Page 73 of The Sorcerer's Alpha

Bayarmaa left the door of the tent open to let in the warm breeze. She served fermented milk and a dish of fresh cloudberries, and fussed at Temur when he tried to get up to help. Sycamore guessed that Temur’s hips had grown worse and was sorry for it, although Temur seemed no different in any other respect.

“I’m sorry to appear so unexpectedly,” Sycamore said when they settled. “I don’t really know where to begin explaining what’s happened.”

“You wish to remain here, I take it,” Bayarmaa said with a glance at Marut.

Sycamore drew an unsteady breath. “If you’ll have us.”

“Will we?” Bayarmaa looked at Temur, who rolled his eyes. “Very well. You may be of Twin Rams now, for as long as you so choose, or until the sun sets behind the mountains.”

Her words had the sound of ritual. A chill prickled Sycamore’s skin. He reached for Marut and laid his hand on Marut’s thigh, feeling the warmth of him through his trousers, the sturdy shape of his body. They would never be parted.

Marut shot him a puzzled glance, and Sycamore pushed reassurance at him through the bond. He would explain later.

“Your tent has been claimed by Khalian and her new husband,” Bayarmaa continued in her normal tone. “We’ll make you a new one, but that will take some days.”

“They can sleep here in the meantime,” Temur cut in.

Bayarmaa nodded. “Then all is settled. Everything else can wait until you’ve rested.” She smiled then, her wrinkled face creasing. “It pleases me to have you with us. We have a good life here in our steppe. I pray you’ll be happy here.”

Sycamore looked at Marut, who was already watching him, his gaze tender. “We will be,” Sycamore said.

Bayarmaa went off then, saying she needed to find her daughter. She left the door open behind her, and the sounds of life in the camp drifted in: a baby crying, a sheep baaing, someone playing a fiddle in the distance.

“Well,” Temur said. “Will you tell me what happened?”

Sycamore drew a deep breath and began.

“So, as you see,” he said, after he had told the whole story: crossing the mountains, and their return to Banuri, and his capture in the Kasauli, and what had happened at the fort. “I learned how to do what’s impossible.”

“Yes. I thought you might, once you had the idea put into your head.” Temur drew a hand down his face. “I should have said nothing, but instead I provoked you, and it’s brought you to grief. Forgive me.”

Sycamore shook his head. “We would have died crossing the mountains, otherwise. I wouldn’t have thought to try to transport us. So it’s pointless to wonder what might have happened instead. We would be frozen corpses in the high pass.”

“You’re a pragmatist. Well.” Temur looked at him. “King Aditya will search for you, I imagine.”

“He won’t find me. I’m better at warding than any of his sorcerers are at seeking, and I intend to disappear. No one should have this type of power. I won’t use it for Chedi or for anyone else.”

“You grew up so well,” Temur murmured. “One God bless us all.”

Sycamore didn’t know how to respond. He turned toward Marut, who had been sitting in silence through all of this, listening to a conversation he couldn’t understand. His Marut, for whom he had forsaken king and country and everyone he knew. He felt no regret at his decision, only a slow, sweet ache of love.

Marut smiled at him now, and Sycamore squeezed his thigh. “I do feel blessed,” he said.

* * *

Once their tent was constructed,erecting it was the work of an afternoon, with loud and cheerful help from a number of the Sarnoy. Marut tried to help but soon realized he was only getting in the way, and then stood aside to watch how they did it so he would know the next time.

Sycamore came along toward the end of the process, when everyone was making sure the felt spread across the top of the tent was straight and even. Marut stepped away to greet him with a kiss, ignoring the hooting from the Sarnoy behind him. He would kiss his omega whenever he pleased and no one would stop him.

“Did you miss me?” Sycamore asked, radiating smug pleasure. “I was only with Sarangerel for a few hours.”

“That’s much too long,” Marut said. After months of modulating his emotions, trying to master his feelings for Sycamore so they wouldn’t overwhelm him, he was glad to let love swallow him. He could love Sycamore now with no edge of sorrow. He would never have to say farewell to Sycamore again. If the Sarnoy took him for a besotted fool, they weren’t wrong.

Sycamore’s eyes creased at the corners. “I had to give you a chance to do all the work without me. Although I see you aren’t doing much of the work, either.” He called out something in Sarnoy that Marut couldn’t understand, and the man who seemed to be in charge of the process called something back. Everyone laughed. Sycamore smirked at Marut and said, “He says the Chedoy have no talent for tent-raising.”

“I can’t say he’s wrong.” Marut slid his hand down Sycamore’s arm. “I’ll help them finish. We won’t have a bed tonight, but we can pretend we’re camping on the steppe again.”

“The fondest memories of my life,” Sycamore said, which was just the sort of wry thing he liked to say, but his expression and tone showed that he spoke with complete sincerity.