Tahlen briefly put his chin over Zelli’s shoulder. “It’s been a long time since anyone but Esrin has looked out for me.” He let that float between them as if aware without asking that Zelli was warmed by it. “But you need your rest as well. And since you must touch me, this seems easiest.”
“Easiest?” Zelli echoed, feeling faint.
“Simplest,” Tahlen corrected himself, then withdrew his hand.
“But, Tahlen,” Zelli whispered, only to trail off because he couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t embarrass them both. Tahlen surely already knew what he did to Zelli. He didn’t even object, judging from the night before, although he might if Zelli ended up panting in his lap.
Zelli shifted forward in an attempt to put some space between them, which did not work and made Tahlen put his hand, quite firmly, on Zelli’s hip.
“Simpler if you hold still,” he bit out above Zelli’s ear, his hand tightening.
Zelli shivered but otherwise kept himself motionless. When Tahlen’s grip on him eased, he tried to subtly fall back into a more natural posture while also tipping his head up to catch more of Tahlen’s breath on his neck.
It was dangerous how he fit into Tahlen’s arms.
He belatedly answered, as stiff in manner as Tahlen could be, “If you think it best.”
Tahlen’s answer had an edge. “Am I not allowed to care for you in return?”
Zelli did not see how he had implied otherwise, even if he also had not and did not expect any such care.
“I have never been held before,” he confessed at last, staring down at his hands. “Except by Grandmother.” Tahlen’s dismay was obvious in how he murmured Zelli’s name. Zelli gave a quick shake of his head. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I’ll try to be still.”
“Mizel.” Tahlen’s breath stirred Zelli’s hair, was warm on his neck. “I meant to do better. I’m sorry.” With his face against the back of Zelli’s head, he sighed. “I held you last night,” he explained. At one point during the night, Tahlen’s armhadcurled around Zelli’s waist, but Zelli had thought Tahlen had been sleeping or absently seeking out more warmth. “You don’t have to be still. My problems are my own. If being held is not to your liking, only give the order.” Tahlen’s closeness seemed at odds with those words, and his care as he asked for orders made no sense.
“I think itisto my liking,” Zelli admitted, but sighed at the same time. The day would be torturous. “No need for any order.”
Tahlen pushed out a breath, the irritated one.
Cautiously, Zelli put a hand over Tahlen’s on his hip. “Do you…?” The touching did not help him understand, but his fae relatives seemed to think it would. “Do youwantme to give you orders?”
Tahlen pushed out that breath again. “I scarcely know anymore,” he muttered, then, “I would follow them if you gave them.”
Zelli did not know why he shivered; he was more than warm enough. “Then,” he began, no less cautious or confused, “we should go, if everyone is ready.”
Tahlen straightened immediately.
He might have no expression at all. Zelli knew his own face was red and his lip already sore from how he’d bitten it. But the morning was dark and the fog was thick, and perhaps no one else would see him clearly until he’d had time to calm himself.
He hadn’t been that fortunate once yet on this journey, but he silently asked for it now. Or would have, if they hadn’t started to move and he’d had to immediately drop his head to whimper.
The first time Zelli’s body had been taken over by heat and a clawing hunger for any sort of touch, he had been just at the age to furtively touch himself in the dark of his room at night and many other moments if he was alone. So he had not realized the fever-like feeling was something to distinguish from how he always felt until his second day of locking himself in his room, when various concerned servants and then Grandmother had knocked on his door.
One more humiliation in a life of them, but bearable. Those within the family quarters of the fortress were used to the strange traits sometimes exhibited by Tialttyrins, and he and Grandmother had developed a system where Zelli would let her know if that problem was imminent, and she would make his excuses and have food and drink left by his door—a system they had expanded to include some of his other difficulties when they had begun to appear.
People outside the family, if they thought of Zelli at all, might think he was sickly with how often he had to sequester himself in his room. Some in the family knew, and a couple of the servants must suspect the exact nature of Zelli’s complaints, but, perhaps out of loyalty, did not seem to speak of it.
The last incident had been unexpectedly stronger than any of the previous fevers. But after that, he hadn’t experienced one again. He assumed they were over, that they were part of a fae’s growth and he was too old for them now.
That final fever had come on so immediately and been so instantly overwhelming that Zelli had barely made it to his room in time. The fever must have been building before then and he hadn’t noticed. That’s what he’d told Grandmother later when she’d delicately inquired. People had remarked on Zelli’s sudden illness, she had confided. She had not said which people, but since Tahlen had been the one to watch Zelli flee the archery range, his face red and his walk stiff, he must have been the one to ask.
Zelli had added that humiliation to his collection of them.
At least Tahlen had been concerned, and hopefully had not realized that the unexpected press of his hands to Zelli’s back and waist, the comment above Zelli’s ear aboutformand something else about his shoulders that Zelli truly could not remember, had turned Zelli into a shuddering wreck within a heartbeat.
Then, of course, being Tahlen, he had met Zelli’s gaze when Zelli had turned to stare up at him, goggle up at him, really, his thoughts a lustful blur and his skin aflame. Tahlen had taken the bow from Zelli’s useless hands as well, their fingers brushing.
He’d said something. Zelli had even less of a memory of that, only the sound of Tahlen’s voice, which had stayed with Zelli for the following two days. Two days instead of one or one and a half. Three in truth, but Zelli had made himself rejoin the world after the second day, and buried himself under accounting ledgers.
