Immortal by Amy Lane

Author:Amy Lane [Lane, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2015-04-19T23:00:00+00:00

THE NEXT day, it were not a guardsman who were led through the forge to Cairsten’s front door: it were the prince himself.

His carriage showed up as Diarmuid, Cairsten, and I had just gotten to work. The fires were hot and the oak barrel full, and Cairsten and Diarmuid were laboring fierce on parts for the carter. I were in the corner with a crucible, pouring tiny ingot bars o’ silver and gold. Not just what we’d found on the forest floor, but what I’d been hoarding. It were tricksy work, and I ignored the prince for moments while I filled the mold an’ then put the crucible back over the fire.

When I were done I put down my tongs and took off the face mask Cairsten made me wear, as well as the heavy leather gloves.

“I’m not accustomed to waiting,” the prince said coldly as Diarmuid and Cairsten both took time to leave their projects in a good place.

“We aren’t accustomed to stopping a good day’s work,” Cairsten said bluntly. “We apologize for the wait. Would ye like ter see where the children be fucking now?”

The prince gasped in shock, and Diarmuid and I met amused eyes. Aye, well, Cairsten had not been pleased at a home visit.

“They do not seem to be rutting in there now,” the prince said mildly, and my stomach knotted.

Clancy had needed to go to her mum’s. She’d taken to our home so sweetly—we gave her privacy and the first wash on bathing day, and she helped keep our home while we worked. She were pert and sassy, but grateful, and we did our best not to ever remind her o’ that day in the carriage with the man who claimed to rule us.

Every night, we put on our nightshirts and slid under the sheets. Once the initial awkwardness had passed, we remembered we were mates. We spoke o’ our neighbors often, in the shared darkness, o’ the farmer who cheated us for his strawberries when it were time to make preserves, and the carter’s child who were growing so big. We spoke o’ Abel and Kerrigan, who were hard workers, but who seemed to be working hard in the bedroom too. We wondered when Kerrigan would grow ripe with child, and when we’d be able to hold it.

Same conversations I’d have with Diarmuid, truth be told. But whenever Diarmuid and I spoke intimately in a darkened room, our hands were on each other’s skin and our mouths were busy tracing patterns on the other’s throat, his chest, his stomach.

We could not have those conversations when anyone else were home.

So we spoke as brothers at the supper table, and we’d always worked well together.

And Clancy and I were forced into a partnership that had friendship but no passion.

Those ingots of gold and silver were glowing star bright in my mind, and perhaps it were that vision that gave me the courage to speak.

“She doona wish yer company.”

The prince eyed me as though he’d never seen me before.

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