Wild Magic Two: The Dark of the Sun- a M/M shifter fantasy romance

19-- Cain's Story

RIECE—

I stiffened the moment Cain began his sentence, and didn't relax until he was finished. As we had lain for the past week, I had my back to Cain, his arms wrapped around me, our fingers entwined at my chest and belly. Our legs were tangled, the bandages on his thigh and my stomach much thinner and less cumbersome and annoying against each other's skin now that we were both nearly healed. The only reason I hadn't been out of bed for days now was because stomach wounds were notoriously tricky, and could turn and get infected without warning, so Lady Sera had encouraged me to stay abed as long as I needed to fully heal.

I complained not at all. Spend days in Cain's arms, as if the rest of the world didn't exist? That would be no hardship.

Not that we didn't have visitors. They came in twos or threes, Lhiam, Edon, Dasan, Nibley, even Robert and his new little shadow— the bobcat shifter that had likely saved our lives during the attack— stopped by to rib Cain for getting injured in the skirmish, and especially for then running through the keep naked. Lhiam seemed to have managed to keep Cain's shifting as quiet as possible, but his friends all now knew, so he took their teasing with good humor and patience.

Cain was quick to return Robert's teasing with his own, however. The bobcat shifter, I was told, had latched onto the older man and refused to leave his side.

Lady Sera was our frequent visitor, changing bandages, forcing us to drink that disgusting tincture that Cain didn't even flinch when he downed, and ensuring we got up and moved around enough to keep healthy while we healed, but not letting us push ourselves into stunting our healing. Especially Cain, who seemed determined to open his stitches. He healed much quicker than I did, but I had a sneaking suspicion Lady Sera kept him abed much longer than he needed for my sake and pleasure alone.

And he silently went along with her subterfuge to be near me, protect me while I healed.

"You don't mourn one who died in battle," Cain growled firmly when my guards came to visit, young River's tears dripping down his face at the loss of Luc. The other men, Dean with only one hand remaining, stood behind River stoically as they nodded somberly at Cain's words. "Among warriors, you celebrate their courage in death, and the life that they lived."

We had spent our moments awake and alone simply lying in each other's arms, testing the feel of our skin, the way Cain's body engulfed mine, how his hands held me close, as if afraid I would jump up and run at any moment. I spoke of what came to mind, Cain spoke very little, and it was the happiest time I could ever remember.

So when Cain finally began to speak, I tried to keep my body relaxed but attentive, so he knew I was listening and would listen for as long as it took for him to get the story out.

"I met Kile when I was barely 15," he said, his breaths tickling my ear as he took a deep breath and let it out, as if bracing himself. "I had been trained, as I said before, as a mercenary. I had just passed all the qualifications to be sold, but just as they were about to, I escaped. I lived on what I could hunt, and survived that way for months, almost a year. That's where I came across them, in the forest near the Tost Province. I think it's technically El'kahr, but the people are a little wilder. Less civilized than those in El'kahr.

"Kile and his gang were almost... kind at first. They took me in, gave me clothes, a job in their crew, a place to belong. There was a lord who lived nearby where they liked to camp out, and he was running the nearby villages into the ground with impossible tax rates and cruelty. So Kile got it into his head to personally take on the lord, and we were heroes... for a while. They called me the Bane of Knotting, because of my part in deposing Lord Knotting. But then Kile enjoyed the power and praise a little too much, began taking what belonged to the villagers we had supposedly saved, and we soon had to run. They turned against us, rightfully so, and Kile was never the same.