Page 26

CYRUS

It’s been four days since Cyrus last saw Mezor. The bond pulls tight, telling him Mezor is away. The ache claws at him. He should keep busy instead of wallowing, but he wants nothing more than to surround himself with Mezor’s scent. He fails to convince himself he shouldn’t.

The grotto is dark when he arrives. Slowly, the moss-glow rises as if responding to his presence, filling the massive cave with starlike glimmers. His skin prickles. He’s never been here while Mezor is away—it feels like he’s crossing an invisible line. He goes straight to the cottage, letting himself into the back room. May as well go all the way. He dives into Mezor’s bed and buries himself in the furs and blankets, drinking in gulps of the heady scent that billows up.

It smells like them together, soothing the worst of the ache. But a different type of unhappiness creeps in.

Mate , his vergis insists.

Not my mate. It’s just an arrangement. He buries his face in their combined scent again and breathes deeply. The furs slide against his horns decadently. He lets his hand wander down.

His own touch is a cold substitute for Mezor’s hands on him. His cock twitches weakly and gives up. Cyrus sighs.

This was his last heat. When he comes out of the Hellspring the second time, after the King grants him access, he’ll be null. Or, maybe in a twist of cruel irony, he’ll be a primus. Either way, he can’t imagine ever allowing another creature to touch him the way Mezor does. Who would compare to him? It’s not just his firm, knowing touch, the wicked things he does with his mouth, or even the voracious stare that makes Cyrus melt. It’s the way he treats Cyrus like he’s worthy—like he’s an actual person, not just a cog in a machine. Not just a book of secrets.

He shuts his eyes, letting himself sink into memory for an indulgent moment.

Memories are tinged with longing, though, and soon the bond aches again. Reluctantly, he gets up from the bed and takes himself outside to sit by the creek. He strips off his boots and dangles his feet in the icy water, and the cold shocks him fully back to himself.

He doesn’t hear Mezor return. Cyrus startles to see him appear silently at the water’s edge. Mezor says nothing, his mouth pressed shut and his eyes dark and tired.

Cyrus starts to get up, but Mezor shakes his head and takes a seat next to him. “Stay.”

He unlaces his boots with jerky movements and sticks his own feet in the water, hissing at the cold. The lines around his mouth slowly fade, but his shoulders remain taut and his claws dig into the pebbled bank. Anger washes through the bond in waves. Cyrus bites his tongue. His feet are going numb, but he doesn’t dare pull them out now. Mezor seems to need this.

In spite of Mezor’s mood, he can’t deny the sheer relief that sweeps over him as the bond settles.

Suddenly Mezor lets out a long sigh. He unclenches his hands. “Have you waited long?”

Cyrus shakes his head mutely, taking the chance to yank his feet out. They’re dark with coursing ichor and aching from the cold.

“Let me.” Mezor gestures at his feet abruptly.

“Wha—?” Cyrus frowns at him, and Mezor takes his foot and tumbles him on to his back. He yelps. Powerful hands stroke and pull, easing the flow of blood back to the appendage.

“Relax,” Mezor growls.

“You don’t need to,” Cyrus mumbles, but his spine rapidly turns to liquid and his ability to speak goes with it. Mezor only grunts. His anger rises and falls, filling Cyrus and then leaving him empty. All Cyrus can do is shut his eyes and try to breathe through it. For the first time, their connection feels overwhelming.

“Was it successful? Whatever you had to do.”

Mezor scowls. “I had a meeting with the King.”

“Oh.”

Mezor’s hands move to his other foot. “It’s inconsequential.”

Cyrus’s nature is to prod, and his vergis wants him to reach out. To comfort and soothe. But it isn’t that kind of bond. They’re not mates. He keeps his lips closed until Mezor’s fingers dig into his calves, until he can’t hold back the shocked Ah! that spills out and the wave of arousal that follows. At least this is familiar. The bond wraps around him comfortingly, and he lets his eyes drift shut.

This is what their arrangement is about.

The button on Cyrus’s pants gives way under Mezor’s demanding claw. Then he’s being divested of his clothing, flipped over onto his front in the cushiony moss. The ground glimmers before his eyes and everything bursts into bright sparks as Mezors hot, firm tongue slides across his hole.

“Ohhh,” he moans, twisting.

Mezor says nothing, only dives in. His claws dig into Cyrus’s ass in a sharp counterpoint while his tongue slithers deviously over Cyrus’s tense opening. Again and again, until Cyrus’s legs are water and he can’t stop crying out, the earthy air of the grotto and Mezor’s hot, stormy scent filling his lungs with every gasp. Mezor tilts his hips up and then Cyrus is being filled , Mezor’s tongue sliding inside like he’s been waiting for it. He howls. The tongue strokes his insides, burning him up.

