Page 7 of Silver & Gold
“You were outside the bookshop that Malik had taken me to. When the sand serpent struck the wall, when it shook the buildings, I stepped outside the shop and saw you. Then you were gone, racing toward the fight. You had come to find me, hadn’t you?”
“But I wasn’t thinking clearly. My head was such a mess and I kept throwing up—”
“Ah, shit, Raider.”
“—so I don’t know if I would’ve talked to you or not. But then there was the sand serpent fight and my head got even more messed up because of—” Raider cut himself off.
“The quicksilver,” Seth filled in. When Raider didn’t respond, Seth added, “I’d never seen it like that before. It scared you.”
Raider still didn’t say anything, and that was answer enough. It had scared him. It had scared Seth too, and it hadn’t even been his body. To think that such a thing had been forced on Raider, done to him against his will …
And then what? How had the emperor’s death really come about? Because this changed the whole picture.
But right now, the answers didn’t matter. The anger coiling around Seth’s heart at what had been done to Raider didn’t matter.
Right now, all that mattered was that Raider was here in Seth’s arms. And even if Seth didn’t deserve this second chance, he wasn’t going to waste it.
He said, “You needed me today, but you didn’t think you could trust me, and I’m really, really sorry for that.”
“It’s not your fault, Seth. You hadn’t done anything wrong. I’m the one who—”
“It is my fault. Because maybe if I’d told you how much I love you”—Raider sucked in a breath—“things would have been different. Maybe if I’d told you how much I love you”—Raider’s chest started heaving against Seth’s hand—“you would’ve understood that I would never, ever hurt you like you were imagining.”
“Oh, fuck, Seth,” Raider choked out, rolling over in Seth’s arms, “I fucking love you too.”
The tears came out of nowhere, and Seth’s chest hurt so damn much from everything that rushed into it that for a second he couldn’t even feel anything but that beautiful ache.
Raider always did this. He opened the way for Seth. With his vulnerability. With his forgiveness. Seth didn’t deserve it, but he was so damn grateful for it.
Then Raider started kissing him, and Seth let himself surrender fully to the man he loved. Raider’s tongue swept into his mouth, stroking against Seth’s, centering him. His desire for Raider, always just barely held in check, surged hard and fast, heating his body, thickening his cock.
Seth kept one hand on Raider’s back and slid the other down to his ass, hauling him closer, needing every inch of contact. He slotted one leg between Raider’s then moaned when Raider’s erection pressed against his own.
They rocked against each other and, gods, it felt good. It felt right. Nothing in Seth’s life had ever felt right like Raider did.
Seth reached between their bodies, sliding his hand down Raider’s belly and inside his pants. Raider sucked in a breath when Seth’s hand curled around his cock. Seth stroked leisurely, just wanting Raider to feel good, wanting him to feel how much Seth loved and cared about him.
Raider let out a shuddering breath and pressed his face into Seth’s neck. It was the most beautiful feeling, having Raider accept the unhurried pleasure that Seth gave him, feeling the way Raider’s fingers tightened on his hip, feeling every puff of Raider’s breath against his throat.
Seth massaged Raider’s balls with his fingertips before stroking upward again, loving the thick, rigid length of his cock, loving the sounds Raider made as Seth stroked the broad, flared head.
Seth didn’t even want sex. He just wanted to feel Raider enjoying his touch. He wanted it to last forever.
But it ended abruptly when Raider froze. Which made Seth freeze. Then Raider pulled free of Seth’s grip, rolling away onto his other side.
“Raider, what—”
When Raider scrambled up, Seth was so stunned that for a second he could only stare after Raider as he bolted away, vanishing into the night shadows of the olive grove. Then he heard crashing through the undergrowth and Raider’s shout and also a high-pitched, yowling shriek.
Seth launched himself to his feet and raced toward the fight. His first thought was that Rahim’s men had caught up with them, but the yowls sounded more like an animal.
Lacking Raider’s arcane night vision, Seth tripped and stumbled through the scrubby undergrowth and deadfall until he reached the scene, dimly lit by the moon. Raider was being dragged across the ground by—
The ifrit!
It was in its true form. About the size of a large cat, which was its other form, the little blue creature was vaguely human-looking from the waist up. Its lower body was a wafting tail of blue smoke.
Raider had a hold of one thin limb. He was clearly trying to keep the ifrit from escaping, but the creature dragged him with a strength out of proportion with its size.