Threadbound, p.29
Threadbound, page 29
Bran wanted Jamie back beside him.
It was the opposite of what he’d expected.
He’d thought, once he’d resigned himself to going through with the threadbinding, that the magic would cement their connection so that he could move through the world without constantly needing to be near Jamie Weaver. But now that the threadbond was complete, he could barely stand to be on the other side of the room. It was turning his stomach in knots, even though he smiled and pretended to every well-wisher that he was so much better than he had been.
The glimpses he’d caught of Jamie in the crowd were of his profile, the back of his messy blond head, a crescent of smooth, tanned shoulder. Never his eyes, brilliant blue and impossibly warm despite their cool shade.
Yet this time, when Bran turned away from yet another well-wisher—a morgen friend of his mother’s, Gath nì Sleagh, her skin and hair pale shades of green—he almost immediately met those blue eyes with his own. And then Bran found himself carefully moving through the press of limbs and wings and hooves, drawn to Jamie like the proverbial moth to the flame.
Jamie had, or so it appeared, taken refuge from the press of people by tucking himself into the shadow of a draped branch heavy with fragrant purple blossoms. Bran walked up to him, finding himself oddly both calm and nervous at being close to Jamie.
Jamie offered that slightly crooked smile that curved half his mouth. “Hey.”
Bran pressed his fingers together, the talons at their tips softly clicking. “Are you…?” He wasn’t sure how to finish his question.
“Are you?” Jamie asked him.
“It’s not quite what I expected,” Bran admitted softly.
Jamie’s expression darkened. “Do you still feel sick?” he asked, clearly concerned.
Bran shook his head, a few feathers brushing against his cheeks with the motion. “No. Tired, but not as tired as I have been.”
“Then what’s wrong?” Jamie asked, his voice low and gentle.
Bran bit his lower lip. “I dinna know that there’s anything wrong,” he answered. “I just…”
“You wanted it to fix everything, and it didn’t?”
“No.” That wasn’t it at all. He hadn’t actually been certain the threadbinding would fix anything—either because depriving himself of magic had caused permanent damage (something that still might be true) or because it was the geàrd soilleir’s poison causing his lingering illness. Or perhaps both.
The problem, if ‘problem’ it could be called, was that the threadbond had only increased the pull he felt in his blood and bones. He was more, not less, aware of Jamie, more drawn to him. More drawn in by him.
And he had no idea how Jamie felt about any of it.
Bran tried to offer a weak smile. “It’s just… new. And strange.”
Jamie let out a soft huff of laughter, and it made Bran’s stomach feel odd again. “It’s definitely strange,” Jamie agreed.
Bran let his head drop. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, something like acid pressing against the back of his throat.
“Bran—” Jamie’s voice sounded pained, and Bran felt himself flinch from it.
This was ridiculous. He shouldn’t be… what? It wasn’t like he was afraid of Jamie. He just… didn’t want to be responsible for causing Jamie pain or distress. And it was definitely his fault that Jamie was here, in Elfhame, having just spent five days surrounded by strangers who were utterly alien to him.
And then one of Jamie’s big, warm hands reached out and took Bran’s anxious fingers, interweaving them with his own. And Bran felt something open up inside his ribcage even as his heart trembled like a frightened rabbit behind his sternum.
“Don’t apologize,” Jamie said, his voice still low and soft.
Bran dared to look up, finding Jamie’s blue eyes focused on him, his fair features kind. “You wouldna be here if not for me,” Bran pointed out.
Jamie’s fingers tightened around his own. “And I’d never have known that my mother was right about fairies—fae.”
Bran grimaced. “I am na’ entirely certain that will prove to be a benefit,” he muttered.
After all, Jamie would now be dragged into the war that was the whole reason Bran had needed to stabilize his magic to begin with.
Oh, blessed Dunatis, no.
He couldn’t bring Jamie into a war. Jamie was the complete inverse of a warrior—gentle, kind, cautious, nurturing. He wouldn’t last five seconds on a fae battlefield. Right now, neither would Bran. But Jamie…
Yet everyone in the Court of Shades would now expect to see him, either wading into the blood or helping to clean it up. And Bran had no idea if Jamie would be willing to do either.