Time blurs. Cyrus feels like he reaches the edge over and over, until he can only squirm limply under the onslaught. Then Mezor flips him onto his back in the moss and descends on Cyrus, his markings glowing like stars.

Cyrus barely has a heartbeat to catch his breath before Mezor’s lips capture his and his tongue slides inside. Clarity returns in a rush. His heart flips. He tastes his own slick, the salty musk of Mezor’s mouth—but more than that, he tastes longing. Hunger.

The bond shivers like a wire pulled tight. Cyrus arches into him.

“Please,” he begs, breaking away.

“Taste your essence on my tongue,” Mezor snarls, his eyes like fire. “Your slick drives me wild. There’s nothing like it in all the realms.”

He kisses Cyrus again, leaving him no room to negotiate. Cyrus moans around the tongue thick in his mouth. Mezor makes a noise like he’s pained. He rips himself away and lifts Cyrus’s hips into the air, leaving Cyrus to wail openly as Mezor lashes his hole again with his hot, wet, insatiable tool.

He shakes in Mezor’s hands, his whole lower half an inferno. Is he coming? Can he come? “Please, please,” he cries, fumbling at Mezor. His hand lands on a horn and he grips it tight as Mezor devours him mercilessly.

The ensuing growl vibrates through his cock, into his hole and all the way up his clenching passage to his womb, and Cyrus shouts as his whole body seizes. His hole squeezes and flutters around Mezor’s tongue. Come bursts across his chest and face as he spasms through his peak. Mezor’s roar fills him to the brim with pure fire. He feels like he’s coming endlessly, riding higher and higher with every twitch of Mezor’s tongue inside him.

The waves gentle. He pants, trembling, every single muscle limp with release.

Faintly, he registers being laid down with care.

Mezor looms above him, his eyes half-lidded. He wipes the come off Cyrus’s face with his thumb and licks it clean. “Such a good vergis.”

To Cyrus’s embarrassment, he finds a giddy smile drifting across his lips.

Mezor licks along his collar, then up his tender scent gland. Then he’s taking control of Cyrus’s mouth again, only this time he’s tasting slick and seed—sweet with a hint of bitterness. He finds the strength to dig his claws into Mezor’s tangle of hair.

“You didn’t come.”

“I needed to taste you.” Mezor’s self-satisfied smirk gleams in the glow of the grotto. But a thread of honesty darkens his gaze, and Cyrus’s traitorous heart thumps.

He shifts experimentally. His hole is tender and sensitive—but he could take Mezor’s cock. He wriggles out of Mezor’s arms, intending to present, but Mezor shakes his head.

“Your mouth. I want to taste myself on your tongue afterward.”

Cyrus nods mutely.

Mezor sits back, allowing Cyrus to sit between his thighs. Cyrus opens his buttons takes a deep breath of the powerful musk that rises as Mezor’s cock springs free. Mezor pulls his pants off and kicks them away, then leans back on his hands. His cock stands straight up, a rich, dark red, gleaming with wetness at the tip. The base already thickens with his proto-knot. Cyrus is unreasonably proud of its state. I did that. I’m the reason he’s worked up.

He runs his fists up and down Mezor’s shaft to spread his slick pre-seed. Mezor holds himself completely still, except for his cock, which kicks eagerly in Cyrus’s palm.

He fists his prize with both hands, smoothing the thick, sensitive ridges and working his fingers over the head over and over. All the while Mezor watches him intensely, the soft light of the grotto giving him a strange air. Cyrus wants to hide from his gaze—he wants to hold himself open and beg to be consumed. He’s a god. An ancient being. Yet he does this under my touch…

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Mezor says suddenly, the words coming out strangled. “Speak to me as a vergis.”

“I’d never been touched before you took my heat,” Cyrus blurts. “Now I want it all the time. Your cock ruined me for anything else.”

Mezor groans, his gaze piercing. “You deserve it.”

He swallows the salty explosion of Mezor’s pre-seed, heart thundering. “I thought about being touched by you every time I breathed your scent.”

A tremor runs through Mezor’s thigh under his palm. The same scent is suddenly so thick it’s stifling.

“Use your mouth now,” Mezor rasps.

The command makes him tremble with excitement. He barely gets his lips around the ruddy tip before Mezor is groaning and pulsing in his hand. Bouts of seed erupt into his mouth. Mezor’s grip is suddenly firm on his head, holding him in place so all he can do is accept the hot gift spilling down his throat. Not that he wants to move. He gladly swallows, coaxing more seed out with the flat of his tongue, milking Mezor’s cock dry. Mezor’s breath stutters. He squeezes his fist in Cyrus’s hair. Cyrus’s jaw aches as his mouth fills with bursts of tart, heady come, sending him drifting into a warm, floaty place.

When Mezor releases him he crawls up and presents his mouth for a taste, and Mezor licks into him with a pleased noise.

“Perfect,” he murmurs again.