Reardon knew. Of course he knew. Yet Jack followed like always.
He hated the allure of hope, and part of him hated Reardon for giving it to him. He’d wondered, however briefly, if seeing one of the castle’s accidents firsthand would change Reardon’s staunch dedication, but the prince had weathered that too, including their weather wizard. If Jack couldn’t bring himself to banish the hope in his heart or Reardon, then he might as well enjoy what he could have until it was gone.
And he missed Reardon every moment he was without him. He should have shunned him when the prince rose after his drunken debauchery, but even after only one night together, Jack longed for his touch, for his company. Even if Reardon knew he was watching, Jack couldn’t bear to let the prince out of his sight.
Eventually Reardon left the tunnels for the main halls. Jack couldn’t always easily see him, keeping parallel with walls between them, but he could hear Reardon’s steps, and as he tried to stay in line with wherever Reardon was headed, the collision that sounded when someone came speeding around a corner was unmistakable.
“Ouff!” Reardon grunted, another voice groaning in kind, followed by the thud of two bodies hitting the floor.
Jack rapidly removed the closest loose stone to check on Reardon. He appeared to be all right, but he was in a heap of long limbs, tangled with whoever had struck him.
“Apologies, friend! I didn’t see… you ,” the other man said when his eyes fell upon Reardon, righting himself and grasping Reardon’s hand to heft him up .
Their legs were still tangled, but they were at least sitting now, facing each other, hands clasped as both stared in recognition. The other man—an elf who’d been at the castle for decades—smiled wide, his angular nose twitching with interest.
“Emerald Prince, our new recruit. We meet again.”
Again?
“After almost two weeks, you’d think you’d have met everyone by now, but I got the impression you were avoiding me.”
“N-no.” Reardon snatched his hand away, fighting to untwist their legs but making it worse on several attempts before finally pulling free. “W-why would I do that? I don’t even know you!”
“Let’s remedy that. I’m Raphael.” The elf grabbed Reardon’s hand once more before he could scramble to his feet.
Raphael . Jack remembered him better now; always sticking that narrow nose where it didn’t belong and far too friendly. He’d been one of the few before Reardon who had tried to make nice, only to give up when Jack made it clear that he did not make friends with subjects.
Raphael clearly wanted more with Reardon, judging by the way he eyed him and let his hand linger inappropriately once Reardon acquiesced to shake.
Frost burst over the stones in front of Jack.
“Sorry I didn’t say hello when we first saw each other,” Reardon said with a bashful drop of his eyes. “I was hurrying after Shayla.”
“I just felt bad for tripping you up. It’s not often I nearly cause someone to flip over a banister.”
Reardon tried to snatch his hand away again, but Raphael used the hold to hoist them to their feet, nearly knocking their heads together with how they rocked into each other’s bodies from the momentum. “A-and where are you hurrying to today?”
“My duties at the stables. Lost track of time. But that can wait a few minutes.”
“Stables…? You’re a stable boy?” Reardon’s thoughts must have strayed after Jack’s frequent use of the term, though he knew full well none of Jack’s conquests remained in the castle.
“I prefer to think of myself as a man. But then stable man doesn’t roll off the tongue as well, does it?” Raphael raised Reardon’s hand between them and ran a thumb over his knuckles. “Have you not seen the horses yet? They don’t get ridden much in winter and can grow restless. I could take you down to see them sometime.” He raised Reardon’s hand higher to place a light kiss to the back of it, making Reardon shudder. “My, you are pretty.”
Another burst of cold spread over the wall from Jack’s splayed palms, and then again when Raphael started to lean forward.
“I’m with the king!” Reardon wrenched away, leaving the other man’s hand outstretched holding nothing.
“Not… currently.” Raphael looked around in confusion.
Reardon pursed his lips.
“You mean…?”
Jack had never seen anyone move as swiftly as Raphael did to backpedal.
Good.
“You know… horses really shouldn’t be kept waiting.” Raphael continued to withdraw until he hit the wall, instantly shivering, given the other side was covered in ice from Jack angrily pressing his hands to it.
