Tempted by Ruin (Sons of Britain Book 4) Read online

  As quick as he could, he plucked the laces at Palahmed’s throat, then the ones at his waist, and down each long boot. When he crawled back up and tugged at his shirts, Palahmed stripped both up and off, jostling Gawain as he freed himself of his boots. As soon as they were gone, Gawain dragged his trousers down his legs. He tried to ignore the smack Palahmed’s prick made as it slapped his belly, but it’d be a long time before he forgot that sound.

  And he didn’t want to forget it. It was proof, that this thing he felt—that he’d felt since he’d met the man—was no lonely cry into the wind.

  This was a shout, and Palahmed was shouting back.

  ~ ~ ~

  Palahmed shivered, but he wasn’t cold.

  He should have been. He lay without a stitch on, beneath a derelict roof open to the northern sky. Chilly stars winked at him like particles of ice.

  But nothing about the past few minutes left room in his body for anything but heat. It coursed through him, radiating from his skin, only to be reflected back by the man above him.

  If Gawain had ever been unsure about anything, had ever shown any lack of experience, there wasn’t a hint of those things about him now. He’d led Palahmed here as neatly as if he’d worn a collar and leash, told him what he was going to do and then ordered him onto the floor. No words since then, but Palahmed had stripped his clothing as if Gawain had ordered that too. And now his gaze roved over what he’d uncovered, leaving a scalding trail behind.

  God help him.

  Gawain’s head jerked up at the movement of Palahmed’s hand. “Are you…praying?”

  Pride demanded he deny it, but he couldn’t. “Yes.”

  The hawk was still for a long moment, and Palahmed was sure he would laugh. Certain of it—it was only building to a robust level to match his own ridiculousness, sprawled out like he was in this abandoned pigeon roost.

  Gawain did laugh, but it didn’t make him want to curl up, mortified, or buck Gawain off his body. His laugh was a self-deprecating thing, as soft as the corona the moon was making of his curls.

  “I prayed, too, on the way up here. That you’d follow. And then you did.” His fingertips brushed through the hair on Palahmed’s belly. “What do you like?”

  He couldn’t remember anything he’d ever liked but this. Not a damned thing. “I like you, when you’re feeling this way.”

  “And how do you think I’m feeling?”

  “Powerful.”

  That stillness again—how had he ever thought Gawain fidgety?—and then a single fingertip, slowly circling his navel. “Then answer me. What do you want me to do?”

  “Anything—”

  “No, come. You’re no virgin. You enjoy some things, and maybe hate some others. Tell me which is which.”

  He was correct, in theory. There were acts Palahmed had enjoyed in the past and others he hadn’t. But none of them had been shared with Gawain and, try as he might, Palahmed couldn’t make his lips and tongue articulate the possibilities that opened.

  “Tell you a secret,” Gawain said. “I like you like this, too. I’ve seen you naked, and you’ve seen me, but it’s a whole different thing to feel it.” He stroked his hands over Palahmed’s chest, his fingers curling in the hair there. He grunted quietly. “I want to bed down on this.” Leaning down, he brushed his lips where his hand had been. He paused at a nipple, and the sight of his tongue swiping across it drew Palahmed’s stones up tight.

  Gawain didn’t linger but made his way toward his shoulder. There, he could feel that the hawk’s lips were chapped, and he reached for him. Gawain came willingly enough, even let Palahmed kiss him with a slow sweet longing that was entirely too revealing. If he kept on like this, Gawain would discover the extent of the desire he kept hidden. But he couldn’t stop himself, filling his hands with the hard angles and smooth curves of the man’s body.

  Gawain moaned, just a huff of breath, and then panted, “My mouth on your cock.”

  Palahmed’s hands slowed, and Gawain nodded.

  “Every man likes that, right?”

  He sounded as if he was saying it to himself, and while it wasn’t completely accurate, it was absolutely true of Palahmed. As Gawain eased down his body, he tried to quell the tremors in his legs. Digging his heels into the floorboards, he slipped his fingers into Gawain’s hair.

