A Spell for Heartsickness (The Rune Tithe #1)

CHAPTER 13

B riar left the Swan and Cygnet with a belly full of warm pies and a heart sick with the things Maebh had told him.

He didn’t know what to make of the story about invaders, wards, and emotionally unavailable fathers. Instead, he fixated on her last words. I’m glad he has a friend in you. That word friend struck him through with guilt and longing for something different as he steeped in the memory of Rowan’s lips on his.

Then, as he passed a gap in the houses looking out toward the woods, he saw something strange, and all those thoughts perished.

Coill Darragh’s trees waved in the night, blacker than the sky above. Briar could see the bridge where éibhear had cut down that witch. Farther still, the purple hue of the scar left by his sacrifice glowed like a ghastly sunset.

A shadow in the shape of a man bisected the glow.

From size and shape, even at this distance, he knew it was Rowan. He walked in a slow, stumbling trance, and he was heading toward the forest.

Heart in his throat, Briar ran. Down the street, over the bridge, up the hillock smothered in cold fog. Getting closer, he could see Rowan walked at a slow pace. One step at a time, and something moved by his feet. Briar’s vision adjusted to the dark, and the shapes resolved—they were vines. Twisting tree roots grew up from the ground and curved around Rowan’s boots and calves. When he took a step, they wilted and shrank back, shooting up wherever he placed his foot next.

He was only a few paces from the tree line. Briar put on a burst of speed, nearly tripping on the lumpy grass.

He stopped in front of Rowan, hands on his chest. The aura of Rowan’s scar flared and fizzled like television static, so strong it nearly drowned out his true aura. The roots were cobras swaying around their legs. One hissed against Briar’s ankle.

His breath was ragged as he said, “Rowan?”

Rowan stopped. His dark eyes had a milky film over them. He looked, unseeing. Briar clapped a hand to his chest.

“Rowan, wake up!”

Rowan blinked, and when he opened his eyes, the film was gone. The roots dissolved into ash at their feet. Whatever trance had come over him lifted.

“Briar?” His chest rose sharply as he sucked in a panicked breath. A grunt of pain, and one hand rose to clutch his heart, only to encounter Briar’s hand. He held it there. “Was I—”

“You were sleepwalking. I think.”

Rowan looked past him at the forest. Briar felt it like a cold breath on the back of his neck.

Ours.

“Every time, I wake up closer,” Rowan said.

There was such a vulnerability in his voice, the likes of which Briar hadn’t heard before. Rowan still wore the knitted scarf. To give his hands something to do, Briar tied it tighter to ward away the chill.

“Have you ever woken up in there?”

“Only the once. When I found you.”

Briar swallowed. He didn’t like this. Some of the trees looked… wrong.

Wavering. Throbbing like they had sickened lungs.

He linked his arm through Rowan’s. “I’ll walk you home?”

It sounded ridiculous. He wasn’t near as big or intimidating. Rowan accepted gracefully, though, walking alongside him through the grassy knoll, away from the glowing scar and the hungry wood.

“Have you ever tried to stop them?” Briar asked. “Your blackouts, I mean.”

Rowan looked sheepish. “I, ehm, tied my ankles to the bedposts once. Woke up in the fields and got home to the ropes in pieces. Think the forest did it to prove a point.”

“And Niamh didn’t know of anything? A spell?”

He shook his head.

“Well, I’ve got an idea. We’ll put a bell on you.”

He snorted. “Like a cow bell?”

“No, a cute one. Like on cat collars, or those gold Christmas ones, you know? Then anyone will hear when you’re off wandering at night.”

They breathed easier the farther they got from the forest. Dew clung to their legs instead of vines. Moonlight filtered through the overcast sky, enough to illuminate the foggy patchwork of farmer’s fields and paddocks. Rowan’s scar stopped crackling, replaced by the mellowing effect his aura always had.

Briar said, “What were you doing out here anyway?”

