Tempest (22 page)

“It does,” Colm told him, not entirely convinced, but how could he make Nichol believe without taking him there himself? And Colm didn't want to do that.

“Look, here!” Nichol pulled him to a large, dark-blue tent with a sign above it that had no words, just a painting of a skeleton in a top hat, bony arms spread to welcome them inside. “It's the House of Horrors! There are all sorts of strange things inside here. You've got to see them with me.” Nichol surged ahead, and Colm followed in his wake.

Inside the tent, the light was hazy, just clear enough so that they could make out the shapes of things but not enough to see a great amount of detail. A man with skinny legs and a round, enormous belly sat on a stool just to the left of the entrance, the fingers of one hand wrapped around a flask, the others stroking his gut soothingly. He looked up at them and said, “Four coppers to see it all.” Colm opened his purse and pulled out the money, which he took quickly. “Keep those hands to yourself, gents,” he added before turning his attention to the next person seeking entrance.

“Come on,” Nichol said, leading the way. “They have a glass tank here with a grundylow in it. It's brilliant.”

The House of Horrors was packed with people, and making their way through it took time. Tables were set up here and there, with cages and jars lining them, all chained down and all containing strange and exotic creatures that Colm could barely make out in the faint light. Each one also had a label, which Nichol read off helpfully.

“A marsh-faerie corpse,” he said as they examined the withered little husk in the cage. “Fire-bellied toads,” the next cage read, and after that, “A unicorn skull.”

“Why must everything be dead?” Colm asked, feeling a bit sick to his stomach.

“It's probably hard to keep them alive, even if they could catch them that way,” Nichol said absently as he looked at the next few jars. “I imagine they eat all sorts of different things, and the Roving Spectacular travels all over the continent, so they'd pass out of each creature's territory in—oh, here, here's the mermaid head Blake talked about! You remember?”

Colm did remember that, Blake so insistent and Jaime so dismissive. It had been a moment that had cemented Blake in his mind as a real person and not just another follower of Jaime Windlove. Colm leaned in and peered at the jar.

That there was a head inside of it was certain. The neck had been poorly severed, leaving dangling tendrils of flesh and sinew to pool in the bottom of the jar. The mouth was propped open, leaving its teeth on display. The canines were sharp, as Lew had recounted, but the rest of the teeth were normal enough. Gills flared open on the sides of the neck, and the face…well, the face itself was a wreck, partially decomposed and hard to make out. The eyes themselves were completely gone, but a few decorative spines protruded from the sides of the face, and there had once been something like hair on that head, although most of it had been chopped away, probably to keep it from obscuring the features.

The gaping, empty eye sockets still seemed to glare, accusing every person who looked at the head of blasphemy, keeping the creature within from the proper burial that its own people might have given to it. Colm stood up quickly, not wanting to see any more. “Is the grundylow close?” he asked Nichol, because if it wasn't, they were getting out of this place, this traveling desecrator of the dead.

“It should be just back here,” Nichol promised. They made their way along the path, denoted with hanging netting that obscured the view beyond the queue, until they turned the final corner and came into the part of the tent that housed the grundylow in its tank.

The tank was large, taller than Colm and equally as wide. It was filled with murky water, and within the depths of the water was a creature… It was hard to make out, but it seemed to have the lower body of an octopus and the torso of a child, with extra-long arms and an inhuman, fishy face. It swept from side to side in the tank, gnashing its teeth at the admiring crowd and occasionally splashing them with foul water.

“It's just like I remember,” Nichol said excitedly. “Come on, let's get closer.”

They hadn't taken more than two steps before the grundylow looked their way and shrieked. It swept all its tentacles at the top of the tank, sending a massive spray of water over the edge, then curled up at the back of the tank in a ball, covering its body as best it could with a few water weeds.

The tent emptied in moments, the people driven out by the filthy water seeping across the ground. Colm was inexpressibly grateful to be outside again, even though it had begun to rain. He lifted his face to the sky and inhaled deeply.

“Well,” Nichol said, stamping his feet to clear a bit of the mud from them. “That wasn't exactly what I was expecting.”

