Veris completed his duties, both assigned and unofficial, by the time the camp had settled in for the night. He washed off the dust and dirt of the day, found a clean tunic and a borrowed horse and rode down the line of camps south toward St. David’s Gate at an easy canter, enjoying the night breeze on his face.
He still wasn’t sure why he was doing this. There was no sound reason for it. After finding that Brendan was married and was besotted enough to bring his wife with him on crusade, he should be leaving well enough alone. The man was lost to him. Veris had found him with his arms about his wife in the middle of the day, whispering sweet nothings into her ear. Those were not the actions of a man who roamed outside his marriage. Who would want to, with a wife that looked as lovely as Brendan’s, anyway?
Briefly, Veris recalled the moments the woman had touched and kissed him. She had an ethereal quality he’d never seen before. Quite beautiful. What had that kiss meant? It had been shocking. But despite his initial shock, he had a nagging feeling she had meant to achieve something with it other than seduction. She had been surprised when he had stepped back, as if she had been expecting something that had not happened…
Veris realized he had let his borrowed mount lapse into a lazy-hipped walk while he had been busy with his thoughts. He kicked it back into a canter again.
There were mysteries to be unraveled, he decided. That made it worth a second conversation. That was all he was doing. Just speaking to them again. Nothing more.
Having settled it in his mind, he rode on feeling somewhat happier. But images of Brendan at the wall that morning, the look in his eyes, kept flashing into Veris’ mind as he rode, disturbing his simple mission. Worse, he kept remembering the sensation of the woman’s lips on his.
He was nearly at Brendan’s camp when it occurred to him with a shock that nearly unhorsed him: She had kissed him with the expertise of a human who knew how to avoid being hurt by vampire canines.
Brendan’s wife knew what Brendan was.
Ergo, she knew Veris was vampire, too.
The last quarter mile to Brendan’s camp was very long and full of racing, difficult thoughts indeed.
* * * * *
“NOW, WAS TELLING ME THE rest of the story about Veris and the spear so very hard?” Taylor asked, as Brody poured her a mug of water from their combined rations, which had been boiled the requisite twenty minutes now.
“It’s easier trying to tell it as a story,” Brody admitted. “But that was the simple part anyway. This next part…” He took a deep breath. “You really want all of it?”
“All of it,” she confirmed, placing a cushion underneath her on the chest. “I need to know what he was thinking and telling me what happened will give me the biggest hints. All of it, Brody. The whispers, the murmurs. I’ve seen you two together doing just about everything the human body can do, so it’s not like you can shock me.”
Brody grinned. “I think you can drop the ‘just about’.”
“I was being cautious. Every time I think I’ve seen it all, you two come up with something new.”
He chuckled. “You sound like a lawyer.”
“You should know.”
He grimaced. “Never again. Thirty years as a barrister was too long for me.” He settled on the chair, rested his elbows on the arms and pressed his fingers together. “You know the start of it. Veris—Will—found me outside the tent early in the afternoon. He’d obviously done some research and found out who I was. That must have given him pause for thought, because he’s a knight and I’m a landed lord at this point in time. Neither of us gives a damn about such things, but in this time and place other people care very much about such matters.”
“Don’t they also give a damn about men being together?”
“Surprisingly, not so much. It’s condoned in a blind-eye sort of way, depending on your partner. War time couplings are very common. Men get lonely.” He shrugged. “Young boys with their soft skin are quite sought after, but long-term liaisons are something else.”
“I imagine they can find those disturbing. Threatening, even.”
“If they learn of them. If they’re flaunted, yes.” Brody shrugged. “We didn’t wave it around. Later on, when the Christian church really got going on the evils of sodomy…well, we took it completely behind doors.” He grinned. “So did a great many other people. The years Queen Victoria was so set on everyone being perfect were very interesting.”
Taylor smiled. “So I’ve heard. But you were saying?”
Brody grinned again. “You’ll have it out of me an inch at a time, won’t you?”
“If I must. I’d rather you just tell me and stop struggling.”
“Surrender to you, huh?”
She could feel her own smile broaden all on its own. “If that appeals to you, sure.”
Something in his gaze darkened. “I suppose you think that’s what happened with Veris and me, hmm?”
Taylor could feel her body tighten. “It didn’t?”
Brody’s smile grew slow and warm. “Don’t hurry the troubadour’s tale.”
