Page 36

36

ESCAPE

L éon and Henry sprinted through the streets, hand in hand, and all the cold of the night was bracing and nothing more—nothing they couldn’t overcome.

Destroyer snorted on sight of them, and Henry pulled great arms around the head of the beast. “I knew you were a good one.” Destroyer raised his head to nudge Henry.

“You have the saddle, Léon.”

But Léon was lost for words, watching Henry with the weird horse, taken aback at his ease after everything that had happened, especially what he’d just done in the tower.

“What?” asked Henry.

He picked Léon’s hand up right there in the street, and he kissed it.

And Léon felt like… He didn’t know what.

It wasn’t something he’d ever considered, a public display of affection like that.

He made no sound, and his surprise only doubled when Henry ran a hand around his waist, pulling him close.

Tripled when Henry planted another kiss on his lips.

“I can’t be the first man to have done that.”

A hot blush and too-pink lips, and Léon whispered, “You are.”

“Huh…” His smile turned sly, and he pushed Léon backwards, step by step, into the wall, kissing his neck as Léon’s head tipped back.

“Lucky me,” he murmured, and Léon felt beautiful .

That was the word for it.

For the first time, he felt adored.

Desired and wanted. Not from a distance by strangers who didn’t know him, who wanted only the sick thrill of his killer hands.

Henry wanted him . He kissed him again, heatedly.

Léon would never have been so open in the street with a woman, certainly not with a man.

Certainly not with Henry, of all the men in the world.

Henry, who had punched him in the face not even an hour earlier.

But his lips parted and Henry !

Christ, what was happening to him?

“Get on the horse,” Henry said, and it was demanding in a way that Léon had never known he craved.

Foot in stirrup, he obediently swung himself up onto Destroyer’s back.

Henry was up behind him in seconds, arms wrapped around his waist, coaxing Destroyer into a gallop with the tap of his foot.

They didn’t retrace their steps towards Saint-Quentin; they moved west, towards Soissons, whence they would wind north, along the most remote country roads they thought might get them to Amiens.

But one horse cannot last two men long, and Henry seemed to know Destroyer was flagging before Léon saw any sign of it.

He spoke words of encouragement to the beast, and Léon listened carefully to every one of them.

He’d accused Henry of witchcraft, and Henry had owned up to it the last time they’d spoken, before the court case and the imprisonment and the murder.

But Léon didn’t mention it now, and nor did Henry.

It was smarter to keep quiet.

A horse’s hooves in the night might not rouse too much suspicion, but two men arguing over witches just might.

Once they’d reached the quiet outskirts of Reims, beyond the city walls, Henry pulled Destroyer up with only the words, “Stop here.”

It was all darkness and moonlight dancing over rolling hills.

“What are we doing?” Léon whispered.

Henry was off and scaling the wooden fence of a farm.

“We need another horse.”

“You can’t just steal a horse!” Léon made to jump down, but Destroyer kicked about in a small circle, as though he was in on the horse-stealing plot too, or at the very least, approved of it.

Léon pulled on his bridle, as much to hold on as anything else, but he was given little choice but to wait as Henry’s shadowy figure disappeared into complete black.

Léon was well aware he had actually been riding a stolen horse, regardless of what Henry said about Destroyer wanting to come along, yet being present during the act of obtaining another one felt entirely different.

He was tense as he watched down the open road, wondering what he would do if someone came along.

Maybe Destroyer would know what to do, like that time he’d hidden himself in the bushes to avoid detection of the cart man.

Weird horse.

What to do was something he should probably figure out for himself, though.

After all, was this life now?

For the foreseeable future?

Or until he got back to émile and Souveraine?

And then what? What would either of them say to him if they found out the truth?

Before Léon could spiral into a million nightmarish visions of tears and remonstrances and things being thrown at him, he saw Henry in silhouette, mounting a horse, who walked, seemingly of its own volition, down the hill towards him.

He heard a little “Hyah,” and the horse bolted across the paddock, then jumped the fence smoothly.

Henry pulled her around in a circle, and she trotted up to Destroyer with a whinny.

He raised his head, touching his nose briefly to hers, and Henry looked very handsome and very pleased with himself.