  Gawain looked up at him as he settled on his elbows, his green eyes gray in the pale light. Palahmed’s cock made a valiant attempt to meet him halfway, rising from his belly to sway drunkenly. Gawain caught it in the curl of his hand and brushed his nose up the length.

  Palahmed hissed as sensation shot through his body.

  Gawain followed with his lips, holding Palahmed’s gaze as he lay helpless and thrumming.

  See this. See what you do to me.

  Gawain gave him a wink. Oh, I see, it said. I see you’re doomed.

  “Cheeky,” Palahmed said, but it issued as a whisper.

  Gawain’s tongue flashed again, and then he licked Palahmed root to tip.

  He sucked a pained breath and flexed his fingers. He refused to grasp Gawain’s hair. Instead, he cupped his head, stroking the curve of it with shaking hands. “I do like that, very much.”

  His quavering words earned him a smile and a second lick, rough in its eagerness. Palahmed was beyond caring. He nudged Gawain toward his crown hopefully.

  “Think you can tell me what to do, Saracen?” Belligerent words, but then his cock was enveloped in wet heat and slow, dragging suction.

  He pushed up into it, into the bliss of Gawain’s mouth. There was a scuffle below, and then his legs were pinned under the weight of the man’s body. When he tried to shift, to find purchase with his heels again, Gawain reached up and pinched a nipple. Palahmed grunted in surprise. Gawain held on to it, twisting slightly and watching him. After a moment, Palahmed relaxed his legs. Settled his hands gently on Gawain’s head. Closed his eyes in a plea to either God or the hawk—he wasn’t certain which.

  One of them responded, at least, and if he were honest with himself, it was the one he’d hoped for. For the next several minutes—enough that the moon changed position noticeably through the roof—he was treated to the most enthusiastic cock-sucking he’d ever had the fortune to receive. As if Gawain were a man on a mission, to find every little thing that gave him pleasure. But not for a one-off reward. Gawain seemed bent on discovering these things so he could use them again.

  “Yes.”

  It rushed out of him on another pleading breath, and Gawain made a sound like a hungry man gorging on a feast. His hand joined his mouth, stroking and squeezing until Palahmed lost the ability to breathe at all. He choked, staring at the creature between his thighs. Why had he denied them this?

  The answer struck so hard, he grunted again.

  Tristan, wide-eyed and haunted by his own demons, kneeling in the alcove. Before that, Ifan with the bee-stung lips, and before him, dark-lashed Dafydd. A succession of young men, some barely past the cusp, on and on, backward in time and across a sea, to that chamber of candles and scented oils, to the silver-haired man stroking a younger one as Palahmed watched from the shadows, gripping himself and panting and imagining it was himself—

  He came on a strangled cry that tore at his throat. Would that he could tear it out in truth. He didn’t deserve this pleasure, didn’t deserve this innocent giving it to him. He moved to pull Gawain off him, but he rose on his own. His pale hands tore at his laces until he could shove his trousers down his thighs. Shuffling on his knees, his gaze pinned to Palahmed’s spent cock, he jerked at his own. Palahmed watched, unable to touch him but transfixed, as Gawain found his own gasping release. It landed on Palahmed’s skin in small, hot spatters, and then Gawain was there too, collapsing on his chest with a groan.

  With shaking hands, Palahmed petted his heaving ribs. Gawain wasn’t Tristan. Nor Ifan, nor Dafydd, nor any of the rest. And he wasn’t that one back in Arabia, the one Palahmed had spied with the visitor and then discovered to
o late, his own hand sticky with seed, had been his brother.

  This was Gawain, a man grown and here of his own volition. But he didn’t know who he lay against. Hadn’t figured out that someone so pompously self-righteous must be hiding something shameful. Didn’t realize he might be tainted merely in the touching.

  And when the hawk looked up, frowned, asked softly why Palahmed was weeping, he couldn’t bear to tell him.

  Chapter 15

  Gawain stared at the door of his mother’s chamber.

  He shouldn’t need this. For almost seven years, he’d been a free man, a fighting man, the sort of man he’d always longed to be.

