Page 42

CYRUS

Cyrus shakes with bitter pain. It feels as though his world is crumbling into dust—he’s free, and he should be ecstatic, but all he feels is the hand around his neck, slowly squeezing him into nothing. All he hears are howls of glee, sounds of the Court’s victory over him. And Claudius’s words. You’ll have a place in the procession .

Right now, he’d rather die.

He clenches his jaw against sobs, his claws sinking into Mezor’s chest. Mezor bears the abuse silently.

“Tighter,” Cyrus mumbles. If only Mezor would put his hands on Cyrus’s neck in the exact place the Quartermaster did and replace that sensation forever.

“Your back?—”

“I need it,” he hisses.

“Hurt me instead,” Mezor rumbles. “I can handle it.”

Cyrus sucks in a stuttering breath. He digs his claws in harder, feeling the solid muscle give, drawing blood. He licks the sweat from the skin in front of his face, feeling it pebble under his mouth. The muscle shudders. Rip. Tear . His vergis howls. Mezor’s ribcage swells under him and his body goes taut.

“More. Let it out.”

He twists, trying to get closer, the bond sparkling with a storm of emotion. Sparks catch into flame. Molten heat spills down his whole body and into the pit of his stomach and a noise escapes his throat, raw and needy.

“Please—” he gasps. Mezor’s blunt claws suddenly grip him by the throat. “Yes!”

“Is this what you need?” Mezor grunts, bucking underneath him. His body gives off heat like a forge and the iron brand of his cock springs to life without hesitation, ready to service.

“Touch me,” Cyrus begs. He needs to erase the bitter smell of ichor and replace it with Mezor’s scent. To wipe the feeling of every cruel hand on him and replace it with Mezor’s hands. Fingers cup his thigh, hitching it high and exposing him. The fabric tears away. He squeezes his eyes shut as Mezor pulls him open with a snarl.

“You need it rough? You want me to own you? Take you?”

The words should feel wrong, but they’re perfect.

“ Yes ,” Cyrus sobs. His cock fits to Cyrus’s hole. Yes. The first thrust is agony and perfection. A howls wrenches from his throat.

Mezor’s hands are heavy on his hips. He pushes Cyrus down, all the way to the root, filling him in the most terrible way—with a gentleness he can’t bear. He sways, his breath catching. A thumb swipes under his eyes, claw trailing down his cheek. When he opens his eyes Mezor’s gaze is heavy. Too heavy. Mezor licks the salt from his thumb, his deadly teeth flashing.

“Let me give you a gift,” he murmurs.

He lifts Cyrus up by the hips, then brings him down again, using him gently, sweetly. The bond is an inferno, slowly eclipsing every one of Cyrus’s coherent thoughts. Cyrus falls to his hands on Mezor’s chest, hanging his head so he doesn’t have to look in his primus’s eyes. To have his soul bared by that knowing gaze. He’s limp in Mezor’s hands as Mezor uses him, just like he wanted, his cock emptying Cyrus of everything except him.

Then Mezor lets out a shocked snarl, and Cyrus finds himself sinking down over something big , thick and punishing, and he yelps and scrabbles at Mezor’s chest.

“What—”

“Do you want it?” Mezor gasps, holding him still suddenly. His eyes blaze. “You have to tell me.”

“Oh— oh! ” Cyrus’s legs tremble. His knot. It’s his knot. He squirms, frantically pushing back onto the intrusion. But Mezor’s grip is iron.

“Say it.”

“Please,” he begs.

“ Say it . You’re my vergis, but on my knot you’ll be my mate . I’ll give my thrall to you. But you must say it.”

The words are raw and feral. Cyrus lets loose a noise he’s never heard, not even during his heat, a noise of pure need and longing. “Yes, yes . Mate me. Knot me.”

Mezor’s eyes gleam. He pushes Cyrus down.

It’s not easy. It’s hard and painful, huge, his hole not slick enough, his body exhausted and resistant. Mezor’s arms come around him, carefully avoiding where his back aches the deepest.

“You’re so good,” he murmurs. “Taking my knot so well. You’re so tight, my little vergis. You need to relax.”

Cyrus shakes. He’s going to start sobbing again. How mortifying—a vergis who can’t even handle his primus’s cock. But slowly the deep ache eases as slick floods his channel, wetting the pulsing knot of flesh inside him, easing the way for Mezor’s cock to push deeper. He swallows back the tears building in his throat. I won’t . Against all odds, instead of making him feel weak and small, pinned on his primus’s massive girth, Mezor’s knot fills him with power .

He’s taking it. It’s not even his heat and he’s taking it—loving it—wanting it. No one can take this from him.

Mezor vibrates under his palms. He guides Cyrus down until they’re flush, until the whole thing is inside. His head tips back until his horns brush the ground and his neck draws taut. A deep groan spills from his lips. The bond is incandescent. Cyrus pants, his legs completely liquid, unable to move an inch. And then Mezor is jerking, shuddering. His knot pulses inside Cyrus’s tender hole, a wave that seems to shiver all the way up Mezor’s length. With a jolt, Cyrus feels something touch a spot deep, deep inside him.