“Is this what you do?” Léon asked.

“You just take any horse you like? What if those people need it?”

“Unless they’re about to be burned alive for witchcraft,” he retorted, “I believe we need it more.” And with another, “Hyah!” Henry was off, galloping down a dusty laneway.

“Fuck,” Léon whined, which Destroyer seemed to take as a sign to catch up, and off they shot.

The four made fast progress, faster than they ever would have made on just Destroyer, the short break or the new company having given the animal a second wind.

They passed Soissons, keeping to the outskirts of the town, but as the chill dawn began to expose their position, they decided to look around for a shelter to hide in.

Every house and barn and shed along the way was considered until finally they came across a small and broken down cottage, sitting alone in an enormous field, some way back from the road.

Stone wall, the roof half caved in, vines growing all through cracks in the facade, it would have to do.

The horses picked gingerly through a scramble of blackberry vines, rabbit holes, and mounds of weedy grass.

Léon dismounted at the rotten-looking door, while Henry led the horses around the back to keep them out of sight.

The wood dipped beneath Léon’s fingers when he touched it, damp all the way through.

He tried the handle, to no avail, but figured the door couldn’t be held in there too effectively.

He raised his boot, kicked, and the whole thing fell straight off whatever excuse for hinges had been keeping it up.

He stepped over it carefully, picked it up and leaned it in place, trying to make the little house continue to appear just as uninhabited as it had been for decades.

The gaping spaces either side would give little relief from sight or elements, but then the enormous hole in the ceiling was hardly conducive to comfort either.

But they weren’t there for comfort.

The sun was rising, and Léon’s world shone blue and pink in some broken and abandoned cottage in the middle of nowhere.

How had he found himself there, having murdered a man, broken his lover out of prison, and stolen a horse?

But his mind meandered somewhere in the middle of that reflection.

His lover.

Is that what Henry was?

The minutes ticked by in ivy and stone and wisps of pink clouds in a purpling sky, and Léon stood there, a criminal, tension ratcheting up every waiting second as he attempted to come to grips with the last twenty-four hours.

The door shifted. Henry’s naked hands, with his gloves and his cloak confiscated by the law, then Henry, stepping into the lightening room.

They hadn’t stopped for hours.

Hadn’t been silent together, hadn’t talked about what any of it meant.

Léon remained where he was and regarded Henry, who, after all his affection in the heat of the moment, seemed to have no better idea how to react than Léon.

He looked… smaller. He had none of his finery, only Léon’s sweater, which fit tightly.

Without his collars and his cloak, only the light and dirty shirt they’d given him in prison beneath the sweater, he shivered.

He’d kept his breeches, but they ran down to bare shins and ankles, naked and dirty feet.

His face showed scratches from the straw, from whatever other mistreatment he’d suffered.

The bruise was probably from the last time Léon had punched him, knocked him down into the mud to be arrested.

But his expression spoke nothing of that memory.

Léon was clean and bright and beautiful, and Henry saw him then, just as the new day dawned around them, as all the love and care he’d been missing for years.

Léon, who’d seen deep into Henry’s heart at the most vulnerable time in his entire life, at his most awful, and somehow, liked what he found there.

Henry started forward, the feel of Léon’s biceps beneath his hands like a magical potion, bringing a peace over his weary body, the feel of his soft lips, kissing him back, really flesh and blood Léon kissing him.

He didn’t want to talk.

He had no idea what to say.

Where to start with any of it.

He just wanted it to be and to exist.

But Léon, breathless, broke the kiss and looked down, golden hair hiding his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“No.” Henry brought his face back up with gentle hands.

“I’m sorry. You were never meant to be caught up in this.”

“This.” Léon wondered if Henry had any idea how much of ‘this’ he had pieced together.

Henry didn’t know what happened in Saint-Quentin.

He had no idea Léon knew about his sister’s powers—that it was one of the reasons he’d broken him out.

But Léon knew it wasn’t the main reason.

And that was terrifying.

Now he’d had time to stop, to think about what he’d become…

His hopes hung threadbare when he looked deep into Henry’s beautiful eyes, so close and so fond, and on a tremble, with real fear in his heart, he asked, “Did you bewitch me?”