“I wasn’t here here. I was checking on the chickens.”

“In the dark?”

“Some foxes were unsettling them.”

Briar smiled, heart lighter already. The image of Rowan bent over a hen house, cooing to Maude and her brethren, tickled him.

“You been getting on all right at the shop?”

“Yeah, good! And you? Tourists still eating up your time?”

“Less since the weather’s been pure shite.”

Briar started to laugh, but as if the weather had heard and taken offense, a drop of rain hit his nose. Another on the back of his neck. An ominous pitter-patter followed. They looked to one another for a bewildered moment before they started to run.

Rowan’s cottage was only a couple fields away, but they didn’t make it. The heavens opened. Rain lashed down in a frigid deluge, soaking them through in minutes. Laughing helplessly, they ran for the closest shelter available: a crooked lean-to for horses, currently unoccupied. Rowan reached it first, turning to pull Briar in with him. Boots slipping on the grass, Briar couldn’t slow. They collided, spinning with the momentum. Rowan’s arms wound snugly around Briar, pressing them chest to chest. Briar could feel Rowan’s racing heart through their soaked clothes, and as he came awake to the sensation, the quality of his own racing heart changed. Their laughter trailed off.

Words and warnings echoed in the recesses of Briar’s mind. Vatii telling him, Maybe you should keep your distance from Rowan. Maebh saying, I’m glad he has a friend in you. Even his own words, We shouldn’t. His prophetic future—cast in shadow by his curse—was a dreaded, distant mirage, while Rowan was firm and real and close and holding him up .

It seemed an age that Briar was only aware of the way Rowan’s chest rose and fell against his own while rain played percussion on the roof. He looked into Rowan’s eyes. Dark, they reflected a yearning Briar felt deep in his bones. A yearning he’d done a poor job of resisting. Rowan’s next breath shivered. His scarf had come undone, so it was easy to grab the ends and pull.

Rowan leaned in by a tentative fraction, and Briar surged up to meet him the rest of the way. With the heady crush of lips, the cold became a distant thing. Briar pulled him closer, cursing every mote of space between them. He wanted to soak in the scorching bath of Rowan’s aura. Rowan, who was breathless and beautiful, eyes half lidded in the slants of moon-light. Briar kissed him again, tasting rain.

The deep baritone of Rowan’s voice rumbled with relief and longing all tangled together. As if Briar enchanted him more than the woods, he took a powerless, uneven step forward. Briar stumbled on tiptoes and instinctively wrapped both arms around his broad shoulders to stop from falling into the wall. Only Rowan was crowding him back against it anyway. Cold wood at his shoulder blades and Rowan pressed hot between his legs. Kissing him still but less guarded, and with his tongue, too.

Tangled in one another, they kissed until the rain hammering the leanto quieted to a patter. By that time, what little resistance remained in Briar melted. He needed Rowan’s hands on him without the barrier of clothes.

“Let’s go.”

Rowan, the consummate gentleman, said, “Ah—are you sure?”

Briar, not a gentleman at all, guided Rowan’s hand between his legs to feel his certainty. “Do I seem unsure? If it hadn’t rained, I’d tell you to just lay me down in the heather.”

Rowan choked on whatever response he’d mustered. Taking Briar’s hand, he led them across the fields to his cottage. They paused only at the fences, where Briar, in the process of crossing, instead sat and pulled Rowan in for more of what they’d had in the lean-to.

There was just enough time in between for Briar to think that this might be ill advised, and if Vatii had been there, she’d have laid into him for his indiscretion. There hadn’t been anything about kissing mask-less aldermans in his prophecy. But Vatii was not there, and there hadn’t been enough time spent not kissing Rowan for the blaze in Briar’s heart to dwindle. Just once, he told himself, couldn’t hurt. Just one moment to give in to whatever it was that burned between them.