* * * * *
BRODY WAS SEEING TO THE dispersal of his men for the afternoon and evening when William arrived. It had been far sooner than Brody had expected and caught him off guard. He looked up at William on his big black war horse as the knight dismounted, doffed his visor and snagged the mount’s reins about the bleached lump of blasted rock that weighed down the rope of the tent.
William stopped a dozen paces away. He wore a clean tunic now, the same red and black Selkirk colors, with a red crest on the breast, over a black mail hauberk. His long sword was strapped to his hip. His visor was under his arm and he held the horse by the other gauntleted hand, unconsciously controlling the fretful animal. His eyes blazed in the bright sun as he studied Brody.
“You are Brendan, Raymond’s man, are you not?”
Brody nodded. “I am. You are William, with Selkirk, who is camped with Godfrey of Bouillon on the north side of Jerusalem.”
“Yes. Most who call me friend call me Will, though.” He pulled off his gauntlets, strode over to Brody and held out his right hand. “Thank you for what you did this morning, friend.”
Brody took the offered hand. At the touch of Will’s hand a light shock seemed to travel up his arm and down into the pit of his stomach, to curl and roil like a restless snake. Brody fought to keep his face expressionless. “I would call it nothing, but perhaps you might return the favor one day. I know it would be no small matter, then.”
Will’s blue eyes, which seemed to match the sky behind him, locked with Brody’s.
The shiver became almost a shudder. Brody dropped Will’s hand. “It would be natural for me to invite you into the tent for a cup of wine,” he said, dropping his voice so it wouldn’t travel.
“Then you had better invite me in and call for wine. We can find a crack in this blasted dry earth to pour it into, I’m sure.”
“I made sure the crack was there when I had the tent pitched.”
Will grinned. “Then let’s drink,” he said loudly.
Brody led the way to the tent. “Bring wine!” he called, as Will handed his visor and gauntlets to the small, new page Brody’s men were training.
It was warm in the tent but private. The light was nice and dim after the radiant scorching brightness of the daylight outside.
Brody settled himself on the big chair. It didn’t surprise him when Will pushed the clothes heaped untidily on the chest by Brody’s lazy page onto the ground and settled on the broad flat surface, facing him. The man seemed to be able to make himself comfortable no matter where he was.
He studied Brody frankly. “You’ve done well for yourself, clearly.”
“Because I have land? Dirt is easy to come by.”
“If you say so. Try having blue eyes and blond hair and acquiring a title. Up until about fifty years ago, being Saxon was a curse. Now the pope has waved his hand and all is forgiven, although the Norman French still look sideways at me.” Will grinned. “Perhaps I will catch up with you yet.”
“You seem to do well enough. Surely, that’s all that one needs?”
“Not quite,” Will said flatly, his gaze steady.
Brody was caught by that unwavering gaze and almost jumped when the tent flap rustled as the page hurried in with a tray carrying a pitcher of wine and two mugs. He placed it on the table next to Brody.
“See we’re not disturbed,” Brody ordered.
“Yes, milord,” the page told him and hurried out, after a fear-filled glance at Will.
Brody poured the wine and handed Will a mug. “Your good health, sir.”
“I’m sure you could come up with something better than that,” Will said, not lifting his mug.
The direct challenge.
Brody smiled. “You don’t believe in a subtle hunt, do you?”
Will put his mug on the table once more. “Britain, four sixty-one. That was the year you gave me, wasn’t it?”
Brody nodded. He could feel his heart picking up speed just sitting there.
“Camlann was only thirteen years later,” Will said, his tone conversational. His gaze wouldn’t release Brody’s eyes, though. “I know that year exactly because I was there.”
Brody realized he was squeezing the mug. He didn’t let it go, though. He couldn’t. “I wasn’t there.”
“Not for all of it,” Will replied.
He knew. He had read it on Brody’s face this morning. Brody tore his gaze away from Will’s eyes, that saw so much.
“How long were you a slave?” Will pressed.
Brody closed his eyes. He drew in breath that burned and made his chest shudder. Screams. The stench of burning flesh. The crackle of fire. Men shouting. Above all, pain.
“You fight the memories still,” Will said. His voice was closer.
Brody opened his eyes to find Will standing over him. He gasped in quick breaths to calm himself. “I fight the memories only when someone deliberately provokes them, knight.” He curled his fingers around the arm of the chair and wished mightily that he could quaff the mug of wine in his other hand. Drunken oblivion would be useful right now.
Will cupped Brody’s face in his hand. “I won’t hunt a man who has been a slave. I’m not that cruel.”
Simultaneous disappointment and arousal circulated through him at Will’s words and his touch. Brody froze, trying to deal with both.
