Page 54 of The Laws of Nature (Heirs of the Empire #3)

But he has to satisfy himself with the expression on Harok’s face when he comes through their adjoining door, dressed in fine clothes of black and green.

He simply stares. He looks a little stunned before he says, “Suskara,” voice thick with lust as it often is when he looks on Tobi fresh from his bath.

Tobi puts his hands on his hips and preens, “Good evening, Ereyek,” he says, giving Harok a small bow.

Harok does not reply. He simply crosses the chamber in a few large strides, takes Tobi in his arms and kisses him hard.

The kiss seems to light Tobi’s insides. Harok’s hands rove over Tobi’s body and Tobi’s senses fill with the familiar scent of Harok, herbal and dark.

Tobi is lost in his feelings. Here, in Harok’s arms, he melts, leaning closer, feeling Harok’s strength holding him.

He has never been happier, never felt safer.

The feast is a great affair. A full fat moon hangs heavy over the trees.

The zhilvar is alive with the light of many braziers and a great bonfire.

Outside the protective cover of the jewelled canopy, snow is falling from the sky.

Trays of food are brought out. Rich winter food.

Meat with a heavy glaze of spices, rich sauces thick and glossy with cream, nuts and honey. Everyone drinks strong ale.

Tobi sits beside Harok. After Harok has made a short speech, about the glory of the Solwen and Urynwud, he lavishes all his attention on Tobi, setting him in his lap and feeding him small pieces of food and kissing him. He has eyes for no one else. He speaks to no one else.

When most of the food has been eaten and Tobi is soft on mead and Harok’s kisses, music starts with a sudden rush of sound.

Tobi gasps. Has music ever sounded so good?

The drummers, pipers and a dozen vocalists play the evocative, thrilling Ambolk tunes that Tobi has grown so fond of.

Harok leads Tobi out to dance. They move together to the music, bodies pressed close as other Solwen rise and begin to move all around them.

Tobi feels good, slightly dazed but full of a soft sweet sense of wellbeing.

Baby comes winding her way over, rubbing against Tobi’s bare legs as he sways in Harok’s arms. He leans closer, breathes Harok.

He smells delicious. He is with Harok. It’s the only place he wants to be.

It has been a strange journey to get here.

But he truly feels like he has all he needs.

He lives, as he has always wished to, in luxury.

The life of a prince. A prince of the Amber Forest .

In his heart, he knows, he has become Solwen. He can never be an Azurian again. He is one with the beasts and trees and earth. And he can see the magic of the forest all around him.

There is real magic in this forest. He did not believe it for so long.

But he cannot deny it now. Some of the things he has been told in his life — Gods and demons, magic and fortune telling, the will of Zai — are certainly lies.

Some are just clever words and trickery to gain coin or make men behave in certain ways.

But other parts are real. Cel won his kitchen maid after the mariandcards foretold it.

Was that true fortune telling or coincidence and persuasion?

He thinks of Harok taking a wound to his shoulder that surely should have killed him.

What mysterious power does Harok gain from that sigil carved on his breast?

Is there real power in the branches of Susal-ur-Bellan? From its fallen branches statues were carved that Tobi saw as a boy in Emperor Selim’s private shrine, like the forest was reaching out to him all those years ago. Like it knew he would end up here.

He was always meant to be here. He knows it for certain.

The forest brought him here.

Tobi moves closer to Harok, rolling his hips against the firm press of Harok’s body. He feels his cock rouse a little. Harok’s arms slide tighter around him, lifting him from the ground. Tobi feels like he is buzzing all over, ripe for pleasure, as Harok carries him off to bed.

“I have a surprise for you, Suskara,” Harok says as he tosses Tobi down on the bed covered with furs and silks and fine velvets, “I know you have been hoping for this.” He leans down, slides his hand up under the alit and touches the skin on Tobi’s thigh.

Tobi coos with pleasure.

Harok chuckles darkly. “My beautiful kushir.”

Harok crawls onto the bed, caging Tobi. He leans down and kisses Tobi’s neck. And Tobi makes another sound of pleasure. But he moans, “What is your plan for your kushir, Irgorye?”

But Harok only chuckles against Tobi’s skin as Tobi tips his head back. Offering his neck to Harok for more.

Harok licks over Tobi’s skin and, for several moments, Tobi’s world contains nothing but the sensation of pleasure.

His cock is growing hard beneath the alit.

Harok’s mouth, Harok’s hands on him are all he wants in the world.

He could drown in this touch. Harok bites at Tobi’s neck, hard enough to leave a mark, and then kisses over his face.

Finally, Harok’s lips meet Tobi’s and Harok slides his tongue into Tobi’s mouth, achingly slowly .

Tobi moans with want, shaking in Harok’s arms.

Harok kisses Tobi deeply for what seems like a long time. A long time of Tobi feeling like Harok’s tongue is making love to his mouth. When the kiss breaks, Tobi whimpers, beyond words, and Harok moves his lips to his ear. “I love you, Suskara.”

For a moment, Tobi doesn’t hear it. Harok’s low growling tone is all that registers. But then he says, “Irgorye?”

Harok says it again, lips close to the corner of Tobi’s mouth. “I love you, Suskara. You are more than a kushir to me. You have my heart in yours.”

