And So It Begins (30 page)

Hours after leaving the Harper’s Den, he still lay awake, watching the shadows move across the ceiling as the coals in the brazier cooled and shifted. The memory of the northerner’s face still haunted him, and Derek’s words about his options were a truth he would have to deal with soon. The one thing he
didn’t
want to gamble on was the time to learn by trial and error. Beginning tomorrow, he would have to make those decisions—and take those gambles—on his own. Derek would be gone. The gentleness of his kiss in the attic room had spoken his good-bye.

He closed his eyes at the memory of that kiss, still feeling its warmth against his cheek, still seeing the depth of what the trader was feeling in his eyes. It wouldn’t be a permanent parting, Kherin knew. He would see Derek again when he returned to Delfore, when the trader came to the palace to meet with his father or when Kherin joined him in the city for a meal or a drink. But things would be different there, and the return to normal would push them back to the way it was before, when their affection was clear and apparent but never went beyond the lines of mere friendship. His chance had been here, in Gravlorn, and he had seen enough to know the chance he was taking wasn’t in vain. With a little more time, he may have made it through the trader’s arguments and found a way to make this work, without compromising the trader’s position or his own, less stable one.

But his time had run out. Derek was leaving. In a few more hours, he would be gone, and Kherin knew any chance he had would leave with him. He exhaled heavily as those few hours seemed to be both the longest and the shortest in his life. Everything told him that in a few hours the worst would be over and he would adjust to the trader’s absence just as he had every time the trader had left. Just a few more hours, and he would have no choice but to let his hopes go….

Then his breath stuttered suddenly, and his heartbeat increased to pound fiercely in his chest.

The words
a few more hours
had played over and over in his mind, taunting him with the inevitability of the trader’s leaving, repeating and confirming, becoming a mantra that thrummed through him with each moment that passed. But that inevitability wasn’t what his mind—what his heart—had been trying to tell him. He breathed out slowly, finally seeing what those words meant.

In a few more hours, Derek would be gone.

But for a few more hours….

Derek was still here
.

Dear Gods. His chance had been in Gravlorn, and for a few more hours, his chance
was still here
.

Suddenly wide awake, he sat up with a rustle of bed linen. Adrien didn’t stir, and for that he thanked the Gods. With movements both quick and quiet, he gathered his clothes and pulled them on, his hands nearly shaking by the time he reached for his boots.

L
IGHT
flickered under the door the moment the candle inside was lit, and Kherin waited impatiently for the moment the door would open. He was wet and cold, but the anxiousness rippling through him pushed those uncomfortable feelings aside. He concentrated on breathing calmly, silently rehearsing the words he would say as he heard the steps on the other side draw nearer. This was his last chance to create something with Derek that neither one of them would regret. It was right, and he wouldn’t give this up now.

He was startled when the door swung open, and momentarily paralyzed when he suddenly found the trader standing less than two steps away, the dark eyes turning wary and cautious as he studied the prince’s face. Kherin could only stare back.

Derek was dressed in only the cotton pants he wore when he slept, his hair pulled back and braided, a few haphazard strands falling loosely over his bare shoulders. The candle glowing behind him limned his body in golden light, glancing off his skin in a way that drew the eye and invited the fingers to touch, while the smooth planes of his chest caught the glow of candle lamps outside the door, bringing out the prominence of his collarbone under the long line of his throat, and emphasizing the thin white scar that cut the flesh from that long ago injury. Lean, muscled arms were cast in an array of light and shadow, one raised to hold the door open, the other stretching forward in search of flesh.

None of it was anything Kherin hadn’t seen before, but never had he looked at the trader so brazenly as he did now. Never had he
let
himself look at Derek as openly as this. Only the anxiousness in the trader’s face spoiled the sensuality of the moment, though not even the frown Derek wore could overcome the handsomeness of the strong jaw and nearly elegant features.

Then the words Kherin had prepared to speak vanished as he met that dark, surprised gaze, and his voice failed completely as the surprise in the trader’s face turned to concern.

“Kherin,” Derek began, quietly and urgently, his hand coming closer as he moved past the door. “What are you doing here? Is Adrien…?”