Will’s thumb stroked over Brody’s cheekbone. The caress sizzled along his nerves and arrowed into his groin. He bit back the groan that tried to emerge.
Will’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, the depths in you…” He leaned down and kissed him.
The kiss brought Brody’s body alive in a way he’d never experienced. But not just his body answered the kiss. As Will’s lips moved against his and his tongue pushed inside Brody’s mouth, he knew this was no ordinary dalliance, of which he’d had plenty.
His body was rock hard and his cock throbbed painfully when Will let him go and stepped back.
Brody wanted to reach for Will, to bring him back closer again, but there was something in Will’s eyes that stopped him.
Will drew a breath that was not quite steady. “There is a small, quite private and hidden corner of the desert two miles due south of Mount Zion. There’s nothing there but an ancient olive tree and what was once a building and a very deep well. I’ve pitched a tent and most nights I go there to not sleep in peace.” He lifted the mug of wine. “Around two a.m., when the human cycle is on the ebb. Come alone. It’s risky, because the Fatimids have circled us, so watch yourself.”
Brody sat forward. “You want me to come to you.”
“I want you to come to me freely. No coercion. No hunt.” Will lifted the mug. “To possibly the most interesting man I’ve ever met.”
Brody almost laughed until he saw the flat, genuine light in Will’s face. He meant every word.
* * * * *
ONE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING couldn’t get there fast enough. Brody seethed, bawling orders, his temper at the close edge of irrational as he trampled through the rest of the very long afternoon, evening and immortally slow night. The time crier ceased delivering the news of the hour at midnight, so Brody had to guess when it was approximately one a.m. He rolled off his tousled bed, still partially dressed, and slipped under the fine linen sides of the tent. The horse he had arranged for the evening’s excursion was waiting for him thirty paces away, which was far enough from his camp and his men to avoid drawing attention to his activities.
He took no chainmail, because of the noise it made. But he took all his weapons, including his sword, bow and arrows and knives. He wore a leather half-hauberk instead of mail. It was a compromise, but it would have to do.
He walked the horse carefully around the camp, past the sentries after giving them the passwords and then a good dozen more paces farther on before mounting. Finally, he let the horse break into a trot, heading it for the upswell of Mount Zion that shone black in moonlit night. As soon as he felt comfortably far enough away from the siege camp, he began to gallop. The horse was fresh and ready to race and the night was cool. She eagerly stretched out her legs.
They rounded Mount Zion and Brody looked up into the night sky for the cross formation of stars that pointed always toward true south. There it was, utterly reliable, no matter where one was in the world. He lined the horse’s head up with the stars and noticed track marks of other horses following the same route. He was on the right trail, then.
They hit loose sand dunes and their progress slowed. Brody let the mare chose her own pace, while he picked the direction. About forty minutes later, he saw the flicker of a fire over to his left and angled the horse that way.
On the lee side of a dune sat the crumbling remains of a sun-bleached wall, an equally old and pitted round well with a well-kept wooden cover over it, the withered branches of a very old olive tree with a few tough leaves and a tent with a campfire before it. Spread out on the soft sand before the tent was a bedcover and cushions. It looked like something out of the illustrations Brody had once seen in Muslim stories.
The mare slowed as it approached the tent, perhaps sensing it had reached its destination and resting place.
Brody dismounted, looking around. The spot seemed deserted. He extended his senses and was just in time to feel-hear the approach of someone from the rear of the horse. He whirled, pulling out his sword, only to have the blade clash against Will’s knife and come to a standstill.
“I had to know it was you, first,” Will explained. “The well has been poisoned by the Fatimids so the locals don’t bother coming here anymore, but there are still some travelers from farther away who stop in sometimes, even this late at night.”
Brody returned his sword to the scabbard. “Your privacy seems to come with some inconveniences.”
“My quarters with Selkirk are less than ideal. I’m happy to pay the price asked of me for this little oasis.” Will pushed his knife back into his belt. “Let’s get your horse comfortable. And then let’s take care of you.”
A ripple ran up Brody’s spine.
It took less than five minutes to settle the mare, loosen her girth and give her some feed. Brody patted her on the nose as a reward for her good nature while Will leaned against the broken down wall, both elbows hooked on the top of it, watching.
The tension was back in Brody’s gut. He glanced at Will and saw a brooding expression had settled on his face.
Brody made himself turn to face Will. “You were quick to tell me who you were. Your birth date.”