Jolting forward from the telling cold, Raphael turned and sprinted down the hall. “Another time!”
“Wait! You don’t have to—!” Reardon tried calling after him, but Raphael was already gone. Holding a hand to his flushed face, Reardon laughed. “I’m with the king…,” he said again.
He’d turned someone down who he clearly found attractive, someone who didn’t come with any of Jack’s complications, and he’d done it for Jack, for the chance at a love he didn’t even know was real.
That should have made Jack angrier, but it glued him to his spot, made all the icier from the torrent of emotion that had exploded out of him. If Reardon was risking everything on some fleeting hope, and happy to do so, then maybe….
Maybe Jack owed him the same.
Reardon
Reardon wasn’t sure when the king was or wasn’t watching him, so he tended to imagine he always was.
Except with Raphael. Oh, he hoped he hadn’t seen that .
Just in case, Reardon focused his time in the music room on helping Nigel, rather than working on his own piece, at least until he could ask Zephyr to inform him whenever the king was watching while he was in there—which would also ensure they knew where Zephyr was for Nigel’s sake, though Nigel insisted he could always tell when Zephyr was listening.
At nightfall, after a quick dinner, Reardon went once more to the king’s chambers and tied that same scarf over his eyes before he knocked.
“I won’t look, Majesty!” he called. “And I promise I haven’t had anything to drink tonight.”
He was ready for a fight, for silence or angry remarks, but after only a few short beats, the door opened, and a gentle hand took Reardon’s to pull him inside.
The thrill of the king’s touch made Reardon shiver for such different reasons than the cold of the room he’d come from. The warmth of these chambers was all the sweeter too, the look of them clear in his mind’s eye now as the door closed behind him to let him know he was welcome.
“While I thank you for admitting me, Majesty, this is rather silly,” Reardon said, carefully following the path the king led him on.
“You mean you coming here every night?”
“I mean you not letting me see you but still letting me in.”
A comfortable hush fell until Reardon crossed what he knew to be the threshold into the bedroom. “Can’t you be happy with what you’re given?” the king said, the hand in Reardon’s keeping hold of him, while the other was suddenly at the curve of Reardon’s cheek.
“Depends on what I’m going to be given.”
“Well, little prince… it seems I owe you this .”
A puff of breath was the only warning Reardon received before the shock of descending lips. He gasped, leaning instinctively into the body before him and nearly going limp at that first brush of another’s mouth. The king had touched him so intimately before, yet this made Reardon’s knees far weaker.
He whined, opening his mouth wider upon the scarred softness of the king’s, and sought the wetness of his lover’s tongue. The king tilted his head to comply, pulling him against him tightly, his tender touch on Reardon’s neck becoming a firm hold as he plunged his tongue deeper to give Reardon what he wanted.
Reardon was still shy of fourteen days in the castle, yet he’d found everything he’d ever wanted his long twenty-two years on this earth and hoped he was giving the king something worthwhile after a far longer two hundred .
“Please,” Reardon panted after his breath had been stolen. “Let me know your touch again. Let me know more … if I can.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then I surrender, my little prince. At least in this.”
Reardon’s chest felt like a jolt of Liam’s lightning had hit him as he followed the king’s ginger steps to the bed.
Because he had called him his .
Jack
Perhaps Reardon truly believed in his devotion, but Jack knew, once the curse proved unbreakable, the prince would have to accept heading home empty-handed. And all the better, because knowing that—knowing true love wasn’t real (or at least, not real for him)—wouldn’t stop Jack from taking what he could.
Monsters could be gentle and giving too. Even demons garnered sympathy on occasion.
Reardon trembled and parted his moistened lips with a sigh, as if all the answers to the universe could be found in Jack’s touch. He simply knew no other, but Jack would make it sweet for him and sweet, in the end, for himself too.
“You lent me your mouth, little prince,” Jack said, laying Reardon down and straddling his thin hips, “now, let me give you mine.”
Descending swiftly, Jack claimed another kiss. He’d forgotten how nice the simple meeting of mouths could feel, tongues caressing with demanding twirls and flicks. Reardon had little practice but more than enough passion, pawing up at Jack with equally aggressive fingers twisting into his shirt.
