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The first word Jackson learns is no.
Boyd is the one to teach it to him, because Isaac won’t. He doesn’t want to be the one to enable Jackson to reject his master’s advances, Jackson guesses. It’s wise of him.
But Jackson pesters until Boyd spits out the word, harsh and hard and rasping, unfamiliar tones on Jackson’s tongue.
Jackson practices until Boyd gives a stiff nod of approval, one jerk of his head up and down.
No.
The next word Jackson learns is yes, because Danny insists. Yes, and more, and harder, though Jackson doubts he’ll ever find those words on his tongue.
There’s a week until the – what, wedding? Ritual? Contract? Prison sentence, Jackson thinks bitterly – takes place, and preparations are a flurry around him, food and guests and decorations all coming together. None of his people, of course, but the barbarian hordes arrive in masses, all astride their horses, with their pet wolves padding at their sides.
Erica laughs the first time he meets a wolf up close and shies away, and after that, he resolves to maintain composure around the wild beasts. It’s hard. They have very long fangs.
Wolf is the fifth word he learns, from her, perhaps because he was eyeing the barbarians’ pets with such curiosity, wondering why, and how, and to what end. She doesn’t bother explaining any of that, just tells him the name of the feral creatures.
And tells him to stay away from them.
Your master is a wolf. Should I stay away from him? Jackson wants to say, but cannot find the words, in neither her alien language nor his own.
The next word is thanks, because as shocked and furious as Jackson is at having been sold into captivity, having been auctioned off to the barbarian horde by the adoptive parents he tried for years to love, he was bred with good manners and knows his etiquette.
He thanks Boyd and Isaac and Erica, the warlord’s trusted bloodriders and Jackson’s personal instructors in the manner of the barbarian customs and language, and they smile at him like he’s a particularly amusing cub, Isaac with a bit more warmth in his eyes than the other two. Jackson thinks Isaac feels sorry for him, or at least has some empathy regarding Jackson’s situation. The other two know better than to show sympathy toward their master’s bitch. Erica in particular seems to think he should be grateful for the honor of sharing the warlord’s bed.
He doesn’t. But he thanks her anyway.
Next, he learns fuck me, and I want you, and right there, because Danny is an eternal optimist. That, or his welfare hangs on a precarious edge, and if Jackson doesn’t please the warlord on the night of their – mating? Is that the word? – then his life is forfeit. As a tutor in the art of properly warming a horselord’s bed, it’s his job to make sure Jackson knows exactly how and where the warlord wants to be touched.
Jackson learns it because he genuinely likes Danny, and because deep down, in the small, scared part of him, he thinks that if he makes it good for the warlord, then maybe, just maybe, it won’t hurt as much? Maybe the warlord will be gentle?
But the words are poison on his lips.
After that, the floodgates are open. Who and what and when and where and why, he learns, and now and day and night and moon and sun and stars, sword and bow and whip and knife, mate and pack and horse and ride.
Mostly he learns fragments, words, nouns without adjectives, verbs but no conjunctions. Concepts but not thoughts. There are some sentences, though, that Danny and Boyd drill into his mind, make him repeat over and over until he gets the exact intonations down.
Do not touch me. I belong to Derek.
If you touch me, he will rip you apart, and not even the wolves will touch your desecrated remains.
There’s a certain power in the words, but it’s not the power he wanted, back when he still lived in the city with the white walls and fountains, back when he could afford to skip his lessons and daydream.
It’s the only power he has, though.
Three days before their joining (as he has been taught to call it), Jackson looks up from where he’s sitting, glumly going over vocabulary with Isaac, and his gaze catches on something. A boy, about his age, practicing his swordplay with Boyd and wearing the red armband of one of the warlord’s bloodriders.
He’s good. Quick, and strong, and nimble on his feet, dancing around to deal blows to Boyd without the larger rider having a chance to retaliate. The fight is over embarrassingly fast.
