Page 6

Chapter Six

brIAR

A fter Sylvie left, the fatigue from the journey descended, slumping my shoulders as I stood in the center of the room.

It was a good room—three times the size of my cell in the Citadel. Difficult to keep warm. But Tanyl probably didn’t worry about such things. Kings built their homes to reflect their status and to intimidate their enemies. They didn’t chop firewood or scrape ashes from the grate.

Although, Tanyl had performed both of those tasks. The first day in Mistport, he calmly swapped his velvet coat for the loose, crudely woven shirt and pants of a pledge. And he worked, scrubbing floors and cleaning latrines.

During that first week, the young Rivven at the Citadel had taken particular delight in assigning the prince the lowliest duties. The pranks had only lasted until those responsible looked Tanyl in the eye. He never retaliated. He never needed to. Even stripped of his title and magic, authority gleamed in his eyes. It seeped from his pores, and no amount of dirt or abuse could conceal it.

Gods, I’d never had a chance.

A tap on the door jerked me from the start of self-pity. “Coming,” I called, crossing the room.

When I opened the door, a servant stood on the threshold, leather laces dangling from one hand. His gaze climbed my chest as his head went back, curiosity and perhaps a little fear mixing in his eyes.

“Um…the steward said to bring you these, Father.” He thrust the laces at me.

“Thank you,” I said, taking them.

The servant darted at look at my blunt, human ears, then another at the chamber behind me. “Do you, uh, have everything you need, Father?” Apprehension touched his face, as if he immediately regretted the question and worried I might request something odd or outlandish. Extra prayers, perhaps, or a fifty-foot tall statue of Perun.

“Yes, thank you,” I said. “I won’t require anything else this night.”

Relief flooded his features. “That’s good, Father.”

A sigh built in my chest as more exhaustion rushed me. Correcting him would only make me sound churlish. Besides, he wasn’t wrong. And he wasn’t Tanyl. The servant didn’t use my vows to torment.

“Good night, then,” I said, stepping back. As I moved to close the door, another opened farther down the corridor. Three female servants emerged from the royal apartments, their arms loaded with towels. Candlelight swelled behind them and then winked out as they pulled the glossy double doors shut.

My throat dried, and I stood rooted to the threshold as the women bustled away from Tanyl’s chambers. Their towels were damp, their aprons splotchy with water. They’d bathed the king…or perhaps the queen. Perhaps both.

Both , Tanyl said in my memory, his voice husky as he trailed fingers down my chest, the corners of his lips curving when muscle jumped under his hand. I’ve fucked both women and men. Have you ever fucked a woman, Briar?

I’d shaken my head even as visions of rounded hips and full breasts under layers of fabric paraded through my mind. It had taken a moment for me to form a response, my face trying to start a fire. I’ve never…

Tanyl’s eyes lit up even as his hand traveled lower. His fingers stroked the line of hair that marched down my stomach and then thickened as it reached my groin. He played there, making me moan. Doing things that made me spread my legs as he leaned close and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of my open, gasping mouth.

Little whore. You’ve never fucked anyone, have you?

“Are you all right, Father?”

The memory burst, Tanyl’s delighted, wicked smile disintegrating as I looked at the frowning servant in the doorway. The women passed behind him, giving me curious glances.

Everyone was always so curious. At least, they were curious when they weren’t being suspicious.

“Yes,” I rasped, retreating. “Yes, I’m fine. Everything is fine.” With another nod, I closed the door and pressed a palm against it. For a second, the servant stayed put on the other side. Then he left, his footsteps fading quickly.

For a second, I stood still too. Wind whistled at my back, followed by a thud. I drew a knife as I spun, the blade glinting in the firelight.

Nothing. Across the chamber, the balcony doors swung wider as the breeze picked up. One struck the stone, and its glass shivered inside the wooden frame.

Sheathing the knife, I crossed the room and dropped the laces on the table next to the bed. Then I went to the doors. As I grasped the latch, a noise made me pause. A second later, it came again.

A woman’s moan, low and agonized. Whoever she was, she was in pain. The sound had drifted from the courtyard. But it wasn’t a Scarrok attack. The guards would have sounded the horn.

I stepped onto the balcony. Stars dotted the night sky. Far below, the Perun River glittered like a midnight blue ribbon. This far up, the roar of its waterfalls was muted.

The moan sounded again, and I clutched at the balcony’s metal railing as I looked at another balcony thrusting farther down the castle wall. The woman wasn’t in the courtyard. She was in the chamber next to mine, her gasps drifting from a pair of glass doors.

