Over the next days, things slipped into a routine. Kiernan was in charge of the fire; he wasn’t quite sure how that had happened, whether Grif had deliberately started calling it “your fire” and “your wood” or if the words had merely reflected Kiernan’s own proprietary attitude. One way or another, though, the fire was his. If he needed wood gathered, he asked Grif for help, and they worked together.

Well, the kind of “together” that consisted of Grif performing feats of strength with no apparent effort and Kiernan stumbling along in his wake, battling to keep up despite his much lighter load.

Grif took care of the snares, and as part of that, he seemed to do quite a bit of exploring, and gathering of other food. Snow fell almost every night, an ankle-deep covering that was never enough to be a problem on its own but that contributed to the rising banks and drifts. And some days it snowed as well, but just a steady fall that didn’t interfere with Grif’s ability to travel. To work. There were berries to be gathered—frozen, wizened nuggets that wouldn’t have been fit for pig-food at home, but that Kiernan and Grif both savored like the finest delicacies. Nuts, sometimes, and roots, once Grif found the thawed ground beside the still-moving river. Fish, too, after Grif found the frozen lake and spent half a day hacking through the ice to drop his fish-trap and then another half day chopping the re-formed ice away in order to free his bounty.

Mostly, though, they ate meat. Every animal that had ever scurried or burrowed through the forests seemed to be drawn to Grif’s snares, and twice a day Grif would stomp out to check on the traps or to lay a new one he’d crafted the evening before. He almost always came back with enough to fill their bellies and add to their meagre stockpile of frozen food. And Grif shared it all with Kiernan, no negotiations or complaints, no keeping the best parts to himself.

Under Grif’s guidance, they built a ladder to make it easier to get to the cave, a snow wall constructed to block the wind and keep the warmth inside, and a pine-needle bed between the layers of the folded tent canvas that actually made sleeping comfortable.

Comfortable, but frustrating. Because where was the bold, demanding, satisfying Grif from that day in the middle of the clearing, the Grif who’d grabbed on to Kiernan as if he owned him, understood him, needed him? Barring that, where was the imp who’d given Kiernan the courage to do some grabbing of his own? Was Kiernan just expected to sleep, night after night, nestled against the body that had given him so much pleasure and seemed so completely disinterested in repeating the favor?

The favor. Was that how Kiernan was going to think about it? A chore Grif had performed for Kiernan’s pleasure, not his own?

Well, that day in the clearing, yes. Maybe Grif had taken some secondary enjoyment from it; maybe he liked seeing younger men come apart under his touch, maybe it gave him a sense of power. But was Grif really lacking in that area? Could he have any damn doubt that he had more power than Kiernan in their limited setting?

He could take Kiernan’s body with as little trouble as it had been for him to take Kiernan’s equipment. Why wasn’t he doing it?

Except— Kiernan looked around the cave, dimly lit with what daylight could fight through the snow wall and the dancing flames of his fire. Except Grif hadn’t taken Kiernan’s gear, not permanently. When Kiernan had retrieved it, Grif had let him do so.

Had Kiernan somehow given Grif the impression that he wanted to take his body back, and Grif was allowing that retrieval as well?

Maybe he simply isn’t interested, the imp whispered.

The bastard abandoned Kiernan for days and now returned with that sort of negative message? Kiernan wanted a new imp.

“Hey!” a familiar voice called from outside the cave. A strange note to it, as if Grif—mighty Grif—was tired, or straining somehow.

Kiernan scrambled to the snow wall and out through the tunnel. He stood on the stone platform at the mouth of the cave and looked down to see Grif in the snow, with a full-sized deer carcass slung across his shoulders.

A deer. How much meat in a deer? Enough to feed them long enough to walk out of the mountains, surely.

But Kiernan didn’t ask about that straightaway. He just slid down the ladder and stood waiting for instructions. The fire was his; deer were most definitely Grif’s.

“The gods sent him to us—his antlers were caught in a tree, and I was able to walk right up. I slit his throat, but there’s still some blood in him,” Grif grunted as he eased the body off his shoulders. “We should collect it and boil it down. Doesn’t taste good, but it’ll keep us alive.”

