“Are you two ready?” Gordon’s voice boomed down the corridor, growing louder as he approached.
Hamish had just managed to convince his body to face the doorway as his brother appeared.
“Why do I smell smo—?” Gordon froze, his mouth still opened. His gaze darted between Hamish and Darshan. “I…” He held up his hands. Only the Goddess could possibly understand what was going through his brother’s mind. “I didnae mean to intrude. I’ll just…” He pointed over his shoulder with both forefingers, backing up even as he mumbled a rushed, “I’ll be in the courtyard.”
Heat blazed across Hamish’s face. “This isnae what it looks like!” he blurted after his brother. It was one thing to be aware that his brother knew Hamish was intimate with Darshan, quite another to have Gordon think he had walked in on such an act.
“I beg to differ,” Darshan grumbled. “I am most certainly asking you to marry me.”
“He wouldnae be thinking that you—” Shaking his head, he let the explanation go unsaid. He could do that once they were out of the castle. “You nae finished asking.”
“I believe I just did.”
“That… that wasnae a question. It’s barely a statement.” With a hint of an order, if he was honest. “And me brother doesnae think you’re proposing, because we dinnae propose like this. He thinks you’re about to suck me off what with you kneeling like you are!”
Darshan swiftly got to his feet. “I hardly think this is the appropriate time or place for that.”
“You’ll get nae disagreement from me there.” Maybe when they were tucked away in some cosy inn room where they could rest and be guaranteed a bit of privacy.
“But I am serious about the proposal. I care not a whit about what you have or what political ties our people could have formed. I have never cared. Not when it came to being with you. I certainly have no need of a dowry. The only thing I would ever want from you is… you.” He once again clasped Hamish’s hand in both of his. “You are my beacon, my flame eternal. I have no desire to return to the dark, I think we have both already walked through it for far too long.”
Hamish frowned. It was true. He had had his fill of dark days. To return to where there’d be little else but more of the same? “We couldnae have that, could we, me heart?” he murmured.
“Then marry me.” Darshan clung tighter to Hamish’s fingers, those hazel eyes wide and glassy. “Please, Hamish of the Mathan Clan and light of my heart, say you shall be my husband?”
His throat tightened. Damn you. How was he supposed to say no to that? “Aye.”
Watching the grin break across his lover’s face was like surfacing after a deep dive. Darshan stretched up, coaxing Hamish lower with a slight push of his fingers against the nape of Hamish’s neck to soundly kiss him. Then he abruptly pulled back, his brow creased. “I hope you are aware I shall hold you to that.”
Fighting the urge to laugh, Hamish pressed closer. He cupped the back of the man’s head, drawing them together so that their foreheads touched.
“And I plan to see us married before we leave Tirglas,” Darshan continued. The warmth of his lover’s lips brushed the tip of Hamish’s nose as he spoke. “But first, we must head for the merchant guild.” Gently slipping from Hamish’s grip, Darshan shouldered his pack.
“You’ll also have to find a priest willing to wed us.” Hamish followed at Darshan’s heels as they strode through the corridors. “Which could be a problem. Especially if word’s got out to the city.” It would already be shuddering at the outcome of the union contest.
What would the rumours make of his sudden eviction from the clan? Or would his mother insist on a proper mourning? One that would have the bells chiming all over the kingdom as word of his supposed death spread. She had done neither when it had come to shipping Caitlyn off to the cloister. His sister had just mysteriously vanished after the attack on their lives. Most had made up their own minds on what had happened.
“There is no rule that says the ceremony must be in Mullhind, is there?” Darshan halted just long enough for Hamish to catch up and walk beside him. “What of a temple in one of the border cities? Or a port? Surely, they shall be more lenient on two men marrying.”
Hamish shrugged. “It’ll take months to travel to the border.” By then, his mother could’ve slipped her moorings entirely. Maybe even enough to order Darshan’s capture, if not the man’s death. “The southern ports would have us out of Tirglas sooner.” Especially if they took a boat downriver and boarded one of the merchant vessels headed under the bridge at Freedom’s Leap. That would put them on the water in little over a week and nearing the closest Udynean port within the fortnight, providing there was a ship headed that way.
Darshan squinted into the distance, possibly trying to think of the route Hamish saw quite clearly in his mind’s eye. “I shall have to defer to your knowledge there.”
“Why the rush to marry?” Was he afraid Hamish would change his mind? “I thought the danger was within your family.”
“Yes. But it would be vastly safer for you to travel the breadth of the Udynea Empire as my husband than you could ever be as a mere paramour.”
The courtyard was almost empty with just his siblings and two horses standing in the centre. Even the guards had vacated their usual posts at the gates.
Darshan stiffened briefly before taking the fore position. The air around them changed, the usual wind losing its customary sharpness. Another invisible shield? Did his lover think they were being led into