“You already knew I was vampire. Why be coy?” Will’s eyes narrowed a little. “How many other vampires have you known?”
“Apart from the one who made me?” Brody shook his head. “None.”
“Sweet Lord,” Will murmured. “You’ve held yourself apart all this time? Managed alone?” Admiration filled his tone.
“I hated vampires. Hated myself. For a very long time,” Brody admitted. “Then I…adjusted.”
Will nodded. “It’s a very common reaction, the hatred.”
“It is?”
“You might have known that, if you hadn’t cut yourself off. Others might have helped you through it. But…it’s done now.”
And still, Will continued to lean against the wall.
Brody realized then that Will meant every word he had said earlier that afternoon. He would not come to Brody in any way. Brody must go to him.
His entire body seemed to bloom and grow hot and begin to pulse in one giant heartbeat.
Will was waiting.
Brody had to force his feet into taking the first step. Then another. The next three were easier. Then a sixth.
And then he was there. Will was taller, but Will was taller than just about everyone. Brody liked that. It fit with Will’s force of personality. Brody cupped Will’s cheek as he had done to Brody that afternoon. His hand was shaking.
At his touch, Will’s breath rushed from between his lips, telling Brody that Will was as tense as he was.
And abruptly, most of Brody’s fear departed, leaving him simply an aching, tightly wound bundle of intense need. He pressed his lips to Will’s and savored the taste, before thrusting his tongue into his mouth.
His canines extended and he was too overwhelmed to have the necessary control to retract them. Will would hopefully take it for the compliment it was. He pressed Will’s mouth against his, holding him there while he probed with his tongue. Tasting. Exploring.
When Will groaned, the tension in Brody’s body tightened to the point where a tap on the shoulder could have shattered him into a thousand pieces. His cock was throbbing against his belly in time with his heartbeat and the heat in his balls was like a furnace.
He reached for the hem on Will’s tunic with one hand, not willing to break contact with his mouth for a second.
Will’s hands came alive. They gripped Brody’s arms and he was spun around and pushed against the wall. Their kiss was broken.
Will was breathless. “There’s something I want to do for you. First.”
Brody knew exactly what Will intended. He didn’t think he could withstand more excitement, but his heart leapt anyway.
Will didn’t wait for an answer. His hands slipped beneath Brody’s tunic and pushed it up around his waist. Will smiled when he saw Brody was bare from mid-thigh upward, bereft of braies. “I’ll remember this sight,” he murmured and dropped to his knees in the sand.
He spread Brody’s thighs and his fingers caressed his balls, just before his hands cupped and squeezed them. Brody let his eyes close and his head roll back, the night air brushing over the heated skin of his face. He was actually hot. Aroused and hot.
When Will’s mouth closed over his cock, Brody groaned desperately. He was already so close to climaxing, Will’s work would be over barely before it had begun. Brody squeezed his hand into a fist, fighting the pleasure, trying to make it last as Will’s lips slid along his shaft and his tongue worked the underside with powerful effectiveness.
Then Will’s teeth bumped over the ridges of the head of his cock and Brody lost control of his building climax completely. It crashed through him with a power that swamped his senses. He dimly heard himself shout as he jerked and came with hard, grinding thrusts that dimmed his vision and drained his energy. He clutched at the crumbling wall for support, waiting for his heart rate to settle back to normal again and his breathing to quieten.
Will sat on the sand, watching him, wearing a small smile.
Brody let go of the wall and stood up carefully. He cleared his throat.
“Well, I guess we know your sensitive spot,” Will said.
“What’s yours?” Brody said. His voice was strained.
Will stood up and unbuckled his belt and dropped it to the ground. “There’s two ways to find out.”
“You could just tell me,” Brody said.
Will turned and headed for the tent and the fire, pulling his tunic off as he went. Like Brody, he wore no mail underneath, but he did wear an undershirt and hose. He dropped the tunic and kept walking. “I could just tell you, but that wouldn’t make it very interesting, would it?”
Brody shed his tunic and the leather hauberk. Then, quickly, the undershirt, as he followed Will to the fire. He removed both hose and boots in two strides apiece, which left him naked, as he wore no braies. It was simultaneously an unrestricted and sinful feeling and he could feel his body responding to it.
Will stepped onto the bedcover still wearing his undershirt and leggings and turned to face Brody. He paused, studying him. “I thought you might have more scars,” he said, almost diffidently.
From being a slave, Brody realized.
“I was young. Very young. I healed well,” he explained. “And then I was turned before life handed me any more.”
