Page 6 of Impaled by His Omega Prince (Reluctant Fae Princes #2)

Askara

Watching Lumic’s chest rise and fall, each breath shuddering weakly as his lifeblood spilled made Askara’s anger rise. He was such a talented male, and if it weren’t for the magic on his self and on the cells, Askara would have let him free the day he arrived. He was too precious to waste away in Cilan’s games.

“Let me help him,” Askara said, his voice hard and sharp. Cilan sneered as if he wanted to protest, but whatever expression Askara had seemed to spook the male.

“Fine. But he better bring in some dharni, or it’s chopping-block time.” Cilan opened the cell and held Askara’s sigil.

Askara wasn’t as forthcoming with Cilan as the alpha would have liked, and one thing he didn’t know was that Askara’s magic was useless all save for one thing. Vitalis.

Askara slipped into Lumic’s cell and licked his thumb. Whispering a soft prayer to his mother sun, a soft golden glow spread through his saliva, and there, he brushed the digit over Lumic’s lips, dipping the tip of it over his tongue. When Lumic made a soft noise, he turned his head, lips wrapping around Askara’s finger for a gentle suck and lick. Askara drew his hand back as if burned. The fire that didn’t touch his fingers buried deep in his stomach and further south into his cock.

In the time it took Askara to look away and stand, ashamed at his own brashness, Cilan laughed from the door of the cell. “Brave. I suppose you don’t have to be if you cannot die.”

“Not brave.” Askara approached Cilan, head bowed slightly.

“If it weren’t for the fact that you’re some monster, I’d not tolerate you nearly as well. Must be hard to get a maggie in your bed?”

Askara’s cheeks burned, and while he’d been told it was hardly noticeable with his skin tone, as a dusk himself, Cilan could tell. “As I live and breathe! You’re an innocent. That’s one sword you’ve not buried in an omega yet.”

Askara cleared his throat. “I haven’t had much opportunity to—”

“I can imagine. Keep making me money, boy, and I’ll load the maggie up on sorvin and toss him in your bed.” Cilan slapped Askara’s back, making him stumble as they slipped out of the cell, the metallic clang damning behind him.

“All I ask is that you let him live, please, Cilan? I don’t want to defile him.” Askara turned his head away from Cilan and his crude suggestions.

“Well, if it ain’t you…someone else will.” Cilan snorted. “I might .”

Askara’s breath caught. “No. Please. I’ll…I’ll take him, okay?”

“Good boy.” Cilan took Askara back to his room, where he would wait and pray for another day.

***

It happened far too often for Askara’s liking—sneaking vitalis to Lumic. Eventually, Cilan would catch on to what Askara was doing. What he was. He could continue passing for a middling healer.

“Waiting for him to start begging?” Cilan watched from the door as yet again, Askara gave Lumic vitalis, keeping him alive. For what, though? For Cilan to change his mind and give him to someone else. For the generosity to end… Askara was selfish to want Lumic to suffer and stay with him.

“No. I—want him to want it, too.” The words came sheepishly from his tongue, surly and almost childlike, and he wanted to slap himself for having said it in such a way. Though, he really wasn’t even sure what it was that he wanted Lumic to want. He just knew he didn’t want it to happen with anyone else, nonconsenting at least.

Lumic stirred and smacked his lips, face a twisted grimace of pain and recognition. Askara leaned close into Lumic’s personal space and gave a quiet shh , holding his cheeks as if kissing him. Their noses touched and Cilan made a noise of disgust before shuffling off, door clanging shut.

“Vitalis? What?” The dry croak from Lumic’s throat squeaked as he blinked a few times and withdrew from Askara’s grasp.

“Sorry. Cilan was—don’t worry about it. He’ll come get me in a few.” Askara untucked his tunic and tugged at the lacing of his breeches before mussing up his hair.

“Wha—” Lumic frowned and tensed, but Askara just shushed him.

“If he thinks I’m interested in you, he won’t send others to bother you. I’d rather not have that on my conscience if it was something I could stop.” Askara cleared his throat and stared at the ground. “So, if you could—uh…”

Lumic glanced around and did the same, shaking his head to toss his wild mane about, already untidied from the battle before. The way it flitted about made Askara’s heart stutter, but he paid it no mind, that was until Lumic undid the lacing of his shirt and gave him a peek of cool, pale flesh.

He hurriedly turned his head away and coughed, stuffing down that burning sensation in his cheeks. Thankfully, if Lumic had noticed, he said nothing.

“We could, you know, actually bring one another off if you like?” Lumic’s suggestion made Askara choke.

“No! No, I think not. I’m very good, thank you.” Askara pulled back, pawing at the side of his face nervously. The burn didn’t fade and for a moment, Askara thought he noticed, but instead, it was something else that flitted across Lumic’s too-confident face.

“Didn’t have to sound so reticent.” Lumic sniffed indignantly, but Askara couldn’t let him hold that poisonous thought.

He took Lumic’s hand for a quick squeeze. “I’m far more interested in romance than I am the thing that Cilan offered you to me for.”

“That alpha’s disgusting. Thanks for that, by the way. The vitalis, too.” Lumic licked his lips with a slow spread of his tongue over pink flesh. Askara’s heart fluttered watching the gesture, knowing that the honeyed taste he savored had been his saliva and a blessing.

Part of the restrictions carved into Askara’s chest stopped him from doing some things. It hindered his magic, ensured his obedience, and forced his lips to tell nothing but truth. “I happen to have a rather reliable source of vitalis.”

Lumic twisted his lips. “Were I not on death’s doorstep, I’d forbid you from administering it. The goddesses are fickle with their blessing on Croatens, more so on the aristocracy.”

The goddesses had always been sweet to him, kind in so many ways. The thought of them denying vitalis’s blessing because they didn’t like a country seemed almost silly to him. Though he was aware he was less worldly than most.

“I’m sure my mothers don’t mind at all.” Askara offered his biggest smile, and Lumic lifted a single fiery-red brow and smirked, the uneven uptick of his lip roguish and pretty. Nobody that gorgeous could have been beyond the favor of the goddesses.

None.