Reardon marveled at the throne room when they reached it. Jack had melted, the court members all flesh and blood too, but he hadn’t thought the places once touched by the Ice King would melt as well.
The room was cool, for it was still vast and made of stone, but it was a soothing cool instead of chilling. The throne wasn’t a throne anymore without a coating of ice to make it imposing, simple in design like Jack’s chair in the hall, instead of the grand throne in Jack’s chambers.
Jack took a breath and surveyed the room as if he hadn’t truly taken it all in when he came up here to change. “I suppose it’s time to move my true throne out here again. Although, if you’re going to be king with me, we’ll need one for you as well.”
Reardon moved into Jack’s body and took his hands. “I think we can both fit. Shall we test it out?”
“I thought you wanted to dance,” Jack teased.
“True.” Reardon encircled Jack’s waist with his arms, feeling Jack encircle him in kind, and led them into a slow sway. “In the place we first met.”
Jack pressed his cheek to Reardon’s. “Indeed. But we haven’t any music.”
“Well then….” Reardon cleared his throat.
“ And the thief cried on, Swallowed up by greed, But the hungry maw Had enough.
“So, beware the vice that will feed the story’s end, for the next year comes again too soon…. ”
Jack pulled Reardon out in front of him and sang the end, “And the Ice King sings the final tune.”
Reardon laughed. “I suppose we’ll need to change the words, since only that last line is true. ”
“I’m sure you and Nigel are up to the task. Now come—” Jack backed them toward his private chambers. “—let’s see if we can fit on that throne.”
Reardon didn’t think Jack was being serious—Reardon hadn’t been serious when he suggested it—but once they entered the chambers, Jack led them straight to his desk and to the ornate throne behind it.
Which afforded Reardon a clear view into the bedroom.
“You don’t have a bed!” he exclaimed.
“I’ve been sleeping on yours. We’ll have to end there all the same tonight, but first….” Jack sat Reardon down, which confused him, until Jack squeezed in between the desk and Reardon’s legs and dropped to his knees in front of him. “We can worry about fitting in that chair in a moment.”
Seeing Jack in the dark of Reardon’s bedroom their last night together couldn’t compare with seeing him now, in a room fully lit, as his beautiful hands untied Reardon’s trousers and pulled him out right there on Jack’s throne. There was reverence in the act but also want, deep and fully focused on Reardon with Jack’s eyes on him.
Blue eyes in a sea of white.
The white was more a frame around his handsomely tanned face now. The truth of Barclay’s vision had been what Reardon chose for himself to save his love.
A love whose soft lips parted now, drawing Reardon in between them, a king on his knees for Reardon, licking and sucking on Reardon’s length and spurring him to hardness.
Reardon’s instinct was to flutter his eyes closed at the warmth, but he didn’t want to look away now that he could truly, fully see Jack.
He watched his handsome king swallow him down until Jack’s nose touched the base of Reardon’s curls. Reardon reached with his own reverence to run his fingers through Jack’s hair. A crown of white gold and sapphires sat upon Jack’s head, glittering from the many lamps in the room.
“Perhaps it should sit upon your head, my little prince,” Jack husked with warm breath on Reardon’s tip, and then licked slowly up his length to make him shiver.
Reardon felt like he could melt. Neither of them had enjoyed more than a few sips of wine, the flush inside him building from something far better .
He plucked the crown from Jack’s head and set it upon his own, heavier than the gold diadem he sometimes wore at home. This freed him to dig his fingers that much deeper into Jack’s hair, soft as silk and white as the winter snow, encouraging Jack in his careful work bobbing up and down Reardon’s cock.
It had been too long, Reardon wound as tight as an artisan’s clock about to burst its gears. He’d been nothing but a bundle of anxiety, and now, finally, here was salvation.
But he didn’t want to be saved too soon.
“Jack,” Reardon panted, feeling Jack’s warm hands at his hips, holding him steady.
Jack seemed to understand and pulled away, but continued to lightly lick at Reardon between words, while also undoing the ties of Reardon’s doublet and sliding his hands up beneath his undershirt as if desperate to touch him. “I am going to worship you as you deserve. You kept your word.” Jack kissed Reardon’s belly, Reardon’s doublet falling open and his shirt drawn up by slow, precise hands. “You saved me, came back to me, even sewed and sang for me.” Jack rumbled a laugh before licking up between Reardon’s pecs, and then leaned in to kiss his lips.
