Page 50 of The Sorcerer's Alpha

Marut’s heart stopped its painful throbbing for a moment, then began again at a faster pace. “What?”

“I want you with me.” Sycamore’s eyes searched Marut’s face, his expression open with hope and fear, as unguarded as Marut had ever seen him. “Stay with me when I go into confinement.”

“But what if we,” Marut said, his lips numb as he spoke. “If we bond—”

“I don’t care. So we bond, then. So I’ll have you this winter and then grieve you for the rest of my days. I’ll accept that bargain.” Sycamore turned his head away at last, breaking the eye contact that was searing Marut from his scalp to the bottoms of his boots. “In the last moments before my death, what I’ll regret most is not spending every possible day with you.”

“Sycamore,” Marut said. His head felt unnaturally light, as if it were about to float away. “You aren’t in your right mind. Your heat—”

“I’ve been thinking about this for weeks. I haven’t been in my right mind since the first time you touched me. Do you remember? You put your hand on my heel when you taught me how to mount Rhododendron. An entire lifetime ago.”

“I do remember,” Marut said. He stood and held the quail before him as if to fend Sycamore off. “Let’s go in and eat.”

Sycamore’s hot eyes burned him all through their meal, but he didn’t say anything further about his heat, and said nothing when they went to bed together later, although he kissed Marut hungrily and came nearly as soon as Marut pushed inside him. Marut lay awake in the dark for a long time after Sycamore had fallen asleep beside him, his thoughts spinning around and around like a child’s rolling hoop.

He had never considered bonding as a possibility before he met Sycamore. There were no omegas on offer for a simple scout like him; they were all married off to the wealthy or sequestered away in a temple. He had little idea what bonding involved. Purya always got a dreamy look on his face when he mentioned his bond with Diya, but he had never provided any details about what it was like.

He didn’t need to bond with Sycamore to grieve him for the rest of his days. Sycamore was already woven so deeply within his heart that there was no tearing him out. He would think of these months in the steppe as the brightest, warmest time of his life, even years from now when he was old and his memory was fading. He would never leave Sycamore behind.

An easy choice to make, then.

Sycamore was slow to rise in the morning and sat hunched at the table as Marut prepared their breakfast. He would go into confinement today, Marut thought.

“Ask me again,” Marut said, as he set Sycamore’s plate in front of him.

Sycamore looked up at him, eyes glassy. “Ask you what?”

Marut looked at him without speaking until Sycamore’s expression shifted from bafflement to sweet, dawning hope. Sycamore sat up straight and drew his shoulders back.

“Marut,” he said. “Stay with me during heat.”

“Gladly,” Marut said.

* * *

At Sycamore’s insistence,Marut went off to tell Temur that they would both be out of commission for several days. “I suspect he’ll understand you well enough if you speak Chedoy to him,” Sycamore said. “And if not, use hand gestures.”

“What hand gestures would those be,” Marut said, his mouth sliding to the left the way it did when he was trying not to smile.

“Go away now,” Sycamore said, and Marut laughed as he went out the door.

Alone, Sycamore set a pan of water on the stove to heat. He hardly wanted Marut breathing down his neck during the early stages of heat, when he was restless and irritable. He wanted to take a bath and have a few minutes to let his thoughts settle. There was still time to change his mind and bar the door against Marut’s return, but he knew he wasn’t going to. He could find no uncertainty or doubt within himself. After weeks of agonizing over his options, he had made his choice.

He bathed himself as thoroughly as he could, crouched in the small washtub as his skin prickled with chill despite the warmth flaring through his veins. The touch of his own hands brought him to arousal. His heat was coming on swift and hard, and no wonder when he spent every night sleeping in an alpha’s arms. He was primed for it.

He didn’t bother to dress or empty the washtub. He crawled naked into their bed, one of Marut’s carvings clutched in his hand—his current project, a horse he had been laboring over most evenings as they sat by the stove. For the first time, Sycamore let himself read the impressions from something of Marut’s. Marut worked on the carving while he talked with Sycamore, and the wood spoke of Marut’s great affection and longing, the fondness he felt at the way Sycamore prodded the corner of his jaw when he was thinking, which Sycamore hadn’t realized he did. Marut had little to say about his thoughts or feelings, but the wood sang with them, richly textured and laced through with—with love, Sycamore thought, and closed his fist around the small horse.

His chest thrummed with a sharp-edged elation. He was certain they were going to bond, and it would bring them both to ruin. Well, so be it.

Marut was gone for longer than he had expected. Sycamore’s blood heated and stirred as he lay wrapped in blankets that smelled like them both. He slicked and softened, readying to take Marut’s knot, and thinking about that had him squirming and reaching down to tease his fingers along his shaft. He didn’t know what it would feel like, but he had a good imagination.

Just when he was about to put his coat on and go looking for Marut, confinement be damned, the door opened and Marut came into the tent. He stopped there at the threshold, his nostrils flaring, until Sycamore said, “Close the door and come here.”

Marut tore at his sash as he crossed the tent, his scent spiking with arousal. He shoved his coat from his shoulders and let it drop to the floor. At the side of the bed, he stopped long enough to kick off his boots and push down his trousers. Then he was nude and fully hard, and he gazed down at Sycamore as Sycamore pushed the blankets aside to welcome him in.

“It’s come on so fast,” Marut said. He was making no effort to guard his expression, and Sycamore could see the tenderness and anticipation marked across his face with a firm hand. He ran his hand over Sycamore’s damp hair, and Sycamore turned his head into the touch.

“It’s not full heat yet,” Sycamore said. “But soon.”