Henry’s look was somewhere between confused, amused, and hurt.

“No, Léon. No, even if I wanted to?—”

“Are you a witch?” Words so quiet, in the crumbling cottage, in the empty field.

Henry’s head shook slightly, his body reacting by instinct to keep up the lie, but his voice came low and confiding.

“Yes. Not by choice.”

Léon’s fingers stretched across Henry’s chest. Desperately searching his face, he repeated, “Did you bewitch me?”

“No.” Henry was twice as firm.

But all it did was pull a hurried and frantic, “I think I must have gone mad. The things I’ve done.” He stepped away from Henry, crossing the room to thread fingers into his hair.

“I killed someone today,” Léon murmured, eyes not focusing on Henry or any of the detritus all around them.

The stretched quality of Léon’s voice kept Henry silent, watching the frenetic trembling of his hands.

“He tried to stop me. He tried to… I just wanted to go.” His hands began to open and shut, then he shook them out, all anxiety, remembering the gore of the scene, thinking of Mollard still dead on his floor, a pillow of blood congealing beneath his broken head.

“It was Souveraine.” Léon glanced up at Henry, his lips hardening, just as his heart did, against her name.

“And it was émile. And Catherine, of course, Catherine. But, Henri, it was you. God help me, it was you.” Henry started towards him, but Léon spun away, his hand at his temple.

“It was so simple. All those years, there was no one—no one I wanted, and even if I had… I could never be with them. There was no one. And then you walked in, and everything I’ve done, my whole life, everything I’ve worked for…”

Léon’s eyes shone with tears not yet fallen, and Henry refused to let him step away this time.

He caught his hands, and though Léon pulled them back, Henry closed his tighter.

“We’ll work through this. What did you do?”

“No, Henri! It’s you! You just destroyed it all. And in a matter of days. And I don’t know who I am, or where I’m going, or what I’m to do. Everything that I was, I tore it all apart for you. Why did I do that?”

“It’s going to be okay,” he said softly.

He pulled Léon’s head against his shoulder, and he hadn’t expected it to fall there so easily, for Léon to cling to him the way he did, fingertips scrunching into him.

“Come with me. Come with me, and I’ll make it all better. I will protect you. I will give it all back and more. Please, trust me.”

Léon raised his eyes, a shiver to his lashes.

The expression of someone who’d just realised a great truth—a distant, faraway look.

“You’re like death, Henri. I can feel you in my veins. And I long for you. So help me God, I long for you.”

Léon’s words were cold lead in Henry’s heart.

He saw in full what he’d become to Léon.

He was a promise and an idea, like the revolution itself—he was freedom.

And yet he was flesh and blood and no more than that.

But though the thought terrified him, that Léon understood him as a concept, he felt all the duty and responsibility of it only as a feather to the weight of his earnest desire to be those things for Léon.

He’d found one other heart that was broken and betrayed, just like his—one other person driven near madness with the world the way it was just then.

Everything in Henry wanted to deliver Léon safely to the other side.

“I am not that.” Henry grasped Léon’s cheek in a strong hand.

“Not to you. I’m the man who’s going to save you from all of this.”

“It’s over. I would be a fool to go on with you.” But Léon dropped his head back to Henry’s chest and wrapped his arms around him, squeezing him with all the very great strength in them.

Henry’s hand settled in his hair, holding him, his other arm wrapping him tight.

“You have it wrong. You can’t see because this life… This life has never let you see.” Léon resisted the movement, but Henry pulled his arms free, and lifted his tear-stained face to look clear into Léon’s eyes.

“I am freedom. And I am safety. And you’re too scared to let yourself have any of those things. You’ve never let anyone take care of you. You’ve never let go of that control for one minute, because you never could. But now it’s time. Léon, I’m the one. Choose me. Over all of it, choose me, and I won’t let you down. I’ll take you away from all of this.”

Léon yielded to the many splendored kisses that fell on his lips and his cheeks and his jaw, kisses and all the ardour of Henry’s physical passion, the caresses he so desperately desired, not for one night in a broken-down tower in Reims, but forever.

On and on and it would never be enough, not to close up that chasm inside him that wanted love so badly—that needed to love so badly.