Jackson stands, ignoring Isaac’s demands for him to sit back down, and strides over to the boy. He stumbles out the few relevant words he knows – want, fight, learn.
The boy stares uncomprehendingly at him for a moment, then turns and calls, “Stiles!”
Another boy arrives, creamy-skinned and pink-lipped. “You must be the consort,” he says, smile warm and open. “I’m Stiles. I travel with Scott."
After a few minutes interrogation, Jackson learns that Scott isn’t really one of the warlord’s bloodriders, but they have a strange arrangement where the talented young fighter aligns with the warlord just so another army doesn’t see him and seek to claim him. Stiles is his attendant, his translator, and his best friend. They travel the land, seeking adventure and protecting the innocent.
It’s a life Jackson would have formerly disdained and would now kill for, but he’ll take what he can get from it. “I want to learn,” he tells Stiles while staring unblinkingly at Scott. “I want him to teach me to fight.”
Stiles hesitates. “Would he like that?” He doesn’t bother specifying whom he’s talking about; they both know.
“I want to learn,” Jackson repeats stubbornly.
Scott looks deep into his eyes for a moment. Then he nods, seemingly satisfied, and calls something to the side. A man steps forward and offers his own sword to Jackson.
The fight is on.
Shit, Jackson learns entirely by accident when Stiles looks up, sees cool green eyes watching Jackson and Scott spar from the shadows, and exclaims it under his breath. Chants it, more like. Shit shit shit.
Jackson looks over and freezes up. It’s the first time he’s seen those eyes since – since they locked gazes across the battlefield and Jackson saw the warlord’s sword arm hesitate for a moment, saw cunning and desire flicker over his face like wildfire.
The warlord is only slightly taller than Jackson, but the way he stands casts other men into shadow, and the wolf skins he wears add to his bulk. He may as well be a monster from legend, towering over his friends and enemies alike.
They stare at each other, Jackson in mute fear and the warlord with no expression on his features, before the warlord makes a dismissive gesture and disappears into his tent. Jackson buckles like his knees have been knocked out from under him, breathing heavily.
Jackson doesn’t know what about him caught the warlord’s attention. Worse, though – he doesn’t know what could possibly keep it.
Jackson sits curled up under the tree, arms around his knees. He learned today that the barbarians don’t have a word for mercy. They do, however have 14 variations of kill.
He misses home. He misses the white walls and the fountains, his adoptive parents and his servants, his friends. He wonders if they still play stickball without him.
Of course they do, he thinks. They are safe and happy within the white walls. That was the bargain that was made, that’s why he’s here submitting to the barbarian warlord, that was the entire purpose of being sold.
He wants to be bitter, but he’s just sad.
Approaching footsteps make him turn his head and he finds Stiles there with a horn of wine and a hunk of bread in hand. He offers them both to Jackson, who takes the wine but leaves the bread.
“You sure? It’s good. There’s honey and nuts baked into it.” Stiles offers it again.
Jackson shakes his head. He’s not hungry. He rarely is, these days.
Stiles shrugs. “Your loss.” He rips off a chunk and eats it, staring out over the camp with Jackson. Then he swallows and turns to him, eyes soft. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Jackson says.
“I’m sure,” Stiles says.
“I’m fine,” Jackson repeats, an edge to his voice. “I don’t need a nursemaid.”
“Okay,” says Stiles, annoyingly agreeable. Jackson wishes he would get mad so Jackson would have an excuse to yell at him. “What were you thinking about?”
Jackson takes a swig of wine. It’s harsh, and sour, nothing like the sweet wines from home. He likes it better, kind of. “I was just thinking how glad I am to get out of the arranged marriage I was in.”
“Oh yeah? Who was she?”
“The Lady Lydia of House Martin,” Jackson says.
Stiles’ jaw drops comically low. “Lady Lydia? I saw her once and never forgot it. She was your betrothed? Now I know why you always like a kicked puppy. I would too if I lost my chance with her.”
