Page 20 of The Laws of Nature (Heirs of the Empire #3)

TOBI

T obi’s bare legs dangle as Harok carries him down from the dais.

As they pass back under the canopy, all around them people cheer drunkenly.

Tobi looks out at them, remembering the performer he is and gives them a look he hopes is an impression of trepidation and excitement.

He is a reluctant kushir, snatched from his home to be wed to an Ambolk King.

He is Gold Alyse in the bawdy play where she comes to delight in the pleasures of her savage lover’s bed.

The straps and buckles of the harness Harok wears on his upper body press against Tobi’s flank, through the flimsy alit.

The hair on Harok’s chest tickles Tobi’s nose.

Tobi feels strangely dreamy, like none of this is really happening.

How did he ever end up here? Being carried to bed by a forest king?

He feels like a dark dream is coming true.

Harok strides across the courtyard and into Urynwud with Tobi in his arms. He climbs the stairs back to the chamber where Tobi was bathed, but instead of taking that door, he takes the one next to it. The one Lymok said led to Harok’s own chamber.

This door opens into a much finer room. Far larger, with a fire blazing in a huge hearth and wide windows looking out on the dark forest and a bright, white, waxing Alios moon.

Tobi gets little more than a glimpse of it before he is tumbled down on the huge bed covered in soft black fur.

Tobi looks up. Harok stands over him. He looks so large. Like a great beast. Tobi swallows. He thinks of Harok’s formal titles: Demon Slayer, Unkillable Irgo. If demons were real, Tobi could believe Harok has slain one. And if there ever was a man who could not be killed, Harok could be that man.

Tobi watches as Harok’s hands move to the fastening of his cloak.

He removes it and it drops from his body.

His shoulders are revealed. Tobi had thought it was the fur trim of the cloak that made them look so broad, but without the cloak, they look just as imposing.

As Tobi watches, Harok unfastens the buckles of his chest harness and tosses it aside.

The harness did not conceal much of Harok’s body, but without it he looks so much more naked.

Tobi stares, mouth dry. Harok’s upper body is scarred in places.

A long mark from a blade across his upper chest and left shoulder and another old gash on his right upper arm, healed to a faint silvery line.

Harok takes off his gauntlets, giving Tobi a brief, hungry look, before starting on his breeches, unfastening them and shoving them down his thick thighs.

He removes his boots along with them and stands naked at the end of the bed.

He looks like he could have been carved from a tree.

Naked, he is extraordinarily beautiful. Tobi cannot tear his eyes from Harok’s cock.

It’s halfway roused, large and magnificent in the tangle of dark hair at the meeting of Harok’s thighs.

At the sight of Harok’s desire, Tobi feels a great jolt of lust rushing through his body.

Every part of him is desperate for that cock.

He wants to touch it, to take it in his mouth.

He wants it inside him. He can already imagine so vividly the waves of pleasure that would take him when that beautiful cock slides into his body.

He wishes he had the words to beg for it.

Harok makes a low soft sound and crawls onto the bed, moving over Tobi, until his big naked body cages him. Tobi looks up and gasps as Harok lowers himself and claims Tobi’s mouth in a kiss.

Harok takes the kiss slowly. Like he has all the time in the world to lick over Tobi’s lips, drink down each gasp and moan and mew and meet each with a growl.

He teases Tobi’s mouth open with a soft but insistent press of his tongue to the seam of Tobi’s lips, easing him open until Harok’s tongue can slip inside.

Just the tip at first and then a little more, a little more until Tobi is squirming.

Harok’s tongue explores Tobi’s mouth thoroughly then as Harok’s body presses down.

Tobi can feel Harok’s naked skin touching him through the delicate lace of the alit.

Just the tiniest scrap of fabric between their bodies.

When Harok breaks the kiss, Tobi looks up at him. There’s another mark on Harok’s body. On his left breast is a glyph of some kind. A strange intricate shape, inked black onto his skin. Tobi touches it with his fingers. It is slightly raised.

“What is this?” Tobi says.

Harok looks at him. Eyes narrow. He seems to understand. Perhaps Tobi’s questioning tone combined with his fingers running over the mark, make it clear what he is saying. Harok says softly, “Zoran, Suskara. ”

Tobi looks at Harok. “I don’t understand you,” he says. Is Zoran what the glyph means?

Harok moves his hands over Tobi, pushing up the alit to Tobi’s waist, baring Tobi’s body. Tobi’s cock is roused, from the kissing. Harok’s hands stroke over Tobi’s thighs. “ Sho? ” Harok says. Clearly a question.

Is Harok asking if Tobi agrees to this?

