Page 19

I’m the one who killed him. It was me.

Benedict’s pale, agonized face swam in front of me, his words sublimating into a buzzing hum.

Your father. It was magic. It was me .

Tavius had been right. Of all of his accusations and wild theories, that had been the one I instantly dismissed as utterly, impossibly absurd.

And Tavius had been right.

I’m the one who killed him. Your father.

Maybe he had murdered Fabian, after all. The methods appeared to be so similar. Tavius had known all along.

And now Benedict had killed Tavius, too—not that he hadn’t deserved it.

That strange, hysterical sound…right. I’d started laughing, shaking with it, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes, and I let go of Benedict to put my hands over my face. The darkness behind my palms felt horribly claustrophobic, and I dropped them again, only to shove at his chest. I needed him off of me, off , and when he rolled away at last I scrambled off the bed, stumbling across the room and fetching up by the fireplace, gripping onto the mantel for dear life and hanging my head down. My laughter subsided into wheezes.

Below me, the fire popped and spat. The rain must have started again, then, a few drops making their way down the chimney to hiss in the flames. Falling on Tavius’s face, perhaps, as Captain Venet’s men carried him across the grounds and through the western palace gate and along the narrow cobblestone street that led directly to the back entrance of the temple. Perhaps it’d wash away the blood. Or simply spread it around. Would the icy water seep into the hole Benedict’s sword had left in his guts?

I bent further over the fireplace, dizzy and retching, holding on to the mantel so tightly my knuckles creaked. Behind me there was a rustle and then a heavy thump.

“Lucian,” Benedict said, and I’d never heard anyone sound more hopeless in my life. Broken.

I turned and found him on the floor, half slumped against the bed as if he’d tried to stand and fallen instead.

As if he’d been trying to get to me and hadn’t had the strength.

“I won’t ask you to forgive me,” he said, “but please, Lucian. I didn’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you. Believe that, even if you hate me for the rest of your life.”

He’d never wanted to hurt me. He’d never wanted to—my vision washed crimson, rage and grief and shock nearly suffocating me.

“You murdered my father! You didn’t want to hurt me, you didn’t—you’re out of your fucking mind, Benedict!” I lunged at him, bending down and grabbing him by the collar and twisting, shoving him back against the side of the bed. “You killed him, and you knew everyone thought it was me. Tavius said it was you, he was right, and I thought he was insane.” I shook him, slamming him against the edge of the mattress. “My father loved you, he wanted you to be his heir, I know it, whether you’ll admit it or not!”

Benedict didn’t resist me. He didn’t touch me. He let his head fall back against the bed, hair all tumbled around his shoulders, and gazed at me with eyes as bleak and desolate as an overcast winter sky.

He could have stopped me. Even unable to stand, he could have found the strength to overpower me, and we both knew it.

That was what brought me up short. I let go of him.

And then I couldn’t hold myself up any longer, and I dropped to my knees beside him, sitting on my heels with my hands falling limp into my lap.

“I know he did,” Benedict said at last.

I remained perfectly still, too exhausted and miserable to reply or move or do anything at all. Benedict had killed my father. Someone, possibly also Benedict, had killed Fabian. Tavius had tried to kill me. Benedict had killed Tavius. Surely I’d wake up and find myself back in my own bed, with a resurrected Fabian opening the curtains and telling me how irresponsible I’d been to sleep past seven while having such strange dreams.

“He meant to push a law through the council that would have allowed him to name me as his heir.” Benedict paused, gasping, and his eyes slid half shut. Sweat dripped down his neck. The curse had him fully in its grip, and the potion had weakened him critically. “He—they were going to—no, don’t interrupt me! I can’t die without telling you. I should have long ago, but I didn’t want to—Lucian, this is going to hurt you more than anything, but it’s the truth. He’d started to believe you were plotting against him, that you wanted the throne. He was going to—arrest you. For treason.”

Benedict paused, eyes searching my face.