Henry pressed him back against the wall, into a cool and soft tangle of ivy, and it felt to Léon as though he were drowning in it, sinking beneath the green and the kisses.

He floated down and down to the floor, and Henry never relented.

Léon wanted him, and Henry was desperate to prove he was there, solid and real, and that he would remain there, that he wanted Léon.

Léon’s fingers wrenched at his sweater, and if it was cold outside, it wasn’t in the cottage, not anymore.

All the anger and frustration came out of Henry, and he ripped his clothes to the floor.

Léon sat up, licking over his chest, kissing his shoulder, taking arms around his neck to pull him down.

But Henry needed the feel of his skin, and he pulled Léon’s clothes off, the beautiful man compliant beneath his touch.

Léon lowered a hand to Henry’s dick, urgently hard for him.

It had been an agony for Henry the last time, desperate to come as Léon blew his load in his mouth, but that had been about Léon.

Just as this was now, yet he pushed greedily into Léon’s hand, and Léon looked him in the eyes and whispered, “I want you to fuck me.”

“I can’t,” Henry whispered.

“Not here.”

“Please…” Léon stroked him so sensuously, so hotly, and his skin beneath Henry’s hands was so soft, his hair was so beautiful, his cheekbones and his lips and the way he begged, and it was tempting.

So tempting to push into him, let him feel the pain and the pleasure he was begging for, bite down on his neck to ease it as he ravished him.

The thought of how good and hot he’d feel sent a welcome shiver down Henry’s spine.

“No,” Henry forced out.

He ground forward into Léon’s palm.

“Somewhere better than this.”

“Please fuck me, Henri.” And his lips were so pink, his delicate eyelashes quivering, and it took everything in Henry to not comply with his desperate wish.

He grabbed Léon’s dick and brought it flush against his own, working the two of them together, covering Léon’s hand with his hand, and fucking up against him.

He threaded fingers through Léon’s hair, gripping, holding him there, and Léon leaned his head back against the pull, silently asking for more.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Henry rasped.

A sigh racked out of Léon’s open mouth, his eyes shut, heavenly against the blanket of ivy.

“And you’re mine now.” Léon’s gaze found his, and Henry thrust their two cocks into his hand, his breath coming faster with the pleasure of it.

“I will fuck you when I’m good and ready.” He bit Léon’s neck, pulling a cry from him—a yielding, turned-on cry that shot Léon’s hips forward, and Henry knew exactly what Léon needed.

“I am going to fuck you. I am going to wreck you, pretty boy.”

Another soft moan as a flush of ecstasy swept Léon’s brain, rolling his eyes back.

“You can do anything you want with me, Henri.”

“And when I do, you’ll never let another man touch you again. It’s you and me, Léon. From here on out. You’re mine. All mine.”

He clamped a fist into Léon’s hair and kissed him passionately, holding the breath in his mouth, suffocating the pleasured gasps that wanted to break free, making him store it all up until he could have his way with him in full, when he would devour every sign of rapture from this man he’d come to adore.

All the more now, because fuck , he was almost irresistible.

But when he got him into a bed…

He fucked harder into their hands at the very thought of it, and Léon fucked into his, and Léon whimpered, “Tell me again, Henri.”

“You’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. The most beautiful man alive. And I’ll never let you go. And I’ll never let you down.” The orgasm catching him at the throat, he ground over the words, “You will stay with me forever,” and he spilled, hot, all over Léon’s stomach, wrenching a gasp from Léon, ribbons of his own cum spurting through Henry’s fingers as he licked Léon’s neck, kissed his earlobe, drank him in, eyes rapt, all through his orgasm.

Henry kissed him again, but didn’t let Léon sink back into his frantic and depressed state.

He reached for the prison shirt, and it felt good to smear it in their cum, here in this out of the way cottage in the middle of nowhere.

It felt good to have Léon here with him now—to know that it was all for Henry—and no matter how much it all frightened Léon, his words and his deeds hung around Henry’s heart like a medal of honour.

He lay down beside Léon, possibly slightly deliberately flexing the muscles of his left arm when he saw Léon’s eyes drag over it.

Léon lunged forward and kissed him.

