28. Killian

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

KILLIAN

L eaving the meeting without Orestes at my side felt wrong.

I, of all people, knew that change was the only constant. That someone who had spent a decade at your side could be snatched away in a second. All it took was a moment of inattention, a too-long winter, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was used to losing people. It was the one thing I'd done more than any other in my life.

But Orestes had lasted longer than most. He'd been by my side for ten summers, through pain and joy and every other thing the world had visited upon us.

He had to leave or he'd stay till he died, Minerva had said.

Funny how no one ever said that about me. About any Crane.

Like it was a tragedy if someone else died on the wall, but that was simply the lot of the Crane, to die for Nemeda.

Still, Hector was with me as we packed things up to leave. We didn't have to bring the bolt thrower with us, at least. It was staying as a single point of defense between Nemeda and Urial. It seemed reasonable, since the thing could fight off the entire nonexistent Urial army without even having someone who could operate it, and the Vulture could do that.

We were taking the wagon with us. Traveling through Hawk lands on the way, as Brett had offered to send food home with us, since we had to make the trek on foot anyway.

I gave a heavy sigh as I tossed my pack into the otherwise empty back of the wagon.

Hector raised a brow at me. "Something wrong?"

There was nothing wrong with him. He'd been sunnily pleased with the whole world since... well, since. I couldn't blame him, because it had been incredible. The best sex I'd ever had, by a wide fucking margin. He was as beautiful as I'd always imagined him, his body lithe and quick, his ass hot and tight and?—

He lifted a brow at me, a tiny smirk playing around the corners of his lips. "You look like you want to go set the tent back up."

"Fuck the tent," I said, pressing him up against the side of the wagon. He'd seemed pleased enough to have me there, yes. Repeatedly, until my thighs had burned with the effort, and I hadn't been sure I could even manage to get my cock hard again...

Not that it had failed me yet. Five times in a day, and every time he cut those honey-brown eyes in my direction, it stirred once again for him.

I grabbed the back of his neck, pressing hard against him and kissing him as though I were drowning, and he was my only source of air. Maybe he was. I'd known him less than a year, lived with him for a single season, and yet he felt necessary. Imagining him gone from my side was even harder than feeling the loss of Orestes, my most stalwart of companions.

But he was on his way to Urial by now.

That was enough to kill any mood.

I sighed and turned away. "I can't believe we're walking home. Like some sort of four-legged creatures."

Somehow, Hector didn't take offense. Or if he did, he hid it well, which would have been a first. No, he laughed. "Or like two-legged creatures. You know, humans. Which we are."

I heaved a deep sigh and glanced up at the sky, where we could still see the Crane contingent in the distance.

"You could just go with them, you know," he said, his voice soft. When I looked at him, his eyes were even softer. Sympathetic?

I shook my head. "The wagon requires two people," I insisted. It was mostly true, at least. "Especially after we get to Hawk lands and they fill it with food. It's harder to steer when it's that heavy."

He shrugged even as he reached out to cup my cheek. The motion was something new. Confident in a way he hadn't been before. Proprietary. There, again, was the stirring of my cock in answer to him being the sexiest fucking thing in the whole of Nemeda. Or Urial, I supposed. "I'm sure Brett and Paris would be willing to send someone along to help me. I'd never keep you from your people deliberately."

This, though, was my turn to be reassuring. Not because I thought him weak, but because I was sure he didn't know the truth. Because he'd gotten too little reassurance in his life. He'd always been the one doing the reassuring. "You are one of my people, Hector. As much as you're also more than that now, you're mine. I would never leave you alone. Even if you know the way. Even if you'll be okay on your own. It doesn't work that way in Nemeda, and you're one of us."

He swallowed hard, as though the words were something entirely unexpected, and instead of speaking, he simply nodded. We climbed into the wagon in silence, and I offered him the reins. Not that I'd ever hesitated to let someone other than me take the reins in a wagon, but something about it felt symbolic anyway. Hector had been forced into the background, to do the dirty, unappreciated work, for too long. It was time for him to be in front. To do the glory jobs, like showing off his bolt thrower to the clan chiefs like had had on the first day of our meeting.

It was time for people to know that he was something special.

Also, we'd had sex.

Hector was going to come down with Avianitis.

It wasn't really a question, but a matter of when, and how bad. I couldn't leave him alone even if it was what we both wanted, because he was going to get sick, probably soon. It would kill me if he didn't survive it—a fact that was running on a loop through my own lust-addled brain. Yes, his brother and sister had both survived it, which spoke to a predisposition to strength in their bloodline. And Hector had already survived poisoning that should have killed him. But this was different. I hadn't given him the poison, and I had most definitely given him this.

I'd never believed love was a real thing to begin with, so that meant any outsider who had sex with a Nemedan was in danger.

But now?

Well, now I was starting to think it didn't matter. Because if love was real, and it was what caused Avianitis... well, I was pretty sure I'd already saddled Hector with that, too.