He soon dropped back to his knees, returning to Reardon’s trousers to pull them down his legs. Reardon lifted his hips to allow it, watching his boots get removed, then the trousers, but not expecting Jack’s sudden return to swallow Reardon down—once, twice. Then Jack slowed to gentle sucking, as he brought his fingers to Reardon’s lips and prodded for entrance.
Reardon opened his mouth to pull in Jack’s fingers, rolling them across his tongue. He coated them wetly, enjoying the feel of them in his mouth, while simultaneously being sucked on with slower and slower bobs.
“ Jack ,” Reardon whined with a plaintive drop of his head against the throne when the fingers fell from his lips.
“As you wish,” Jack said and tilted Reardon’s hips so that his feet left the floor, finding purchase on the edge of the throne and presenting Reardon boldly before Jack, where he brought those wet fingers down.
Reardon trembled at the first tease of a fingertip circling him, slick only from his own mouth but enough to ease its way inside. The hums and moans that left him as Jack sought to stretch him open were impossible to stifle .
“I’ve missed those sounds filling this room.” Jack pressed a kiss to Reardon’s thighs, licked around the heavy drop of his balls above his entrance, and when Reardon tightened at a deeper thrust of a finger, Jack added a lick and sweet suck at Reardon’s tip.
Reardon tightened again, and then relaxed and opened further at the prospect of what came next.
“Does my little prince want more?” Jack flicked the tip of his tongue at Reardon’s head, twisting a second finger inside and spreading them apart in tandem.
“Please….” Reardon quaked.
At last, Jack pulled away and stood, leaving Reardon shaking with his feet propped. The ties of Jack’s trousers were deftly undone, the garment dropping and being kicked away, and his boots kicked away as well, but while he also untied his doublet, he merely let it fall open, his thick and heavy cock bobbing just beneath the line of his shirt and dripping at the tip.
Jack stroked it, smoothing the wetness up his length, and jutted his hips toward Reardon in offering. Reardon righted himself on the throne, feet dropping down so he could suck his king’s cock as eagerly as he had sucked his fingers.
While the taste was the same, the view made it so much better than when Reardon only had darkness as a guide. He could swallow Jack down and look up his smooth, firm chest at those beautiful eyes looking down at him. Jack’s lips had the most mesmerizing curve with a tiny, smug smile, shimmering with wetness.
Reardon sucked and sucked and opened his throat to bury his nose as deeply as Jack had with him, loving the fullness it gave him and the promise of being further filled in due time.
“And how… would my king… like to have me?” Reardon spoke between teasing licks.
“Together on our throne, of course.” Jack halted him and left the close quarters of being behind the desk. “I’ll be but a moment. Stand, remove your doublet and shirt, but keep the crown.”
A tremor pulsed through Reardon at the order. His footing wavered when he stood, but by the time Jack returned, Reardon had complied. Jack’s shirt and doublet were gone now too, and he held one of the bottles of bath oils .
Reardon made room for Jack to sit this time and accepted the oil when Jack handed it to him. Like this, Reardon could see all of Jack, naked and full before him, and had the pleasure of coating his love while touching him anywhere he wanted.
Reardon didn’t waste a moment, pouring the oil on Jack’s tip to dribble down his cock and coating it with a swift hand, while exploring with the other. The feel of Jack’s skin was different without the scars. Reardon had mapped the feel of him in his mind, and now the terrain was new, but no less beautiful, no less desirable, and all his.
He wanted Jack to know how stunning he found him and took his time tracing every muscle, curve, and divot, stroking Jack all the while, until he could handle it no longer and had to have Jack inside him.
There were no arms to the throne, so climbing atop Jack to join him was a simple act. Reardon spread his legs to straddle his king and used one hand on Jack’s cock to guide him in where he had already been slicked and open.
The scent of a forest clearing with a field of flowers, the feel of Jack tight and devoured within Reardon, the connection of their thighs and Reardon’s hand pressing to Jack’s chest over his heart to a steady, warm beat, were but a prelude to experiencing this with their eyes locked.
“You see… my king,” Reardon huffed, sheathing himself completely and basking in the fullness of being with his love, “we fit.”