  Mostly.

  Which was probably why he found himself back in this very spot, on this threshold his boots had crossed more times than all his brothers combined. Something his father had always enjoyed pointing out.

  Had a chat with your mother lately?

  You two weaving blankets for babes?

  Soft hands, weak work.

  It had been that way for as long as he could remember. And it was true, in a way. He’d been closer to his mother than any of them, and he didn’t know if that was something in him or in her. He was the only one she’d succeeded in teaching her mother tongue. And she’d always welcomed him into these chambers, which was more than he could say for his father and his ranks.

  But Lot’s words had taken root in his mind, as hateful as they’d been, and he’d wanted to prove himself.

  And he had done.

  Except, here he was, needing his mother.

  The door opened, and there she stood. “Are you going to come in, or do you require an invitation?”

  Abashed, he stepped past her into the room.

  “Have a seat, Gwalchmai.”

  He’d have liked to deny the need for one, but the hearth drew him. He pulled a stool near it and sat, holding his hands to the low flames.

  “Here, warm your insides as well,” she said and handed him a steaming cup.

  He sniffed it but oughtn’t to have bothered. The brew in the cup was as familiar as this chamber, as his mother’s voice. He took a sip and let the warmth trickle down his throat. It seemed to spread through his middle, just as it always had.

  “You look pale. Are you well?”

  “I’m fine. I only thought…”

  What had he thought? Nothing constructive. He hadn’t been able to form a logical thought since last night, when he’d looked up from Palahmed’s chest and found him crying.

  He’d asked why, but Palahmed had only shook his head. Wiped his eyes, and told Gawain he was perfect.

  A bald lie, and they both knew it, but Palahmed had risen then and pulled his clothes back on, and only seemed to remember to turn back and bid Gawain goodnight as an afterthought. Gawain had grabbed the man’s sleeve and asked again, but Palahmed had said it wasn’t Gawain’s fault. Only a bad memory rising to the surface.

  And it had floated there after Palahmed descended the stairs from the cote, bobbing between them like a dead gull.

  A gull Gawain couldn’t even identify.

  Some son of the sea he was.

  “You’ve something on your mind.”

  He looked up to find his mother watching him. She sat on her own low seat, the only one he could remember her ever sitting on. It was outfitted in animal pelts for some bit of comfort, but had no back on it. Never needed one; his mother’s back was always ship’s-mast straight.

  She sat so now and, holding his cup of home-brewed berry ale, he could have been all of nine again.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Had some sort of falling out with your shieldmate?”

  He managed to keep his cup still, but only just. How she did that—guess exactly what was on his mind or in his heart—he’d never know. At least he’d learned to mask his surprise. “Haven’t seen him this morning.” That much was true, at least. Palahmed’s chamber had been empty when he checked, and he’d not been in the hall either.

  “You can tell me.”

  “That’s a warrior’s concern, Mother.”

  She rose even straighter, and he set his feet flat on the floor. He’d offended her. A wise man braced himself after such a fool move.

  “Is it now? Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that, would I? I’ve only been wed to one for most of my life and birthed four more.”

  “Gareth and Gahers aren’t warriors yet,” he said.

  She chuckled, a low sound of warning. “Itching for a skirmish, are you? Won’t find it here, Gwalchmai. I’ve cleared the chamber of such efforts today.”

  He could smell it, the lingering smoke of the willow switch she used to prepare her chambers every morning. She would walk the room’s perimeter, whispering the words. He’d asked her once about the words, but she’d said they weren’t his to know.

  She took up her carding brushes and began the clacking rhythm that had been the pulse of his boyhood.

  Part of him wanted to leave, right then. Forget the mission, forget whatever his father might be getting up to with the Saxons. It wasn’t worth this…this…slide back into who he’d been all those years ago. The scents, the sounds, they all seemed to have burrowed back under his skin, and if he wasn’t careful, they’d get bone deep and start walking him around without his say-so.

  But he couldn’t leave. It would only prove he wasn’t the man he’d wanted to become—the one he had become, damn it.