“How did you know I wasn’t a thief intending to rob you blind?” Kherin cut him off, forcing a lightness to his voice that was contrary to every other emotion that thrummed through him. It was similar to what he had said in jest earlier, but there was an awkwardness to his jest now. But that wasn’t the reason he was here. He held the trader’s gaze nonetheless, noting how it was dark and intense, without the softness of hours earlier, but captivating nonetheless.

One chance….

Derek raised an eyebrow in suspicion as he stopped the reach of his hand, and the arm that had been stretching toward the prince lowered slowly to his side.

“Because thieves rarely knock. What are you doing here this late? Is Adrien all right?”

Kherin grinned briefly in answer. Then he stepped forward, and Derek moved aside to let him enter. The bed was unmade, the linens bunched where the trader had been sleeping. A single candle flickered on the bedside table. The trader’s clothes were folded neatly on the seat of the chair. The rest of his bags were packed and set close to the door, his cloak draped over the top in preparation for an early departure. Kherin stepped past them with only a single cursory glance, and then turned as Derek quietly closed the door.

He let his cloak slip from his shoulders as the trader approached, following the motion of Derek’s steps and listening to the soft padding of his feet across the bare floor. He turned away only long enough to drape the sodden cloak over the chair, noting absently how the rain that dripped from the hem formed a tiny puddle near its legs. The beat of his heart was loud in his ears, and every sound, from the patter of the rain to the rustle of his clothes, was harsh and clear in the heavy silence of the room. Derek’s expression was calm as he stepped beside the prince, though the wariness—and worry—in his eyes didn’t fade. The hand he placed at the small of Kherin’s back felt like fire through the damp threads of Kherin’s shirt.

“Kherin, what’s going on? Is Adrien all right?” His voice was tight, and the tension in his body made his posture stiff, his face a mixture of trepidation and curiosity.

“Adrien is fine,” Kherin said, meeting Derek’s worried gaze and catching the flicker of reflected light in its depths. “He’s still sleeping, and Willum is alert to the possibility of more seizures. I didn’t wake him when I left.” Kherin was aware of how close Derek stood, and how easy it would be to touch him. But though he had been this close and closer so many times in the past, never once had it been like this. His heart threatened to break his ribs as its pace increased.

Relief filled Derek’s eyes, though the caution in them remained, and the hand that rested lightly on the prince’s back had begun to move in slow circles, the only sign that Derek was still waiting for the answer to his question. “I’m relieved to hear that Adrien is well, as least as far as can be expected, but, Kherin, why are you here?” he asked again.

Kherin stared at him without answering, knowing he had reached the moment he had envisioned since he had made his decision to come here. One chance, he reminded himself again. And weighing what he had chosen to do against what he risked, he knew his decision had been the right one.

With a final breath for courage, he stepped forward, pressing into the solidness of the trader’s body and covering Derek’s mouth with his own.

Derek’s sound of surprise was nearly lost in the unexpected kiss, and the hands that flew to the prince’s hips sought to both hold the prince and push him back. When Derek managed to break them apart, his eyes were filled with the resignation and regret Kherin had expected—and the beginnings of the desire Kherin had hoped for. Kherin’s hands had gained purchase on the bare skin of Derek’s arms, and it was a hold he wasn’t going to give up unless he was forced to.

“Kherin….”

“Don’t say it,” Kherin told him quietly, and with a firmness he was grateful for. “Don’t tell me again why this can’t happen. I’ve heard what you’ve told me, and I know how angry my father will be if he learns of this, but he won’t ban you from the castle and lose his eyes and ears in the kingdom. You know that as well as I do.” They were the words he had practiced, and only the beginning of the argument he would press. “You’ve made yourself a valuable asset, and in doing so gained more freedom in your actions than nearly anyone else in the kingdom. You told me that yourself.”

The flare he saw in Derek’s eyes was also something Kherin had been expecting, but this time he was prepared for it.

“And don’t say you’re doing this to protect me,” he went on, cutting off anything Derek would say before it could be voiced, but letting Derek go when the trader stepped back. “I’ve faced my father too many times over things worse than this to be intimidated by the threat,” he went on unflinchingly. “He won’t disown me and create a royal scandal, or he would have done so long before now.”

