Flying high
Disclaimer: I don't own the Coldfire Trilogy, and no profit whatsoever is intended.
A/N: Hi, folks! This is just a little snippet written in a few hours of spare time, something unfortunately very rare at the time. I would have loved to post it as the 'Summer' part of something bigger called 'The Four Seasons', starting with spring naturally, but with regard to the fact that I haven't written a single word of the first chapter so far and I'm busy as hell and will be for many months to come, I deemed it more advisable to post it on its own... I hope you'll enjoy it, nonetheless.
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It was a day straight out of a picture book. Fields of corn swayed in a gentle breeze as far as the eye could see, stalks bending under the weight of their golden load, and the sky was high and clear above them. The sheer loveliness of it was heart-rending, but yet it paled against the man resting in Damien's arms, his eyes closed and the slender limbs relaxed in the aftermath of their lovemaking.
Marvelling at the miracle that had brought them together, the warrior knight simply couldn't tear his gaze away from him. Summer had cast a bronze shine over Gerald's olive skin, and his unravelled hair flowed around his leanly muscled body like a veil spun from the finest silk. It was a breathtaking sight to behold, no less alluring than the ethereal, inhuman beauty of the Hunter had been in another era, another time.
As on each and every day since their reunion on Black Ridge Pass, he sent a prayer of thanks up to the heavens. Who else but the One God in His infinite wisdom could have instilled the notion to run after Gerald and pull him into a hug instead of letting him walk away like the stranger he professed to be into him? Their life together wasn't always a bed of roses. His lover could still be an arrogant, sharp-tongued bastard, an inherent character trait apparently not even death, resurrection and the transformation into the semblance of a 'spoiled brat' could cure, but Damien had never regretted his decision. Not for one single second.
All at once, the shrill cry of a bird of prey hunting for meadow voles pierced the air, snapping him out of his musings. Instinctively looking upward, he saw the perpetrator of the noise circling right above them without beating his wings once, effortlessly sailing the updraft. "He's watching out for his lunch," a slightly husky light baritone whispered against his cheek. "Maybe we should learn a lesson from him, Vryce. Although I'm loath to admit it, I could do with a helping of whatever you packed into our picnic basket. It's already past one o'clock, and I'm only human."
Hawthorne's voice was calm and casual and his mien perfectly serene, but the warrior knight didn't fail to notice the wistful expression in those dark, fathomless eyes so unlike the molten pools of silver still haunting him in his dreams. "Sometimes, I can't help but wondering how Gerald Tarrant would have coped with the new world he helped creating if he were still alive," he said gently, brushing a stray strand of raven black hair out of the adept's face. "Before I met him, I considered the idea of somebody shape shifting into an animal as utterly absurd, be it mammal, bird or fish. Do you think he would miss it?"
"Miss what? Flying?"
"Yeah. I can only imagine what it must be like, hovering weightlessly up there, the wind beneath your wings. Sounds pretty awesome to me."
For a few seconds, Hawthorne continued to stare at the raptor whose circles were becoming ever more narrow, a sure sign that the feathered hunter had spotted his prey, but then he focussed his attention on his lover, his lips curled into a wry smile. "It goes without saying that I can't speak for a dead man. But if you want my personal opinion on the matter, it's very well possible that he would dream about his past sometimes. And yes, he might regret the loss of certain... possibilities. But there would be other pleasures to be experienced, wouldn't they? Acts so closely connected to life and everything it entails that participating in them would have killed the Hunter as surely as the rising dawn. While we're at it, I'd really appreciate an encore if you're feeling up to it."
When the warrior knight nodded his assent, Gerald's smile widened almost imperceptibly. "Then make me fly, Vryce," he murmured, his voice dropping to a throaty purr. "Now."
Damien was only too willing to obey. Moving inside the one and only man he had ever desired, he could feel the pulse of nature throbbing in his very bones, and an almost religious ecstasy came over him. He had lost his vocation, had witnessed terrible deeds and betrayed some of the fundamental beliefs of his faith, but God had never deserted him. He was in everything, in all the creatures great and small, in the green grass beneath them and the rolling of thunder over faraway mountains. And, last but not least, in the sun kissed body of his mate, the other half of his soul, so graceful and sleek that it could have belonged to one of the beautiful elemental spirits their forefathers from Earth had allegedly believed in in times long forgotten.
That's a pagan notion utterly unbefitting a priest of the One God, even a technically former one, Gerald whispered in his mind, language without sound. But I won't deny that I'm flattered. Very.
Vryce grinned inwardly, but then the adept tensed up under him, gasped out his name and shuddered, and as the rhythmic contractions milking his cock made the world stand still, he stopped thinking altogether.