  Gripping his cup he said, “I haven’t told you why we’re here yet.”

  Clack clack. “You mean it isn’t just a family visit?”

  He almost laughed. She had that way about her, making light of things she’d sussed long before anyone expected her to.

  And so the tone was a warning too, like a red pennant off the sail.

  Proceed with caution, seaman.

  “Word in the south is that the Saxons have wintered at Eidyn.”

  “Oh?” Clack clack. “And what’s that to do with us in the Orcait?”

  “Well, some think they mean to sail north and talk to Father.”

  She looked up at him. “Sail here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whyever would they do that? Aren’t they busy enough? Haven’t you sent them slinking back to their dog dens?” She winked at him.

  “Mother…”

  “Yes, Gwalchmai?”

  “Some think they mean to forge an alliance with Father. That they’re going to offer him Caledonia to join them.”

  Her brushes paused at that, and she stared at him.

  Finally, something had gotten through.

  “All of Caledonia?”

  “As far as Eidyn.”

  “Who thinks this?”

  “Black Rhys. And others.”

  “And others. Have you traveled north on the tail of winter, on the supposing of nameless others, or are you just not sharing their names?”

  “I trust Rhys’s sources.”

  Her brushes went slack in her lap. The look she gave him was the sort of wilting thing a mother gave a son who’d disappointed her. He’d spent his boyhood avoiding this expression at all costs.

  “I could be wrong, my warrior son, but if the Saxons were able to take Caledonia, why in the world would they hand it over to your father?”

  At least here, he had an answer. “They wouldn’t. That’s why we’ve come. To warn him.”

  She laughed, right in his face. “Warn Lot? About something even I could predict? Has the southern sun cooked your brain to mush?”

  “It’s not that warm,” he said, then bit his tongue.

  “Oh, my sweet lad. You seem to have forgotten I was born there. Spent my first sixteen years there, and left with full knowledge of how things work there. Then I crossed mountains and sea to come here and have spent the intervening years—more than thirty, mind you—learning the way of things here. Learning how northerners think. What pleases them. What tempts them. What infuriates them. And I’ll tell you this, my wayward son, I know them better than you d
o.” She took up her carding again. “If your brain isn’t porridge, you and your fellows will climb back into your boat and leave on the next decent breeze.”

  He stared at her.

  After a moment, she sighed. “Honestly, Gwalchmai. Why couldn’t you have just asked me what to do about your handsome man? With that I could help you.”

  He set down his cup, muttered an embarrassed goodbye, and left her to her work.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Rattling your knee won’t make Lot appear any more quickly.”

  Arthur’s knee ceased its jittering, but his frown remained in place. “Don’t like the wait.”

  “You don’t say.” Bedwyr reached for the ale jug, but Arthur waved him off.

  “Don’t need it. I want to be sharp when he gets here.”

  Bedwyr poured himself a cup full. “Is that happening soon, you think?”

  Arthur looked away, scowling across the hall.

  “Take care, or you’ll start a brawl.” Bedwyr knocked his shoulder. “Let’s take a walk.”

  “Don’t want a walk.”

  “No walk, no ale. We could find Gawain and go fishing.”

  Arthur turned his glare on Bedwyr.

  “Some way to treat the man who woke you up so nicely this morning,” Bedwyr murmured, then sipped his ale.

  It worked; one corner of Arthur’s mouth turned up. A bit of color rose in his cheeks into the bargain. “Yes, well.”

  All about them, men were hunched together in small groups. It looked like any hall during the winter—everyone just waiting for the first chance to spend more hours outdoors than in. All three fire pits jumped with flames, but they did little to ward off the damp chill. He’d be glad to quit this place and get back to the relative warmth of Rhys’s. It could be crowded, but it didn’t feel like this, as if they were but two steps from sitting on the roof, trying to warm their toes on sea mist.

  He leaned closer. “I think our wager might be in trouble.”

  Arthur looked at him with sudden interest.

  Bedwyr nodded. “Saw Gawain coming out of Palahmed’s chamber this morning. And they left the hall together last night.”