“Nor me,” Colm said on his exhale. It was starting to get dark. “Do you mind if we go?”

“Do you feel sufficiently distracted yet?” Nichol asked.

“Distracted from what?” Colm replied, enjoying the way his answer made Nichol laugh. “Fairly distracted, yes,” he added.

“Fairly! I take him to the greatest spectacular in the world, and he finds it ‘fairly distracting'!” Nichol threw up his hands in an elaborate
why
,
gods, why?
gesture. “You can be a hard man to please, do you know that?”

Colm slid a little closer, letting his hands creep beneath the edge of Nichol's cloak to rest against his waist. “I think I'm a rather easy man to please, actually.”

“Really?” Nichol shifted closer as well. “Because I was thinking we might try a new way, tonight—of pleasing you, that is. Of pleasing us both.”

Colm knew what he was referring to, and just the thought of it made his cock begin to ache with anticipation. “Then I think we should get back to the Cove as soon as possible.” They set out at a rapid pace, leaving the chaos of the Spectacular behind. “Besides, Megg will want us to help with dinner,” he added, and Nichol groaned.

“I didn't need that reminder,” he scolded Colm as the city gate slowly came into focus.

Honestly, Colm wished he hadn't had to remember it himself. The night felt interminable, with the Cove completely packed with both diners and those who had taken rooms, and all of them seemed to need something extraordinary. He was sent out to buy fresh soap, oil for lanterns and a dozen new blankets for the rooms, and by the time the crowd had diminished, Nichol was nowhere to be seen, and Colm felt tired to his bones. His mind a bit of a mess, he left Megg with a kiss good night and climbed slowly up to their room, wondering if perhaps Nichol were already asleep on their cot.

Nichol was there, but he wasn't asleep. The room had been transformed, the cot pushed on its side against the far wall and all the blankets, including a number that should have been in the inn itself, were spread out on the floor, a soft, inviting nest. There were two candles instead of one, both lit, and the air smelled faintly sweet. Nichol was on his knees smoothing out a pillow with one hand, and he looked over at Colm with an expression caught between excitement and embarrassment. “I thought the cot would be too small for…and it's cold, so I had to use extra blankets for the floor.”

“You're the reason she sent me to buy new ones?” Colm asked, toeing his boots off and setting them by the door.

“I
might
be,” Nichol allowed with a faint smile. “But it will be worth it to be on something soft and warm, right?”

“It will be worth it simply because I'm with you,” Colm told him.

He was surprised by how quickly Nichol leapt to his feet, how tight the grip he had on Colm was as he kissed him desperately.

“You don't know…when you say those things…how can you say such things?” Nichol demanded, dominating Colm's mouth with his own. The fire that had been banked all evening flared to a sudden brilliance in Colm's chest, and he pulled Nichol even closer and ground against him, eager for more.

“Clothes,” Nichol muttered. “Get them off. Fast.” They both stripped, and before he knew it, Colm was on his back on the blankets, Nichol leaning over him and kissing him like the only breath he could use was one that passed from Colm's lips to his.

Colm felt incredibly aware of their nudity, perhaps because they were in a place where they could actually spread themselves out instead of tucking in tight, perhaps because of what they were trying to do. The light from the candles softened the curves of Nichol's body, turning every movement into a harmony of golden skin and shadows. If it could make Nichol look so glorious, Colm could only hope it did something close to that for him.

“Beautiful,” Nichol murmured against his lips. “Perfect. Gods, I want you so much.”

“You can have me,” Colm replied between kisses. “I want that. I want you.” The memory of them coming so close had fueled his fantasies for the past few days, and Colm was ready to go further. “Did you find…”

“Yes,” Nichol said, reaching above Colm's head and dipping his fingers in a shallow bowl. “It's almond oil. It should work to ease the way.” As delicious as what they'd done last time had been, Colm was still grateful they hadn't continued, because even that little bit of penetration had left him feeling raw. “Shall I touch you, then?”

