Page 48 of The Laws of Nature (Heirs of the Empire #3)

It is blissful and exquisite. Harok’s bed had been one of pleasure before, but there seems to be no end to the delights the book can bring them.

Acts Tobi craves and ones he has dreamed of but never dared ask for from Cyrus or anyone else, and acts Tobi would never have even thought of.

They take the book page by page. Tobi learns more Ambolk bedchamber words than he ever thought possible.

He thinks he must know as many words for acts of sly love making in Ambolk as he does in Artemian.

Harok has deferred the rule of Urynwud and the Amber Forest to Mereli.

He comes to Harok’s chamber daily to update him and ask his counsel.

Tobi tries to follow what is said. He learns more Ambolk words out of curiosity as Mereli and Harok speak of grain storage and trade with Ceruleum, the tasks necessary to ensure Urynwud is safe and warm and fed until spring.

And, of course, a significant topic of conversation is the movements of the Exceli.

Lymok survived Harok and Baby’s rescue of Tobi and scouts have reported sighting him at one of the Exceli camps.

The size of the Exceli force continues to grow.

Bolstered both by Azurian support and the fact Harok is not out ranging.

But whenever Tobi voices concern, both Harok and Mereli assure him that the Exceli will never breech Urynwud.

Often, Mereli informs Harok that other people wish to see him.

And Harok receives them lying in bed, with Tobi at his side.

Tobi listens, playing the sweet kushir as Harok speaks with his warriors and other members of his council.

But Tobi notices that whenever Mereli tells Harok that his mother Yaelin has asked for an audience, Harok always refuses.

One afternoon, with the help of an image in the book, Tobi asks Harok to curl his big hand around his throat as he fucks him.

Harok’s eyes grow dark as Tobi explains, breathlessly, in Ambolk words and pointing at pictures in the book, how he wants Harok’s hand on his throat.

Harok can only use his left arm well. But it is good.

Despite his still weakened shoulder, Harok is so strong, when Harok holds Tobi down on the bed, Tobi is certain there is no way he could free himself unless Harok allowed it.

He has stars before his eyes as he spends, harder than he ever remembers doing before.

He knows his father is not coming for him. And more than that, he knows the Empire hopes he perishes here. He decides he will not. He will flourish here. If Azuria does not want him, no matter, Urynwud does.

In Urynwud, pleasures he has been taught all his life were wrong and something he could only enjoy in secret, are permitted.

Not only permitted, but the inspiration for beautiful art and poetry.

This is the place he is meant to be. He always knew he was meant for something more than his life travelling with players and living in a caravan that leaked in the rain.

He had thought that better life was to take his place at his father’s side as a prince in the Rose Palace.

Now he knows better. His place is here. As kushir of Urynwud.

Surrus moon wanes and Nubis moon waxes, outside the weather turns cool, but Urynwud is warm. And with the fire banked high and the limitless pleasures of Harok’s body, the bed Tobi shares with his Irgorye is warmer than high summer in Attar.

One night, as Tobi lies naked in Harok’s bed, he turns to the next page of the book. He knows what is coming. He has been looking forward to it. It is one of Tobi’s favourite images. It makes Tobi’s cock throb to look at it. He shows Harok the picture, saying, “I like this.”

In the picture the kushir is tied to the bed by wrists and ankles and the Ereyek holds a leather strap. There are marks, vivid and red, on the kushir’s ass.

“This,” Tobi says, pointing to the image. “I do before. Before I come to Urynwud. I like it.”

“You were punished by another Ereyek?” Harok says.“What did you do, Suskara? Run away into forest?” He laughs.

Tobi rolls over onto his back to pout up at Harok, kneeling over him, naked and breathtaking. He shakes his head. “ Ei . I did no wrong,” he says lightly. “I liked it.” He points to the blissful kushir in the picture. “Like it. Like this.”

“This punishment is pleasure for you?” Harok says. His voice sounds thick.