Jackson punches him in the side of the head. “Shut the fuck up. She wasn’t that beautiful, anyway.”
“Not that beautiful?” Stiles gapes like a fish. “Not that – she’s the most perfect – are you blind?” He waves his hand in front of Jackson’s face.
Jackson growls and knocks it away. “Sure, she was pretty, I guess. But she was cold. Sweet, and fair, and cold. Always bossing me around and telling me how to live my life.” He picks at the hem of his tunic, which is coming unraveled. “I’m better off without her.”
Stiles doesn’t say anything.
“She…” Jackson furiously swipes at his eyes, suddenly and humiliatingly aware he’s about to cry, for some fucking reason. He didn’t even like Lydia. “She’s probably happy to see me gone. She probably doesn’t think about me. She probably doesn’t even remember me.”
“Jackson, I…” Stiles makes an abortive motion towards him, and Jackson flinches away. “They’re grateful. Everyone from your city, they know what you’re doing for them.”
Jackson laughs, only for some reason, it doesn’t sound at all like mirth. “Sure, they had to think really hard about it before agreeing to the terms. I bet it keeps them up at night.”
“I bet it does,” Stiles says softly.
Jackson snorts.
“Would you take it back?” Stiles asks. “If it were your choice, would you put your city to the sword for your own freedom?”
Jackson takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Of course not,” he says. “But that’s the problem. It was never my choice.”
The next day, the day before the joining, Jackson is restless. He doesn’t want to learn the barbarians’ history, their customs, their language. He doesn’t want to practice his sword fighting with Scott. He doesn’t want to sit in dread, waiting to be taken by the warlord. He wants – he wants –
He gets Scott and Stiles and tells them what he wants. In minutes, they have an array of poles and leather strips before him. He examines them one by one, determining which are suitable, then gets to work.
They play three on three, him and Scott and Stiles against Erica and Boyd and Isaac. Erica’s fast and Boyd is strong and Isaac plays like he wants to win, but this is Jackson’s element and he and Scott and Stiles are a seamless team, weaving through their opponents, liquid-smooth.
“What is that?” Danny asks on one of their water breaks, and Jackson grins up at him from where he’s bent over double, panting.
“Stickball,” he says.
“Can I play?” Danny asks. Nearby, a few other barbarians look interested.
Jackson looks at Scott. Scott looks at Stiles.
“We’re going to need some more sticks,” Stiles says.
They play for hours, until sweat pours down their faces in rivulets, a coating of dust on any visible skin. He’s sore all over and his muscles scream at him, but Jackson feels like he’s flying, feels for the first time like he isn’t some weak, pathetic pet to these barbarian warriors, like he can challenge them and he can win.
(Win, on a related note, is one of his learned words of the day, along with pass, throw, open, ball, stick, and hoop. He didn’t bother asking how to say lose.)
When dusk hits, the game is over, and the barbarians clap companionable hands on Jackson’s shoulder as they pile their sticks in a heap for another day. He grins at them.
The grin falters when he catches sight of cool green eyes, watching him from across the clearing. Jackson trembles.
The warlord starts to turn away.
“Wait,” Jackson calls, but the warlord doesn’t understand the Common Tongue and doesn’t pause.
Jackson grumbles his frustration and runs to catch his arm. The warlord turns and looks down to where Jackson’s fingers are wrapped around his bicep, one eyebrow raised, and Jackson swallows hard and releases his grip.
“I won,” Jackson says, ignoring the fear that threatens to swallow his words. He repeats it in the barbarian language. “I win.”
He dares think the warlord almost smiles at that, before he growls something at Jackson in that alien language, a word he hasn’t learned yet.
He turns to Danny. “Good,” Danny supplies with a smile.
Pride melts down Jackson’s spine, pleasure at having impressed the warlord, or at least having not disappointed him. “Good,” he repeats back to the warlord.