“How old were you?”
“Thirty. I think.”
“You were a slave for seventeen years?”
“It would have been longer except I kept defying them.” Brody shrugged, trying to make it sound casual. “In the end it killed me. Or it would have, except another slave turned me.”
Will nodded. He reached for his undershirt. “Then you fared better than me, when it came to scars.” He pulled off the shirt.
There were minor scars in several places on his body, but there was a major scar right near his heart. In the moonlight it looked dark. Brody imagined it was red in daylight. Will turned and Brody saw a long, wriggling scar along his back, high up under the shoulder blade.
“In the twenty years before I was made I did what I am still doing now. Mercenary. Soldier for hire. But I was mortal then and the scars I got didn’t disappear like they do now.” Will turned back to face Brody and removed his hose and shoes so that he was naked. “I’m marked by my profession.”
But that wasn’t what Brody was looking at. Rather, his gaze was caught by the perfect symmetry of Will’s body. The man had a lot of muscle—far more of it than most men Brody had ever met. The muscle swelled and bulged and curved in a way that made Will’s flesh dip and rise intriguingly. When he had turned to show the scar on his back, Brody had also seen the hard buttocks and taut thighs and the curve of the broad back down to them.
From between Will’s thighs, his cock was standing erect. It wasn’t as thick as Brody’s, but it was possibly longer and the head flared wider, with the thick tracery of veins that showed on a man with pale skin.
Brody stepped onto the cover and felt rich embroidery under his toes. He wondered where Will had acquired it, but the thought faded. Will drew him closer, his hand on his hip.
Brody stroked the scar on Will’s chest, feeling the roughness of old skin healed badly. He let his fingers slid down over the flat stomach and felt it quiver in response. Then the sensitive thin skin by the hipbones. He stroked Will’s cock with his fingertips and it jerked. He gripped it and stroked more firmly.
Will hissed, his hips shifting.
Brody, enjoying the petty control over such a powerful man, kept stroking and teasing. He let his thumb drift over the seam on the underside of Will’s cock.
Will grabbed Brody’s wrist and squeezed. “Enough,” he said hoarsely. “I will not have you finish me this way. Not this time.”
This time. Brody wanted to protest at the implied assumption but didn’t, because he would be a hypocrite if he did. He already knew he wanted Will again after this night.
“You might as well get comfortable, Brendan,” Will told him, turning and heading for the tent. “I’m going to fuck you until you scream.”
Brody shuddered as he watched Will walk away. The shudder wasn’t in fear or distaste, either. His body was suddenly throbbing with great need and desire again.
Will stepped inside the tent and emerged with a small bottle in his hand. Brody recognize it more by intent than content. Oil.
His body tightened even more. His cock was spear-straight and hard as a rock against his stomach.
“Lie down,” Will told him as he returned.
“Brody,” Brody said. Even his voice sounded strained. “My name is Brody.”
Will paused. “That’s something we don’t usually give out easily. Brody.”
“I won’t have you fuck me without it.”
Will nodded slowly. “You’d better call me Veris, then.” He grinned. “It’s not my real name, but it’s my own adopted one. No one can wrap their tongue around my real name.”
“What is your real name?”
“Väinämöinen.”
Brody smiled. “I’ll call you Veris, too.”
Veris stepped closed enough that their chests touched and their cocks brushed against each other. “I’ll have you calling my name as you come, Brody.” His hand was heavy on Brody’s shoulder as he pushed Brody down onto the cover.
Brody sank down, his heart thundering, his arousal a tight coil in the pit of his stomach once more. His balls were two heavy, hard masses between his thighs. Will—Veris—opened his thighs and settled between them. He poured a little of the oil onto his palm and spread it on his own cock and more of it with slow, teasing strokes over Brody’s. Then down to his anus and perineum. Again with slow deliberation.
Brody was twitching with anticipation.
Veris finished with a squeeze of Brody’s balls. Brody just about cried out then. He half lifted himself up off the ground.
He felt the nudge of Veris’ cock against him and drew a breath, letting himself relax, letting Veris in. Veris pushed inside and it was…good. Hard, heavenly. Oddly familiar.
Veris’ hand curled around Brody’s cock and stroked as his own cock thrust again.
Brody clawed at the cover. “Harder.”
“I won’t last.”
“I don’t care. Not this time.”
“Then we agree.” Veris lowered himself over Brody, resting on his elbows. There was a shallow furrow between his brows. “This is too pleasurable to last much longer.” He lifted Brody’s thigh and began to ram into him in hard, heavy strokes.
