Page 9 of Golden Bond (Pleasure Palace #1)

Chapter

Five

CALLIS

T he sky was painted with fire.

Clouds drifted in slow waves of rose and bronze across the horizon as I followed the attendant through a long corridor open to the warm dusk air. The breeze carried the scent of honeysuckle and heated stone, and the faint sound of a lyre somewhere distant echoed like memory.

We descended into the bath chambers as the sun began to vanish beyond the sea.

The space was carved directly into the rock beneath the palace—a hollowed sanctum of arches and smooth floors, lit with lanterns set high along the walls.

Steam curled lazily toward the ceiling. There was no harshness here.

Only warmth. Stillness. The sound of water shifting gently within its basins.

The baths themselves were wide, sunken pools of golden stone that glowed faintly from within—sunstones.

They drank in the light each day and gave it back to the water slowly, keeping it warm long after the sun had vanished.

The heat rolled across my skin as I stepped near, wrapping around me like breath.

Two attendants waited without a word. They were young, but older than I—barefoot, robed in white, their hair tied back, their expressions unreadable. They did not bow. They simply looked at me and waited.

I understood.

I undressed slowly, aware of their gazes, though they said nothing. The seret slipped from my shoulder and fell soundlessly to the polished stone, leaving me bare in the golden steamlight. My chest rose slightly as I inhaled, arms at my sides. I told myself I wasn’t ashamed.

But the truth was smaller. Tighter. I had never been seen this way. Not like this.

The water welcomed me as I stepped in. It enveloped my legs, my hips, my chest, until I sank into it completely. The heat unknotted something at the base of my spine, and a breath escaped my lips without permission.

Then they began.

One moved behind me, the other to my side. Neither spoke. Hands, warm and assured, dipped into bowls of fragrant oils and worked them into my hair. They poured water from shallow vessels, cupped and slow, until my scalp tingled and my neck slackened. Their touch was firm, practiced, reverent.

They washed my shoulders with cloths soaked in herbal foam, moving in gentle, sweeping strokes that chased the ache from my muscles.

My arms, my chest, my stomach—nothing rushed, nothing left to shame.

Every inch of me was acknowledged, and I didn’t know what to do with that.

No one had ever touched me like this. Not out of love. Not out of lust. Just… attention. Care.

I thought I would be embarrassed.

Instead, I sat very still and let it happen.

One moved lower, kneeling beside the bath as he scrubbed my legs with clean-smelling salts.

The other brushed his hands through my hair again, now rinsed smooth and weightless.

Their hands never lingered where they shouldn’t—but still, something in the rhythm of their motions blurred the line between sacred and sensual.

I had never been with anyone. Not man. Not woman.

Nineteen summers had passed and I’d spent them in temple halls and scriptoriums, apprenticed to words, not bodies.

I had assumed, in the way boys do when no other vision is offered, that my future would hold a wife, perhaps children, a simple home behind the temple walls of my island.

And yet even then, even as a child, I had lingered over the myths where men lay with men.

The old legends. The moonlit rites. The warriors who wept in each other’s arms before the battle.

My tutors glossed over them quickly, but the stories remained.

Carved in stone, etched in ink, sung in verse when the wine flowed too freely.

Such pairings weren’t uncommon. Not here.

Even on my island, where tradition hardened like salt in the seams of stone, there had been some—two old fishermen who lived together by the harbor, a healer and his apprentice who never married, a traveling merchant who brought the same handsome servant year after year.

No one spoke harshly. Just quietly. Like something precious should not be too loudly named.

Here, there were no whispers. Just silk and sun and the ease of touch.

The attendants finished rinsing me with final care, then stepped away. One held out a large drying cloth. I stood, water sheeting down my skin, and let them blot it away. Not a single stroke was rushed.

Then came the oil.

It smelled faintly of amber and orange blossom. One warmed it in his hands, then smoothed it across my arms and shoulders, down my back, across my chest. The oil soaked into my skin and left it luminous. My breath slowed. The room no longer felt hot, just quiet.

By the time they stepped away, I barely recognized myself.

I was no longer a scribe’s apprentice. No longer a boy running from shame. I was clean. Soft-skinned and sun-touched, standing in the heat-glow of sacred stone.

Beautiful.