There was an animal sexuality to him that Henry found himself entranced by.

Léon naked, not just physically, but now with no guards and no barriers, and Léon whispering at his lips, “I hated you. I hated you so much.” He kissed him.

“I can’t believe this is happening.” He kissed him again.

“I would have murdered you if I’d had the chance.”

A little trepidatiously, Henry asked, between kisses, “And how are you feeling now?”

“Sick,” said Léon.

He broke the embrace and fell back, but he did it with an arm around Henry’s neck that bade him fall down on his chest. “I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“Okay,” Henry mumbled.

“Not quite the answer I was looking for.”

A brief silence fell as they each caught their breath, then with eyes on the ceiling, Léon said, “I don’t know if you know, but I’m not allowed inside the Cathedral.”

Henry tilted his head up.

“Reims Cathedral?”

“Any cathedral. But you know, Reims Cathedral is so beautiful. I’ve looked through the door. I’ve always wanted to go inside. It looks… spectacular. Like a miracle.”

“I don’t understand,” Henry said.

“Why can’t you go in?”

“Because I’m an executioner.” He said it like Henry was being a little thick, and perhaps he was, though the notion struck Henry as so ridiculous it was hard to believe.

“Wait… The city that employs you to kill people… won’t let you pray in a cathedral because you kill people? For the city?”

“Yeah.” Léon licked his lips.

“It’s part of the deal. Even before I did that, I couldn’t go in, because of my father.”

Henry sat up a little.

“You’ve never once set foot inside a church?”

Léon yanked him back down to his chest. “No. But that wasn’t the point of my story.”

Henry settled a little deeper against him, which wasn’t hard to do.

“Sorry.”

“This one time, they were cleaning it. The whole thing. And they had scaffolding all over the place. Ladders, paths of wooden beams so high up, all the way to the top. And one night, Souveraine and I decided to climb it.” A soft smile came across his face at the memory.

“We were fifteen. It was probably stupid. We had no ropes to attach us to anything, but we did it. Right before dawn, we snuck out and climbed and climbed all the way to the top. And it was magnificent. It was so steep, it was terrifying, but it was beautiful. And when the sun came up, and all the city turned pink below me, I could see the hills in the distance over the forest and I could see…”

Henry felt Léon’s fingers running through his hair a little tighter as he played with the strands, calming the strong emotions that rose to the fore.

“I could see so far. I felt like I could see all of France, and even further again. And I looked down, straight down at the ground below, and I felt so sick, and so scared. And there were all the hills and the land in the distance. And it was so peaceful. But I was so high up.”

Henry lowered his lips to kiss Léon’s chest. “That’s how I make you feel?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

Henry rolled onto his front.

“Good.” Before Léon could express his surprise at the answer, Henry kissed him.

“We’re going to make for those trees, Léon. Those hills. All of France and beyond. And we’re going to do it together.” He stifled another objection with his lips, only broken when Léon’s hand accidentally settled on his arm, right on the bullet wound.

Henry drew it away with a pained breath, and Léon sat bolt upright, locking eyes on it for the first time since he’d cleaned it at the lodging house.

Henry attempted to hide it, but Léon’s fingers drew tight around his wrist. “This is bad.” The skin wrapping Henry’s entire upper biceps was bruised, reddy purple all over, and the wound…

He wrenched it away.

“It’s fine.” He grinned tight against the truth.

“I just need some vinegar. Or some salt or something.”

“That’s not fine. Didn’t they treat you in prison at all?” The thought of the filth in there infecting Henry’s wound horrified Léon.

“I don’t think they go out of their way for prisoners they’re about to burn,” Henry rebutted.

Léon’s cool hand touched Henry's forehead. “Do you feel okay? You shouldn’t mess around with things like that. It’s very dangerous.”

Henry leaned into his touch. “I feel perfectly well. Can’t you tell?”

His look was lascivious, and it pulled a blush from Léon, making him reach for his clothes. “We’ll find a doctor.”

Henry scoffed, pulling Léon’s sweater over his head. “I don’t need a doctor. But there is something I need to do…” His eyes fluttered up to Léon, curiously shy. “I need to show you something. Important. Come outside with me.”