Page 4 of The Offering of Four

His scent crawled down Amenzu’s throat and crept into his lungs. The ripe musk made Amenzu’s palms tingle, and other parts of him, too. His pulse began to beat strongly in his temples. His head was light enough to lift away from his body and float off on the breeze.

“Mendas,” Amenzu whispered, his voice hardly audible even to himself.

Mendas looked away, then back again, then away. The priestess was saying something, but her words held no meaning for Amenzu, focused as he was on every nuance of Mendas’s appearance and demeanor. Mendas was looking at the nobleman now, drifting in that direction as the priestess stopped speaking, but glancing again and again at Amenzu, and Amenzu found himself wishing, in opposition to all good reason, that Mendas would come to him and choose him.

The nobleman went up onto his knees as Mendas circled him. He said something to Mendas in a low tone that Amenzu couldn’t hear. Mendas shook his head and looked toward Amenzu again.

Mendas, said a small voice inside Amenzu’s heart.

“I would be pleased for you to have me,” the nobleman said, smiling up at Mendas. He was handsome and self-possessed, and he would know how to be a good consort. He was the only proper choice. Amenzu hated him. He wanted to tear the man’s face from his skull. He clenched his hands into fists and pressed them hard against his thighs, fighting this irrational rage that had come over him.

Mendas’s expression was somber as he regarded the nobleman. He reached out to touch the man’s shoulder, then snatched his hand away as if he had touched an open flame. His gaze turned again toward Amenzu.

Amenzu couldn’t bear it: seeing Mendas try so hard to honor Amenzu’s wishes when it was clear that he belonged to Amenzu, or Amenzu to him; that they both belonged to each other.

He made a silent, private farewell to the life he’d known. If the Morning Star resented his loss, it could dispute the matter with Great Aghilas in the netherworld.

“Mendas,” he said, his voice emerging thin and thready, but Mendas heard him nonetheless and turned to him for what Amenzu intended would be the final time. Amenzu held out his hands. Mendas shook his head, denying the obvious, the inevitable. But he came toward Amenzu nonetheless, and when Amenzu reached up to him, Mendas laid one hand on his head, cupping the curve of Amenzu’s skull. Amenzu could feel how his hand was shaking.

“My choice is clear,” Mendas said.

He spoke quietly, but everyone in the room reacted at once to his words. The other suitors rose to their feet and made their way toward the entrance, followed by the guards and, last, the priestess. She turned at the threshold and said, “May Great Aghilas bless your joining.” Then she closed the door, and they were alone.

Mendas immediately hiked his robe to his waist. He was bare underneath, and his scent slammed into Amenzu with the force of a sandstorm. His cock hung heavy between his lean hips, and as he shifted his weight, Amenzu could see the slick gleaming on his inner thighs.

Hot, rich desire coursed through Amenzu’s body. He touched Mendas’s hand, which seemed a safe enough place, and Mendas responded by gracefully sinking down to straddle Amenzu’s lap.

Amenzu had no idea what to do with himself. His hands found Mendas’s hips and held him there. His skin was so warm and so smooth.

“I’m sorry,” Mendas said. He balanced himself with his hands on Amenzu’s shoulders. “I promised you—but I couldn’t. I don’t know why. I like Lounes. I thought I would be pleased with him. But?—”

“I wouldn’t have been pleased for you to have him. Mendas, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“My innocent priest. You’ve never?—?”

“No.” Amenzu drew Mendas down against him, settling Mendas fully in his lap. He could feel the heat of Mendas’s body through his own robe. “I don’t suppose you can aid me.”

Mendas touched Amenzu’s mouth, his fingers pressing against Amenzu’s teeth through his lips. “Not to worry. I knowexactlywhat I’m doing, and I’ll take good care of you.”

Amenzu closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath. He didn’t understand what had cracked open inside him when Mendas first came into the room, but he felt fully transformed from the person he had been even that morning. He wanted to please Mendas more than he had ever wanted anything in his life, and he had wanted a number of things quite fervently.

He felt a different type of pressure against his mouth, and realized after a moment that Mendas was kissing him. This he had some experience with, thanks to adolescent explorations with a girl in Imlil before he left for the temple. He parted his lips in response to Mendas’s gentle kisses, and felt the curve of Mendas’s smile.

That one fascinating taste was all he got. Mendas drew back and began tugging at Amenzu’s robe, trying to work it up over his hips. “Wait,” Amenzu said, “I’m sitting on it,” but after some awkward shifting around Mendas settled into Amenzu’s lap again without any fabric between them.

Amenzu couldn’t hold back his gasp. Mendas had been warm before, but now Amenzu could feel how wet Mendas was all between his legs, and how wet the head of his cock was where it pressed against Amenzu’s belly. He had never been so close to another person in this way and was overcome by the physical sensations and the thick scent of Mendas’s heat. Sweat dampened his underarms and trickled down the small of his back. He wanted Mendas to kiss him again, or to tell him what would come next.

Mendas lifted up onto his knees and reached behind himself to take Amenzu’s cock in his hand, and Amenzu only realized in that moment that he was hard. Mendas shifted his hips until the crown of Amenzu’s cock pressed against a soft, wet place between his legs, and Amenzu clutched at him, finally, fully understanding what was about to happen.

“We could—a bed,” Amenzu suggested; wasn’t this sort of thing usually conducted in a bed? And that would give him a few moments to collect his thoughts. Everything was happening so quickly.

But Mendas shook his head. “No, I can’t wait that long.” And he sank down, a smooth glide, taking Amenzu inside his body, into that perfect soft place, hot and slick as if he had readied himself with oil.

Amenzu’s hands went to Mendas’s thighs, gripping him there as Mendas began to ride him at a devastating pace. Mendas pushed down hard on the downstroke, grinding his ass into Amenzu’s lap to take Amenzu in deep, until Amenzu felt that they were one peculiar creature, one body with four arms.

The pleasure was searing. Everything was happening so quickly. Amenzu was sweating as if he had spent a full day working in his parents’ vegetable garden. His hands were slippery with sweat on Mendas’s thighs. Mendas looked down at him with bright, glassy eyes, his lips parted as he rode Amenzu’s cock. He bent to kiss Amenzu, their noses bumping, and then wrapped his arms around Amenzu’s neck and held him close, so that Amenzu couldn’t watch his face any longer.

Should Amenzu do something? He didn’t know what. He moved his hands on Mendas’s thighs, abortively, bewildered and overwhelmed. Every inch of his body throbbed with the beat of his heart. He pressed his open mouth to Mendas’s throat, drawing in his scent, bewildering himself even further. He was drunk on the smell, halfway out of his mind.