Lacuna - N.R. Walker Page 0,112

its wings moving slowly, in full, glorious flight. It swooped down toward Crow’s hand, and crossed onto his fingers, flying over his hand and around to his wrist.

The koi birthmark on Crow’s neck flicked its tail and dived under the surface, re-emerging down his chest, then swimming downward. His skin appeared to ripple when the fish broke for air before it disappeared again, swimming down past his navel. After a moment it reappeared on Tancho’s hip, and he laughed.

Tancho took Crow’s hand and kissed the inside of Crow’s wrist and this dance, this marking and remarking each other, making love and owning each other’s bodies . . . was all Crow would ever need.

When they were both sated and spent, they bathed by the fire, facing each other in the tub. Tancho sank down to his chin in the water, smiling. His red hair was tied off in some gravity-defying knot on the top of his head, and his foot was on Crow’s thigh under the water, Crow massaging it gently. “Why do you look at me like that?” Tancho asked.

Crow kept his gaze fixed on Tancho’s. “Because my heart belongs to you.”

Tancho’s smile became something else, something akin to magick. “As mine belongs to you, Crow, King of Northlands.”

“How do we move forward from here?” Crow asked. “You have your kingdom, I have mine. We have obligations, responsibilities . . .”

“And we have a doorway from your house to mine,” Tancho said simply. “And when we’re together, time is kind to us.”

“When we touch,” Crow amended warmly. “Skin contact.”

“Then you best make sure you’re always touching me,” Tancho added with a sly smile. But then he sighed. “Truthfully, Crow, you and I can appreciate our birthrights more than anyone else could ever dare to. I understand your obligations and the weight of responsibilities you bear. And you understand mine. Our people come first.”

“Agreed.”

“There will be times when it won’t be easy.”

“Agreed.” Crow sighed, digging his thumbs into Tancho’s perfect foot. “But it will be worth it.”

Tancho sat up in the bath, and with his arms around Crow’s neck, he straddled his hips. He gave him a smiling kiss. “It will be worth it.”

Crow put his hands on Tancho’s hips and stilled him. “We should check in,” he said. “You said we wouldn’t be gone long.”

“But we’ve spent all this time making skin-to-skin contact,” Tancho murmured. “Time has been but a crawl for everyone but us.”

Crow chuckled. “Have you not had enough?”

Tancho pressed himself against him, letting him feel his arousal. “We don’t know how long we’ll have the ability to slow the world. I’d hate to waste it.”

Surely their ability to affect time was a direct correlation to the eclipse, and their slowing of time when they touched would lessen the further the axis of syzygy fell from the Corvus and Pisces constellations. Only time would tell. Though Crow hoped they’d have it forever.

He grinned at Tancho, then stood up in the bath. Tancho held on, wrapping his legs around him, and Crow carried him out of the tub and laid him down in front of the fire so they could get dry and keep warm. He covered Tancho’s body with his own, and Tancho gasped as Crow kissed his way down Tancho’s pale skin. Delicious skin illuminated by the fire, and while the fire roared in slow motion and the snow flurries outside the window hung in mid-air like ornaments, a small blackbird and brazen koi fish took flight in real-time on their skin.

“This is too big and exactly the wrong colour,” Tancho griped, buttoning one of Crow’s shirts. “A part of Asagi will die when he sees me in black.”

“If it pleases you any,” Crow countered. “A part of me likes it very much to see you in my clothes.”

Tancho clearly tried to be annoyed, but a smile won out. “And if it pleases you any, I like it very much to wear them. Though if you tell anyone I said that, I will deny it.”

“You could always wear the clothes you wore yesterday.” Crow gestured to the pile of dirty, blood-spattered and torn clothes strewn across the floor near the bed.

Tancho smiled, smug and lovely. “I have fond memories of how those clothes came off but I don’t think they’re salvageable.”

“No,” Crow said, picking up his chest armour from near the door. He inspected the four huge talon marks gouged across it, shaking his head. “Close call, huh?”

Tancho frowned at that. “You were protecting me.”

Crow shrugged.