The warlord rasps something at him, a full sentence, that makes the barbarians laugh and Danny and Stiles look down. “What did he say?” Jackson asks them, turns to the warlord, asks again, too flustered to remember the words in the barbarian language. “What?”
Danny comes up next to him. “He said, be ready to use your mouth for other things tomorrow night.”
Reality crashes back down, cold as ice. Jackson swallows hard.
The barbarian warlord walks away.
In the morning, Jackson slides on his mask of indifference, the only barrier of protection he has left. It lasts up until he’s climbing out of his bath and Danny enters the tent holding a … a –
“What is that?” Jackson asks, scrambling away.
Danny grimaces. “Just… You’ll figure it out.”
“No,” Jackson says, hand clapped over his mouth like he might retch. “Get it away.”
“Trust me, you’re going to want it. He won’t bother preparing you tonight, so…” Danny offers up the – the thing. “It’ll hurt less this way.”
Jackson presses back against the tent wall. “Get it away.”
“Jackson,” Danny sighs. “You know it’s better this way. You don’t have to wear it for the joining. Just for a few hours. Do you want me to…”
“No!” Jackson spits out. “Just… leave it. I’ll deal with it.”
Danny leaves, setting the thing on the table as he does. There’s a distinctive clink of glass along with the thud of marble on wood, and Jackson drifts over despite himself. Danny left a vial of oil. Thoughtful.
Jackson dimly registers hyperventilating, but he doesn’t remember falling to his knees, gripping the table leg to keep steady. Black spots dance in the corners of his vision. He takes deep, calming breaths. It’s a few minutes before he’s able to stand on shaky legs. He can do this, Jackson tells himself.
His fingers brush against the smooth marble and a strangled noise erupts from his throat. Oh fuck, he can’t do this.
Except that he has to.
Danny casts him a sympathetic glance when Jackson shifts with discomfort for the tenth time, unaccustomed to the slight burn the object left him with. It took three fingers covered in oil before the object fit, and even after removal he aches from the stretch, so he keeps adjusting his position, hoping to find a comfortable seat.
On the eleventh attempt, the warlord places a heavy hand on his shoulder and Jackson goes still. He doesn’t look up at the warlord.
Jackson does not move again.
Fortunately, Jackson’s not supposed to be looking over at the warlord, or at least he doesn’t think so. There’s dancing taking place in front of him, bodies gyrating to the beat of a drum with a sort of flutelike instrument providing the melody. Great spits of meat turn over the fire, groaning under the weight of the whole roasted pigs. Everywhere there is wine and laughter and leather, tanned skin and dark hair and darker eyes.
Jackson can’t help but feel out of place in his thin white tunic with his light eyes and his fair hair.
Next comes the gift giving, where Jackson receives mounds of gold and piles of jewels and nothing at all of interest. Or, at least, nothing he’s allowed to keep.
The bloodriders approach one by one, offering Jackson his gifts as the consort of the warlord. First from Boyd, a beautifully crafted bow. Jackson turns it down with the ritual barbarian words, and the bow is given to the warlord instead, as is custom.
Next comes Erica with a horsehair whip, which Jackson refuses and the warlord accepts.
And then Isaac, carrying a curved sword that shines a dappled blue in the sunlight. Jackson’s breath catches in his throat, and he can’t keep from reaching out, hand poised in the air for a moment. He loves that blade, loves it on sight, knows that it would fit in his hand like it was meant to be there.
He swallows and drops his hand. When he says the ritual words, his voice is flat and low. The warlord takes the sword, and Isaac moves away.
Jackson wonders, looking down with a lump in his throat, how to say please. He doesn’t ask, though.
The barbarians probably don’t even have a word for please, he tells himself.
But then, finally, there is a gift for him. The warlord stands and the camp goes instantly silent, parting before him so he can stride through unhindered. Jackson stands, uncertain, until Danny gestures for him to follow and he stumbles after.