Jack
You don’t deserve this , tried to chorus in Jack’s mind, but damn those thoughts, because Jack did , and he would do everything in his power to continue proving it.
He thrust up into the heat of Reardon, not feeling any of the shame or self-hatred he always thought he would to have someone’s eyes on him, and he knew that, even if his scars remained, he would feel the same. He wanted Reardon’s focus, his adoration, his lithely moving body rocking atop him on their throne.
Reardon kept touching him, a hand over his heart, on his cheek, in his hair. He was no amateur any longer, but moved slowly, muscles tightening in tempo, his thighs wide and clamped around Jack’s hips. He used the hold he had on Jack’s hair to tilt Jack’s head and kiss his neck with an open mouth, licking and biting lightly enough to fill Jack with tremors.
Holding Reardon around his waist as they rocked in synchronization, Jack enjoyed the minutes ticking by with neither of them hurrying toward an end. That slow rhythm couldn’t last, however, and when Reardon drew close, his pace increased, and he leaned back enough to grasp one of Jack’s hands at his waist and bring it between his legs.
Jack gripped Reardon hard, pumping through the wetness already leaking down his shaft, and with each increased breath and added whine released to the air, Reardon hastened and clenched and finally cried out a beautiful litany of praises.
When, after several moments, Jack had yet to follow him, Reardon lifted Jack’s soiled hand to his lips and licked his own release from Jack’s fingers.
Jack came almost instantly, feeling and seeing the filthy slide of that silver tongue. Barbed at times too, Reardon’s tongue had charmed him as much as it had scolded him. Jack kissed the taste of Reardon right off that tongue and wrapped Reardon in his arms.
No stable boy had ever made Jack’s heart flutter with the same intensity. This young prince would be Jack’s king, the one who’d saved him, who’d believed he could save himself, and who never lost hope no matter how many times Jack pushed him away.
“I love you,” Jack said, whispering against damp lips.
“I love you,” Reardon echoed, still panting. “And loving you, my dear Jack, is more than enough.”
The words were almost chiding, as if to say, I told you I’d be right , but Jack didn’t mind. It was enough, and he was glad to have been proven wrong.
He might not have a bed, but he did have his bath, and once they had grown tired of their sticky embrace with lazy kisses having passed between them, he coaxed Reardon to get up so they could clean themselves and soak.
“Are we going to while away the rest of the day here?” Reardon asked.
“For a bit.” Jack no longer needed to keep Reardon faced away from him, but he still held him against his chest, arms wrapped around him from behind. “Then we can rejoin the others in their merriment.”
“And if they ask where we got off to?”
“We’ll tell the truth,” Jack said, grinning when Reardon turned to him with a wry expression. “We were consummating our engagement.”
Reardon
Reardon knew the road ahead would not be without its challenges. Finally returning home afforded him many a dark, wary, or disgusted look from his people, some even daring to spit at the feet of his horse. But those were the minority, for most cheered to see their prince alive with no disaster following in his wake.
He did, however, have a king riding beside him, whose white hair despite a young face made whispers spread quickly. Once they reached the palace, it was clear that everyone knew their prince had returned with the Ice King.
Let them stare and whisper and wonder , Reardon thought. All he cared about was seeing his father.
He leapt from his horse and rushed to meet him, embracing his father tightly on the palace steps. Master Wells was there amid the court physicians, for Henry did appear weak, however revitalized.
“It will take some days yet for the poison to fully leave me, but I am well, my beautiful boy, all because you are a sweet, stubborn prince who refused to admit defeat.”
Reardon laughed, because he couldn’t deny that he had made it this far largely due to stubbornness. “Father, this is King John of the Sapphire Kingdom,” Reardon introduced when Jack dismounted and came to join them. Henry bowed, as did Jack, but Reardon did not mean for this meeting to be formal. “He is also Jack, my betrothed.”
Henry looked startled, though not dissenting as Reardon feared. “That is… truly what you want, my son?”
“It is. I will accept my responsibilities as king, but I also have a responsibility to our neighbors, to our people shunned and wrongly called witch or banished, and to my love and all the friends I made. Don’t think too terribly of me for being selfish that I want a love as potent as what you had with Mother.”