“There’s so much meat! Do we really need to worry about staying alive, now?”

“There’s enough for a couple weeks; we’re looking at four months.” Grif sounded as if killing this deer had actually made him less optimistic about their chances at survival. But that made no sense. Then Kiernan saw the way Grif’s hand was resting on the animal’s shoulder: affectionately, maybe. Apologetically? Was it possible that this brute of a man was regretting the necessity of killing the animal?

“We need it,” Kiernan said quickly.

“And we won’t waste any of it,” Grif said. Vowed? “So get your pot and I’ll string it up to drain the blood. We won’t be able to collect it all; we don’t have enough containers. But we’ll do what we can.” He sighed, then straightened. “And we need the sinews and the bone—I can make a bow and arrows, now, and that’ll make hunting easier.”

Easier for him to kill forest creatures. Kiernan began to see how this bounty might be a mixed blessing for Grif, assuming he was as sensitive to taking animal life as he seemed to be. But he’d killed countless smaller animals during their time together with no distress. Except—

“Those words you say. When you clean the innards out of the animals from the snares and leave them in the forest. What language are those in? And what do they mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t—”

“Go get your pot. We need to get this cleaned up before dark or the scavengers will take our meat.”

That was a good incentive for Kiernan, whose stomach was already rumbling in anticipation of a venison feast.

His stomach ended up having to wait a good while, though. There was a lot of work to be done on the carcass, and Grif was his grumpiest, most demanding self through the entire production. The blood, meat, organs, brain, hide, bones, sinews, and antlers: every part was removed almost reverently, placed to cool in the snow or given to Kiernan to be immediately transported to the cave.

The sun was low and the shadows long before Grif was finally satisfied, and the rumbling in Kiernan’s stomach had grown to a near constant roar. He’d eaten well that morning, but apparently his stomach had realized there was variety to be had and wanted its share.

“Go up and start cooking,” Grif said. An order, but he made it sound like an invitation, or at least a suggestion. “I’ll finish up here.”

How often does he do that? Kiernan wondered as he headed for the ladder. How often did he see what Kiernan wanted and then tell him to do it? Kindness, but not of a sort that would make Kiernan feel as if he were being pitied or coddled.

Against his will he thought of Vin, the way he had of making even the smallest token of friendship appear as a grand gesture. Kiernan had always thought it was just a harmless flair for the dramatic, or a valuable tool of statecraft, creating a sense of obligation in the recipients of his generosity. But somehow, from the distance of the mountains, the trick appeared smaller, maybe petty.

No. It was disloyal to entertain the idea. Kiernan had been too long in poor company and it had robbed him of his appreciation for the subtleties of the relationships in the valley. That was all. The fault was in him, not anybody else.

No. Probably the fault was in Grif somehow. He was too simple, too unsophisticated to realize what he was doing. He’d hit Kiernan in the face when they’d first met because violence was the only way he knew to get what he wanted. If Kiernan had to choose between the currencies of physical intimidation and exaggerated gratitude, he’d absolutely take the latter. It was less painful to his cheekbones.

And less painful to your pride? the imp wondered.

Kiernan tried to remember the remedies the parents in that distant village had wanted to try on their imp-infested daughter. Had there been something about bathing in cold water? Food deprivation?

I don’t think you’d enjoy either of those, the imp said smugly.

“You wouldn’t enjoy them either,” Kiernan muttered.

Ah, yes. That’s a favorite trick of yours, isn’t it? Ignoring your own good judgment and anyone who tries to make you think things through?

Like his father, face pinched and solemn as he’d tried to find a way to discuss Kiernan’s friendship with the tsarn’s son without saying anything disloyal or disrespectful. Kiernan had been so ready to dismiss the advice; after all, hadn’t his father always been close to the tsarn himself? Why would he object to a similar relationship between members of the next generation?

Maybe there’d been a reason, and Kiernan hadn’t wanted to hear it. He’d been reluctant to take the apprenticeship with the healer when his father had first suggested it, dreading the thought of being so far from home. From Vin. But his father had been right, and Kiernan had learned a great deal and gone a long way toward becoming a man under the healer’s guidance.

