Page 6 of The Second Marriage

“I share it,” Taral said, then wished he hadn’t, although what was the use, now, in holding himself at a distance? The match was good. They were married.

His need rose again as he bathed, kneeling on the rug with the damp cloth in his hands. His cock swelled as he wiped himself clean, and his hole went soft and slick as he washed his inner thighs. He looked up to see Sejun watching him, his lips parted and his gaze sharp, and he discarded the cloth in the basin and turned to present himself, on all fours with his chest and cheek pressed to the rug.

Behind him, Sejun uttered a low curse. Fabric rustled. Taral could smell himself and smell Sejun as well, the thick scent of their shared arousal. The soft wool of the rug scraped against his sensitive nipples as he rocked back and forth, desperate for stimulation. Sejun was taking too long, but then Sejun was there with him, his hands on Taral’s hips, his fingers stroking over Taral’s hole, pressing into him, sliding deep but not quite as deep as Taral needed.

Taral craned his neck around. He had asked a lot of Sejun already, and alphas had limits; even an alpha as young as Sejun couldn’t produce a knot every time Taral wanted one. But Sejun’s cock was hard between his thighs, jutting urgently from the open panels of his robe, and when Taral said, “Please, inside me,” Sejun replaced his fingers with the far more satisfying length of his cock.

Taral moaned against the rug as Sejun fucked him with fast, hard snaps of his hips. Sejun used his grip on Taral’s hips to pull him backward into every thrust, plunging his cock so deep into Taral’s hole that he felt the head behind his navel. He felt that he had lost all control of his body’s responses; he was going to come because Sejun was going to make him, and whether he participated in the process was irrelevant.

His toes curled. His balls tightened. He could feel himself building to something almost frightening in its intensity, like one of the earth tremors that sometimes passed through the mountains. He could do nothing but brace himself and pray until it passed.

“Oh, Taral,” Sejun said, sounding somewhat frightened himself. He pressed deep and went still, holding Taral hard against him, and as his knot swelled Taral felt something opening between them, as though Sejun had slid open the shutters to let in some new light.

“What,” he heard himself say, even as he tipped over into an orgasm so strong he had to set his own teeth into his wrist to weather it. He was trapped on Sejun’s knot, a delicious pressure exactly where he needed it, and even as he thrashed and cried out he couldn’t escape that pleasure. It didn’t ease, only went on and on, and he was so tight around Sejun’s knot and squeezing him so that Sejun felt he might die of it.

Taral slowly returned to earth. His left calf had a cramp in it. He wiggled his toes, then his foot, then flexed and stretched his leg until the pain eased. His balls felt tender and empty. Sejun was flexing his hips minutely, working out the last bit of come from his knot and admiring how Taral looked all stretched out around his cock, and the elegant curve of his back.

“Oh, your leg,” Sejun said, reaching down to press his fingers to the exact spot of the cramp.

“Sejun,” Taral said.

Sejun went still. His fingertips were two points of pressure on Taral’s leg, unmoving. The morning sounds of the fortress drifted in through the windows. Taral could sense Sejun realizing what had changed, what he was feeling.

“We bonded?” Sejun asked, sounding as surprised as Taral felt—as Sejun felt, his surprise sitting alongside Taral’s own, with a texture different enough from Taral’s own emotions for him to recognize it as alien.

“Yes,” Taral said. “I believe we did.”

* * *

Taral wokein the gray light of dawn with Sejun asleep beside him and rolled onto his side to look through the window, through the narrow gap where Sejun hadn’t closed the shutters all the way. His heat had dwindled away, leaving him cold, weak, and tired. He could see the branches of the fig tree in the courtyard, and a servant sweeping along the colonnade, the bristles making soft rhythmic noises against the boards of the walkway.

A distant rooster crowed. The bond chafed at him, raw and new.

He turned onto his other side to watch Sejun’s sleeping face. Sejun had been so pleased at first, puffed up with smug pride, before his emotions had faded into confusion and then a muted gray muddle. Whatever he could sense from Taral had ruined his hopeful excitement.

Bonding during the first heat only happened in romantic stories. Two or three heats was more typical, or even more beyond that. But Taral had managed it, in the universe’s cruelest joke, and now he was truly bound. A marriage could be dissolved, but a bond ended only with death.

Taral closed his eyes again and tried to sleep. Unconsciousness was his only escape from the horrible invasiveness of the bond. He drifted in a haze, not sure if he was dreaming or remembering. He roused again when Sejun stretched and groaned beside him. Morning light filled the room. He wanted to go back to sleep and avoid what would come next, the sequence of events that would be triggered by his waking; but it was too late for that, as Sejun turned and saw that Taral’s eyes were open.

“Good morning,” Sejun said.

“I hope you had pleasant dreams,” Taral said politely.

“Pleasant enough. And you?”

“Nothing that I remember.” Taral sat up. His hole felt tender and sticky, but there was no true discomfort. Sejun had taken good care with him even in the throes of heat.

Sejun gazed up at him, expression somber. His emotions were dampened as if buried under a layer of snow. Taral was reluctant to probe at their new connection, afraid of what he might discover. He knew so little about bonding. Even Gurratan had never described the experience in anything but the vaguest of terms. Taral wished now that he had pressed harder, asked for more details. He hadn’t thought he would ever need to know.

Taral smoothed the blankets over his thighs. “My heat has ended. I’m grateful for your—” What word should he use? “Your ministrations.” Then he winced. That sounded so horribly formal.

“You don’t need to be grateful. I’m your husband.” Sejun sat up too and reached for his robe. “I imagine the dowry will be sent soon. Is there anything in particular you’d like? We have a fine horse who spends too much time in the stables, and I imagine she might get more use here.”

“Whatever you think is best,” Taral said. His lips moved stiffly and felt numb. Surely someone else could worry about the dowry. Let Iniya handle it.

Sejun pulled his robe on, his head lowered. “We can talk about this later. Should I call for a bath?”

“Thank you. There’s no need for you to trouble yourself any further. The servants are well practiced in tending to me after heat.”