Page 49 of The Laws of Nature (Heirs of the Empire #3)

TOBI

T he following morning, Tobi wakes to find Harok dressed and standing at the end of the bed.

Tobi looks up at him from their stained sheets. He is satiated, his body sore.

“Good morning, Irgorye,” Tobi coos, squirming a little as the soreness of his ass against the sheets reminds him of the pleasure of the night before.

Harok nods. In his dark, rumbling Ambolk, he says, “This day, Suskara, I ride to the Starlight Sea. You will come with me.”

Tobi is quite surprised. “Me? Out of Urynwud?” He did not think Harok would grant the request he made dazedly the night before. “Truly? What of the Exceli?”

“They will not trouble us. I know where they ride.” Harok strides over to the bed.

“And I would spend this day with you, my Suskara.

“ He lifts one of Tobi’s hands and kisses it.

“You asked that I spend my days as Irgo and my nights as Irgorye, but today I wish to be Irgorye to my Suskara only. For all the day.”

Tobi dresses quickly in a fresh alit and his heavy cloak and Harok leads him down to the stables. Despite all the other ways they have grown closer and Harok has softened, his dictats about what Tobi ought to wear have not changed.

As they approach Embox’s stall, she whinnies, clearly excited to see Harok.

Tobi looks up at Harok, then waves to himself. “You expect me to ride in the alit?” he says, petulantly, “bare against your horse’s body?”

Harok leans forward with an eyebrow raised and touches Tobi’s thigh just below the hem. Tobi shivers, as he always does when Harok touches him. Harok makes a soft sound of desire. Their eyes lock for a moment.

With his other hand Harok pats Embox's neck. “She won’t mind, Suskara,” Harok says in low, husky Ambolk.

Tobi steps closer, “Riding with you, Irgorye, so bare, the rocking of your horse might make me spend.”

Tobi sees Harok’s eyes darken. He knows how aroused Harok is by Tobi spending. “Suskara must think pure thoughts,” he says with a smile.

Tobi smirks. “With you? I’m not sure I know how.”

“Then,” Harok says, pretending to consider things, “you could ride in a cart. But if we took a cart, I might have to rope you.” His tongue flickers over his lower lip. “To keep you safe in the forest.”

Tobi swallows. He is eager for Harok to rope him in bed, but he doesn’t think it would be much fun to travel through the forest roped in a cart behind Embox.

Although he would like to be roped by Harok.

He needs to make sure that happens soon.

He says, “I will try, Irgorye. I will think pure thoughts.”

“Very well, Suskara.” Harok swings up into Embox’s saddle, then leans down and grasps Tobi with a big hand on each side of his waist. Harok lifts Tobi into the air to set him on the horse’s back, just as he had done the night he took Tobi from Azuria.

The memory of that makes the hairs on Tobi’s skin bristle.

Tobi yelps as he is lifted, which makes Harok purr softly.

Perhaps he is remembering that moment too.

When Tobi is properly seated, Harok leans forward, resting his chin on Tobi’s shoulder and growls, “I hope that Suskara’s ass is not still sore from fucking and spanking.

Or this ride will give you more problems than impure thoughts. ”

Tobi’s body is pressed close to Harok in the short alit that barely covers his body and he can feel that Harok is already roused. Tobi slides backwards, so Harok’s hard cock presses against him. Harok groans and says, “Suskara, you do that and I may send Embox galloping off a cliff’s edge.”

Tobi laughs as, with a click of his tongue, Harok sets Embox trotting towards the iron gates of the zhilvar.

It feels sweet to be outside Urynwud, riding through the forest, so different to hiding beneath sackcloth on Lymok’s cart.

It’s a cool day, but the sun is shining and the forest looks quite beautiful in shades of red and gold and the amber that give the forest its name.

Tobi enjoys the feeling of Harok’s body wrapped around him, holding him with one arm tight around his waist. He is spending the day with Irgo Harok, his Irgorye, his Ereyek, his lover. The greatest lover Tobi has ever had.

After what feels like half a day of riding they emerge from the trees onto a shoreline. It feels like a shock to discover that the forest has an end. They must have reached the Starlight Sea. Across the grey-blue water Tobi can see the Isle of Varia on the horizon.

It’s beautiful. So calm and peaceful. It feels like a long time since Tobi has seen so much big, wide, open sky. Everything seems to sparkle. But there is a cold wind off the sea. Tobi shivers. Harok presses close behind him and wraps him in a huge fur from the pack on Embox’s back.

Tobi snuggles into it as Harok kisses him on the temple.