The warlord stands, holding the bridle of a horse. Not just a horse, but a stallion, huge and strong and powerful, with a golden coat and green eyes. Jackson strokes down its muzzle and it lets him, but then tosses its head and shuffles its feet with impatience.
It’s perfect.
“What’s its name?” Jackson asks Boyd, spellbound as he runs his hands over the stallion’s flanks, feeling muscles shifting beneath the soft coat.
“We do not name our mounts,” Boyd says with disdain.
Jackson isn’t surprised. “Fine, then I will,” he huffs. “I think…” He thinks back to the stories his nursemaid used to tell him when he was young and refused to fall asleep, tales of monsters and magic, sorcerers and dragons and shape-shifters. “Kanima,” he breathes out, and it sounds like a prayer.
“Are you ready?” Stiles asks.
Jackson doesn’t need to ask what he means. The warlord comes up behind him and fits his massive hands around Jackson’s waist, but he doesn’t need that either. He slots his foot in the stirrup and swings himself over Kanima’s back without any help from the warlord, laughing for pure joy as he settles into the saddle.
And he thinks the warlord smiles back.
When he rides, it’s like forgetting. It’s like everything melts away, and he’s free, and he’s powerful, and he’s riding the wind.
They ride for hours, he and the warlord, leaving the camp behind as they venture into the plains. The warlord has his own stallion, massive and black and menacing, but Kanima keeps pace with the warlord’s charger and there’s never a moment where Jackson feels he’s fallen behind.
Until there is.
The warlord drags his reins and the black stallion slows and then stops, Kanima following suit behind it. The warlord swings off his horse. He offers a hand to Jackson.
Jackson doesn’t take it, just looks around, anxious. They’ve stopped at a grassy clearing, moonlight streaming over them. There are no trees, Jackson thinks hysterically. There is nowhere to hide.
The warlord offers his hand again. Judging by the look on his face, it is not meant as a request. Jackson lets the warlord pull him from Kanima’s back, but he gives a gasp of fear when he finds himself yanked tight against the muscular chest. He cranes his neck up and the warlord is staring back, hunger in those cool green eyes.
He does not have the look of a man accustomed to waiting.
Jackson nods, but his throat is tight and he has trouble breathing. The warlord looks at him as if curious and drags his thumb over Jackson’s lower lip, eyes flashing when Jackson unconsciously darts his tongue out to ease the slide. For a moment, Jackson is certain the warlord is going to kiss him, and he sways where he stands, overwhelmed.
But the warlord pulls back and kneels before him, settling back onto his haunches. He gestures down at himself and utters a foreign word.
Jackson doesn’t need to speak the barbarian tongue to know what he wants. He stands beside his warlord and begins undoing the ties of his wolf skins with shaking fingers. It takes some time, because he’s slow and ungainly from fear, but the warlord neither reassures him nor scolds him for his fumbling, just watches him with those unsettling eyes.
Finally, he removes the last of the hides. Jackson looks and looks and looks, and finds, to his surprise –
There is a man under all of those skins.
A strong, powerful man – with hands that could crush Jackson’s windpipe without strain, the corded muscles of a born fighter, eyes that seem to see through souls – but a man nonetheless.
Jackson gives a breathless, startled laugh, and the warlord looks bemused but indulgent.
It makes things so much easier to see all of that smooth human skin instead of coarse wolf pelts. After all, Jackson knows how to handle a man. What has he been learning from Danny this whole time, if not that?
But for all that Jackson has learned, and for all that the warlord spoke about Jackson’s mouth, he soon finds himself tumbled on his back with insistent fingers tugging at his belt. He raises his arms obediently when the warlord yanks at his shirt, but the warlord gives a sharp grin and simply tears the white fabric off, leaving Jackson naked in a pool of silken scraps. He bites his lip, eyes downcast, and waits. And waits.