“Stop,” she said, the plea accompanied by a faint creaking sound. “Stop it.”

The creaking swelled with her cries, which weren’t cries of pain. They weren’t pleasured, either. Not entirely.

As I’d known it would, Tanyl’s voice came a moment later, the sound firm and laced with cruelty that lifted the hair on my nape.

“Sit down.”

Sylvie’s sob echoed off the wall, followed by their mingled groans.

Blood pumped to my shaft. I squeezed the railing, waiting for pain to bruise my palm. And it came, but it wasn’t enough. Not enough to make me turn around and go inside.

A choking sound emerged from the balcony, followed by Sylvie’s growl. “This isn’t over. I’m still angry with you.”

A pause, then Tanyl’s reply slid through the doors as sinuous and decadent as silk. “I know. Show me.”

The creaking started back up, and it went faster this time, the rhythm accompanied by Sylvie’s moans and a light, wet sound. And, oh gods, it was her cunt, and I didn’t need to see it. I didn’t need to know what it looked like when Tanyl fucked his wife, his cock spearing all that glossy pink.

I didn’t need to know, but my mind supplied the images anyway, showing me Tanyl’s flexing buttocks and Sylvie’s spread legs. Her bouncing breasts crowned with nipples as pink and lush as her mouth. As lush as her cunt. Of course it was.

Have you ever fucked a woman, Briar?

The wet, rich sounds grew louder, the queen’s arousal soaking the night. Whirling from the balcony, I stumbled into my chamber and staggered across the floor. Panting and hurting, I ripped my trousers open and freed my cock.

It slapped against my palm, hot and wretched, the slit already leaking. The sounds of Sylvie’s cunt followed me as I clenched my jaw and waddled to the bed with my trousers around my knees. I didn’t sit on the bed so much as I fell onto it, my bare ass hitting the edge of the mattress. The bedding was cool against the backs of my thighs as I pumped my dick, my mouth pinched shut and visions spinning through my head.

Sylvie’s tits. Tanyl’s chest. The latter was clearer, the lean muscle sheened with sweat. Because I’d seen that before. The memory was engraved on the inside of my skull, every sinew of his body preserved in stark, blazing detail.

Moans and rhythmic creaking flowed through the doors, the forbidden sounds carried on the wind. Sweat beaded my forehead as I jerked my cock, dry flesh against dry, aching flesh. It burned, and I let it, my grunts shameful punctuations on each frantic stroke.

The sounds of royal lovemaking grew louder, male and female pleasure spinning around me. My shaft shuttled through my fist. Lust stabbed at my guts. My sack tightened, the skin stretched around seed that built and built like water behind a dam. I tipped my head back and squeezed my eyes shut.

“I can’t!” Sylvie cried. A second later, her squeal split the night. Footsteps, and then more muffled, rhythmic creaking. More moans. The slap of skin against skin.

“So hot,” Tanyl rasped. “So fucking, fucking hot.”

Tension built in my balls and stomach. Then it exploded, seed spurting over my hand. My mind blanked, and white covered my vision. I existed only as a blind, thrusting thing, my hips punching as bliss roared through me.

And then it was over, and I held my limp, wet cock on the side of a too-soft bed in a too-large chamber. My semen glistened on the floorboards. My ragged breaths rasped in my ears.

The sounds from Tanyl’s chamber were gone. Moonlight slanted through the balcony doors. I stood and hitched my trousers up. When I made it to the basin, I leaned against the frame and breathed until I mustered the energy to shed my clothes and clean myself up. I folded the damp towel and my travel-stained clothing. In the morning, I’d ask a servant where I could wash it.

Nude, I squatted next to the bed and used a smaller cloth to clean my semen from the floor. My back twinged, the hours in the saddle rearing their head as I crossed to the fire and tossed the cloth into the flames. Grand Master Silas had given me coin for the journey. After I got the servant’s answer about the laundry, I’d ask how to replace what I’d destroyed.

Hunching, I banked the fire, then scooped sand from a silver bucket next to the hearth and smothered the flames. When the last of the embers winked out, I went to my pack and withdrew the reedwhip tucked among the tightly rolled bundles of spare clothes.

Wind rattled the balcony doors, and I pulled them shut and flipped the tiny latch shaped like a suntrout leaping upstream.

Goosebumps rose on my skin as I knelt before the cooling hearth. Shaking out the reedwhip, I rested my buttocks on my heels and stared at the blackened logs.

“Perun protect me,” I whispered, closing my eyes. “Perun forgive me.”

I swung the whip, and the reeds bit into my back.