“I don’t think I like what you’re thinking,” Jamie murmured.
“You wouldna,” Bran confirmed, his stomach roiling once again.
“You’re going to send me back to Dunehame so you can get back to your pre-Jamie life?”
Bran snapped his head up. “No, of course not.”
Jamie raised both eyebrows. “Of course not?” he echoed.
“I dinna—I am na’ going to send you back.”
“I have to stay here?”
“No!”
“Then…?”
Bran ran his free hand through his hair. “You can come or go as you please,” he said. “Or, rather, I’ll take you back whenever you want to go. Or not.”
He looked away from that penetrating blue gaze again.
“What do you want me to do?” Jamie asked him.
I can’t tell him that.
“I canna make that decision for you,” Bran whispered. Please stay. Or please ask me to come with you. Bran could be content with either.
“I didn’t ask you to decide for me,” Jamie replied, his thumb stroking over the skin of Bran’s knuckles. “I asked what you wanted.”
Bran looked up again, wondering if he’d successfully managed to keep the suddenly raw desperation from his face. “Jamie, I canna—”
Jamie sighed, the sound interrupting Bran’s miserable excuse.
“Just… answer one question for me?”
Bran nodded, wondering if he was a fool for agreeing.
“Did you ever want…” Jamie’s throat worked, and Bran could feel a matching ball in the back of his own, like a stone or an egg swallowed whole. “Hell,” Jamie breathed. “I don’t even know how to ask the question.”
Bran waited, his whole chest tight with it.
“You came to find me because of the threadbond,” Jamie said, his voice tense and his eyes fixed on Bran’s face. “To fix your magic.”
Bran nodded.
“Was there ever anything more to it?” Jamie asked, his cheeks flushing.
“Aye,” Bran whispered. Because there had been. And there still was. Because if it had all been about his magic, he wouldn’t be nauseous at the thought that Jamie might ask to go back to Edinburgh and be left there. Alone.
Jamie sighed again. “Then why do I feel… I don’t know. Lonely?”
That hit Bran like a punch to the solar plexus. “Jamie, I—”
But Jamie was shaking his head. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Everyone—” He gestured around them with the hand that wasn’t holding Bran’s. “—is celebrating, and as far as I can tell, it’s all about you stabilizing your magic, which is great,” he hurried on to say. “I’m glad. Really. I just… I don’t know.”
“Wanted more than that?” Bran asked, half swallowing the words.
“Maybe.” Jamie frowned. “I don’t know.”
Jamie dropped his head, staring down at their joined hands, the pale pink of his fingers against the black ridges and knobbed knuckles of Bran’s. So utterly inhuman, and yet Jamie couldn’t help the feeling that Bran’s hand belonged in his. He certainly didn’t want to let go of it, since at that precise moment Jamie felt like the only thing that made any sense at all was the warmth of Bran’s fingers and the solid feel of the skin and muscle and bones of his hand in Jamie’s.
“I don’t belong here,” Jamie blurted. “I’m just a stupid human, and all this is…” He didn’t know what it was. Didn’t have the words to explain how he strangely felt both closer and farther away from Bran, even though the fae was standing right in front of him, a frown on his eerily beautiful features.
“Do you want to go?” Bran asked him.
“Go? I mean—aren’t we expected to be here?”
Jamie couldn’t read the expression that twitched across Bran’s face. “Ah—I believe they wouldna be surprised if we disappeared,” he replied, then inclined his head toward a small arched alcove in which—with some horror—Jamie spied three individuals wrapped around one another without so much as a stitch of clothing.
He felt his whole face catch on fire. “Um. Are—do we—Eadar said we wouldn’t be expected—”
“It’s not necessary,” Bran confirmed. “But it’s—perhaps expected more often than not that threadbound are also lovers. No one would comment if we were to disappear—they would simply assume.” He shrugged. “But if that bothers—”
“It doesn’t,” Jamie blurted. While he didn’t particularly relish the idea that the entire Sluagh court might be imagining them having sex, he also didn’t want Bran to think he was repulsed by the idea, which he most definitely was not.
