Deathless (6 page)

Autumnal echoes ran through everything, clotted bowed stems with rust and turned the grass to hay. An emerald blinked at him, thus sorted from the dross, and Myrddin reached up, beckoning. “Kas, please.”

He kissed the word away, couldn’t resist it, but he had his purpose, his own intentions, and he wouldn’t be swayed from them even by
please
. He licked strawberry from Myrddin’s shoulder, then his chest, felt his indrawn breath and kissed the spot he’d licked.

“Kas…”

It was more moan than anything else, and Kas was pleased by it. “A word, and a sound.” He allowed another kiss, a reward, then reached out for the raspberry bramble and touched the tip of a branch, watched the fruit fall to the ground and picked up a handful of berries. He straddled Myrddin’s legs and held the fruit to his lips. Myrddin took it on his tongue, licked the tip of Kas’ finger and Kas shuddered, did not expect the jolt of heat that flushed through him.

He
knew
everything. Where to touch, and why, and how—but it wasn’t the same to know, wasn’t the same to
be
touched as to touch. It wasn’t the same to reach out when Myrddin’s fingers were reaching back for him instead of his own cold reflection. The language of his own nerves was new, equal parts tentative and tempted.

Myrddin ate the fruit from his fingers one piece at a time, his mouth lingering where it had no need to, and Kas shivered, stared at Myrddin’s tongue where it touched him. He could not yet ask for what he wanted, but he had so much already that it seemed like the purest greed to seek more.

Dull unease trespassed on his thoughts when he paused too long on that image-sensation. He could not be selfish, greedy, wanton in his wants. Something dangerous would come from that…something he should avoid at any price. He licked his lips then and tasted sweetness, bent and pressed his mouth to Myrddin’s lips again.

This was safe. This was…good. New kinds of good, though maybe that was bad? It had been so long, after all. He knew that. It had been so long since his first moments, since that instant when dim awareness had counseled him of his own existence in a world of skin and shadows.

So long, and all that time only the shadows had been his. Myrddin was his first touch of the world, his first taste of that
skin
, the first one besides tenebrous promise to be his companion. To give him some speech other than the umbral avalanche of his own being, silent and perfect but his alone.

Death.
Myrddin moaned against his mouth, let soft sounds slip free one after another, and Kas drank them up one at time, savored them as much as he had the taste of fruit.
Death. I am death. I…am—

“Kas.”

He was still, run over in his own thoughts, the fragile chain of words disrupted and almost beyond his reach now.
Kas? I am Kas. I am death, and death is Kas.
The symmetry of it pleased him, and he took out his pleasure on the body beneath him, licked and kissed and nipped tenderly.

He watched love-bruises blossom under Myrddin’s skin with fascination. Kas did it again and again—sucked heat to the surface of his throat, his collarbone, then slid back along Myrddin’s thighs and licked more strawberries from the hollow of his abdomen when he turned and gasped.

“Kas,
more
. Won’t say stop.
I won’t
.”

Without the need to vocalize it, silent and secret and all the more perfect because of that, Kas laughed. Not say stop? No, he wouldn’t—not like he was thinking. Not this time… Not for the same reason as before. But he
would
say it, say it until Kas was satisfied that the sound had become the exact opposite of what it was supposed to mean.

He drew his hands down over Myrddin’s chest, brushed the tight peaks of his nipples with careless fingers, then did it again on purpose when Myrddin sucked in a breath.

“Kas—”

“What is the word? For this…touch.” He took Myrddin’s nipples between his forefingers and thumbs and rolled, pinched, pulled. Myrddin jerked his hips up and almost tumbled Kas into the blackberries. “For when I touch you, what it does. What is the word, love?”

“Which…word? Feels good. Pleasure, Kas. Your fingers… Your hands… You know just what to do to me. How do you know just…?” Kas swallowed the rest of Myrddin’s sentence in his kiss, then leaned back and reached out for his hand.

“Hands…fingers. To touch you.”

“
Hmm.
” Myrddin pulled Kas’ hand to his mouth, took the tip of a finger into his mouth, licked, sucked. “Lips…
tongue
. Do you like my tongue, Kas?”

“
Love
.” He sat back, used his grip on Myrddin’s hand to drag him forward and pulled him between his thighs. “Love, your tongue.” Myrddin grinned up at him, drew his legs in and pushed himself up on Kas’ thighs, leaned forward.

