Love Rising by Piper Vaughn

Author:Piper Vaughn [Vaughn, Piper]
Language: eng
Format: epub

THERE WAS a certain measure of comfort to be found in routine. After a night of pure misery, Francis lost himself in his daily activities. He passed most of his hours in the kitchens of The Crooked Sabre, sweating out his weight in water in the oppressive, nearly unbearable heat. His throat was constantly parched and dizziness made his head spin, but he pushed on regardless, halting only when the evening cook grasped his shoulder, deposited Francis in front of a bowl of fish stew, and then sent him on his way with strict orders to proceed directly to his bed.

Francis went to the tavern instead, serving as a second barkeep until sheer exhaustion compelled him back to his solitary bed. And so the pattern continued from one day to the next.

Francis’s strength began to wane. His overworked body reflected the myriad of emotions that tormented him. His soul felt bruised, and there was a brittleness in him, as if at any moment he might shatter. There was a sharp, bitter ache in his chest that intensified with every hour that passed since Wick vanished into those dark, lapping waves.

Nothing eased it, and the thought of trying to soothe it away in the arms of another man held no appeal.

He wanted Wick. To simply be in his presence. It was true he would have liked more touches and kisses as well, but beyond those things, above all else, Francis wanted only to set his eyes upon Wick once more. The thought that it might never be possible was agony, and a part of him yearned for nothing more than to lie upon the ground, curl into himself, and wither away into dust. Then the pain would be gone, along with the loneliness and the bleak and utter despair.

After a fortnight spent in that miserable state, Francis’s body was left a shell of its former self. It made no sense. Francis had spent a night and a day with Wick, nothing more, and during that time neither of them had spoken in a way the other understood. Yet to Francis’s mind, to his soul, to the aching, desolate depths of his heart, he had suffered a tremendous loss.

Francis doubted, given even a thousand years, he would ever recover. It was that certainty, along with a wild, beckoning call in the dead of night, one he felt rather than heard, that led him to the shore nearly three weeks after he had returned Wick to the sea.

He stood in the sand, unmoved by the wind that whipped around him, his eyes focused on the dark, churning waves. There was something heavy in the air, something that raised the hair on his arms and sent a shudder along his back. Thick clouds overhead portended the arrival of a storm.

Francis gave no thought to the potential danger. He succumbed to the urge to step out into the water, fighting hard to stay upright against the violence of the waves. The water was nearly up to his neck when abruptly a firm hold was taken of each of his wrists.

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