“It’s not about you being disowned or losing the freedoms granted you by the royalty of your blood, Kherin,” Derek got in at last, leveling his gaze on Kherin’s but not closing the distance between them. “It’s about angering your father to the point that he will
take
his anger out on you. Anyone can be pushed too far, and when that happens—”

“You think I’ll do something stupid, like drowning my anger at the Mouse.” He let out a small sigh when Derek’s raised eyebrow confirmed the statement more clearly than words, but the trader didn’t retreat when Kherin stepped up to him again. “Look, Derek, I know you’re worried about how my father will react, and how I will react when he does, but living my life according to how
my father
thinks it should be done is not something I’m willing to do. Not when giving in to him will do nothing more important than appease his own sense of morality. You taught me better than that.”

Never so blatantly, but years of watching Derek act without compromising his own sense of what was right had been effective nonetheless.

Even if Kherin hadn’t known how effective until now.

“I know what is likely to happen when I return to Delfore,” he went on, holding Derek’s gaze, “and I won’t pretend I don’t care about that, but I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not.” He paused but didn’t look away. “That way, I’ll at least be able to look at myself in the mirror and know I was honest, with myself and with you.”

“You sound like a philosopher,” Derek murmured, but Kherin could see his words were being heard, and it was a relief when Derek didn’t pull away as Kherin slid his hands along his arms. Derek lifted his hand to sweep away the strands that had fallen over Kherin’s forehead as he exhaled into the air between them, but Kherin spoke first.

“Do you still not regret what happened in the way-stop?”

It was one of the few times he had ever seen Derek surprised, but it was only for an instant, and then a gentleness replaced it in the trader’s eyes as Derek caught the prince’s chin to ensure he didn’t look away.

“No, my prince. Never that. But Kherin, are you sure….”

The rest was lost as Kherin leaned in to kiss. Derek’s hesitation at the touch lasted only a moment, and the feeling of his lips softening as they began to answer urged him to deepen it. His fingers had found the twisted braid Derek wore when the trader broke the kiss this time, though Derek moved back  slowly, and it was only enough to break the contact.

“Kherin.” Derek’s breath was warm on the prince’s lips.

“I know this is right, and so do you,” Kherin told him softly. “Nothing my father can say will change that.” He tugged the braid lightly. “And nothing you can say will make it wrong.”

“Kherin,” Derek said again, his breath heavy on Kherin’s lips this time. “Are you sure you’re ready to face whatever may happen in Delfore?”

Kherin pulled away enough to search the trader’s eyes for one brief moment before he withdrew, pulling the braid gently over the trader’s shoulder as he did so. He stepped back, and in a slow and confident move, he reached down to the hem of his shirt and pulled it deliberately over his head, then let it drop to the floor at his feet. When he reached for the trader again, it was to lay one hand gently on the smooth skin of his chest. He caressed one peaked nipple with the flat of his thumb.

“I’m sure,” he whispered.

One desperate heartbeat passed, and then it was the moment Kherin had prayed for, the moment the last vestiges of Derek’s restraint crumbled and fell. Derek reached for him and he went, and the welcoming arms that circled around him were the start of the kiss that gained heat quickly as the reservations from only moments before were burned away. The trader smoothed his hands down the line of his back as he pulled him closer, and Kherin’s heart swelled to nearly bursting with the joy of finally being able to answer his need to feel the trader’s touch without any threat of rejection.

Derek’s hand had found his cheek again when they separated from the kiss at last, though he saw more than gentleness in the trader’s eyes now. Acceptance was there, and a happiness to match his own, both strung through with a hunger that sent the fire racing through Kherin’s blood. He could feel the hardened length of Derek’s cock pressing desperately against his own, and this time he knew Derek wouldn’t pull away. The confidence it added to his touch was clear as he grasped blindly between them, and the single stroke he gave caressed them both as it drew a low moan from Derek’s throat. Then the sweep of his tongue as he covered Derek’s mouth again brought a sharp thrust of the trader’s hips that drove the breath from his lungs.