He snuck at look at Daks and found the man watching him with the softest expression he’d ever seen.
“You know, you’re making it really hard for me not to want to kiss the hells out of you right now,” Daks murmured. “But it isn’t as simple as that, and you know it.”
“Seems pretty simple to me.”
Daks sighed and scooted close enough their thighs touched before cupping Ravi’s jaw and forcing him to meet his gaze. “Rassa is on the verge of civil war. This quiet little town they’ve created will be under siege at some point. They’ve poked the Brotherhood in the eye, and the Brotherhood has no option but to respond or lose their hold on Rassa. And in case you didn’t notice last night, the village’s all-powerful wizard seems to have other things on his mind. Scholoveld may be strange to you, and the other Seers might not be able to teach you complete control, but you’d be safe behind the walls of the city. You’d have a home and training, a place you belong and are valued. I can’t ask you to give all that up to fight for a cause that isn’t yours, just for me. I’ve done it for far too long with Shura. And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if you got hurt or killed because I couldn’t protect you… I can’t go through that again. I’m not strong enough.”
Daks whispered the last so quietly, Ravi could feel how much it cost him to admit.
“Maybe it is my cause,” Ravi murmured, wrapping a hand around the back of Daks’s neck and squeezing. “Listen. Since the first day I met you, you’ve called my Visions a gift. Maybe it’s time I start believing you.”
“You remember what happened in Urmat? What you had to do in that alley to save Shura and how you felt afterward? You’re not a fighter, Rav, and that’s perfectly okay. If you stay here, you’ll probably have to do much worse. You realize that, don’t you?”
Ravi’s stomach twisted, but he lifted his chin. “If Lyuc is right, this could mean a chance to heal the entire world. If that is me in the prophecy, am I dooming the world if I don’t at least try? Could I live with myself? What kind of hero would I be in that story?”
Daks shook his head. “You can’t take that kind of weight on your shoulders. You’re one man—a pretty amazing man and quite irresistible,” Daks added, his grin returning, “but still only one man. The thing about heroes in history is a lot of them end up dead, and you don’t have a magic sword or wizard at your beck and call to help.”
“I have my gift and my wits, and I can learn the rest. Plus, I have you, don’t I? What could possibly stop us?”
Daks rolled his eyes and let out a weak chuckle.
“Daks, do you love me?” Ravi asked.
“I told you I do,” he replied, frowning slightly.
“Well, good. Because I love you too, and I’m done running away. So listen up, you big, irritating, stubborn blowhard of a—”
Daks tackled him to the rocky bank, which was a little on the painful side, but Ravi soon forgot about it under an onslaught of hot, wet kisses and urgent fumbling hands finding their way beneath his layers of clothing. Daks only pulled back to grin down at him when Ravi was about to pass out from lack of air.
“We’re staying,” Ravi gasped out firmly between breaths.
“We’ll talk about it,” Daks replied just as breathlessly.
Ravi frowned up at him, but Daks’s habitual grin was infectious, and he couldn’t hold his glare for long.
“Say it again,” Daks ordered as he bent and braced his elbows on either side of Ravi’s head before bussing their noses together.
“We’re staying?” he replied with a grin.
Daks growled. “No, the other part.”
Ravi was going to make him work for it, but something in Daks’s dark blue eyes changed his mind.
“I love you.”
“Okay, then that’s settled. We’ll stay here for a little while, if that’s what you want. But if things start getting dangerous, prophecy or no prophecy, I’m taking all of you out of here, even if I have to tie you to Horse’s saddle and walk you out through the mountains myself. Got it?”
“I guess we’ll see,” Ravi shot back, knowing about how much Daks’s bluster was worth. “Where is Horse, by the way?”
Daks shrugged. “He went with that sorrel I stole to what passes for their stables here. I’m not worried, though. He never goes far. I’ll check in on him later.” He bent and kissed Ravi roughly, with lots of tongue. “Much later.”
“Can we find somewhere a little more comfortable for the rest of this discussion?” Ravi asked, even as his body argued the river stones digging into his back weren’t that bad.
Daks pulled back and gave Ravi that cocky grin of his. “You got it, beautiful.”
Epilogue
BRYNTHALON FOLLOWED the white stallion out of town, across the chest-deep river, and into a clearing on the other side before he shifted back to human form and announced his presence.
“Where are you going?”
The stallion stopped and gave him a regal glance over its shoulder but didn’t answer.
He stepped closer and glared. “I may not know exactly what you are, but I know you understand me, and you know I can keep following you, so you might as well cut the crap and talk to me.”
The horse eyed him for a few more moments before it shimmered and took the form of a hawk-nosed young man with curly sun-kissed brown hair and olive skin. It wore a simple pair of brown trousers and a soft umber linen shirt, but it was barefoot in the damp spring grass.
Bryn hissed and took a step back, his fingers elongating into claws. “What are you?”
“I think you know,” it responded in a soft baritone.
“If I knew, I wouldn’t