Inside, the cottage was quiet except for the rain tapping the windows and dripping from their clothes. Rowan pulled his shirt off, letting it slap to the floor in a sodden puddle. It stopped Briar in his tracks. For two reasons.

The first was that Rowan, only half undressed and in the dark, made Briar’s breath stop. He didn’t have the wood-cut physique and washboard abs of Alakagram models—he was densely muscled under a layer of padding. The impressive breadth of his shoulders tapered to his waist, and a pattern of dark hair did the same from his chest down past his jeans. His belly hung a little over his belt, a sight Briar couldn’t help but devour.

The other reason was that Rowan had never seen the tithes decorating Briar’s arm.

Instead of undressing, Briar stepped in close, stroking his fingers through the hair of Rowan’s chest. He rose on his toes to kiss him, slower. Rowan leaned in to his touch, shivered with an eagerness that turned Briar molten. To test a theory, he ran his hands down lower, stopping below Rowan’s navel. The response was definitive. Rowan stifled a moan in Briar’s mouth.

It had been a long time since anyone had touched Rowan like this. That scar had left him starved.

“Should I slow down?” Briar asked.

A strangled growl. “No.”

So Briar helped him remove his pants, then let his hands roam where they couldn’t reach before. Rowan’s expressions captivated him. Caught between eyes fluttering shut at the overwhelming pleasure of being touched and opening to drink Briar in. Briar thought, I want to give you everything you’ve missed since that scar made you lonely.

The cold caught up with him, though, and he shivered, still in his wet clothes.

Rowan said, “You’ll catch your death.”

Briar bit his lip. Rowan misinterpreted his hesitation.

“If you’ve changed your mind—”

“I haven’t,” Briar said.

He just hadn’t considered what Rowan might think of the tithes. Part of him knew Rowan wouldn’t mind. Not because his father used the same magic, but because this was Rowan. The latter part unnerved him. When had he come to feel like he knew the man so well that this, one of his best-kept secrets, did not feel like something he’d ever been hiding anyway?

He peeled his shirt off. It splashed to the floor. Rowan beheld him with mouth slightly open, gaze sliding down. He took Briar by the wrist—the one with the tithes—and drew him close, turning his arm over to see the rest. Sigils and bands of runes covered his skin in a sleeve of inky symbols that started just below his wrist and ended below the shoulder. There were more now than there’d been when he first arrived, and Rowan slid his hand over all of them, then the naked skin of Briar’s shoulder. His fingers traveled until they landed at Briar’s hip.

“You’re gorgeous.”

Briar leapt into his arms and kissed him again, not chastely. Rowan walked him back through the hall. They lost the rest of their clothes as they went, stepping out of boots and wet jeans until they were in the living room where a ladder led up into a loft. Briar detached himself long enough to climb.

In the loft above, a blue swath of moonlight streamed in from the window, falling over the quilted bed. It smelled of campfires. A gas lantern hung from the ceiling beams. On the rough-hewn wooden bedframe, a tartan blanket was folded over the foot in case the quilt was not warm enough.

Before Rowan made it all the way up, Briar sprawled on the bed in what he hoped was a seductive lounge. It worked. When Rowan made it to the top, his eyes went dark looking at him stretched out on his back. He crossed the small space quickly, knocking Briar’s knees apart to lie between them, and the soft crush of his body was enough to make Briar see stars behind closed lids as they picked up where they left off. Only now with no clothes, which made a great deal of difference. Briar could hardly grow a beard, so he reveled in the sensation of soft hair tickling his skin, the rasp of stubble against his throat when Rowan kissed him there. It set off flares of heat in him that steadily built.

Worse was the way Rowan’s belly trapped Briar’s arousal and rubbed against it without properly addressing how hard he’d become.

Patience lost, Briar pushed against his shoulders until Rowan rolled. Briar went with him, sitting atop his hips. An attractive flush had crept all the way from Rowan’s neck to his cheeks. The barrel of his chest heaved unevenly.