Sho means yes. “ Sho ,” Tobi replies on a breath, wanting nothing more than to ensure Harok keeps touching him.

Harok’s eyes darken. With his other hand he takes hold of the neckline of Tobi’s alit and pulls hard, tearing it away. Tobi cries out in shock as the fabric rips and Tobi is suddenly naked. Is this what he agreed to?

Tobi’s body is slender and shaved of even the small amount of hair that usually covers it. The oil has softened and smoothed Tobi’s skin and given it a slight, delicate sheen.

Harok growls with pleasure and joins their mouths again.

He teases Tobi’s mouth, more savagely this time, kissing, licking and nipping lightly at Tobi’s lips, until Tobi is frantic, and then thrusting his tongue deep.

Tobi groans, trying to find a way to express to Harok his pleasure at rough treatment.

Harok’s body is heavy on Tobi’s, crushing him into the bed in a way that feels delicious and overwhelming.

Harok’s warm skin is in full contact with Tobi’s own.

Rubbing and grinding against Tobi. The hair on Harok’s body prickles at Tobi’s shaved skin.

Tobi feels like he is as smooth and delicate as glass, as the fine porcelain in the parlour at the Rose Palace.

Shaved and oiled for Harok’s pleasure as their bodies move together. They kiss and kiss and kiss.

Tobi feels like he is drowning in Harok. The weight and the scent of him. His growls and purrs. His rough, big hands.

He wishes he had words. Tobi likes to beg his lovers in bed, whisper in their ears, “Please fuck me, please take me. I need you inside me. Hard. Take me hard.” But he cannot do that. All he can do is moan and moan into the kiss and hope Harok understands he needs to be taken, roughly and soon.

But when Harok finally pulls back again, lifting his body from Tobi’s, Tobi is panting, and he can’t hold back from saying, “Fuck me, please, please, put your magnificent cock inside me. Make me yours,” although he knows Harok will not understand him.

Harok looks down at Tobi, bemused. He reaches out and places a finger on Tobi’s lips for a moment, silencing him. Then, again, Harok says, “ Sho? ” but far more confidently. Like he is sure of Tobi’s answer.

“ Sho ,” Tobi says breathlessly. “Please don’t stop. Kiss me again. Take me?—”

“Ambolk,” Harok says, cutting Tobi off. “Ambolk, Suskara.” He touches Tobi’s mouth. “ Unela ,” he says.

“ Unela ,” Tobi repeats. Is that kissing ?

Harok touches his own bottom lip. “ Unela ,” he says again.

So, unela is mouth?

Harok is gazing down at him. Tobi tries to pull him back into another kiss. But Harok does not move and Tobi has no chance of moving Harok if he does not will it. it seems if Tobi wants another kiss, he will have to earn it. Somehow.

Tobi touches his own lips. “ Unela ,” he says. Then Harok’s, “ Unela. ”

“ Ga, Suskara. Sho. Priss. ”

Good, Suskara. Yes, kiss. Tobi thinks .

“ Priss ,” Tobi says, “ Priss unela ,” which earns him another kiss. A soft press of Harok’s lips to his. It’s far more chaste than Tobi was hoping for. He makes a soft sobbing sound as he tries to chase Harok’s lips. But Harok puts a firm hand on Tobi’s chin.

“ Alapriss ,” he says, before leaning down and kissing Tobi deeply.

The kiss is deep and long but it still feels like it is not enough.

“ Alapriss ,” Tobi pants, when Harok pulls back.

“ Irgorye, alapriss ,” asking for another deep kiss.

Was there ever a sweeter way to learn a new language?

If all his lessons in the Rose Palace had been like this perhaps he would not have failed so miserably at them.

Harok smiles and reaches out to take hold of Tobi’s hand. It seems very small and slender in his own. He runs it down his own scarred, hairy chest. Tobi touches Harok’s body. It is firm and warm. Harok moves it down, over his belly. Then stops.

“ Sho? ” he says again.

“ Sho, ” Tobi says eagerly. “ Irgorye, sho. ”

Harok slides Tobi’s hand lower until Tobi’s fingers curl around Harok’s cock. Fully roused now. Tobi gasps to touch it. It is so big now it is fully roused. He swallows. “Please,” he finds himself saying, soft and breathy.

But Harok only smiles, he pulls Tobi’s hand back and says “ Alapriss kush? ” sliding his own hand down Tobi’s body, then under it. A fingertip touches his hole.

Kiss? Hole?

He’s asking if he can…?

Heat floods Tobi’s body.

“ Sho ,” Tobi moans out desperately. “ Irgorye, sho, sho. ”

Harok smiles and drops a kiss on Tobi’s chin, then his chest. He kisses his way down Tobi’s body, curling himself between Tobi’s spread legs .