Then Kiernan’s father had died, and Kiernan had been called back to court. For no reason, he saw now. Just to be an ornament. He’d left his training, his future behind because Vin had wanted him closer. Kiernan’s father had tried to warn him about becoming dependent, about trusting more than he should, but Kiernan hadn’t wanted to hear.

He poked at the coals in the stone hearth Grif had built and scowled at the pot of deer blood beside the fire. How had it come to this? How had he come to this? He was stranded in the mountains, sharing a cave—a cave—with a man who thought it was unremarkable to drink blood as part of a daily diet. He was sharing a bed with that same man, and had wantonly thrown himself at that man, had been overcome with pleasure at his touch, was currently wishing, aching for more . . .

None of it made sense. None of it was who Kiernan was. Not the real Kiernan, the one he’d always been.

It was the thin air in the mountains, he realized with a sense of relief. He’d heard stories of such things. Strange behavior from men who spent too long at great heights.

The stories had always come from much greater heights, from men who’d ventured up above the tree line in the warmth of summer, but obviously Kiernan had a special sensitivity to the issue. He broke out in hives if he ate strawberries, he couldn’t stand wool right next to his skin, and he lost all sense of appropriate behavior when the air was thin. It was strange, certainly, and Vin might tease him about it someday, but it wasn’t Kiernan’s fault, wasn’t something he could be expected to fix.

So he didn’t need to blame the imp for what he did next. It was Kiernan speaking, but through the haze of mountain sickness, as he crawled back out of the cave and stood on the ledge and called down to Grif. “Are you almost done? I haven’t put the meat on the fire; I thought I might hold off for a little while, and if it’s all right with you, I thought I might suck your cock before dinner.”

There was a moment’s frozen silence, and then, still without speaking, Grif picked up the hide he’d been working on and slung it over his shoulder. Then he started for the ladder.

Kiernan crawled back into the cave. As he waited, he was fairly certain he felt the pats on his back as his imp congratulated him.

“What did you mean, earlier?” Kiernan asked. He was snuggled up in a warm stretch along Grif’s side, and it was difficult for Grif to refuse to talk when his dick was still wet from Kiernan’s eager and surprisingly talented mouth. It wasn’t clear whether the manipulation was deliberate or not, and that made it even more effective.

Still, Grif tried to resist. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you want to start cooking now?”

Kiernan shifted, drawing his warmth a little away from Grif as he sat up. “Yes. I want to start cooking. But I can cook and talk at the same time. You said you didn’t know what language you were speaking, earlier, and you said you didn’t know what the words mean. But you say them every time you kill, don’t you?”

“No, not every time.”

“You’ve said them every time I’ve seen.”

“You’ve only seen me kill animals.” There was silence as Kiernan digested that, and Grif let himself believe the topic might be closed.

But it only took a few breaths before Kiernan nodded. “Yes. That’s true. So you say them every time you kill an animal?”

Grif sighed. “They’re words of thanks. I don’t know exactly what they mean, but they’re supposed to show the animal respect, thank it for what I’ve taken from it, and speed it on its way to the next world.”

“The next world? You believe there’s an afterlife for animals?”

“Why wouldn’t there be?”

Kiernan looked thoughtfully at the chunk of venison he was skewering. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But if the gods sent you that deer, do you need to thank the deer? Shouldn’t you thank the gods?”

“I thank the gods as well. But it’s not the gods we’re going to be eating. Not the gods who died. Seems wrong to ignore the deer’s part in all this.”

Kiernan didn’t argue with that. “So why didn’t you teach it to me? When you were showing me how to set the snares, why wasn’t the prayer part of the lesson?”

“Prayer?”

“Whatever you call it. Why didn’t you teach me the words?”

“They’re—” What, personal? Private? “They’re not part of it. They’re not the practical part, not the part that would matter to anyone else.”

“They clearly matter to someone else. You don’t know what they mean, so it’s not like you made them up yourself. Someone taught them to you. Right?”

Of course someone had. But Grif didn’t want to talk about her. Except he’d already told Kiernan how she’d died, and that shouldn’t be all he shared about her. It shouldn’t be the most important part of her life.