“Yes,” Colm said, and then he couldn't speak at all, because Nichol's slick, sweet-smelling hand stroked a line across his perineum, where the skin was tender and soft and so close to where Colm wanted Nichol to be. Oil slid from Nichol's fingertips down the crevice of Colm's thighs until it caught on the tight, delicate folds of his entrance. The tip of Nichol's middle finger brushed him lightly, and Colm knew that if he wasn't careful, he was going to come far too soon. He gripped his cock tightly around the base and squeezed.

“No,” Nichol said, his voice a throaty murmur in Colm's ear, “don't do that. Let me take my time with you. You'll get there again.” He lowered his mouth to the tip of Colm's cock and sucked it inside, all the while rubbing over and over Colm's hole, pressing and retracting with the oil easing his slow incursion.

It was a fiery paradise, it was a terrible bliss. So much sensation all at once, new and strange and welcome and familiar all blending together, and it left Colm feeling like his own skin was too tight, like he needed to burst free of it somehow. He let go of his cock and let Nichol work him over, gave himself over to his lover's desires and in no time, hardly anything at all, he planted his feet on the floor and arched into Nichol's mouth, coming so hard he forgot to breathe.

When Colm regained his senses, he realized two things: one, Nichol had somehow worked two fingers inside of him while he was busy orgasming, and two, that whatever they were pressing against felt really, really good. Colm was almost too sensitive but not quite, just enough to keep him riding the edge of his pleasure instead of falling over into either pain or giving in to languor.

“You like this?” Nichol asked quietly, and Colm hummed his assent. “What does it feel like?”

“Strange,” Colm said honestly. “Intimate. Good, it feels good.”

“Not painful?”

“Not at all,” Colm assured him. It really wasn't, not even when Nichol slid a third finger in next to the other two. It stretched him, and the stretch carried a bit of a burn, but even that Colm was learning to enjoy. “It's good,” Colm repeated, shutting his eyes and bearing down a bit on the fingers within him, tightening around them and smiling when he made Nichol gasp. “It will be even better when it's you.”

“Do you think this is enough?” The desperation in Nichol's voice was plain, and Colm knew he had to be as hard as stone.

“I think so. Try.”

Nichol lifted his head and slowly pulled his fingers free. Colm felt odd without them inside. One moment, he'd verged on too full, but now he just felt hollow. Nichol scooped up more oil and rubbed it over his cock, bright red and as hard as Colm had ever seen it. Colm couldn't resist reaching out and touching it, coiling his fingers around it and squeezing just to see what would happen.

What happened was Nichol grabbing his wrist and stilling his hand as he let out a keen. “It's too much,” he whispered harshly. “I want to be inside you before…”

“Fine.” Colm kissed his lover, and some of the tension eased out of his shoulders and back. “That's fine. Here, let me turn.” Face-to-face would be nice, but Colm wasn't sure he had the flexibility for that, and they both wanted the first time to go well. He got onto his hands and knees and waited, breathless, for a touch.

Nichol smoothed his hands over Colm's hips, down the knobby length of his spine and back. One finger dipped inside, testing again, and Colm grimaced and pushed back
hard
, because one finger was nowhere near enough. Nichol pressed a fast kiss to the small of his back, then moved forward, until their legs were tight against each other's and Nichol's cock pressed insistently at Colm's entrance. The oil made the first inch easy, until Colm's body caught on to the strangeness, the newness of what was happening to it, and tightened.

“'S fine,” Nichol murmured, bringing his hand around to lightly stroke Colm's cock, still half-soft and not yet recovered. “Breathe, Colm.” The touch helped somewhat, a welcome distraction from the burn, and the reminder helped more. Colm sucked in one deep breath, then another, and his muscles unconsciously relaxed. Nichol slid forward, slow but persistent, until finally they were completely flush, their bodies locked together.

“Oh gods,” Nichol sighed. “You're…it's…Colm, tell me you're all right. Tell me I can move again.”

“Go,” Colm said, because his body was adapting with surprising speed, and he felt…not perfectly ready, but certainly impatient. “Go, go!” And Nichol went.

It was still slow, but the movement made things feel better. Warmer. Colm shut his eyes and focused on that feeling of warmth, of fullness and the sheer fact that Nichol was in him, moving with him and around him. He spread his knees a bit, trying to find—