Briar said silent thanks to the magic gods that water was the only tithe necessary to cast a spell leaving him squeaky clean. “Please tell me you have lube.”

Rowan nodded. “Bedside cabinet.”

Briar had to lean over him to root around in the drawer at the bedside. He felt the tickle of beard, then the suck of a mouth around his nipple, and quite nearly forgot what he was looking for. He found it, though, and retracted it before Rowan could distract him further.

Briar uncapped the bottle and held it high. Lubricant streamed down in a gleaming string that, when it connected, made Rowan’s cock twitch. At the touch of Briar’s hand, he came apart. His head tipped back. His Adam’s apple bobbed around a halting groan. The noise reverberated, then shivered and shattered with each stroke. Briar’s hands were delicate, but they looked even more so wrapped around the girth of Rowan. He was every bit in proportion, and for the first time, Briar considered that he might have overestimated his ability.

He knew what he wanted, though. He prepared himself next, impatient and perfunctory. When it was done, he leaned forward to brace both hands against Rowan’s rising chest and looked him in the eyes. The scar, branching over his cheek and through his brow, held barely a trace of its usual aura. Rowan’s own overwhelmed it, cloaking Briar in a warmth like a swallow of whiskey. His honey-brown eyes fluttered closed as Briar lowered himself.

The sting was familiar, but the sharpness of it less so. Briar gritted his teeth. He wasn’t about to quit, but as he tried to let gravity help, a lance of pain went through him that had him clenching tighter. He’d clamped his eyes shut in the process. He only opened them when a hand touched his cheek.

Rowan’s expression had transformed. Instead of aroused, he looked concerned.

“Is that hurting?”

“Well, you are huge.”

Rowan started to sit up, and Briar rushed to stop him.

“I can manage!”

“I’m not interested in hurting you,” Rowan huffed.

“I’m sure I’m just out of practice.”

Rowan pulled him down by the wrists, kissing him to halt his babbling. His big hands, rough with calluses, slid down the line of Briar’s spine and over the curves found lower. The kneading massage loosened some of his tension, stretching out his muscles like taffy. Then one hand snuck lower, the other spreading him, and—

Briar melted, cheek pillowed against Rowan’s shoulder, muffling a moan there.

Rowan’s breath brushed the shell of his ear. “How do you like it normally?”

Briar struggled for coherence with Rowan’s index finger giving him a different sort of massage. “S-sex?”

A chuckle. “What else?”

Briar wet his lips, unsure what he meant by the question. “In—the—butt?”

Rowan’s laugh was a pleasant peal of distant thunder under Briar’s cheek. “Can you be more specific?”

“I don’t know?”

“You don’t?”

A note of exasperation, because Rowan was testing the pressure of a second finger. “Well, no one’s ever asked!”

Rowan sat up at that, dumping Briar onto the mattress. Before Briar could protest the loss of what had been a very pleasurable fingering, he found himself flat on his back with a pillow pushed under his hips. Rowan handled him with a firm, indomitable gentleness. Despite what Briar could only assume was a very long dry spell, Rowan seemed unfairly competent. It made Briar’s cheeks heat. And other places.

Rowan braced over him, one arm between them so his hand could resume what it had been doing before, only this time with Rowan’s mouth teasing Briar’s lips open the same way his fingers were. He worked out every knot of tension with methodical, almost ruthless, teasing. He tried different motions until he found the right ones, the ones that made Briar’s back arch. His hands weren’t small either, and it was a stretch, but the pleasurable kind.

Briar’s toes curled in anticipation. “Come on.”

Rowan drew back and gave Briar’s hip a pat. Obliging, Briar turned over, the pillow still canting his hips at an angle for best advantage. The mattress sank on either side of Briar’s shoulders where Rowan’s arms supported him. Briar spread his thighs and waited.