Harok gives a distinct moan of pure, raw desire before he runs his tongue over Tobi’s hole.

Tobi yelps with a surprise that quickly melts into pleasure as Harok licks him.

Harok’s tongue seems to be prying him open with each sweep of it, hot and wet over Tobi’s hole.

Over his kush. Tobi moans, losing himself in waves of pleasure, each one lifting him higher and higher until he feels as if he is chasing a spend he cannot quite reach.

Tobi is a moaning mess when Harok moves up to kiss him again.

Harok’s mouth tastes hot and dark. Tastes of Tobi.

One of Harok’s finger slides into Tobi’s hole, oiled from a dish beside the bed.

He is so close to spending. He thinks if he endures much more of this he will spend on Harok’s finger.

That finger is thick, but Tobi cannot get the thought of that magnificent cock out of his mind.

“Please,” Tobi begs. “ Esich. Dek .”

Harok chuckles. He presses the finger inside Tobi deeper, finding a spot inside that makes Tobi moan with need. He truly cannot take much more without spilling seed.

“Please,” Tobi sobs again. “ Esich .”

Harok laughs, “ Dekush .”

“Really?” Tobi smirks. “ Dek ,” he wraps a hand around Harok’s cock. “ Kush, ” he clenches his hole around Harok’s finger. “ Dekush? ”

“ Dekush ,” Harok says plainly.

Tobi sighs, “ Dekush, ” he says. “Please.”

Harok makes another soft sound of amusement.

“Please,” he echoes. Tobi wonders if he thinks ‘please’ is some lewd expression in Artemian.

Perhaps it is, the way Tobi is using it.

Harok withdraws his finger, making Tobi whine then gasp with desperate pleasure as Harok takes him.

That thick cock thrusting in so hard that Tobi is forced up the bed.

He puts an arm up to steady himself against the carved wooden bedhead.

Harok growls, fucking into Tobi again and again.

Tobi’s hands move on Harok’s back. There is a strange texture there, a series of ridges, but noticing that is only a moment’s distraction from the waves of pleasure Tobi feels rolling through him, building and building until with a desperate cry he spends, seed erupting from him, warm and sticky between Harok’s body and his own.

This seems to delight Harok, who growls and dips his head to kiss Tobi’s neck, thrusting even harder into Tobi’s over-sensitised body, as Tobi cries out with an overwhelming mixture of pain and pleasure.

“ Suskara ,” Harok gasps, before roaring out as he thrusts even deeper, even harder than before, taking Tobi so wildly as he spends, that Tobi almost feels as if he is reaching a second peak of his own.

Harok pulls Tobi close as he rolls off Tobi’s body to lie beside him. He holds Tobi and murmurs, “ Suskara, ga, garan, garasiana. Suskara, elisia. ”

Tobi looks again at the glyph on Harok’s chest. It looks old. He reaches out to touch it again, but Harok takes hold of Tobi’s wrist. He brings Tobi’s hand up to his mouth and kisses Tobi’s fingers.

“ Priss ,” says Tobi dreamily. “ Unela priss. ”

“ Ga, Suskara ,” Harok says.

Tobi lets himself feel the sweet ache in his muscles, his soft shaved skin tingling with the memories of pleasure.

Harok’s body beside him is so firm and warm.

It’s all so delicious. Tobi presses close to Harok, touching his body.

His fingers find the strange texture on Harok’s back.

Beside Tobi, Harok is dropping into sleep.

Tobi wriggles free of Harok’s big arms and shifts to sitting up so he can look at Harok’s back .

He almost gasps to see it. Harok’s back is covered with scars.

Not the scars on the rest of his body from battle, these are older, long healed marks of a lashing.

Of many lashings. He touches them with a finger, the silvery lines are slightly raised.

This happened a long time ago. When Harok was young.

But Harok is a king and the son of a king? Who would flog an Irgo this way?

Tobi wakes to see Harok has already climbed from the bed. His entire body still aches with memories of the night before. He sits up. The furs and blankets slip down his body, revealing his bare chest.

“Good morrow, Irgorye,” Tobi says, stretching his arms above his head. Harok is wearing his short breeches, but Tobi looks hungrily at his crotch imagining Harok’s magnificent cock just beneath that leather. “Perhaps you have the time to come back to this bed?”

“ Suskara ,” Harok says, sounding quite formal. His voice like frozen iron.

Tobi frowns. Is Harok angry with him? Did he do something wrong the previous night? He is sure Harok enjoyed it just as much as he did.

“ Irgorye ?” Tobi says.

But Harok simply walks out of the room.