The look Bran was giving him made his blush even hotter.
“I dinna see a need to continue having inane conversations with every member of the Court of Shades,” Bran said. “If you’d like—”
“Yes.” He blurted the word out. “Please,” Jamie added.
Bran’s lips twitched, and he led Jamie back through the courtyard, periodically replying to a comment here and there that Jamie mostly ignored or tried not to think about, his cheeks still warm.
He followed Bran blindly though the mossy stone halls until they stopped in front of a door. Bran let go of his hand, and Jamie almost protested. “Here you are,” the fae said, his voice oddly quiet and… something. Jamie wasn’t sure what, but he seemed… disappointed? Sad?
Jamie wanted to stick his hands in his pockets, but his fae-made trousers didn’t have any. He missed his jeans. “I—are you going back?” he asked. “To the party?”
Bran shook his head, his moss-green eyes watchful.
“You could… stay? For a bit, anyway. I—Someone should probably explain to me what just happened.”
Bran’s lips twitched. “If you like.”
“I—yes. If you want, that is.”
Bran nodded, and Jamie pushed open his door, walking inside, uncertain about what he wanted to happen. Someone had put a vase of flowers on a table beside the bed—but it seemed that Patch had, indeed, given up on Jamie, as the gealach marcaiche was nowhere to be seen.
Jamie kept his head down and turned to look out the window, nervous, anxious, and a little disappointed that Patch had flown off, although that was a secondary concern at that moment. “So what happens now?” he asked. “Since the threadbond is complete, I mean.”
He heard Bran close the door and move through the room, although he made as little noise in this form as he had in his human one, walking barefoot through Jamie’s tiny apartment. “That’s mostly up to you,” Bran answered. “Where you want to go. How—close you want me to be.”
I want you literally right next to me, Jamie couldn’t help but think. I want your hand back in mine. But would Bran be willing to live in the human world, now that he had a choice? Away from his family and the obligations that he clearly had and that no one would explain to Jamie?
Jamie supposed that raised the opposing question, as well—would he be willing to live in the fae world just to stay close to Bran? It wasn’t an easy question. He was building a life, a career. He had his dissertation and Trixie and Rob and his half-siblings, whom he wanted someday to be able to reconnect with, since it wasn’t their fault their father was a raging, abusive alcoholic.
Maybe there was some way to do both?
If Bran was even interested in the possibility, really. The idea that he was putting it on Jamie—it sounded on the one hand like he might be interested in something more than just… what? Jamie didn’t know what a threadbond was supposed to be like. Did they have to be within a few miles of each other? In the same world?
“What does that mean?” he wanted to know. “Like, is there a… distance limit? You have to stay within five miles or something?”
“No,” Bran replied, and he sounded oddly disappointed again. “The bond is complete. We dinna have to stay geographically close. Or even in the same world.”
“Oh.” Jamie blinked rapidly as he stared out the window at the night sky, full of unfamiliar and beautiful stars. “So we each go back to our lives, then?” The words tasted like ash in his mouth, bitter and burnt.
“If that’s what you want,” Bran replied.
Jamie made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. “I don’t know the least thing about this,” he protested. “I don’t know how it works, I don’t know the rules, and I don’t know the expectations. Stop asking what I want. I don’t even know what my options are, so how can I know what I want?” Breathing hard, he set his hands on the ledge, staring down at them as though they’d somehow failed him.
“I—I dinna know, either,” Bran’s voice replied, his brogue thicker than normal. “You’re not a fae—”
“That’s abundantly bloody clear, thanks,” Jamie snapped.
Bran was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again, there might have been hurt in the words. “Not what I meant, Jamie. I dinna know how to explain, how to be around you. If you were a fae, I’d know what to do. But I dinna know if—I dinna know.”
“What would you do, then, if I were fae?” Jamie asked roughly, not quite ready to let go of his frustration.
