A Swithin Spin: A Princely Passion (13 page)

* * *

“Kilan!”

In response to his name, Kilan jumped, and spun, almost dropping the water container as he did. Fortunately, he’d just finished recapping the water skin. He’d run until the wind whistling down his throat had reminded him of his relentless thirst. He’d stopped to catch his breath and then taken a moment to savor the cool water, not thinking that Antal could possibly catch up with him in so short a time. He’d looked so unsteady. Antal wasn’t unsteady now as he eased from a run into what looked too much like stalking.

He was still naked.

Kilan couldn’t help himself. He took the time to cast his gaze down and then back up. If Antal noticed his open interest, he decided not to respond.

“I’m sorry!” Kilan managed to say, although somehow the words emerged sounding more like a complaint than an apology. “I’m sorry,” Kilan repeated more softly, trying not to compound the error.

“You will be.”

Kilan had heard that tone before. He’d heard it at the academy, from his father, and to a lesser extent Ryanac and Markis managed to convey the same warning. They’d never hurt him though, not physically. This time he wasn’t at all sure whether, despite their being of similar size and Antal being a few years older, he faced a good hiding.

Grabbing his pack, Kilan backpedaled, straining to maintain distance between them. Fallen trees, deep puddles of mud, and precarious slopes all served to hinder him. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“What kind of fucking excuse is that?”

Uh-oh. Antal seemed truly mad. He seldom swore. Kilan opened his mouth to say he knew not what, just hoping some sort of sensible-sounding apology would emerge, when to his surprise, Antal veered to one side. He reappeared a moment later, closer than before. He’d somehow managed to avoid an obstacle rather than go over it. It didn’t matter. A medium-sized fallen tree lay between them, and by the time Antal had scrambled over it, Kilan would be on the run again.

Kilan blinked as Antal
leaped
. Damn but he was fit. So much for his imagining Antal scrambling over the obstruction. Poised on top of the tree, Antal paused. His braid had partly unraveled, and his hair fanned his face and body, lifted by the wind, the natural auburn catching the late rays of the sun. Fire flashed deep in his eyes and his hair.

“You look amazing,” Kilan whispered without intending to say so aloud. Whether Antal heard him was irrelevant. Kilan’s eyes widened, and he turned on his heel as Antal bounded after him. He dodged Antal’s grasp and might have got away, for he was a good runner, had not the ground fallen out from under his feet.

Chapter Eight

The first thing Antal saw when he opened his eyes was a circle of daylight. He even realized that circle led to freedom. The part of his mind that said
ow, I’m injured
told him to close his eyes and sink back into darkness. His training took over. With awareness, the pain washed in.

“Shit!” Considering the way his ankle felt, the exclamation seemed appropriate. At once he heard movement off to one side, but although he tried to turn his head, his neck moved stiffly.

“You’re awake.” Kilan -- for it could only be him -- appeared as a dark shape at his side, going down on his knees.

“No shit,” Antal grumbled.

“I mean, I thought you were dead until I listened to you breathing. I couldn’t wake you. I tried to look for injuries, but I couldn’t see any, and I thought of shaking you, but if you were hurt, I could make it worse and --”

“Kilan.”

“Hmm?”

“You’re babbling.”

At the admonishment -- as mild as it sounded -- Kilan fell silent. Antal tried to assess his condition, making small, controlled movements. He ran a hand as best he could over his skull. “How long have I been out?”

“Not long. That is…not long but long enough for me to panic.”

Antal flicked his gaze at Kilan. As his eyes adjusted, he could make out the concern in the other man’s face. “Thank you for caring, though if not for you, I wouldn’t be in this mess. Am I bleeding?”

“What?” The sudden question seemed to confuse the prince.

“Am I bleeding anywhere that you can see, feel?”

“I-I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Almost as though he believed Antal had given him permission, Kilan reached out, tentatively patting Antal here and there. Despite their predicament, a flash of amusement took Antal by surprise. He noted Kilan’s movements and watched his face until Kilan looked up and their gazes met. He couldn’t be sure in the dim light, but possibly Kilan blushed. The question was why. He’d been aware of Kilan’s attention for some time now. What he assumed had begun out of fun and as a way to irritate him had changed. He just wasn’t sure when and in what way. He’d assumed it had something to do with Kilan’s admiration, for he was very much aware that Kilan looked up to him even if he felt that approbation currently unwarranted.