Tobi sighs. “I love you,” he says, more than echoing back the words. “I think I have loved you for a long time. No one has ever taken care of me before. No one has ever protected me. Before you I had to always take care of myself. ”

“If I could,” Harok answers in a strange tone, “I would name you Kushel.” He sounds raw, almost sad.

Tobi sighs. He turns his head and blinks at Harok. “Can’t you do so? You are Irgo?”

Harok shakes his head. “I cannot.” But without giving any more of an answer he presses his lips back to Tobi’s.

They kiss, kissing and kissing with Harok’s hands all over Tobi’s body, up and under the alit, stroking his belly and chest, pinching sharply at his nipples, until Tobi wonders if it is possible to spend from kissing alone.

But eventually, it seems Harok has had his fill of kissing. He sits back and looks at Tobi like a starving man looking at a plate of roasted meat.

Harok reaches for the neckline of Tobi’s alit. Tobi yelps out, "No,” as he realises what Harok is about to do. But too late. Harok tears the alit from Tobi’s body as he has done so often before.

If falls away in two pieces, leaving Tobi naked on the bed.

Tobi looks at Harok. He blinks. “I liked that one,” he says.

“You like an alit?” Harok says with a flash of one eyebrow.

“That one,” Tobi says, starting to pant with desire as he becomes aware of his naked body, laid out before Harok.

“I have something else for you to wear,” Harok says, reaching down beside the bed and straightening up holding something. He’s still straddling Tobi’s body and what he holds in his hand makes Tobi’s mouth dry.

“I have this, Suskara. You like?”

Harok is holding coils of rope.

Tobi feels as if he has been set alight with desire. Rope. To be bound before Harok. Bound and unable to resist anything Harok wants to do. Any pleasure. Any pain. Tobi bites his lip and nods. He wants it. He can think of nothing he desires more. “Please.”

“Sho, Suskara?”

“Sho.”

With a satisfied smile, Harok climbs from the bed and moves around it.

Rope coils around Tobi’s wrists and ankles.

It feels scratchy, rough, delicious. Harok ropes Tobi’s limbs to the posts of the bed, pulling taut.

He is open, wide open. Tight and spread.

Perfectly vulnerable to all sensation. Harok pinches Tobi’s thigh.

Tobi yelps as pain sparkles through him. Sensation that twists. Pleasure floods him, his lower body turning to hot, thick liquid. “More,” he begs, struggling to test how well he is held. “More, more.”

Harok pinches his nipple. Hard. Much harder. Tobi cries out.

Harok makes his own soft, low growl of pleasure and does it again. Even harder. Then he pinches both Tobi’s nipples at once. Tobi arches off the bed. Panting.

And spends.

It takes him a moment to realise what has happened in the haze of sensations, but then he realises as pleasure rolls through him, unstoppable and delicious. His seed feels soft on his belly.

“I… “ he says, as if half in a dream. “Oh. Ereyek, oh.”

Harok leans close and whispers. “That is your first one, Suskara. Let us see how many I can give you.”

“First one,” Tobi says. “Ai. Ai, ven, tal,” he begins counting his Ambolk numbers.

“Shush, Suskara, shush,” Harok coos. “We will get there.”

Harok dips and his tongue finds Tobi’s hole.

Tobi whines, but Harok does not stop. Harok licks Tobi until he is roused again, licks him until he is on the brink of another spend.

He cries out. Sobbing for more and Harok drives his tongue right into him.

He spends, spasming on Harok’s tongue in his hole, in his kush. It’s sweet. Stronger than the first.

Harok chuckles in his ear, “Ven.” And slides a finger into Tobi’s wet hole. He strokes over the spot inside him that makes him clench and sob with need.

Tobi panics. It’s too much. It feels sweet, but he cannot take more. He writhes and struggles but the ropes hold fast. He is spread so open. He cannot stop Harok as he slides his spend-slicked finger in and out of his hole.

And then he adds another. And another. Tobi feels his cock growing roused again.

Is this more magic of the forest? Or just Harok?

He cannot tell, but he has never felt so aroused.

So completely open to sensation. Harok’s fingers are thick.

But Tobi has had three of them inside him before.

He knows the breathless feeling of it. The intense powerful stretch, almost like he is being split in two.

He sobs and spends again. He feels a little less seed come this time, but the feeling is still as intense. A great wave of pleasure.

But there cannot be more. Surely there cannot be more.

Harok whispers, “Tal,” and his lips find Tobi’s. Sweet and dark. Tasting of sex. The pleasure of the deep earth, Tobi thinks as Harok’s tongue slips into his mouth.

Harok wraps his hand around Tobi’s cock as he kisses him. “Again Suskara,” he growls. “ I would see you spend again.”

“No,” Tobi says. He’s speaking Artemian now, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

Harok pinches one of Tobi’s nipples with his free hand. Pain sparkles like a line of stars. “Sho. ”

Harok sheds his own clothing in a rush, fast and frantic. His cock is hard and red, dripping with desire. He moves to cover Tobi. Harok sometimes begins their lovemaking with gentleness, but when he is roused it always turns to something more savage. He takes Tobi as roughly as he ever has.

Tobi arches off the bed. Each thrust of Harok’s cock inside him feels like spending. He makes sounds, strange garbled noises, as if even his Artemian language has left him now. He spends with pure pleasure, almost no seed at all. Nothing left.

Harok gasps, “Elip,” as he joins Tobi in his peak. Flooding Tobi with seed.

And Tobi wants this, nothing but this. Forever.