That was the word that came, uninvited, and I didn’t dismiss it.

But still, the tightness lingered in my chest.

Because I didn’t know who waited for me beyond those doors. I didn’t know what would be asked of me. I didn’t know if I was ready .

And so I closed my eyes.

And I pictured Caedin.

The way his lashes curved when he smiled, the gentle curl of his voice, the way he never rushed, never pushed, just left space for me to step into.

He had been kind. He had looked at me like I mattered.

And if I had to be touched—if I had to be taken—I wanted it to be by someone who would hold me the way he spoke to me. Carefully.

I didn’t think I’d be that lucky.

But it gave me something to hold on to.

A single shape in the fog.

A breath before the ritual began.

The silks they dressed me in shimmered like flame.

Pale gold at first glance, but shifting with motion, threaded with something finer than I had ever seen.

The fabric caught the lanternlight and scattered it like dust over water.

The attendants moved without instruction, lifting my arms, draping the folds, and fastening the wrap across my chest. The seams were lined with gold. Not embroidered. Woven in.

When they stepped back, they studied me in silence, then bowed lightly and gestured for me to follow.

My feet were bare. The floor beneath was warm, smoothed by centuries of passage. I walked softly between the two attendants, my silks whispering around my legs with each step, heart tightening in slow coils.

The corridor deepened, arched and veiled in shadow, moonstones glowed like breath of gods. I thought of the boy I had seen in the Temple days before, splayed out on the polished stone, his limbs loose and glazed with sweat. The way his body had yielded.

My chest ached. Not with pain. With anticipation. Dread. A fear that had no name but many forms.

Then we reached the doors.

They were enormous—solid wood carved with intertwining vines and celestial symbols, their surface worn smooth from countless hands. The attendants stepped aside without a word.

I stood alone.

The doors opened with a low sound, like thunder underwater.

And I stepped into the chamber.

It was round, high-vaulted, and silent but for the low murmurs of movement. The ceiling vanished into shadow above. Lamps were set in golden sconces, their moonlit glows low and steady. The air was warm, perfumed faintly with myrrh and rose.

Young priests lined the outer edge of the space. They wore pale robes, their hair adorned with thin gold cords, their hands folded in front of them. Beside them stood attendants—youths perhaps only a few years older than I—silent, calm, expectant.

And at the center of the room stood him.

He faced away, positioned before an altar draped in deep crimson silk.

His back was straight, his posture unmoving.

A dark silk scarf was wrapped loosely around his head, the ends falling behind his shoulders.

His right arm was bare from the elbow down, his upper arm circled with a thick ring of gold.

The ceremonial armor covered one shoulder, and his calf guards gleamed as if newly polished.

The seret he wore had been adapted—broader, richer, fastened with gold and hanging perfectly over his left shoulder, gathered at the hip with a seal I didn’t recognize.

Everything about him radiated intent and power.

My throat tightened.

This wasn’t Caedin.

I took a step forward, unsure if I’d been expected to move on my own, but the moment passed in silence. No one stopped me. No one guided me.

The altar drew my eyes.

It was low—just beneath the height of a man’s hips—and wide, its top covered in a thick cushion beneath the silk. A shallow bowl of oil glinted on a small pedestal beside it. There were no restraints. No tools. But there didn’t need to be.

I knew.

I knew what would happen there.

My body would be prepared. My posture adjusted. My offering accepted.

And whoever this man was… he would be the one to receive it.

A priest stepped forward.

He was only a little older, robed in soft gray with silver edging, and his voice—when he spoke—was deep and precise, like a bell rung in still air.

“In the sight of sun and moon, with breath between them, we call forth the Bond. ”

I stood still, hands at my sides, every breath louder than the last.

“We summon now the one who has been offered,” the priest said, eyes fixed on me. “He has come in humility and hope. He is called Callis.”

A whisper passed through the room, like silk drawn through water.

The priest turned, his hand outstretched toward the young man before the altar.

“And the one who has chosen,” he continued, “whose blood bears the seal of the sacred line, who speaks with the blessing of the Temple and calls forth this Bond beneath sacred moon and setting sun…”

A pause.

Then:

“He is Auren.”

The name rang like a chime struck too sharply. The golden one .

And the young man turned.

He didn’t rush.