And then his jaw went hard and tight as he found what he’d been looking for: the moment I fully understood.

It hit me like a physical blow, and I tumbled backward, landing hard on my ass.

No one my father had arrested for treason had ever escaped the gallows. Once he convinced himself that someone he’d trusted had turned against him, he never changed his mind.

Old friends. Family. Vassals whose families had loyally served ours for centuries. It didn’t matter.

His own son.

My father had intended to kill me. Not outright, not with a sword thrust through the stomach or even a slit throat in the darkness. But with an accusation, and an arrest. A long imprisonment, visits, opportunities for me to deliver impassioned pleas for mercy and protestations of innocence. He’d have drawn it out until he’d removed every trace of doubt from his mind—after all, even if I had been innocent when he arrested me in the first place, I’d have turned against him during my incarceration and interrogations, wouldn’t I? He’d have had no choice.

And he’d have killed me.

Benedict had saved my life when he murdered my father, as surely as if he’d appeared on the scaffold, thrown me over his shoulder, and carried me away from the headsman.

And then he’d protected me from knowledge that would have broken me. Why the fuck do you think I left? When he’d asked me that the night of Fabian’s death, I’d laughed at the implication that he’d gone away to avoid being put on the throne in my place.

But he’d been telling the truth. He’d killed my father to avoid being put on the throne in my place, and then left Calatria and his position and his friends and his beloved army, everything he cared about, to remove himself from any possibility of being used against me and shoved onto the throne after all.

And also, perhaps, because it would’ve become untenable for him to stay without telling me the truth.

And if he told me the truth, he’d have broken my heart—much as he’d done now.

Incredible, really, how much it could hurt to discover that the parent I’d already known didn’t love me, didn’t respect me, and didn’t trust me had…neither loved, respected, nor trusted me, only to an even greater degree than I’d imagined.

Benedict’s lies and obfuscations, the way he’d watched me stew over it, and grieve, and worry, and wonder, had probably been unconscionable. Unforgiveable. Oddly, it angered and distressed me far more than the actual murder.

But I believed, all the way down to my bones, that he’d done it with the intent to spare me. Dying men rarely lied. And while I might shout the palace down later, and it’d be a long time before I trusted that he’d learned to tell me the truth—I would forgive him.

Eventually. If he groveled enough.

“I don’t hate you,” I whispered.

No, I didn’t hate him. I didn’t know what I felt—about anything. Every bit of knowledge and every emotion I’d ever possessed had been shaken up and swirled around, flying about like a flurry of snow, blinding and chaotic and disorienting. I did know I wished I could topple forward onto his chest and feel his arms around me, sure and warm and strong, and wait there until everything made sense again.

But that couldn’t happen. Not until I’d saved his life, and perhaps not even then. But certainly not until I knew he’d be alive to apologize and hold me close.

“I’m glad,” he said. “Even if you don’t mean it. It’s kind to let me die thinking you don’t. Lucian, listen to me, there’s something else I need to—”

“No.” I pushed up on my knees again.

Benedict blinked at me. “No? Yes. Lucian, I need to—”

“And I said no. No more confessions.” I rose up on my knees, caught at the hem of my tunic, and yanked it up, pulling it over my head and flinging it away. It left my hair a curly, tousled mess, and I shoved it out of my eyes. “Anything else can wait. Unless you also killed Fabian. Actually, that can wait, too. At this point I don’t even care, and I don’t think you did, because whoever murdered him almost certainly knew about Tavius.”

And knew Fabian’s corroboration would be necessary to get Tavius on the throne, and who therefore wouldn’t have killed Fabian unless he wanted Tavius’s claim to fail. That thought teased at me, something that had to be pursued, but not now. I didn’t have the time. Benedict didn’t have the time.

He stared up at me, mouth dropping open, as I whipped my shirt over my head and sent it sailing after the tunic. Despite everything, I couldn’t help the frisson of power and pleasure it gave me that he seemed struck dumb by the sight of my body. No one had ever looked at me like that when I took off my shirt.