“Are we in Ismagaar?” he says.

“We are close. This is still part of the lands of the Solwen. But Feildal is a short ride from here.”

“Have you been there? I have heard Ismagaar is a strange place.”

“It is a place like any other,” says Harok, simply.

“Are there fae folk there?” says Tobi, turning his head to look at Harok.

“I believe so. The fae mostly stay on their isles. Most do not care for humans after what happened a thousand thousand years ago. They live on Ulla and Oria. And Varia, of course.” He points at the isle across the sea.

“They have a city on Ulla called Vylenor. A great court of ice. My father told me most fae lived there. But some of them end up in Ismagaar, especially those who wish to do things in secrecy from the fae court.”

Tobi smiles. “What things?”

Harok shrugs a big shoulder. “I do not know what things the fae do. But, Suskara, let me build you a fire. I do not wish you to grow cold.”

Tobi sits on the soft grey sand, wrapped in the fur as Harok makes short, practical work of collecting driftwood, piling it up and lighting it with a tinder. Tobi draws close to the pleasant heat.

Harok looks over at Embox. He looks a little wistful. Tobi sees something in his eyes and says, “You miss riding Tamello?”

“Sho,” Harok replies. “Embox is a fine horse, but Tamello was me. ”

Tobi wonders for a moment if he has misunderstood. “He was you?”

“Sho.” Harok nods. “Tamello could be ridden by no man but me. He would throw any other that tried. He was bound to me. Embox is not the same. Now she is tame, she will let any man ride her. Tamello never did.”

Tobi smirks. “You are possessive.”

Harok raises an eyebrow. “Of some things, Suskara.” He looks into Tobi’s eyes. “But kushir is man and not possession.”

“Do you blame me? For what happened to Tamello? If you hadn’t gone to fetch me he would never have been hurt.”

Harok shakes his head. He looks amused. “I did not fetch you, Suskara. I took you. You did not choose it.”

“I thought you were hurting him,” Tobi says. “In the forest, when you were trying to make him run from the Exceli.”

“I was hurting him.” Harok says bluntly.

Then pauses before he says, “It is wrong to bring animals into the schemes of men. The Exceli had no quarrel with Tamello, only with me. When animals join men’s quarrels they get hurt.

I said you should train Baby to be warrior.

You said no. You are wise. I am not so wise.

When I was a boy, I had a dog called Arax.

I trained him to growl at my uncle. I thought it was funny.

Until my uncle had one of his guards cut the dog’s throat. ”

Tobi gasps. It takes him a moment to realise the horror of what Harok has just said, “Zai’s teeth,” he says in Artemian. Then switches to Ambolk, “Only for growling at him.”

“He knew it was my way of insulting him. And it was. And it got my dog killed.”

“Your uncle was a cruel man,” Tobi says. “Mereli told me all of what he did to you and where those marks on your back came from.”

Harok grunts. “He was Irgo. An Irgo must be strong. He was cruel to me. He made me strong.”

“You think that is strength. To kill an innocent beast? To be cruel to a child?”

“Vahul had to do those things. He had to treat me so. He wanted to keep his throne.”

“He was cruel. He could have taught you well to be an Irgo and remained your advisor when you came of age. Instead you killed him. So what use is his strength?”

“You think an Irgo should have allowed a green boy to train a dog to growl at him and not be punished?”

Tobi thinks of that first dinner in Urynwud when he snatched meat from Harok’s plate. “Baby growls at you,” Tobi says. “And you do not punish her or me for it.”

“But you do not teach her to do so,” Harok says “This is the difference. Your beast growls at me because she is wise.”

Tobi frowns. He doesn’t know why Harok would think Baby wise for growling at him and before Tobi can ask, Harok shifts Tobi from his lap and stands, “We eat now, Suskara,” he says.

Harok walks over to where Embox is nibbling at some grasses on the edge of the forest. He collects something from the pack and brings it back.

It turns out to be a package of food wrapped in roughspun linen.

Harok roasts some pieces of cured meat over the fire on a metal plate. The delicious scent of it makes Tobi’s belly growl.

They eat the food in soft, easy silence.

Tobi is glad of it. He understands and speaks Ambolk well but he still has to concentrate.

It’s very pleasant just to be together — Tobi feeling the warm soft sensation in his belly that he often gets when he is with Harok — and share this simple meal of meat and bread and butter and some sharp pickled vegetables Harok produces from a small clay pot.

Tobi would like to end the meal with some honey cakes or ripe plums, but it seems Harok has not brought any sweet food with him.