He started slowly. “My mother was Liatran.”

“Liatran? That was . . . her name? No. That was her people? I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of the Liatrans.”

“No. Why would you have? They were wiped out before you were born. Before I was born.”

“But your mother survived?” Kiernan asked the question carefully, even delicately.

“She was young and pretty.” Grif tried to sound matter-of-fact about it. “There’s always a use for young, pretty girls.”

“I’m sorry.”

Grif shrugged off the gentleness in the words. He’d said enough for the time being. “So they’re Liatran words. It’s a Liatran custom. No use teaching someone else the traditions of a dead society, is there?”

“I think maybe there is.” Kiernan balanced the skewered meat over the coals, then turned to face Grif head on. “I think it might be even more important to teach them, when there’s no one else to remember them.” He paused. “I’m sorry I don’t know about the Liatrans. But they were great hunters?”

“They were.” According to his mother’s stories, at least, and according to what he’d seen of her skills in the city.

“And I am . . . not.” A quick grin before Kiernan looked serious again. “So I understand if you feel it would be cheapening the words. If you think I’m not worthy of them. But if you think I might be, I’d be honored to learn them.”

There were too many emotions swirling around in Grif’s head, and none of them seemed to fit well with the others. Sorrow and hope? How did those go together? Pride? Was there pride in there, and if so, why?

Maybe he didn’t need to put precise names to all of them; maybe he was better off spending his energy on keeping them under control.

“I can teach you,” he said, and there was an unfamiliar tone in his voice. “If you want to learn, I can teach you.”

“I want to learn.”

After that it felt so natural to shift over until he was next to Kiernan, to reach for his face, to pull their mouths together for a kiss. It was friendly, even affectionate, but not passionate. It was a greeting, a thanks, and in a strange way, a promise. Grif would teach Kiernan the words, would trust Kiernan with that part of himself. It would be frightening, but he’d do it. That was what his kiss said.

But while Grif’s cock had been sucked empty ten minutes earlier, Kiernan’s hadn’t, so it wasn’t a surprise that the kiss turned to something else pretty quickly. Not a surprise, and not a disappointment, as long as Kiernan didn’t mind taking it a bit slow and giving Grif some time to recover.

Kiernan apparently didn’t mind at all. They shed their clothes gradually, wrapping themselves together in the blanket to keep the chill away, and let the coals die down under the venison so it wouldn’t burn. Grif took the time to learn Kiernan’s body like he hadn’t before, and Kiernan glowed under the attention. His skin was so smooth, so soft. But there was hard muscle underneath and strong, broad bones. Kiernan hadn’t been to war, but he was a man all the same. Just a different kind of man than Grif was used to.

He gasped when Grif nipped the back of his neck, and again when Grif’s teeth found his earlobe. As Grif touched him, his back arched, his body trembled, he moaned—it would have felt like a show, like a performance, if Grif hadn’t been watching Kiernan’s eyes, hadn’t seen the way the pupils had blown wide, or hadn’t felt his pulse racing beneath Grif’s questing hands.

This was a new sort of fucking. Grif had been on the other side of things, had been the one being explored, being teased and driven mad, but never willingly. Only for money, or favor, or to avoid a beating. For Kiernan to want this, to allow himself to be this open without being forced into it, without having the defense of “unwanted” playing in his mind—it was a new sort of fucking, and a new sort of courage.

“I’ll take care of you,” Grif murmured into Kiernan’s ear, and he meant it. Not just this night, but for as long as it took, as long as Kiernan needed him. “You’re safe with me. I’ll give you what you need.” And as he slid inside Kiernan’s spit-slicked channel, as his own pleasure built in time with Kiernan’s, he hoped that every future need would be met with as little sacrifice on his part.

It wouldn’t be that easy, of course. But he’d do what it took. He’d protect Kiernan from whatever threatened him, and serve him in any way he was able.

But he’d damn well better stop making his promises out loud, or Kiernan would be even more unbearable, even more high-handed and smug than he already was. Yes, Grif was at Kiernan’s command, but it would be best for everyone involved if Kiernan never found out.