When he musters his courage and looks up, he finds the warlord just looking at him, drinking in the sight of his pale skin in the moonlight, devouring him with his eyes. Jackson dearly hopes the warlord likes what he sees, because this, this is all he has to offer. He sees Jackson, all of him. Jackson has no more cards to lay on the table.
And then the warlord touches him. Kneels over him and touches, a callused palm up his ribs, curious fingertips over his belly, nails raking down his thigh. Jackson wants to be pliant, tries to let the warlord do as he pleases, but he keeps curving into the touch. When the warlord lowers his head and swipes his tongue over Jackson’s nipple, he arches so hard his back leaves the ground, fingers clutching at grass.
He wonders, dizzily, why he had to learn the refined art of lovemaking if the warlord seems content to quell his hunger with the ravenous slide of his tongue and teeth on Jackson’s skin.
Jackson looks down when the warlord pulls his head away and sees his own chest heaving. He can feel heat in his cheeks, and he knows he must be red, red enough to maybe match the marks the warlord’s teeth have left in the landscape of his body – bruises in the valleys and the hills, little love bites in the crevasses where he’s sucked away Jackson’s sweat.
It was not supposed to feel this way, Jackson thinks.
“Good?” the warlord asks.
It’s the first word that passed between them those days ago, Jackson remembers. He nods, shaky but sincere. “Good,” he repeats back. He struggles to remember Danny’s first teachings, and reaches up, stroking tentative fingers over the warlord’s high cheekbones, his strong brow. “More,” he says.
It’s not a question, but the warlord answers it, catching his wrist to bite down on it. He slides a deft hand between Jackson’s legs and pushes, and Jackson obeys without thinking, giving the warlord room to crawl between them. He breathes into Jackson’s wrist, presses his tongue against the pulse beating there, and Jackson’s hand slides instinctively to cup his face and run a thumb over his sharp cheekbone.
Then, with no preamble, he pushes into Jackson.
Jackson’s whole body curves, shoulders shoving back into the ground, free hand grasping desperately at the ground for something to anchor him. The pain burns through him, and he’s so thankful to Danny for giving him a way of stretching beforehand, because this would be unbearable without having done so. Shit, fuck, the sting.
His fingernails clutch and drag, drawing blood on the back of his warlord’s neck. The warlord either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, just continues his slow slide until he’s fully settled inside Jackson, whose muscles clench up and refuse to loosen. His eyelids are shut so tightly he can see stars behind them.
Because of that, he’s surprised by the gentle sensation on his neck as the warlord brushes his lips in a warm caress over his rapid-beating pulse. Jackson lies unmoving, staring into a thick black head of hair, while the warlord strokes him like he’s precious. Gradually, the burn fades and his body accommodates the stretch. And the whole while, the warlord waits.
Jackson nudges at the warlord’s face, nose to forehead, graceless and insistent, and soon finds himself staring into green eyes, warm like he’s never seen. He props himself up on his elbow just enough to catch the warlord’s lips with his own, fingers still gripping the back of his neck.
The warlord starts back – maybe kissing isn’t something they do in the barbarian culture? – but then he returns the gesture, slick and deep, licking into Jackson’s mouth like he’s trying to prove something. They kiss for long, messy minutes until Jackson forgets his hesitance, until heat coils low in his belly and he needs more.
He doesn’t remember the words he’s been taught, doesn’t remember any of his lessons, but he knows how to say this: he lies back and rolls his hips up to meet the warlord’s.
The warlord doesn’t disappoint. He pulls out and shoves back in and Jackson tosses his head back and moans from deep in his chest. The warlord sets a brutal pace so Jackson’s back scrapes against the ground with every thrust, and Jackson digs his fingernails into the warlord’s shoulders and loves it.
“More, fucking more,” he begs, knowing that he learned the words in the barbarian tongue but he can’t remember right now, he can barely remember his own language right now, just, “Shit, yes, so good.”
