Page 70 of The Laws of Nature (Heirs of the Empire #3)

TOBI

T obi crawls over to Harok’s body. All around him the Solwen run and scream. But Diazuul is gone.

He throws himself on Harok. He’s crying, and he puts his arms around Harok’s neck.

“Please,” he whispers in Artemian. “Please.” A word that in Harok’s bed had once transformed to have its own meaning, now no longer means that.

It means only one thing. Please let him live. Please let him have survived Diazuul.

“Esterillika Irgo,” Tobi murmurs. A prayer. Perhaps the only sincere prayer that has ever passed his lips.

And Harok says, very slow and soft, “Suskara.”

Tobi’s heart leaps so hard it might burst free of his body. ”Irgorye,” he returns. “Irgorye, Irgorye.” He is kissing Harok. Kissing his head. His chest. Any part he can reach. And then one of Harok’s big arms wraps around him and pulls Tobi close so their lips meet.

Tobi and Harok travel, riding together on Embox. The negotiations took several days. But Urynwud has reached a kind of peace. Harok remains Irgo. And it seems that few in Urynwud are willing to admit they ever took Lymok’s claims seriously.

There is great unease about the secret Harok kept from them, however. That he ruled as Irgo whilst lying to his people. Whilst claiming that he had slain the demon that was part of him. That he sat the throne of Urynwud with the demon inside his body.

Because of this, Harok has agreed to leave Urynwud for a year’s turn.

Tobi has explained to him what he saw when Diazuul left his body.

And although Yaelin and the Solwen are celebrating the fact Diazuul has left the forest — a great blessing from the Triple God — Tobi and Harok have agreed they need to find out where the demon is now and what his great plan truly was.

And Tobi is sure he knows where they will find some answers.

During his absence Harok has deferred the ruling of Urynwud and the Solwen to his mother and her Verilissia and, to Tobi’s surprise, Mereli.

But it seems Harok accepts what Mereli says, what he claimed to Tobi once. That he is bound to Urynwud and will advise whoever rules it. Whether that be Lal, Vahul, Harok, Lymok or Yaelin.

During the decisions and council about what would happen to Urynwud, Tobi spent his time in the forest, riding Embox and calling for Baby.

He found her after two days of searching.

Dirty and unkempt, but she knew him and whatever the Exceli had given her to make her a raging wild beast had clearly passed.

Although Tobi notes she seems quite well fed.

Now, as they ride through the forest towards Riddlestone, Baby races alongside them. She seems to like Embox a great deal. And Embox, for her part, tolerates Baby’s playfulness.

As Embox sways onwards, Tobi twitches, still trying to get used to the strange sensation of wearing clothes.

His own clothes. The ones he had worn on Alios Day almost six moons ago.

His leather breeches and boots. His embroidered waistcoat.

Everything that had been brought in his trunk had been thrown into the firepit, but the clothes he removed so long ago, to take his bath, had been found, shoved into a crate in one of the Urynwud laundry rooms. Tobi had almost hesitated to put them on, but he cannot ride all the way to Ceruleum in an alit.

So he wears his own clothes, with the addition of his cloak. His breeches feel strangely tight and uncomfortable, hugging his legs.

But under it all, he does wear an alit. One of the sheerest, silken ones. An underlayer close to his skin. A small token of the forest. Along with a pouch of zakol, the delicious tea which he does not wish to live without.

When they reach Riddlestone they take a room at one of the town’s two inns, Tobi performs a series of tricks with Baby to persuade the stablehands to keep her in a stall with Embox. He wants to be alone with Harok.

He wants to spend a sweet night with his Irgorye.

In a small room in the inn’s eaves, Harok curls his hand around Tobi’s throat and growls, “You are mine, Suskara. No demon will take you from me.”

“Demon?” Tobi gasps back. Harok’s naked body is stretched over his. Heavy and promising. He needs his Irgorye inside him. He aches for it like he has never ached for another. “Or Lymok?”

He sees Harok’s face cloud as Tobi purposely provokes his rage and jealousy.

They have discussed at length how much of Harok’s anger and cruelty towards Tobi might have been due to his curse.

To the demon inside him. Harok, Tobi knows, is sure that the demon caused his rages.

Has suggested that the wound he took from the Exceli, the one that had torn across his sigil, allowed the demon more control.

But Tobi does not know if that is true. Harok’s pride and desire to be seen as strong was likely behind a lot of his worst excesses.

Without the demon inside him, Harok is still Harok. Harok growls down at Tobi, “I have never seen anything so foul as my wretched cousin touching you. If I thought for a moment you had enjoyed it.”

Tobi gasps as Harok squeezes his throat, bucking up under Harok with wild desire. This is no demon. This is him. This is Harok, using his dark temper for Tobi’s pleasure.

Tobi reaches up and takes hold of Harok’s wrist.

In response to the touch, Harok releases his grip enough for Tobi to speak, Tobi says, “I hated every moment, Ereyek. But if you think I ought to be punished for it…” he bites his lip. “For ever allowing another man to touch me.”

Harok makes a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a growl.

He raises himself up off Tobi’s body and swings into a sitting position.

Then he grabs Tobi and throws him across his lap, “Very well, Suskara,” he growls, before bringing his hand down hard on Tobi’s bare ass.

Tobi yelps, his cock pulsing. Pleasure, desire and sharp, harsh pain.

Harok hits him once and then again. Again and again.

Spanking Tobi hard and fast, with little warning, until Tobi is gasping and crying out, babbling in the hail of sensation.