“Never,” Henry said with a weak but caring smile. His hand quivered slightly as he reached for Reardon’s face. “I missed her so much, I didn’t think of what my mourning cost. I fought for nothing but the voices of the loudest, forgetting that those without a voice need their king too. Now that you are home, I can rest easy.
“I am guessing you both have much to tell me. Come. Let us leave prying eyes and ears to themselves.”
Not once did Henry rebuke Reardon when he explained all that had transpired and what he wanted for the future. It was only the three of them in Henry’s private rooms, with Jack having been welcomed in like any neighboring king should be .
“This is your kingdom, Reardon,” Henry said, “and I know your mother would be proud of what you wish to do with it. I only wish I had been brave enough to do more myself, but know how proud I am as well that you will be a far better king than I ever was, no matter who is by your side or how you fight for what you believe in.”
It was all Reardon had hoped to hear, and he grasped Jack’s hand as they sat before his father united. “That warms me greatly, but I was hoping you would continue to be King-Regent when I spend time in the Sapphire Kingdom, as Jack’s sister will be Queen-Regent when we are here.”
“If you so wish it,” Henry answered with a smile.
“Should the time come when you no longer want that title, we will let the people decide who will be regent and who might one day succeed us. It is all going to be very different, and some might speak against us, fight or rally, even simply leave. I am no longer going to fear that. This is my kingdom—ours—” Reardon squeezed Jack’s hand. “—and we’re going to make it a better one.”
The surrealness of having Jack with him in Emerald, human and vibrant, was almost like a dream, seeing him speaking with Henry and getting along easily, or showing him around the city to many stares that eventually became excitement.
Elves and half-elves were no longer hiding themselves, and many, after a time, came up to Jack to ask the truth of his story and his castle. Those that heard it looked relieved to know that no one undeserving had died since the first sacrifice was sent to Jack’s door. Reardon was even able to watch the lost soldier who Liam had zapped from existence reunite with his mother, though Reardon wished the younger soldier that Lombard killed could have had the same homecoming.
It was a start, despite the less hospitable glares and whispers that followed them, and nothing would change that Reardon and Jack’s kingdoms were going to be joined with the marriage of king and king.
Once, Reardon thought he’d loathe his future royal wedding. Now it filled him with joy, penning invitations to send throughout Emerald, in Sapphire, the Mystic Valley, and other lands beyond, for all were welcome if they chose to celebrate the joining of the two Gemstone Kingdoms.
Reardon and Jack didn’t stay in Emerald long, however, for Reardon wanted their wedding in the castle where they met .
“Shall we go, my little prince?” Jack asked the morning they planned to depart. Henry and many others would traverse to Sapphire for the wedding, but for now, it was a small party setting out.
David, the castle guard, had insisted on being Reardon’s personal escort, though this time his Robert would be joining them.
Wells was joining the caravan as well, partly to meet Liam and trade alchemy secrets, but also to see Barclay and apologize to him in person.
Perhaps Barclay’s family would venture to Sapphire someday, when it was his wedding to attend. Reardon hoped they would, though he knew Barclay was plenty fulfilled with the family he had found.
“I suppose I should start calling you my little king ,” Jack amended.
“Do you know what I realize standing close to you?” Reardon pursed his lips. “ I’m taller. Not by much, but that name only worked when you towered over me. I am hardly a ‘little’ anything compared to you now.”
Jack leaned in close to whisper at Reardon’s ear, “Little king it is.”
Reardon would have laughed if Jack didn’t steal the sound with a kiss—right there in the streets of Emerald. It was freeing to no longer be afraid of that.
They were about to mount their horses when something caught Reardon’s eye. The carriages from the Shadow Lands were in the square. They had already been unloaded, and the merchants were finishing reloading trade goods for the trip back.
“One moment,” Reardon said to Jack and hurried over to one of the carriages before it could depart. He wasn’t afraid of the black horses or lack of visible drivers. He had learned well that nothing was as it seemed.
So he placed one of the wedding invitations with the goods being sent off and penned a quick note in addition, asking if the young man he had sent there had arrived safely and been welcomed. Perhaps, someday, they could finally learn the truth of their other neighbors as well.
“I’m ready now.” Reardon rejoined Jack and their convoy with a smile. “For whatever happens next.”