Jack rarely bothered with any of his doublets and hadn’t again today, but Reardon wore the one he’d borrowed, with its deep purple hue. Jack loosened its ties, kissing Reardon long and slow as his hand strayed down the fabric to the start of the prince’s trousers. Those ties were more important.
Once undone, Jack slid deft fingers into the opening to stroke through Reardon’s fine auburn hair to the hot and hardening flesh beneath. Reardon’s whine at the touch made Jack want to devour him like the beast he was .
He pulled his lips from Reardon’s to do just that, shifting the lock of his thighs to slide down Reardon’s body and pull his trousers to his knees. He left Reardon trapped like that, disheveled but mostly still dressed, panting deeply above him and clawing at Jack’s shoulders as it must have dawned on him what Jack was about to do.
Reardon hadn’t been able to see Jack when he took him into his mouth, but Jack could see Reardon as he bent to return the favor—good-sized and blushing scarlet like his cheeks and still smelling of Jack’s bath oils.
He didn’t taste like lavender, though; he tasted of salt and heady skin, the floral scent mixing with musk as Jack swallowed deep and pushed his nose into those russet curls.
“ Jack ,” Reardon moaned without fanfare, so instantly that Jack wondered if he knew he’d done it.
Holding the prince by his hips, Jack sucked and swallowed, salivating easily and opening his throat. Too long it had been since he’d done this, but that didn’t diminish his skill.
He sucked until he thought Reardon might come in moments, and then slackened, pulling slowly off to lick delicately at Reardon’s head. Only when Reardon whimpered as if in pain did Jack lick boldly up his underside and return to suck him in again.
Reardon kept trying to pull his knees up, but Jack held them down. The prince squirmed, grasping at Jack’s collar and begging, “Please, I… I-I need….”
“Need…?”
“ Something .”
“You wish to end things swiftly?”
“ No , but….”
“Then be patient.” Jack licked languidly around Reardon’s cock, the prince’s desperate whimpers growing louder, until finally he dragged Reardon’s trousers down and off.
Now he let Reardon crook his knees, hooking them over his shoulders to dig his nose that much deeper into those curls, sucking almost vengefully and teasing a hand down the curve of Reardon’s ass to the crease between his cheeks.
“ Yes .” Reardon’s hands slid from Jack’s shoulders up into his hair, curling into the long strands.
The contact was so… new for Jack, always having kept his hair short before the curse, that the sensation of someone running their fingers through it made him shudder and gasp and groan loudly when Reardon tugged .
“ Please , I’m so close….” Reardon tugged again, unaware of the affect he was having, despite Jack’s groan.
Tension seized Jack like he’d just heard canon fire; the intimacy, the need he felt for it, superseded everything else, and the fear of that almost caused him to flee.
Instead, the choice he made was to conquer.
“Not yet,” Jack growled and roughly flipped Reardon over.
The prince shook as he got up onto his knees, willingly positioning himself and thrusting his hips back at Jack, presented lewdly and open while hanging heavy between his legs. Jack hadn’t yet teased his fingers into that tight ring of muscle, and his hunger for Reardon brought his lips back to him first with a wet lap of his tongue.
Reardon’s moan was encouragingly filthy.
Jack licked again, the tip of his tongue breaching the soft pucker. He spread Reardon’s cheeks and licked as deeply as he could, as far as his tongue would go and that Reardon would open. The prince was as tight as before, but Jack’s tongue between his cheeks relaxed him faster, and soon, Jack was plunging a finger inside with his licks.
He’d placed oils within easy reach, knowing what Reardon would ask for, but the prince’s hole was already so wet from just itself and Jack’s licking that nothing was needed. Jack stretched him open with a full driving finger beside his tongue and was soon ready to add another.
The resistance Jack had found before with two fingers twisting inside the prince was gone. He’d gotten this far then too, but only after careful scissoring and much more time. Managing this so quickly, Jack risked the tease of another finger around the rim.
“Y-y-yes….” Reardon’s hips rocked mindlessly back and forth, fucking himself on Jack’s fingers.