“You want more of
this
?” He lapped at the rigid length of Kas’ erection, curled his tongue around it, looked up and met his eyes. “My mouth on you, my tongue… You like it?” Kas didn’t bother with an answer. He reached down and slid one hand into Myrddin’s dark hair, tugged him down again until he opened his mouth obediently and closed it around the head of Kas’ cock.

Pleasure
.
Feels…good.
Kas braced himself on one hand and sucked in a long breath as more and more of his cock disappeared into Myrddin’s mouth. The length of his tongue was warm and rough, and when he pulled off, licked at the tip again, lifted his mouth away with a soft, wet noise, Kas tightened his fingers in Myrddin’s hair.
That sound!

Kas almost shoved him back down, but Myrddin had only come up to take a breath, and when he sank onto Kas’ cock again he took
more
and swallowed around the thickness of it as he sucked. His throat was tight—hot—almost as good as that other way of being inside him.

Myrddin pulled up again, took a choking breath, then lowered his mouth, moaning now, eager. When he looked up and met Kas’ stare, his cheeks were flushed, his eyes glassy with desire. The wet noises he made… The way he groaned… Kas tugged at his hair, dragged Myrddin back off his cock and felt Myrddin’s hands twitch against his thighs. “You like this.” It was almost an accusation, but he didn’t deny it.

“I do, so let me—” He leaned forward as much as he could with Kas’ grip on his hair, licked a long, wet line up the underside of his cock, and Kas relaxed his grip so Myrddin could take it in his mouth again, do what he wanted.

What he wanted was
more
. Myrddin’s moans added subtle vibrations to the velvet heat of his throat, and Kas stared down at him, let his eyes close little by little until they were barely slits. He kept them open just enough to watch that wet mouth slipping up and down his cock, plush lips gripping him tightly and that tongue tracing wicked patterns over nerves Kas hadn’t known he possessed.

He tightened his hand at the back of Myrddin’s head and lifted his hips, helpless against the desire to thrust himself deeper. Myrddin groaned around him, and Kas decided it was enough. More than enough, and not enough. He needed more and knew how to take it now.

Kas jerked Myrddin up again, ignored his protests and knocked him into the mess he’d already made of the strawberries. There was still red juice streaked on Myrddin’s skin, and now his erection was pressed tight and slick against his belly.

Interested, wondering, tempted, Kas bent and licked at Myrddin’s cock, found the taste of him as stinging as his blood had been and far, far sweeter. Like the fruit—but none of the names he’d learned, none of those tastes were this. He closed his mouth around the head and swept his tongue over, around, under, sucked and felt Myrddin’s fingers suddenly against his scalp, stroking through his hair.

“Kas…feels so good, Kas, so good. Just…just like that. Oh…
oh yes, and there
. You know. You know…
ohh
.” Somehow, the words were also sounds, and he lifted his mouth off Myrddin’s cock, ignored his groan of disappointment. “No— No, Kas, don’t. Please,
more
.”

Kas straightened his back, reached down and pushed Myrddin’s legs apart. One movement brought him between them, settled his cock against that tight entrance, drove him deep, and Myrddin gasped, settled his thighs around Kas’ back and started to beg. “Please yes,
yes,
more
. Yes
, give it to me—give it to me— Want your cock, Kas.”

Low sounds from somewhere deep in Myrdinn’s throat made every word rich, husky then hoarse as Kas sank all the way in.

He slid his hands down Myrddin’s thighs to his buttocks, held him open and roughed the last inch of his cock inside. Kas heard a choked gasp that pleased him and stared down as he thrust. Myrddin’s cock was dripping for him, twitching as he drew back and thrust in. And the way Myrddin opened up for him, took his cock so greedily, squeezed around him, throbbing, hot—better than the first time, so willing, so eager, rocking his hips back for more with every penetration.

“Ha-h-h-harder. Kas—
ohnnng.
”
Harder
? Kas thrust sharply, jolted the breath out of Myrddin’s body, felt Myrddin’s hands on his arms, tugging, trying to pull him down.

The more he slammed his hips forward, drove deeper, the more Myrddin moaned and clutched at him. “Kas, Kas
kiss me
. I’m—I’m goin—” He twitched his head back and forth against the ground, sucked in one breath after another as if they were empty of air. Kas leaned down and pressed his lips to Myrddin’s mouth, licked against his tongue and felt him shudder again and again.