A kiss dropped to the crook of his neck. At the same time, he felt the intrusion. Just a light, nudging pressure at first that bloomed into something harder. It still hurt, but not the same as before, not at all. Now it was the languid stretch after too long spent motionless. Now, there was pleasure, too. A long, tightly wound, keening thing that slowly, slowly gave way. It wasn’t everything all at once. It was slow. A push and then a pause in which Rowan’s mouth left pink marks on his neck and drew gasps from him. And then waiting until Briar pushed back against him. Trapped against the pillow, there was not enough stimulation to come, but Briar felt that the barest touch might set him off. He bit his lip and tried not to.

Rowan finally slotted all the way into him. His breath whuffed against Briar’s nape in a long, shuddering exhale. His belly felt heavy against Briar’s arched back. His mouth traced the shell of an ear, and his teeth grazed Briar’s shoulder while Rowan gave his hips an experimental roll. It sent sparks shooting through Briar from the hot place Rowan was buried in him to the tips of all his fingers and toes. Rowan did it again, and again.

Outside the bedroom, Briar hardly ever shut up. Inside it, he didn’t often voice his wants, but this pressed him to it. “Harder.”

Rowan rose to that encouragement. His next thrust rang out in the quiet bedroom with the slap of his hips against Briar’s arse. He didn’t draw back immediately. He sidled his hips from side to side, let Briar feel him deeply before he withdrew and pounded in again. Again.

Lights winked in Briar’s vision. Even as the pace became relentless, it was unlike any of the clumsy fumbles of Briar’s years in college. Rowan’s demeanor was considerate. Intent. Rowan took the time to figure him out and coax pleasure from him with an almost tender aggression. Only then did Briar realize, it wasn’t competence, but a keener sort of communication than he was used to. Rowan touched and listened for the sorts of responses that meant Briar liked it, and he seemed to revel in each clue, each new discovery.

Moaning, Briar told him what he wanted. And Rowan gave it. Until finally Briar caved and pleaded for release, which Rowan gave also. He snuck a hand under him, and it was the softest touch before Briar was coming into his fist. Bright bursts of pleasure set his limbs trembling. He smothered sounds he’d never made before in the quilt. Rowan hooked his chin over Briar’s shoulder, moving still, drawing out the rush of climax until he could no longer hold back his own. He made a sound like the ghost of him was being drawn out through his mouth, the breath of his groan hot on Briar’s neck. A few more shuddering thrusts, and he was spent.

He rolled to the side and crashed into the covers, panting. Briar languished in the feeling of tingling skin and his pulse returning to normal. It took a long time. Long enough for him to wonder if that was that, and he should prepare to steal away into the night. It would be difficult. He doubted his legs would carry him, and he dreaded the notion of putting his drenched clothes back on.

But these things did not comprise the whole reason.

He turned his head to watch Rowan, whose chest still heaved. He’d closed his eyes, lips parted with each ragged breath, a sheen of sweat all over him. Briar wanted to lean in and nip the sharp edge of his jaw where beard softened it.

Rowan turned half-lidded eyes on him. A smile quirked the corner of his mouth. “What?”

Briar said, “You are egregiously sexy.”

A gust of laughter. He covered his eyes with an arm. “Egregiously.”

“Too much? I’ve been told I can be a bit much.” Now could be his cue to leave.

Rowan lifted an arm to usher Briar over. “Not too much. C’mere to me.”

Briar went gratefully, curling against Rowan’s ribs with a hand against his rising diaphragm. He soaked in the comfort of Rowan’s aura. Sleep crept in.

With his heart still racing more than it should, Briar thought he might have made a mistake.

He woke to a bright morning and a divot in the bed that once held Rowan.

He’d slept well. Better than he had in ages. He wanted to luxuriate in that feeling a little longer, but with consciousness came thoughts, many of them unwelcome. He’d missed a dose of his elixir while gallivanting last night. His hands trembled fiercely as a result. Vatii would have his hide.

Walking home in last night’s clothes was not his favorite part of one-night stands either.