Silence again, and Jamie wondered if he’d made Bran angry. At least that would mean that the fae actually cared.
Then Bran spoke again, although his voice was soft and hesitant and Jamie wasn’t sure what emotion underlay the words. “I’d come up behind you, put my hands on your back, and rest my cheek against your spine.”
Jamie’s pulse hammered, frantic, beneath his ribs. He spoke the words to himself, not intending Bran to hear. “I wish.”
He twitched when a hand settled on one hip, but didn’t pull away, and another came to rest on the other side, then gentle, warm pressure against his spine, and emotion welled up in Jamie’s throat. It took three swallows before he could speak.
“I guess fae have really good hearing,” he murmured.
“Some of us,” came the answer, a slight vibration against his skin.
Jamie licked his lips, almost afraid to move, not wanting to startle Bran or make him pull away. “What would you do next, if I were fae?” he asked, almost swallowing the words.
He felt Bran breathe against him for a few moments, then the hands on his hips came around his waist, settling on his stomach, and Jamie covered Bran’s hands with his own. He thought that had been his answer, but then Bran spoke again. “If you were fae, you’d turn around,” he said softly.
So Jamie did, his fingers sliding along Bran’s arms as he turned until they were facing each other, the much smaller fae looking up at him, his expression wary, but also something else Jamie couldn’t identify.
“Then what?” Jamie asked, heart in his throat.
Bran’s tongue, surprisingly pink against the starker colors of his lips and skin, darted out to wet his lower lip, and his deep green eyes bored into Jamie’s blue ones. His hands unclasped, sliding around Jamie’s torso until they slid up to rest on his chest. “Then I’d start undoing these buttons,” came the answer, and Jamie stopped breathing for a second.
Then Jamie nodded, and those fingers, which didn’t look like they were at all designed to undo buttons, deftly began unhooking them, starting at the top of the vest.
“Wait,” he heard himself say, and Bran’s fingers stopped. He didn’t know where this boldness came from, but he let it happen. “If you were human, I’d want to kiss you now.”
Bran’s hands relaxed back against Jamie’s chest. “Please,” the fae breathed.
Jamie bent, cupping Bran’s almost delicate face in his hands before capturing Bran’s mouth with his own. He’d meant it to be sweet and tender, maybe with a promise of something more, but the minute his lips touched Bran’s it felt like fire surged through him, and the kiss turned possessive.
Jamie was not a possessive lover. He had never been the one to push ahead, tending to follow instructions or assume a more passive position.
But this was Bran, and whether it was magic in his blood or the thread under his breastbone or just the fact that it was Bran, Jamie wanted it to be abundantly clear what he wanted. He nudged at Bran’s lips with his tongue, gentle but demanding, and Bran melted in his hands, those long, dark fingers tightening in the fabric of his vest as Jamie plundered Bran’s mouth.
Blood surged south when Bran made a small whimper, and Jamie kissed him harder, catching Bran’s lower lip with his teeth before letting it go, lifting his head to look down at the flush on Bran’s cheeks.
“What next?” Jamie breathed.
Bran looked almost startled, then refocused on Jamie’s chest. “I still havena finished with these,” he answered, fingers going back to undoing the buttons on Jamie’s vest.
Jamie waited, his hands resting on Bran’s waist, the feeling of the fae’s slight body comfortable under his palms.
When Bran had undone the last button, he paused just a fraction of a second, then ran his hands over the skin of Jamie’s chest and stomach. Those dexterous fingers paused at the waist of Jamie’s trousers.
“Next?” Jamie asked, breathless.
“I’d undo these,” Bran answered, the tips of two fingers hooking in the waistband.
Jamie nodded, and that was all the permission Bran needed, fingers just as nimble as they undid the placard at the front.
Fae didn’t wear underwear, and they hadn’t seen fit to provide Jamie with any, either. It hadn’t been his first time going commando, but he’d never in his life been more glad of it than when Bran’s fingers brushed against the semi-hard heat of his erection.