More recently, the idea that Kilan was flirting with him took precedence, but if that was the prince’s intention, then he gave the word
subtle
a whole new meaning. Was it possible that Kilan felt as unsure of his own feelings as Antal’s was of his own? Antal almost sniggered. He felt as unsure of
his
feelings regarding Kilan as he was of his current predicament. Why did he imagine the prince, always inconsistent at the best of times, should fare any better than he?

Up above, on solid ground, before they’d fallen through the earth, Kilan had looked at him and said he looked amazing, but that type of comment didn’t necessarily denote sexual interest for the Swithin. The flash he’d seen in Kilan’s eyes had, though. Had Kilan followed just to see what he was going to do with the statue, or was he actually interested? If so, was the idea of sex the only reason Kilan had followed him, or was there more to it? Antal didn’t know how he felt about either option; right now he had other priorities.

Apparently, Kilan also felt uncomfortable, for he pressed on. “Does anything feel broken?”

Antal had been trying to work out that very thing. The fact that he wasn’t rolling around in agony likely meant no. Nothing seemed broken, but he still hurt. He lay naked on his back in the dirt. His head throbbed a little but not alarmingly. He couldn’t account for passing out. He might have struck his head hard enough to knock himself senseless, but he didn’t think so. “My ankle hurts,” he answered. “I think the rest of me is fine apart from some grazes.” That would serve him right for chasing someone while naked. “I’m worried whether I hit my head.” It wouldn’t be the first whack to the head he’d received. His father always joked that he must have a thick skull; otherwise, the number of times he’d been hit in the head should have knocked some sense into him. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No. I landed…on you.”

He remembered now. “That explains it.”

“What?”

“You knocked me unconscious.” Even though the ground had given way under Kilan first, Antal had been right behind him. He’d grabbed for the other man, not with capture in mind but reacting on instinct to save him, and then the ground had given way beneath his feet too, only faster. He’d plummeted, clutching at Kilan for something to cling to, which was stupid when they were both falling. Grasping at Kilan, somehow he had turned in the air, bringing Kilan down on top of him. He stopped checking the back of his head. Now he raised a hand to his temple. Sure enough, he felt the bump under his hair where Kilan’s elbow had connected. He moved to rise, and Kilan automatically helped. He sat for a moment, head forward, trying to ignore the agony in his ankle, waiting to see if he felt any nausea or dizziness. Not surprisingly, he felt a little light-headed, but it soon passed. “I think I’m fine.” Other parts of him ached, but for reasons that had nothing to do with the fall.

“Your ankle?” Kilan reminded him, not that he needed any reminding.

“Hurts worse than buggery.” Antal glanced up. “Sorry. Channeling Ryanac. Put it down to the pain.”

“It didn’t look…” Kilan began, his voice trailing away.

“What didn’t look like what?” Antal asked, although he suspected.

“Never mind.”

Perhaps as a distraction from the pain or maybe because of it, Antal fought an internal war of emotions fluctuating between belligerence and amusement. “Finish the sentence.” He managed to put enough force into his words to make Kilan shift uncomfortably.

“I was going to say it didn’t look as if you were in pain…back there.”

Antal didn’t need to ask back where or doing what. “And then your brain actually caught up with your mouth for once and you opted to say nothing until I insisted,” Antal admonished gently. “I’m not embarrassed,” he added, although being Swithin that was a peculiar point to make, even more so as he wasn’t being entirely truthful. He couldn’t help grimacing and finally grinning, even laughing. “Well, not entirely. It all seems quite foolish now.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s put a smile back on your face, even if it doesn’t last.”

Antal blinked in surprise. He swallowed, doubly uncomfortable now. “Have I been that surly lately?” Although he’d spoken regarding his emotional state in front of Kilan, the way the prince said it made him think Kilan’s awareness went deeper than that. It was one thing to know Ryanac would be so astute, quite another to know someone as seemingly as blithe as Kilan should notice; Antal found that interesting as well as unnerving.

“Not so too many would notice. Is it broken?”