“I didn’t kill Fabian,” he said as I reached for my trouser buttons. “I have no idea who did. But you don’t want to do this. You have to let me tell you—”

“Shut your mouth, or I’ll shut it for you,” I said, with a lot more bravado than I felt, and shoved my trousers down over my hips. “And lie down on your back. The floor’s not the most pleasant, but I don’t think I’m strong enough to get you on the bed again. And I think I need to do the work this time.”

Benedict shuddered, and he leaned over for a moment, breathing deeply. “Fuck. I need—you. Lucian, I need you .” He slid down, rolled, and fell onto his back on the floor. “If I didn’t think I might die before you finished, I’d tell you to come up here and shut my mouth with that pretty cock.”

He fumbled with his own trousers, made a frustrated sound, and tore them open, ripping the placket and sending the buttons flying.

It was my turn to stare. His rampant cock had flushed eggplant-purple at the head, and the veins stood out along the thick shaft.

Benedict’s ragged, bitten-off moan pulled me out of my fascination. “Please,” he said. “Fuck, Lucian, please, the curse is—I can’t, I can’t—”

“It’s all right, I will, I promise,” and I kept on talking, reassuring him the best I could, and I’d gotten my shoes and all my clothes off, but—fuck, I’d need oil. Something. “Benedict, can you slick me up? Like you did before.” I leaned down over him. “Benedict!”

He only moaned again, arching his back, one hand on his cock now, stroking and squeezing as if he meant to throttle it.

Stupid, I was so stupid, of course he couldn’t use magic under the influence of the potion. If he could, he’d have done it long before now, and he’d die while I fumbled about at this rate. Sweat damped my temples and beaded on my spine as I jumped up and went to his dressing table, rummaging until I found something likely. I pulled the stopper and sniffed. A hint of rosemary. Something for his hair, probably, the vain bastard, but it’d do well enough.

I dropped down beside him, cursing as he tried to roll onto his side and curl around the pain. I shoved him back over and straddled him. Gods, this would have to be quick, and probably it’d hurt. Oil spattered everywhere as I poured it liberally all over my hand, with more dripping down my thighs as I forced two fingers inside myself, wincing at the suddenness of it. Benedict had fucked me only last night, but it felt like years in every way except for the lingering soreness I hadn’t had time to recover from.

If this worked, I’d never recover from his cock again. He’d have me every day, perhaps more than once, and unless I wanted to let him die in agony like this, I’d never have a choice again.

Benedict would belong to me forever.

And I to him. Because I never would let him die. Even if I found I did hate him and couldn’t forgive him after all, even if he betrayed me or hurt me or killed the rest of my relatives—though two seemed like more than enough to be getting on with—I wouldn’t abandon him.

That shook me to the core, and I stopped, frozen with two fingers stretching my hole, Benedict writhing beneath me and my heart galloping frantically.

Of course, he wouldn’t have a choice either. Perhaps he didn’t now, except…he’d said he needed me.

So had I. I’d admitted it first, in fact, and no revelations about my father’s death could change that. It might make me a terrible son and a terrible person—but no one had ever accused me of being soft or sentimental.

Except perhaps when it came to him, gods. I leaned down and pressed my lips to his in a quick, desperate kiss, carrying the warmth and taste of him with me for strength as I grasped his cock and guided it between my cheeks.

I lowered myself down, letting out small moans with every incremental push, until his cockhead popped in and wedged inside me.

Fuck, but it was big, and I had to lean my hands on his chest and let my head hang down, catching my breath.

Benedict groaned and bucked his hips, thrusting up into me, and it was too much, too much, I needed to adjust to the stretch of him—but he reached up and grasped me around the waist.

My head came up, my eyes probably wide as saucers, meeting his—which were open again, glittering, and fixed on me with a look in them that might have frightened me if I’d had the time to spare for fear.