“Sho, Irgorye.” He reaches for Harok’s hand and lifts it, bringing the palm close and kissing it. “It makes me hard.” He slides closer and leans in to press his mouth to Harok’s neck and says against his warm skin, whispering as if telling a delicious secret. “It makes me spend.”

Tobi sees Harok’s eyes darken, but what he says next isn’t what Tobi expected. “Tell me about the one who did this.”.

“Cyrus?” Tobi says, looking up to meet Harok’s eyes. “That is long story.”

“We have time, Suskara. You have Ambolk words?”

Tobi nods. Although it will take some effort to tell the whole tale in Ambolk. Perhaps this is a test of Tobi’s fluency in the language he has been learning.

“Cyrus,” Tobi says. “The man who spoke Ambolk when you took me.”

When you took me. The thought makes Tobi feel strangely warm inside. Harok took him, chose him, wanted him.

“Cyrus, I remember,” Harok says huskily, lying down on the bed and pulling Tobi close so they are pressed together, Tobi’s back to Harok’s chest. Harok runs a hand over Tobi’s naked belly.

Tobi says, “I needed work in Northern Azuria. Cyrus Copperhead had circus. Copperhead Players. I could work as a Beast Tamer. Cyrus said, wanted me in his bed as well as on stage. He liked…I liked what he did.”

“What he do?” Harok says in Artemian. “Cyrus Copperhead.”

Tobi swallows. “This,” he says in Ambolk, pointing to the picture in the book where the kushir’s wrists and ankles are bound.

“Rope. And he,” Tobi covers his eyes with a hand, “or this,“ he covers his mouth. Tobi pauses. He looks into Harok’s eyes. “It was sweet.” Tobi says, shivering against Harok’s body.

“Pain, pleasure, all one thing. I would,” he stops, struggling for a word, gesturing with a hand before he finds it.

Then it comes to him. “I would float,” he says.

Harok is looking at Tobi with his blue eyes wide.

“Suskara,” Harok says, leaning close to kiss Tobi. As Harok’s tongue slides deep into Tobi’s mouth, Harok’s hand slides down Tobi’s body, over his bare, smooth chest. His fingers find one of Tobi’s nipples. He rubs over it, then pinches hard. Tobi gasps.

Harok moans deeply into Tobi’s mouth, pulling back from the kiss to look at him.

“You like this? Pain?” In Artemian he says, “Fuck pain?”

“Fuck pain, yes.” Tobi is breathing hard. “That and more.”

“I have no whip, Suskara,” Harok says in Ambolk. “But I am strong. More strong than Cyrus Copperhead. I do not need a strap to punish kushir for pleasure.”

“Oh,” Tobi says. It comes out a squeak. Harok’s simple blunt explanation of what he plans to do takes Tobi’s breath. He can hear the lust in Harok’s voice. Tobi says nothing in reply, he simply stares back into Harok’s eyes.

He feels Harok take a shaky breath, just one, before he grabs hold of Tobi by the waist and shoves him bodily across Harok’s wide, naked lap.

Tobi gasps with the force of it. He can feel Harok’s desire beneath his belly and Tobi’s own cock is similarly roused.

He whimpers in anticipation of what is coming, before Harok spanks him, once, with his great hand, hard.

Tobi cries out, pain and pleasure mixed.

That one blow had been as sharply, sweetly painful as a stroke from Cyrus’s strap.

Tobi gasps and squirms as he feels Harok’s hand stroke over the place he has just hit. Almost as if he is curious. “Again,” Tobi gasps.

Harok makes a dark chuckling sound as he complies. Hitting Tobi again. The strike is sublime. The force of it jolts Tobi’s entire body. Tobi moans .

Harok’s cock moves under Tobi’s belly, as Harok hits him again.

It’s so delightful to feel the way this is arousing him just as much as it is Tobi.

Cyrus had given Tobi what he wanted, and Tobi knew it was Cyrus’s pleasure to do so.

But it had not been like this. Not an intimate act with bare skin pressed to bare skin, a pounding rhythm of sensation, as sweet as being covered.