His release was slick between them, his cock pulsing against Kas’ belly, but it wasn’t enough. Not yet. Kas angled his hips
down
, thrust
up,
and Myrddin cried out, a long, broken noise that subsided into deep groans. Kas kept up the steady pace of his sharp thrusts, didn’t slow, didn’t pause. He listened breathless to Myrddin’s pleading, his begging. Kas was waiting for him to say what he had been waiting for all along. But it wasn’t until Myrddin’s second climax wracked him, broke him apart, that he finally gave in, tears in his eyes and his fingers digging into Kas’ back.

“Please—
please
, stop. Just for a— Stop,
please
. Please— Wait—”

Kas drove in one more time and let himself go, kissed Myrddin to silence as he succumbed to the ecstasy blazing through him. “I told you.” Another kiss, and another. “I told you, you would say it.
Stop. Wait.
”

Myrddin was still panting, couldn’t answer, and Kas laughed against his mouth, kissed the corner of his exhausted smile. “But I do not want to stop.”

Myrddin shivered, and Kas nuzzled his cheek, kissed him again. “I do not want to stop—will you make me?” He pressed deeper—closer—
deeper
. Another shiver was the only response he got. “
Love
.”

Chapter Four

Myrddin fell asleep in Kas’ arms and woke there, blinking, still too exhausted to even contemplate moving. It seemed he’d found a lover who could match him lust for lust and then some.

He turned his head and saw then that it was really dark, not just the shadow of Kas’ embrace blocking out the light. Night had fallen, and he sighed, felt Kas shift against him, draw him closer.

“Sleep, love.
Sleep
.” Kas’ voice startled him, made him wonder. He blinked up into that black gaze, as bright now as ever—and as dark. Did
he
ever sleep? But Myrddin had no problem with the command he’d been given, and almost before he closed his eyes, he had dozed off again.

When Myrddin woke for the second time it was abruptly, his dreams canceled by a crackling shift in atmosphere.

Something is coming
.

His first conscious awareness was that he was alone. He turned sharply, surprised and unhappy, but the first pass of his gaze found Kas for him. He was standing noiseless and still in the early winter snow outside the boundaries of Myrddin’s sudden garden. There were shadows around Kas, mobile silhouettes touching him. Filaments of darkness caressed his skin and faded away as they did so.

The silence of the night was nothing natural. The moon illuminated, but did not brighten, and occasionally a shade would slip away up the curve of that light and be cradled in moondust until it vanished.

Myrddin sensed their passage as it occurred, the spirits of mortal creatures and beings vanishing over the threshold of an ethereal door. It was soul-shadows that Myrddin was seeing, the dead in transit, forsaking the world of flesh. The truth crystallized for him in an instant. Kas was death, and this was the duty he had come into existence to perform.

What happened to those that disappeared in the moondust, Myrddin couldn’t tell. The rest, Kas was sending outward. He opened a door for them, prepared a way that led into the other world, into Annwn.

An invisible curtain opened and closed in the silence of Kas’ own shadow. The veil of reality was drawn back again and again, and Myrddin shivered where he lay watching. Gooseflesh broke out on his arms, the back of his neck. He couldn’t
see
anything, but he could
feel
it
.
Death, dragging him in more the more attention he paid to it.

A powerful undertow tried to grab hold of Myrddin’s being and could not. The immortal blood he had inherited made his soul too slippery for a trick like that, but as he pushed himself up on his elbow, Kas turned to look at him. Myrddin felt something cold seize hold of his heart and hold it still. He could neither breathe, nor move. He no longer had control of his own flesh.

Like a deer in line with a hunter’s arrow, he felt himself compelled to stillness and was, for an instant, terrified. That open door! He had no desire to pass through it—but in the next moment he was free of all restraint, all power. The cold threads had been cut off at the source, and his heart was beating freely again. A word came floating to him, soft as the outlines of those shadows against the night. “
Love
.”

He met Kas’ eyes, knew that it was Kas that had spoken, that he was aware of Myrddin’s wakefulness, that he was pleased, that he was busy. So much in one word, and Myrddin wasn’t sure whether he should be surprised or not—worried or not. That it was one word—maybe that was only good use of his time. The word he chose…