Brute
Big surprise I know...AUDIOBOOK completed and rated...5 HUGE STARS!!!
Just a beautiful accompaniment to this book in every way.
Recent article/interview with the amazing K.C. Kelly...http://www.kfieldingwrites.com/ooh-thats-interesting-interview-with-k-c-kelly/
“Don't you d-dare say you're ugly or stupid or worthless. Don't you dare! Y-you're a giant because an ordinary man's body is t-too small for what you are."
Book - 4.5 Stars
So many of our love stories focus on the beauty of our characters, love at first sight, and that tingle we get when our handsome characters meet and see each other for the first time.
How fulfilling it can be to experience love develop from touch…
…and not just physical touches. Love developing through kindness, through caring about another human being, through comfort and through the heart. Seeing the love grow between two characters who neither one felt they deserved it, who didn’t see the beauty of the person they were within and truly believed they would never deserve to be loved, was just rewarding in so many ways.
The love between them grew emotionally through these touches in ways that just warms the heart.
I only wished for more. I wanted more with Alys and Warrin and honestly I wanted a confrontation with the King himself. For him to see with his own eyes that the punishment had been enough and that the love shared between these two men was equal to or more than the love he had shared with his wife. Everyone else could see it and understood that the Gods had truly spoken, I wanted him to as well.
A gift from my Secret Santa Marco...one of his favorites of 2014...thank you, love.
Status Update:
4% done with Brute: Not for the first time, he wished he were an ordinary-sized man who was given ordinary-sized duties to perform. But he’d learned a very long time ago—before he even had the words to express the idea—that wishing was useless.
So given what's left of my heart after my last book, I think the gentle giant might end up taking what's left.
6% done with Brute: It was the only time anyone ever touched him, and, as meaningless as those touches were, he suspected that he’d shrivel up and die without them. Or worse yet, that he’d lose his humanity altogether and become the monster everyone assumed he was.
Yep...he's definitely taking what's left of the ole heart.
9% done with Brute: Oh, Brute.
15% done with Brute: "Brute, meet Gray Leynham."
20% done with Brute: Finally when he couldn’t stand it any longer, he stood and yanked one of the blankets off the bed. He crossed the room, unlocked the cell door, and tossed the quilt onto the prisoner’s legs. He locked the door again before returning to bed, where sleep came swiftly.
Sweet Brute. ❤️
23% done with Brute: “Wh-why so k-k-kind?”
Nobody had ever called Brute kind before, and he’d never thought of himself that way. Really, he had done very little for this man. But that little was apparently more than the previous guardian had managed. “I don’t know. It doesn’t… it doesn’t cost me anything to do these things, does it? And I’ve never really had the chance before to—well, I don’t know.” He twitched nervously.
27% done with Brute: “Do you think it’s broken? Do you think maybe I’ll end up with a bump like yours?”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine and straight.”
"Oh.” Warin sounded disappointed. “Maybe if I sort of whack at it….”
"Why would you want to ruin your face with a nose like mine?”
"Because you… you’re amazing! You’re like Fenris. In the story, you know? Big as a mountain and brave as a bull and he saves a whole town from the monsters of the chasm.”
Love this kid!
28% done with Brute: “Y-you’re st-st-still strong.”
Gaaaahhh...my favorite scene thus far.
31% done with Brute: “No! Wh-wh-why l-l-l-learn?”
“Everybody keeps asking me that. The other day I went for a walk, and I saw a bookshop. Hundreds—no, thousands of books. And it was like each one had a secret. I guess I’d like to see some of those secrets.”
OMG that is just about the most perfect thing!
32% done with Brute: "I’m nobody, nothing.”
"Don’t you dare say that! Don’t you dare! You are a good man, Brute, and a kind one. You’re patient with Warin and you’re working hard to better yourself and you… you save people! All those other things, they don’t matter, not to anyone with sense. Some man is going to find you, Brute, and he’s going to sweep you off your great big feet, and then he’s gonna spend the rest of his days realizing how damned lucky he is!”