Jack had something better for him.
He still pressed the tip of that third finger in, only getting as far as the first knuckle and slowing his thrusts to start scissoring with all three.
Reardon cried out, but not as pained as before and fighting past the strain.
Jack hadn’t removed any of his clothes yet, and Reardon was only missing his bottoms. The neediness to rut as quickly as possible, clothes or other barriers be damned, brought Jack back to his younger days, when fucking someone in the stables was for convenience more than anything—it never mattered who—because now was better than taking the time to bring someone up to his rooms.
He had Reardon in his rooms—the Emerald Prince who begged and mewled and deserved all the time Jack could spare him.
“Shhh….” Jack pulled his hand away to shuck down his own trousers, shifting up close behind Reardon and forming against his back with a warm slide between his cheeks—not to press in yet, just to rest there in wait.
Reaching around Reardon to bring his hand between them, Jack fumbled to connect their cocks as much as possible in this position, pumping his hand messily over each of them, adding Reardon’s wetness from ready dribbles and Jack’s own spit to their leaking fluids.
“I-I… want….” Reardon murmured inaudibly.
“I know what you want. Shhh…,” Jack hushed again. “Relax, little prince, and I’ll give it to you.”
The stress on Reardon’s arms to hold him up gave way, and he fell forward, resting his head against the mattress, hips still rocking to slide their skin together, hot and wet but not with enough friction.
Jack ran his hand over every bit of them colliding together until Reardon was a ragged mess, limp and quaking, so ready for any promise of release that when Jack rolled up to coat himself more slickly and returned to Reardon’s stretched hole with easing pressure, Reardon swallowed him up like the hungry maw from his first song.
Reardon
Yes.
Reardon could handle it. He could take it. He—
He hissed. The base of the king was still so much . All that length and fullness inside him felt so good, but he knew it wasn’t everything from his own cringe and the king’s grunt of frustration.
“I-I’m… sorry.”
“No,” the king growled. “Your body is its own beast. Don’t force it.”
“I want—”
“I know. Relax, but if it’s not meant to be yet—”
“It will be,” Reardon insisted, pulling forward and back again to move the king inside him. That was its own magic, and Reardon loved it more than any display of power or alchemist’s concoction. “Please, Majesty. I will open for you.”
Another grunt resounded, desire dripping from the low utterance and making Reardon melt that much further. He was supposed to be melting the king, but melting together was just as good.
The slick slide of him was good too, the pull out and press back in of the king’s cock, making Reardon smother his moans into the sheets in ecstasy. The king got so close to sheathing all the way inside him but kept hitting resistance, causing Reardon to hiss or wince, and whenever that happened, he’d relent, pull back, and fuck Reardon more shallowly.
Reardon didn’t want shallow, so he focused on enjoying what he had—on the heat, the pressure, the rhythm starting to build, that little by little stretched him open more, brought the king in deeper, and gods above and below them, Reardon was determined to take him all.
And then a hard, slow thrust breached that stubborn resistance, and Reardon expected a ratchet of pain, only for the ache to give way to more pressure, and then just… fullness, such wonderful fullness, that skimmed some marvelous spot inside Reardon and made him scream.
The king pulled out, and Reardon slapped a hand back on his forearm, demanding, “ No ,” gripping his wrist tight and squeezing, “more.”
The next hard thrust brought the king in with a single stroke, Reardon’s mouth dropping open in a silent cry. Everything burned, filling him to the brim, but it was a beautiful burn, and he wanted to chase that heat to its embers.
“ Yes ….”
Again and again the king slammed into him, Reardon’s hand falling forward to clutch at the sheets for purchase. He turned his head, cheek to the mattress to let his silent cries out, and glanced back.
His eyes remained covered, so there was nothing to see, but he imagined the king’s eyes on him, watching the rapture on his face growing in crescendo.
The king had to see it, had to be watching, like he always watched, because his thrusts grew more frantic, sliding in so effortlessly now, like he was made to fit between Reardon’s cheeks and drive him to madness in his bedchamber.