“Ah!” he yowls, and he’s pulling tight, soaring, free from everything. Release scatters him as if he’s passing through the gate again.

Mezor lets out an animalistic moan and heat floods Cyrus’s whole lower half. With Mezor’s knot plugging the way out, his seed builds and builds until it can’t go anywhere but into Cyrus’s womb, sending waves of unbearable pleasure through the very core of his being. He can’t tell if the hot liquid dripping down his cheeks is tears or just his soul leaking out of his body.

Mezor’s hand winds into Cyrus’s hair and he cradles Cyrus close. Cyrus collapses onto his mate’s chest, spilling come and slick everywhere and utterly empty of all thoughts except one.

“Mine,” he whispers.

“Yours,” Mezor murmurs, and the bond flares with finality.

Cyrus hisses as cold, stinging water trickles across his back. Mezor tears strips of cloth, handing them over one by one so he can bind them around his chest and seal the wounds away. Most of the whip marks have scabbed over now, but his back still burns and aches. Even lifting his arms makes him sweat. The flush of energy he got from taking Mezor’s knot is quickly draining.

Mezor is quiet, but Cyrus can practically hear his primus in his own head now. His thoughts swirl in a mix of protectiveness and smug pleasure, with an undercurrent of fury. Mezor wants to tear the Court apart stone by stone.

He can’t say he disagrees.

Where the gate took them sits between the pit and the wilds, where the shale is overgrown with pale scrubby mosses and stunted, twisting trees. Mount Hythe lurks on the far side of the pit, and high above it is the eye of Earth’s sky, the opening between realms. Dust and storms pour over the edge in drifts, forming strange clouds around the mountain’s midsection. The light from Earth’s day suffuses everything faintly, a distant dawn rising over a sea of shale. But the light here makes him feel exposed. Cyrus wants to hide in the dark forever, just him and his primus.

He takes the last strip of cloth from Mezor and hesitates, arms shaking with exhaustion. Mezor plucks it from his fingers.

“Here.”

He knots it deftly and tucks the ends under. His fingers trail over the old scar on Cyrus’s chest, and a deep furrow cuts his brow.

“You have other scars.”

“He’s never whipped me like this. Not more than a couple blows.” It seems important to say. But Mezor’s furious scowl grows.

“He should never have dared to touch you.”

“Who would have stopped him?” Cyrus shrugs.

“I should have.” Mezor’s expression grows serious. “I ignored the violence and tumult of the Court, believing it wasn’t my domain. But by doing so, I haven’t done justice to my kind.”

“We entered the Court willingly. We knew the price.”

Mezor sits back on his haunches. He’s partially dressed again, but Cyrus is naked. The cool air is a balm on his skin. Everything aches, from head to toe, and he longs to fall into a deep sleep and not wake up until the world is right again.

“What happened in there?” Mezor asks.

Cyrus shuffles closer. The air feels different between them. Are our souls already entwining to become one? He struggles to turn his mind back to the Court.

“Leuther is dead,” he begins, which seems to be the most important news. “And the Grey Company must have flooded the tunnels at the same time Magnus unleashed the serpents on us, so his dream of expansion is also dead.”

Mezor nods. “I saw the tunnels.”

“The Court is leaderless. It’s hard to say what will happen.”

With Leuther gone, those left will split into factions within factions. But he finds it hard to care.

“In the midst of all that, you freed a rok,” Mezor says.

Cyrus looks for Ekko automatically. The bird perches atop a peak in the craggy landscape, his head tucked under his wing. He took flight as soon as they crossed through the gate, shaking water from his wings, and Cyrus half expected him not to return. But here he is.

“What do you call him?” he asks.

“A rok,” Mezor says. “He’s one of Hell’s most fearsome predators—they eat young serpents for breakfast. I have never seen one so placid.”

“He was a prisoner when I met him. He might have even been raised in the cage. I worried he wouldn’t know how to fly. But I didn’t need to worry—he’s too clever.”

“Many would have left him to die.”

“I’m his friend. He saved me.” More than once.

“I’m indebted to him for that.”

“So am I.”

Cyrus sinks into Mezor’s arms, careful not to jar his aching wounds. Mezor’s fingers card through his hair gently. His eyes drift shut and his heart swells as the bond wraps comfortingly closer. But a thread of uncertainty keeps him from falling asleep. His thoughts turn slowly as Mezor’s chest rises under his cheek.

“What now?” he wonders out loud.

“Now…” Mezor trails off. A flicker of unease enters the bond. His breath brushes the inside of Cyrus’s wrist. “Now I plant the last world seed.”

Cyrus nods. He doesn’t understand the feelings that war in him. Where he’s connected to Mezor, he’s grounded. But in his heart a storm swells.

Freedom. Power. Respect. Things he longed for are within his reach now. The Grey Company accepted him into their ranks, and someday he might even forgive them for what they did. Yet what he truly wants, what he dreams of now, is something transcendent. Something he can’t name for fear of losing it.