Harok hits Tobi half a dozen times, leaving him gasping before he stops and strokes his rough palm over Tobi’s sore ass. Tobi can feel the blood pulsing hard, under his skin.

He whimpers. “Please, more,” gasping in Artemian.

“Please, more,” Harok echoes back, amused. He pinches Tobi’s reddened skin. “Ei Suskara, Ambolk.”

Tobi’s head swims, but he finds the words, “ Arral, Ereyek, arral .” Begging please, please and then finding the words in Ambolk to say, “More. Hit me harder. Punish me, my Ereyek.” He squirms in Harok’s lap to say it.

Truly he has never been so glad of all the time he has spent at his Ambolk lessons.

Harok spanks him again. Another dozen hard slaps to his ass.

Tobi cries out over and over. His ass burns as surely as if Harok had set a flame to it and Tobi is sobbing.

He can feel Harok’s cock roused to iron under his belly.

Harok stops and slides a finger into Tobi’s hole.

His other hand pinches at Tobi’s sore skin and slaps it lightly.

Tobi presses back against the finger inside him.

“Irgorye,” Tobi gasps out in Ambolk, using words he knows well. “Fuck me. Please, fuck me.”

Harok hauls Tobi off his lap and throws him down on the bed. His sore ass rubs over the fur covering. It prickles deliciously. Harok dives between Tobi’s spread thighs and fucks into him mercilessly, with a growl. “I cannot be gentle, Suskara,” Harok says, breathlessly. “I desire you. ”

“Do not be gentle,” Tobi pants back, “show me your desire. Take me hard. Be a beast for me, my Irgorye.”

Harok growls in response and fucks Tobi harder than he ever has before, sending them both to frenzied, screaming spends, rocking and moaning against each other’s bodies as Harok kisses Tobi’s neck.

Afterwards, Harok cradles Tobi in his arms. “Truly, my Suskara,” Harok says, voice still thick with desire, “you want such things?”

“I do, Irgorye,” Tobi says. “They are pleasure.”

“They bring me pleasure also,” says Harok, “You are brave to let me hurt you in my bed. Irgo Harok, Demon Slayer.”

“I am brave,” Tobi says brightly. “I am Prince Tobi Darek, beast tamer.”

“And I, your beast,” says Harok. But then he frowns. “But why do you want this? Why is it pleasure?”

Tobi thinks. No one has ever asked him such a question before. In the end he says, “I like danger. I like to be scared.”

Harok laughs and says, “Beast Tamer.”

“Next time you are angry with me,” Tobi says with a sly sweet smile. “Punish me in bed.”

Harok shakes his big head, but all he says is, “Suskara.” He pulls Tobi close. His body is so warm. “ Ga, garan, garasiana, ” Harok says. Ambolk words Tobi learned moons ago. But they thrill him more now he knows their meaning. “You bring me pleasure.”

Tobi looks up at Harok and says, “ Ga, garan, garasiana, Ereyek. ”

“Suskara,” Harok says, his voice different. Slower and heavier. “This time we have had together has been sweet. But you know Urynwud needs me. I must return to duties. ”

Tobi takes a breath. He had always known this strange sweet time with Harok would end. And Harok’s shoulder, though weakened, is all but healed. “I am sad,” Tobi says. “It has been pleasure in Ereyek bed.”

“What Suskara want?” Harok asks. The same question he’d asked Tobi after he burned his clothes.

Tobi only has to think for a moment before he says, “When I sit beside you at dinner, speak with me. Not council. Speak with me. Irgo all day. When sun sets, Irgorye.”

Harok puts a hand on Tobi’s face and strokes over it. “Sho, Suskara. Speak with you at dinner. Another thing you want?”

Tobi wonders if there could possibly be anything else. But when he thinks he realises he does want something. He wants…

“I’d like to go outside,” Tobi says. “Before this ends. Take me somewhere. I’d like to go out of Urynwud. Just you and me. I’d like to see the forest. With you.”