That woodsy floral scent filled the room with sweat and musk and them . Reardon couldn’t even push back to meet the king’s slams anymore, so immobilized by how good it felt, a fluttering, tickling sensation growing in the pit of his stomach with that same incredible heat . He knew what it meant to pleasure himself, but it had never felt like this, and each slam built the sensation higher.
And that spot, that wonderful spot inside him, touched only ever by having the king rock with abandon, made him moan and cry and plead to finally reach the end of this incredible driving force.
Reardon’s own pleasure would have been enough, but it was a haggard moan from the king, scarred hands smoothing up Reardon’s back beneath his shirt and half-untied doublet, like some deep need to connect and feel him, that tumbled Reardon off the precipice.
He sank, almost falling into the spot of wetness he’d streaked across the bed, but held himself up by sheer will, back arched and thighs spread to anchor against the king’s final pumps—and oh, he wanted him to stay inside forever.
“Stay…,” he croaked, no breath left for anything more, but it was enough that the king didn’t pull out when he hit his peak.
Another grunt came, a sharp clutch at Reardon’s skin, and then a glorious warmth filled him. The king sank as Reardon had, held up just enough to not smother Reardon to the bed, both shaking and panting and sheened in sweat.
Reardon ached, more exhausted than the first time, likely not helped by his drunken slumber last night, but it had been worth every pained progress toward bliss.
“What a mess… you’ve made of my sheets,” the king huffed, lifting Reardon’s shirt to press a tender kiss to the skin between his shoulder blades.
“You’ll have to clean me up again.”
“Indeed.” The king rumbled a throaty laugh.
After a few more captured breaths, he pulled up and dragged Reardon with him. Reardon would have needed the helping hand being led to the bath even if he hadn’t been blindfolded. The ache was pleasant but definitely threw off his balance.
Once more, he found himself soaking in sweet-smelling water with the Ice King, human and comforting, at his back. A warm cloth was dragged over his body, between his legs, his cheeks, almost enough to twitch him to life again, but the touch was fleeting, and soon they were lying together with the king’s arms loosely holding Reardon to him .
“Even after that… you still do not believe you are my love?” Reardon asked, resting his head on the king’s shoulder.
Silence answered for a good many moments before he said, “You will find someone more worthy someday.”
Reardon thought of Raphael, who was very handsome and disarming. He thought of Lombard too, but that was a child’s dream. Neither of them made Reardon hesitate to say, “There is no one of more worth to me than you, Majesty.”
“And what if you only think that because you already believe I’m your love without actually feeling it?”
“I’m not so easily swayed, even by Barclay’s visions. I believe some things are fated, but that doesn’t take away our ability to choose. If I didn’t want you to be my love, you simply wouldn’t be.” Reardon knew that wasn’t the same as saying he loved the king now, but he believed he was on that path.
“Then perhaps it is only because I am the first touch you have ever known.”
“That too discounts what I liked about you long before I knew your touch. You have all the qualities I am usually drawn to.”
“Being stubborn, vicious, and either monstrous or scarred?”
“I’d say… resilient, passionate, maybe a little tragic, yes, but also kind. I don’t know the man you were, but I know the man you are. And I don’t care about scars.” Reardon turned, moving between the king’s legs to face him in the large bath.
Reaching out with both hands, he found firm shoulders first, and then moved up the king’s neck to the curves of his face. He could feel scars there too, but it didn’t matter.
Crawling more securely into the king’s lap, Reardon held his face in his palms to guide him to his lips. Kisses were written about by bards as much as lovemaking or romance. Reardon thought he could have kissed the king, mouth open or closed, well into the night and written sonnets in his head.
“Majesty—”
“Go back to your room.” The king stopped him from asking the same old question to finally see him. “Sleep, little prince. You’ll grow tired of me soon enough.”
“I could—”
“It’s best if you don’t stay. ”
The small win was in how much more gently the king pulled Reardon from the bath, dried him, and helped him dress, before leading him to the door.
Reardon stepped outside when it was opened for him but reached back to halt its closing and said, “Good night, Majesty. But I promise you, someday soon, you will let me sleep in that bed again.”