One particular thrust wrings a strangled “Right there!” out of him, and they may not speak the same language, but his warlord understands the sound of pleasure. Jackson gets a moment to catch his breath as he adjusts his angle, then the air is knocked out of him again when the warlord slams back in.
After that, Jackson lets his hitches of breath and embarrassing little whimpers of pleasure speak for him. There’s a tide of pleasure building up in him, tight and hot under his skin, and he’s whining and his fingernails are scrabbling on the warlord’s back and he’s rolling up into it and Derek wraps a hand around his cock and then –
He’s coming, and it’s a rush like he’s never experienced, as if his entire consciousness was focused in one point and that one point exploded with pleasure. He comes down slowly, aware that the warlord is still hard inside of him, and grins exhaustedly up at him.
This is what he was taught.
Jackson drags the warlord’s head down and bites down on his lower lip, clenching purposefully so his body clamps down around the warlord like a vise, and Derek gives a choked noise and jerks a few times and then comes, a rush of heat in Jackson, then goes limp, all hot heavy weight on Jackson’s torso.
Jackson cards his fingers through the warlord’s hair. “Good?” he asks.
The warlord lolls his head over on Jackson’s chest and looks him in the eye. “Good,” he says, almost surprised.
Jackson’s going to take that as a compliment.
Jackson wants to learn until there’s nothing left to be taught. He badgers the bloodriders for hours every day, how do you say this word and what does that word mean, and takes to swordplay with Scott like he’s starving for it.
Brief breaks for stickball break up the furious inquiries of his days, but even then, he’s constantly asking, so hungry for knowledge – do you play other games and what animal does the leather I used to bind the sticks come from. The thirst for information runs in his blood, makes him restless and twitchy, unable to sit down, unwilling to rest for a moment.
When they get too irritated by it a week after the joining, the bloodriders send the warlord after him. Jackson’s with Isaac at the moment, asking about past battles, the history of barbarian warfare, who the warlord has defeated in direct combat and who his troops have decimated outside of it. Isaac tries to be patient, but the relief that crosses his face is palpable when strong fingers curl around the back of Jackson’s neck and he falls silent, pulse calming for the first time that day.
“Derek,” Jackson says, turning.
“Little cub, stop nipping at my warriors’ heels,” the warlord says, and he may not be smiling, but his eyes are warm and light.
Jackson beams from the pride at being able to understand. “I want know,” he stammers, uncertain of the words but positive of the intent. “Everything. I wish understand you.”
The warlord pulls him in with the hand around his neck and Jackson goes willingly, lets himself be manhandled so the warlord can nuzzle at his throat, pulse beating under his lips. “If I give you a present, will you leave them alone?”
Jackson perks up.
From behind his back, the warlord pulls out a sheath, one that Jackson recognizes, and slides the sword out before offering it to Jackson. The curve of the hilt, the sheen of the blade. The sword he was made to refuse at the joining.
He takes it reverently, and it’s just like he thought – the blade sings in his hand. He runs his fingertips appreciatively over the flat side. Then he turns to his warlord and throws his arms around his neck, stretching up to kiss him deeply. “No,” he says, “but thanks for the sword."
The warlord growls against his lips, and Jackson grins.
The barbarians don’t have a word for freckles, Jackson learns after asking Erica. The barbarians don’t have freckles, he realizes after asking, their skin evenly tanned, unblemished and smooth.
It explains why the warlord is so fascinated with them. He likes to lie with his head propped up on Jackson’s chest, sprawled between his legs, and gaze at his face in rapt wonder. He rubs his thumbs over Jackson’s cheekbones and stares at the little spots sprinkled across his nose and cheeks. Having spent so much of the last week in the sun, Jackson supposes his freckles must be out in full force, not that he has any way of seeing them.
“What is the name for these?” the warlord asks, swiping his tongue over Jackson’s cheeks and making him screw up his face at the slick sensation.
Freckle, therefore, is the first word Jackson teaches Derek.