His clothes were downstairs, probably soaking still. He could hear clattering from the kitchen, so Rowan wasn’t out, which meant skulking around nude or in something borrowed.

The floorboards were freezing underfoot, and it took a moment to practice walking normally. He tottered like a foal over to a discarded throw blanket. Picking it up, he found it was actually a check shirt in red, which fit him with all the grace of a rain mac. The neck was so large it slipped off one shoulder, the hem reaching near his knees. It smelled faintly of Rowan. It would do.

Descending the ladder, the first thing Briar spotted sent a shot of gratitude through him: his clothes, hung on the radiator. He touched them to find them slightly damp.

Footsteps behind him, then, “I made eggs.”

Briar turned. Rowan stood in the door to the kitchen holding a fry pan.

Briar said, “Eggs?”

Rowan said, “Scrambled, but I could—” He stopped. “Is that my shirt?”

“Sorry, I was cold. I’ll change now.”

“No! You can keep it. On, that is.” Rowan suddenly had to clear something very stubborn from his throat.

Briar dropped the hem. He looked at Rowan’s flushed cheeks and the amount of eggs in the pan. “You made enough for two?”

Rowan inclined his head toward the kitchen and led the way there.

A sense of confusion and mild panic took root in Briar then. This—a cooked breakfast, wearing one another’s clothes—this felt… domestic. All Briar’s past relationships had been the casual variety. They involved sneaking in and out of places, making sure he no longer smelled like someone else’s cologne, and stolidly avoiding the topic of relationships when it used to come up with his mother. In witch’s circles, relationships were either for mutual stress relief or they were for more. Marriage more. It wasn’t even about keeping magic within families or any of that tosh. It had to do with the relative smallness of the witch community and the drama that would arise from having serious relationships with so-and-so’s brother, so-and-so’s ex.

When you were gay, that became doubly true, with the dating pool shrunk by an even greater proportion.

Not that witches didn’t also date non-magical people, or that these measures didn’t still result in drama. But the tradition of keeping it casual unless there was serious commitment in the cards held true.

Briar hopped up on the breakfast bar, accepting the plate Rowan handed him. Eggs, sliced cherry tomatoes, and a few rashers of bacon. He took a bite and forgot his worries. These were the best damn eggs he’d ever tasted. They’d probably been freshly laid and plucked out of the coop that morning.

Rowan had abandoned his own plate. He was still giving Briar a look over, brow furrowed in consternation. His eyes stuck on Briar’s bare thighs, revealed from the shirt hiking up when he sat down. “How’d you sleep?”

Briar set his plate down. Against all his better judgment, he shifted so his legs splayed a little farther apart. “Good. And you?” What am I doing?

“Good. Yeah, ehm—”

“Last night was?” Briar said cheekily.

Rowan locked eyes with him. Whatever lust they’d slaked the night before, it simmered between them still. “Very good.”

The heat in the kitchen seemed to rise by a degree. Briar leaned back on the breakfast bar, so that what was rising under his shirt could be more clearly viewed. He said what he wanted to, even though he was tempting danger. “Do you want to make it a more regular thing?”

Rowan opened his mouth, a breath that never quite became a word whistling between his teeth. After a beat, he moved. He sat in the chair between Briar’s knees and dragged him closer by the hips. The shirt hiked all the way up, and the movement left Briar with nowhere to put his legs except to hook them over Rowan’s shoulders. He did. Rowan’s hot breath turned his thoughts in a spiral, but he managed the other important detail before they derailed completely.

“Just a casual thing, yeah?”

A brushed kiss and Rowan’s beard tickling his thighs. “Yeah.”

“We don’t tell anyone? Just friends—hngh—friends having a little fun, y-yeah?”

Rowan paused, mouth inches from its destination, the next words breathed where Briar could acutely feel them. “Sure thing.”

After that, Briar’s legs fell open, and he could only clutch Rowan’s hair.