair. Straight.

  Was there such a thing? Everything had its little hidden passageways and trapdoors. Even straight lines had their crooked little flaws, if one looked closely enough.

  “Is there something you want?” he asked, impatient now, overfaced and starting to quiver.

  Dallin didn’t answer right away. “What do I want?”

  he mused after a while. “You do ask big questions.” He shifted against the doorframe, scratching at that stupid beard. “I want you to know that I understand.”

  Wil puffed a jaded chuckle. You understand. Right.