The Wicker King (The Wicker King, #1)

by K. Ancrum

And like always, August followed him.

“Are you seeing things now?” “Yes.” “What?” “You.” August closed his eyes.

Jack was crouched in the corner in the dark, his head buried in his arms. August strode fast to him and dropped to his knees. He lifted Jack’s face and gripped it tight in his hands. “I was just scared,” Jack whispered. “I know.” He wiped a tear from Jack’s cheek, smearing his face with ash. “Don’t leave me.” August shut his eyes. “I won’t.”

“They have stories about you, songs. They call you the Raven, the Golden Bird, the King’s Lionheart. Women smile at you as we walk in the streets; men talk about you over their fires. It’s written all over the walls. They love you and you can’t even see them … my Lionheart. Can you imagine?”

Jack reached out and grabbed August’s chin, wrenching his face away from the light. “You burn things all the time these days,” Jack said softly. “Would you burn for me?”

Like a secondhand kiss on a breath of ash.

The Wicker King was beautiful—brilliant, mad, sick, free.

He wanted to see Jack. He wished they had been kind enough to jail them together. Let them be with each other. Let him stand at Jack’s side, like he was meant to.

“I don’t care. You’re the most precious thing in the world to me. They’re trying to make you forget that. Don’t let them make you forget it.”

You’re so stupid, August. You’re so stupid and I love you so much.”

“It always has been. In this world and the next. They could take everything away and leave us with nothing, and I would still love you.”

Jack kissed him so carefully that August thought he would fall to pieces. Kissed him with the weight of knowing the price of risk. Then he gazed back at August like his heart was already breaking.

They were being watched, but August didn’t care. He curled his fingers into Jack’s shirt and dragged him closer.