Alys...you're wonderful!!
33% done with Brute: He walked away with a song on his lips and an unaccustomed lightness in his heart. Not because he believed her, but because for the first time in his life, he knew that somebody believed in him.
❤️❤️❤️
40% done with Brute: So the scene with Petrus just kinda broke my heart. Petrus was really the first one sexually to not treat him like an ogre and was genuinely kind to him. :(
41% done with Brute: He’d held Gray many times, comforting him during nightmares, but never when Gray was awake. And Gray had never been the one to hold him. In fact, nobody had held Aric since his mother died, and that thought sent him into a fresh and humiliating round of bawling. Gray continued to hold him—although his knees must have been hurting from the hard floor—and he petted Aric’s back and hummed a tune that Aric dimly recognized as one of the lullabies he often sang to Gray in the midst of his terrible dreams.
*insert sad gif here*
43% done with Brute: "I haven’t d-d-done anything useful for… f-for a long t-t-t-time. Nothing except the fucking d-d-d-d-dreams. H-holding you, I felt useful. Strong. Th-thank you.”
❤️❤️
49% done with Brute: “It doesn’t have to m-mean anything. J-just c-comfort given, comfort shared. Or it can mean everything.”
"I’ve never done this,” he admitted.
"You’re a v-virgin?”
“No. There are—there were boys during the Harvest Moon Festival. I paid them double.” He realized that his words probably made little sense, but he just couldn’t be coherent with Gray pressed up against him, breathing against his neck.
“Whores? That’s all?”
"Yes.”
"N-not the same then. Not the same as when someone w-wants you. And gods, Aric, I want you.”
55% done with Brute: “I’m sorry, Itan,” he whispered. “I promise I’ll remember your name.”
58% done with Brute: "I'm a f-fool."
61% done with Brute: ❤️❤️❤️"Y-you're a giant because an ordinary man's body is t-too small for what you are."❤️❤️❤️
That could be the best yet.❤️❤️❤️
64% done with Brute: Aric could feel the chains, heavy and cold, and it was as if they were fastened to him as well.
72% done with Brute: "M-maybe the gods don't hate me so much after all."
77% done with Brute: None at all. It's my price this time.
83% done with Brute: "My g-gentle giant."
I'm afraid this is the calm before the storm. *buckles up*
86% done with Brute: “Have you been planning this all along?”
"More or less.”
"Why, Aric? You’ve seen what begging from the gods did to me. Why would you bring something like that on yourself?”
The answer was simple. “Because I love you.”
When Gray sighed, his breath tickled the hairs on Aric’s chest. “Idiot. I don’t deserve that kind of love. What have I ever done for you?”
“You made me feel like someone cared about me."
88% done with Brute: Even early on, when Gray was mostly silent and they very rarely touched, Aric had known that Gray was there, listening in the darkness. Now he felt as if a piece of himself had been torn away, something important that would slowly kill him by its loss. Or not so slowly, perhaps.
93% done with Brute: ❤️❤️❤️ “Dammit, Aric! Even Lorad and Lokad had their limits, and I don’t want a lover who’s a charred corpse or a damn statue. I may be a blind fool who’s never done anything worthwhile, but can’t you at least understand that I’d risk anything to save you? You’re all I fucking want!”
❤️❤️❤️
96% done with Brute: “Nearly anyone can carry a rock, although I imagine you carried bigger ones than most could manage. I mean the burden of caring. You care deeply for those around you. Even those who might do you harm.”
***
“Kashta’s right. What you did for me… even in the very beginning, when I was filthy and couldn’t speak and was probably scaring the hell out of you with those damned dreams… you were reminding me in all these tiny ways that I was human. You talked to me and gave me a quilt and….” He made a choked sound deep in his throat and ducked his head. But when he raised it a moment later he was smiling. He leaned his weight against Brute and sighed. “Mine.”
"Mine" indeed.
