Harbor (On the Wind #3)

11. Orestes

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ORESTES

“ W e should leave here,” I told Tybalt.

I wasn’t going to refuse sex, but this room, filled with its false cheering and discomfort, couldn’t be a healthy place for him to be.

“We can speak.”

He rolled his eyes, reaching up to wrap his arms around one of mine, tugging me toward the nearest door out of the throne room.

Throne room.

What a strategic disaster of a room. There were half a dozen entrances placed all around, and the king sat higher than the people against the back wall. It seemed more like a carnival game than a serious place, where they set the king up on high and waited for someone to come kill him. Too many doors, no protection for the old man except a few useless-looking guards I could have dispatched in my sleep. They didn’t even have spears.

Killian had told me most non-Nemedans preferred swords to spears, and Hector had carried one with him from Urial, but I didn’t understand. Why not have the best possible reach? It was such an enormous advantage in a fight, it didn’t make any sense to give it up just because what, swords were easier to carry at your side without taking up a hand?

I shook my head in disgust as we left, and the guard at the door cocked his head in confusion at me, but he didn’t move. Didn’t speak, didn’t threaten.

He just stood there doing nothing.

It seemed a good overall example of Urial.

Tybalt picked up speed as we left the throne room, dragging me down hallway after hallway, and I let him. No reason not to, after all. I actually found him rather better company than most of his countrymen, so why not?

When finally I recognized where we were, it was because we’d returned to the hall where he’d put me up in the palace. He led me to a different door than my own, flinging it open and marching right inside, so I hoped it was the right room, wherever we were.

It was a fancy parlor with attached bedroom, and he headed straight inside and started shedding clothing, throwing it in every direction. I was worried that in a moment, he would cry, and that would make everything worse for him. It had become quite clear to me, after my time with Paris and Hector and now in Urial itself, that shows of emotion were frowned upon. Perhaps the people of Urial wanted to be as cold as the land they lived in.

Regardless, I grabbed his hands and held them still, stretched out between us.

“We need to speak,” I insisted.

He scoffed and tugged one hand in mine, as though he needed to physically dismiss the very idea. When I didn’t let go, he shook his head instead. “There’s nothing to speak about. Less talking, more fucking.”

“There is something to talk about,” I insisted. “There’s... feelings.”

“Feelings?” He reared back, staring at me as though I’d said the very last thing he’d expected, and also, the last thing he’d wanted to hear.

“Feelings,” I reiterated. But I knew well from my years on the wall that I couldn’t tell him the truth of why feelings were a problem. Fortunately, it wasn’t hard to come up with another reason feelings were a bad idea. Hells, it was easy to come up with a thousand reasons why feelings were a bad idea.

“I won’t be staying in Urial forever,” was what I decided on. “I’m going home someday. Emotional entanglements will make that harder for both of us, so they’re not acceptable.”

He blinked at me, still haughty and disgusted on the surface, but also confused. “But we’re men.”

“What, that means we don’t have feelings?” I scoffed. “You lot truly are broken if you think men don’t have emotions.”

“For... for each other,” he corrected. The tiniest line puckered his smooth forehead. “Men can’t have feelings for each other. They can... we can fuck, and that’s—they don’t like it, the people, but they don’t say much. They try to ignore it, pretend it’s not happening. But men can’t have real feelings for each other.”

For a moment, all I could do was stare at him. Men couldn’t... “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Men,” he reiterated. “Can’t have feelings for each other. The people hate that we fuck enough already. They wouldn’t put up with emotions .”

“That is the most ridiculous fucking thing I’ve heard in my entire life.” I turned, stalking over to his bed and sitting on it, staring at him. “I can’t... do you actually believe that?”

He bit his lip, looking away and shrugging, but then drawing himself up, chin in the air. There was something fragile, almost brittle about the position and the look on his face. “I don’t have feelings for anyone. It’s... it’s silly. Feelings are nonsense.”

Urial was broken. There was nothing else for it. Urial was a fucking disaster, where they thought entire people could simply not have emotions.

“Do you know that Brett married Paris?”

For just a second, pain flashed through his eyes, but I didn’t think it was because he was holding Paris up as some perfect lost love. He turned away. “That’s ridiculous. They can’t have children.”

“So?”

“So? So the only reason to get married is a partnership, to have children. To continue the family line. Legacy.”

Legacy.

It was something my own father had been obsessed with, and I imagined that Albany, with the ridiculous amount of responsibility heaped on his back, felt it even more keenly than Father had. He had to have someone to do his ridiculous, impossible job after him, or the entirety of Urial would fall to ruin.

Fuck, I’d known Killian had been right when he’d taught me, but this was just a lesson in how right he’d been. No one man should hold that much responsibility. At best, it might have driven him mad, which fit with what I knew of the king.

I reached out and grabbed Tybalt’s hand, tugging him to me. He was almost limp against me, ready to fall apart. Probably also ready to stick his chin back up and tell me to fuck off because I didn’t understand.

And he’d have been right. I didn’t understand. I could stay and try to learn more, so I could better comprehend, but I was starting to think it wasn’t going to happen. No, I was starting to think it didn’t actually make any fucking sense at all.

So I ignored it entirely and gave him what we both wanted. I tugged him into my lap and pressed our lips together, kissing him with all the passion I had. He needed it. I needed it. Hells, I hadn’t had sex since before Clio had died, unless I’d managed to talk someone into my bed on one of the nights I’d gotten blackout drunk after my sister or father’s deaths. That didn’t seem terribly likely, since the Crane and Hawk were quite scrupulous about not taking advantage of drunken asses, however much they might demand sex.

And I was sure I had demanded it. Thank fuck I didn’t remember.

So really, however much superior I might think my people, I was as broken as Tybalt. As broken as any other person in Urial. So I pulled him against me, turning and pressing him into his enormous plush bed. Yes. Tybalt and I both needed this. And whatever nonsense Urial thought, we could have it in each other.