It was exactly what Brody wanted. He grabbed the back of Veris’ head with one hand and his shoulder with the other. His canines had extended again. There was a roaring in his head, growing louder as his climax approached, no longer brought on by Veris’ hand, but by the pressure between the two of them and the rough chaffing of their flesh. It was all he needed, now, to tip over into orgasm.
As it hit, there was an almost overwhelming desire to lift up and bite into Veris’ neck with his fangs. Something like feeding, but not exactly like it. It was connected with his growing feelings for the man above him. Instinct was driving him, but Brody had fought long and hard against his vampire nature and he mistrusted most of the instincts that rose in him until he had explored them thoroughly.
This one, though, was blind and powerful. He fought it, his fangs brushing against Veris’ neck. He realized his fingers were digging into Veris’ shoulder, his hand holding Veris head in a vice grip, just like he would hold a victim steady for feeding, while his fangs brushed and stroked over Veris’ skin.
Brody forced himself to let Veris go. He fell back against the cover, his heart thundering. He forced his canines back. “What was that?” he muttered.
Veris rolled onto his side, leaving a few inches between them. “You were going to bite me. A permanent bonding.” His voice was neutral.
“A…permanent…” Brody licked his lips. “I assure you, I had no idea what I was doing just then. I’m not even sure I had any real control. I—”
Veris touched his finger to Brody’s lips. It was enough to make him fall silent.
“You really don’t know enough about your own nature, do you?” Veris said, not unkindly.
Brody rubbed between his brows. “Apparently not.”
Veris settled more comfortably on his side, propping his head on his hand. “You won’t like this analogy much, but it’s the best I can do. You know how—”
“What’s an analogy?”
Veris hesitated. “For now, don’t worry about it. It’s not important. But—”
“Only if you explain it to me later.”
“I will,” Veris said. “I promise.”
“So now tell me about this analogy I won’t like.”
Veris laughed. “Even uneducated, you keep up well enough. You’re going to be dangerous once I’m through with you.”
Brody felt a warm glow at the implications behind his words. “The analogy,” he prompted.
“You know how a wolf marks his territory? So that others won’t try to take it over?”
Brody scowled. “Is an analogy a way of comparing things? Because I didn’t try to urinate on you, which would make it a bad analogy indeed.”
Veris threw his head back and roared with laughter. When he had himself under control, he sighed. “You now understand what an analogy is,” he told Brody. “And you did try to mark me. You did it as instinctively as the wolf does. But something stopped you from actually taking the bite.” His smile faded. “You fought the instinct.”
“Yes,” Brody agreed. “If I had bitten you, how seriously does the vampire world take that marking? Would they consider you to be…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word.
“Yours?” Veris finished the sentence for him soberly. “Oh yes, we obey these bondings in utter faith. They’re always instinctive. Not made in haste or consciously, where errors might occur. If you find yourself marking another, it’s because your vampire sense has directed you to make that other your permanent bond partner for reasons beyond logic or question.”
“You would have let me do it?” Brody said in growing wonder.
“You wouldn’t have let me do otherwise,” Veris corrected.
Brody sat up. “That is insanity! How could I know…how could my vampire instincts know such a thing, in such a short space of time?”
“It’s instinctive,” Veris said calmly.
“And you would have accepted that? You?”
Veris sat up. “You didn’t take the bite, Brody. The question doesn’t need to be answered.”
Brody sorted through that sideways answer. “You wouldn’t have liked it,” he concluded. “You wouldn’t have liked having the choice taken from you. You’ve been free too long.”
Veris smiled a little. “No, I wouldn’t have. But I would have accepted it. We must, if that is what happens. And in truth, yours is a bond I think I could wear without chaffing.”
“You think.” Brody stared at him. “You’ve never had a real master, have you?”
Veris frowned.
“You’ve always been for hire. Your own man at heart,” Brody concluded.
Veris shifted and faced Brody squarely. He turned his head, so that his neck, thick with muscle and sinew, was bared. “You want to take that bite, Brody? Take it. Now.”
Brody recoiled a little. “No.”
“In cold blood and in full judgment,” Veris insisted. “Take the bite.”
Brody grabbed Veris’ chin and wrenched his head around so he could see into his eyes. “No,” he said flatly. “I will never mark you, not even if my instincts are driving me blind with need to do it. You are your own master. I won’t take that from you. I know what it is like to be without it.”
He got up from the cover and headed back to the mare, picking up his clothes as he went.