Relieved to have Kilan distract him from his thoughts, Antal continued the self-diagnosis. He set the more intimate side of the conversation aside in favor of immediate concerns. “It’s swollen. I can wiggle my toes, though it hurts. I don’t think it’s broken. Sprained, I guess, but it’s a bad one. I can’t put any weight on it.” He looked up toward the aperture and the sky overhead. “I’m certainly not going to be able to climb.” He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice but wasn’t sure he succeeded. It felt bitter indeed to feel suddenly helpless.

“That doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve checked. The walls are too crumbly. Even if one of us could stand on the other’s shoulders, we wouldn’t be able to reach, and I don’t think there’s anything to hold on to. I think the edge will disintegrate.”

Antal nodded. The hole wasn’t that deep, but deep enough, and with nothing to grab for purchase -- even with two good legs each -- they’d be lucky to climb. Kilan was looking away from him over his right shoulder. Antal gazed that way now. Darkness quickly swallowed up both ends of the tunnel.

“Does it go far?”

“No idea. I went a little way in both directions. It gets tighter that way” -- Kilan indicated one route -- “but seems to open out a little in the other. I didn’t want to explore too far while you were unconscious.”

“I think you’ll have to now that I’m awake.” He hated to have to rely on Kilan, on anyone, but he also had enough common sense to know when to accept help. That didn’t mean he couldn’t supervise. “Do you have your pack?” He’d seen Kilan carrying it, and the other man nodded. “What provisions do you have? Anything for light?”

“No. A flint but there’s nothing here to ignite. There’s a blanket, water, some of those horrid dried food bars.”

“You might end up grateful to have them.”

“I was traveling light, and I didn’t think I’d need much for a couple of days.”

“Of course if you hadn’t followed me, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

“About that…”

“Later.” Although he’d brought the subject up yet again, this was not the time to discuss it. “I’m more concerned with you getting a move on and investigating these tunnels before it gets dark.”

“I’m not sure darkness is going to make much of a difference.” The light failed to penetrate far, so Kilan had a point.

“Maybe not but humor me.”

“It would help if we knew why the tunnels existed. Maybe we’d know what to expect.”

Kilan’s tone gave Antal pause. He sounded dismayed. It crossed Antal’s mind that Kilan might be afraid. He crushed his rising annoyance. No one had convinced him yet that Kilan was a coward, not even Kilan himself. “You’re not looking forward to going off alone, are you?”

The resulting silence lasted so long Antal thought he would have to prompt, and then Kilan said, “No. I’m not looking forward to falling down another hole or tripping over and breaking my neck in the dark.”

Clearly, he hadn’t wanted to admit that. The fact that he hadn’t lied pleased Antal, though he couldn’t say why. He tried to see it from the prince’s point of view. Kilan was younger. He had less experience. He hadn’t had the same training…yet he could act courageously despite those things; Antal had seen it. “I hate to state the obvious, but is there anything the comet can do?”

The pause was shorter this time. “I’ve tried. The problem is I’m still new at this. I need to feel calm to tap into the power by myself.”

“How calm?”

“The calmer the better. I can usually do it without too much thought. I can even be distracted, but I’ve never done this while stressed, not without Markis to help me. He says that soon it should come naturally even when I’m…” Kilan’s hands fluttered in the air, searching for something elusive. Finding the action annoying, Antal caught one of his hands. Only then did he become aware just how much tension thrummed through the younger man’s body. If that tension wasn’t entirely fear -- and he didn’t believe so -- then there had to be other reasons. He made a wild guess.

“Let go of the guilt.”

“Guilt?”

“For putting us in this situation.”

Kilan hated responsibility; no doubt he now felt accountable for getting them into trouble and obligated to get them out of it. The prince looked startled even though he shouldn’t have; he truly wasn’t that difficult to read.

“How did you… Never mind. Sometimes I think you’re related to Ryanac.”

Antal laughed. Ryanac always seemed to know what others were thinking. “No, but there are reasons why Markis chose me as Uly’s Sonndre.”

“They all approve of you.”

Maybe Kilan wasn’t aware of it, but Antal heard the respect and self-doubt in the prince’s voice well enough. The respect both surprised and pleased him, not because it existed but because of the depth of emotion he could hear in the other man’s voice. As for the self-doubt, Kilan’s tone suggested he lacked the same approval from those that he looked up to most, and no matter what Kilan cared to admit, he admired his brother and the men in his life. That and feeling bad for causing this problem were reasons enough to prevent Kilan from tapping into the comet.