Page 99 of Seducing the Sorcerer
Morgrim glanced at him. “You are giving it to me. Not enough to work with, but enough to feel.” He smiled and closed his eyes for a moment, like a man savouring a fine wine or giving himself up to a lover’s touch. “It’s lovely. So warm. It makes me feel alive. I never thought I’d feel it again until I met you.”
Fenn stared at him, heart aching. Half of him wanted to say, I know it’s just the magic makes you like me, but couldn’t you give me a chance anyway? But did he really want to be with Morgrim—falling more and more in love with him every day—if that was how it was?
A month ago, he’d have answered yes, would have stayed at any price, to have somewhere to live and horses to mind and access to Morgrim’s body, if not his heart. But now something had changed. Perhaps it was because Morgrim had helped him rediscover his self-respect? Perhaps it was because the horse and its magic had given him hope? Whatever, half-measures no longer felt enough. Fenn wanted more than a place to live. He wanted to be loved truly. To be loved for himself, not for what magic he might do.
In fact, they were going to have it out. Right now, on this lonely island. And if it was only the magic Morgrim liked about him, that would be an end to it. And if that made for an uncomfortable ride back to the tower with the two of them squashed together on one horse, then so be it. But Fenn had to know.
All the same, he felt a bit sick and had to take a very deep breath before speaking.
“Right. About that—you liking the feel of the magic, I mean. Well, reckon I understand now why you were so cautious about us having it away. Because it confuses things, don’t it, me having this magic? Makes you want me when you don’t, really. You’re like a bloke who drinks too much—and I’m the wine. You know you shouldn’t, but it makes life bearable so you do it anyway. But it won’t help you. Not in the end. In fact, it’ll make everything worse. It’s like that, ain’t it?”
“Oh Gods! Fenn! No. No!” Morgrim grabbed at Fenn’s knee. “I do want you. Really, you. I’ve never been so wrong in my life as I was last night. I’m so sorry. For everything I said. I was confused because I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. And I’ve also never been without magic before. I’ve never been so vulnerable or desperate. But those things I said, about way I feel about you—the familiarity, the trust—look, honestly, the magic’s not why I feel that way about you.”
“Oh, aye?” Morgrim’s hand was warm on his knee, difficult to ignore. “But if you’d met me in the street a month ago—and me with no magic—you wouldn’t have looked at me twice. Would you? Eh?”
Morgrim gave a laugh, or maybe it was a sort of sob. “You want to know what would have happened if I’d met you a month ago?” Morgrim took away his hand, pushed his dusty hair back with it. “Gods. I’ll tell you: I’d have noticed you immediately. And I’d have racked my brain to find an excuse to watch you dig a hole or whatever it was you were doing. But I wouldn’t have been able to think of a good enough reason for Morgrim the Sorcerer to stand and watch that, so I’d have stalked past without speaking. And then I’d have fantasised about you for weeks and wished I’d dared talk to you. And that I lived in a world where I could have told you what I wanted.”
Fenn blinked. “Oh.”
“I did tell you. I wasn’t lying. I’ve always preferred men like you.”
“Ah. Rough.”
“Rough, yes. Wide shoulders. Huge hands. Your forearms! Gods, you look as if you could break me in two. But, Fenn, it isn’t just lust either. It’s because...because you’ve always got a hoof pick in your hand, or a rag or a spade or a brush. And I—” He frowned, not angrily, but as if realising something as he spoke. “—I love that. I love that you’re always putting things to rights. Like the ferns in the courtyard. Do you know how many times I’d looked out at those old dead plants and felt halfway dead myself? But it never occurred to me to do anything about it. I don’t know why, because it seems so obvious now you’ve done it. But there it is. And now I look out and it’s green and pleasant and the courtyard looks cared for. And I wouldn’t have thought such a little thing could help so much, but it does. And you don’t make any fuss about it. I just turn around and something’s been done. Do you have any conception of how wonderful that is? Honestly—” Morgrim gave a short laugh “—watching you fix a shelf in the library or whatever it is...you’ve no idea, I’m sure, but it’s devastating.”
So Morgrim had noticed. Everything. And hadn’t taken any of it for granted. He thought it was wonderful. There was a peculiar breathless feeling in Fenn’s chest. Sweat was breaking out in his armpits and down his back, like something dangerous was about to happen.
“It was all for you,” Fenn said before he could lose his nerve. “All those things I did.
Wanted you to realise I’d do anything for you. Can’t write you poems or sing you songs or any of that romantic stuff. Ain’t got it in me. But I can fix a shelf.”
“Not romantic? You gave me Fang, who I didn’t even know I needed. That’s romantic. Anyway, I don’t care about romantic trappings. I’d much rather have someone I enjoy being with. And you’re marvellous company. You’re interested in everything and you don’t play games. You’re the opposite of the courtiers and politicians I have to deal with. Do you know what they’re like with their weasel words and their subtle hints and their friendly suggestions? They won’t come out and say things.” He raised one hand in an eloquent gesture of exasperation. “You say what you mean so I never have to guess. And I’ve been falling for you since the moment I realised you weren’t going to kill me and I...” His eyes widened and he looked momentarily terrified. “I love you. A lot. Probably more than is safe.”
“I love you and all,” Fenn said.
The phrase in his own voice sounded strange. Dangerous. Fuck, no wonder Morgrim looked terrified. They stared at each other. A patch of sunlight lay half over Morgrim’s dirty face, turning one of his eyes a deep mahogany brown, almost reddish, like the colour of a dark bay horse. His other eye, still in shadow, looked black and startled.
Then Morgrim smiled, that hesitant half-smile Fenn had seen from him only once or twice before, and Fenn could see the barefooted boy Morgrim had once been; the boy from the Sirinetti mountains who kept the goats and had a single homespun tunic to his name. A tough, proud, graceful, open-hearted boy who would never complain about a hardship, nor turn away from a duty.
And he was so brave and so beautiful that Fenn longed to give him something else, to make him understand that, for Fenn, something truly momentous had just occurred.
“I never said ‘I love you’ to anyone before,” Fenn added.
“Oh.” Morgrim blinked. “Not to anyone?”
“No.”
Morgrim smiled again, wonderingly, and just when Fenn was starting to think they might be stuck there, staring at each other forever, Morgrim asked, a teasing note in his voice, “You never said ‘I love you’ to your mother?”
Fenn grinned and shook his head. “Mam wasn’t much for declarations. Knew she loved me. She knew I loved her. My Da was the same.”
“Of course.” Morgrim nodded. “My parents said it to me exactly once. When I left.” There was affection in his voice and his eyes, but Fenn knew it wasn’t for the memory of saying goodbye to his parents, or not the memory alone, but more in recognition of his and Fenn’s shared experience of another time, when people had different expectations of life and a different way of being in the world. Morgrim not only loved him, but understood him and where he’d come from, and accepted it all, because he was from there too.
Then Morgrim’s expression changed. He lowered his gaze. “But Fenn, do you forgive me? Really? For demanding you give me your horse?”
Fenn glanced at Squab. She’d licked most of the silk off the hat and was nosing the stiff felt interior. “Would you really have drained her magic?” Fenn asked.
Morgrim seemed to shrink into himself. He picked up a pine needle and began snapping it into pieces, but, when he spoke, his voice was firm. “Yes. As a last resort. If I’d been able to. To try save us from war.”