“You are mine,” Harok says again, punctuating his statement with hard, stinging slaps to Tobi’s squirming ass. “You are my kushir and you belong only to me. You will not allow another man to touch you.”

“No, no,” Tobi gasps out, struggling to catch his breath under the intense feel of Harok spanking him, his cock growing so hard against Harok’s bare thighs he thinks he might spend, only from this.

Harok stops after a dozen hard blows and pauses to scratch over Tobi’s sore skin.

Then he stops, lowers his head and lowers his lips, kissing Tobi all over his freshly spanked ass, letting his tongue stray over Tobi’s hole once or twice, before he moves Tobi again, snarls, “Fuck now, kushessa,” throws him down on his belly and mounts him like a dog, fucking into him.

So fast Tobi cannot catch his breath or prepare himself at all before Harok is taking him so hard the bed shakes, banging into the wall.

When they are spent and Tobi is curled in Harok’s arms, Harok says, “I wondered, for a time, if it was the demon in me that liked taking you so roughly. Hurting you and fucking you like that.”

Tobi presses closer. “And was it? Did you still enjoy it now that Diazuul has fled your body?” He says it, teasingly. Tobi has no doubt Harok enjoys what they just did.

“It is puzzling,” Harok says. “Why would I like your screams, your pain, when I love you above all others?”

Tobi laughs. “Some men do. And I am glad of it.”

“So you wish me to continue to bed you this way?”

Tobi presses close. “I would like it very much if you continued to bed me that way,” he says in lazy, easy Ambolk, the language now coming to him as easily as his own.

In the morning when they come downstairs the innkeeper gives Tobi a sour look and says, “Your horse and your beast are outside. Ready for you. ”

Tobi frowns at the man. “We would break our fast before we leave.”

The man shakes his head. From a small door behind him his wife steps out.

A woman who had fed Tobi a delicious stew the night before and laughed when he’d read her arcaneum cards.

Now her expression is as sour as that of her husband.

The innkeeper glances at his wife and crosses his arms, but looks warily at Harok.

“You will not be breaking your fast here. Please leave or I will have to send a rider to Ceruleum for the enforcers. Zai, hold your heart.”

Tobi is about to open his mouth to speak again, when he realises what is happening.

Amazed he had forgotten. This is Azuria.

Being sly is a crime. He and Harok were not at all discreet about what they were doing in that room upstairs.

Tobi had sauntered down from the attic like a well-fucked kushir.

Harok has a hand on Tobi’s waist. Tobi takes a small step away and swallows.

He glances at Harok, who is frowning at him, unaware of what is being said.

Tobi looks back at the innkeeper and his stout wife. He does not doubt that if he wasn’t with a man as imposing as Harok he would have suffered a beating before he was sent on his way. “Very well, we will be gone in moments,” he says tightly.

As he hurries Harok out he hears the innkeeper’s wife mutter something about filthy tribes of the Amber Forest and he is glad Harok does not understand Artemian.

Tobi is no longer the outsider. He is the one who knows this world. They need to be discreet and he will have to find a way to explain this to Harok as they travel.

A day later they arrive in the market square of Ceruleum. It feels strange to stand on these cobbled streets. Tobi has been here many times. Ceruleum is quite staid and far more loyal to Zai than the countryside of Northern Azuria, but there are pockets of luxoli for those who know where to look.

There is a pot shop Tobi knows in a quiet street that has a room at the back.

But he no longer has need of such things.

He looks up at the glittering towers of the Ivory Palace for a moment, before he turns away and leads Harok down the street to the Brides’ House.

A great temple building set into the hillside with a domed roof covered in gold tiles.

The door is opened by a veiled woman in pale yellow robes.

Tobi explains himself and the woman goes back inside. The door is closed and then opened by an older woman with dark hair. “Ah yes, Tobi Darekul. Welcome. You wish to see your mother?”

Tobi nods.

“Both of you?”

Tobi nods again. This seems satisfactory. The woman steps back and Tobi and Harok are shown into a hushed hallway. Tobi takes the white stone. And gestures to Harok to do the same.

“How is she?” Tobi says as the woman leads them further into the building. His heart is starting to beat fast. He knows his mother will not know him, but would she realise he has not visited her in so long?

The woman looks over her shoulder. “There has been little change but she is peaceful.” Tobi wonders what that could mean. He looks at Harok. Harok nods back, a solemn signal that he is here with Tobi, here for whatever he faces .

They process along a short passageway that brings them out into the wide main space of the Bride House temple.

A sacred circle. Lit by row upon row of glittering candles.

eerie shapes in the shadows. The wide, coloured window that faces the square lets in pretty glittering light that dances on the mark of Zai in the centre of the circle's tiled floor. There are rows of kneeling pads and seats around it. Along the curved walls are twelve statues. The twelve prophets of Zai. It’s like a smaller version of the sacred circle of the Sarelik temple in Attar. The room smells faintly of incense.

At first Tobi thinks the man who stands waiting for them is Vindar. He inhales sharply before he realises the man looks slightly different. His beard is far longer and his clothes are simpler. He wears a mark of Zai on a chain around his neck.

“Tobi,” says Doroth Zain. “I have been waiting for you.”

“For me?” Tobi says in surprise. He glances back at Harok.

“We have much to discuss about the events that happened in the Amber Forest.” Doroth Zain says, “But first, I have something for you.” He holds up a small rolled scroll of paper. “A letter from your brothers.”