“Benedict, wait,” I gasped, but he only bared his teeth at me and slammed me down, thrusting up to meet me, impaling me so deeply I couldn’t draw enough breath to cry out.

And then he lifted me, suspended me there while I squirmed on his cock, kicking my feet against the floor in a desperate bid for leverage…

“Please, Benedict, please, don’t do—oh gods,” and I broke off in a wail as he forced me back down again, every inch of him opening me up and stretching my insides to fit.

And again, and again, until I toppled forward and lay across his chest, holding on as best I could while he pounded up into me.

It didn’t take him long to finish, his guttural cry echoing off the rafters as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pinned me there to take everything he had to give. My face rested against his collar bone, and the prickly stubble on his chin brushed my forehead when I tried to move. My own cock had gotten hard as iron while he wrecked me, but I hadn’t spent. And my state of quivering need magnified all the little sensations of being sprawled across him, spread open over him, of each of his fingers where they pressed against my back, of his cock still thick and heavy inside me.

There was something else, too, something I couldn’t begin to define: a prickling awareness, as if someone had brushed a feather over my mind or my soul, a faint warmth and intoxicating texture.

It ratcheted me up to an almost unbearable level of clenching arousal, and I squeezed around him, rocking back, grinding the sweet little spot inside me against the thick base of his cock, my own cock trapped between our abdomens. The head rubbed almost too roughly against a fold of his shirt.

“Lucian?” Benedict sounded as if he’d come out of a trance, his voice stronger than before and more alert. His arms tightened. “Oh fuck, Lucian,” he breathed, and thrust once with his hips, his half-hard cock pressing up into me.

I whimpered into his chest, open mouth catching on the linen of his shirt, as everything in me drew up tight: my balls and my hole and my stomach and my chest, my cock spreading wet heat between us.

And as I went limp, letting everything go and drifting, that awareness blossomed into a powerful sensation that teased the edges of my consciousness, like bright sunlight seeping in around the sides of a heavy velvet curtain, almost more blinding for being only the thinnest line of illumination.

Under me, Benedict went rigid, hands almost bruising on my back.

The light grew stronger, wrapping around me, drawn to me, and I knew without thinking that I could manipulate it—pull it, hold it, and most crucially, not allow it to flow back where it had come from.

Back to Benedict.

It was Benedict’s magic, and the power and beauty of it stunned and overwhelmed me. How could his physical body contain all this? How could he not dazzle even the nonmagical eyes of everyone around him?

“Lucian,” he said, and now my name wasn’t an endearment, the way it had been a moment ago, but a tense, wary plea.

It took an effort of will to open my eyes and return to the real world, letting his magic fade from my sight—not because I wanted to keep it from him, but because I wanted to bask in it.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, and pushed up, leaning on his chest on my elbows. “But I promise, I don’t want it. You’ll have to help me learn how this works, it’s very strange. But I have no desire to control it, or you. Please believe me.”

His expression softened, and his hands gentled on my back. “I do, actually. Do you believe me when I tell you I’ve never wanted your throne and title?”

Did I believe him? Yes, because he’d proven it, and in the worst possible way.

All at once, I couldn’t stand to be in Benedict’s arms anymore, with his half-soft cock still filling my hole, an odd, constant pressure.

“Well, I suppose I must, because you’re surely the only man in the history of the world to kill a reigning monarch to avoid being his heir,” I said. “Let me up, if you would.”

Benedict flinched as if I’d struck him across the face, lips pressed tight. Without a word, he let me go.

It was far less satisfying than I’d thought it would be. The urge to apologize, kiss away his unhappiness, and spend the rest of the night wrapped around him with the rest of the world held at bay rose up nearly irresistibly.

Climbing off of him made my chest ache.

My knees ached, too, and the indignity of climbing awkwardly to my feet with twinges in all my joints made my mixed emotions, guilt and regret and anger, so much worse.

“I need to clean up, dress, and see Captain Venet,” I said, reaching for my filthy clothing. The fraught silence felt unbearably thick, pressing in on me from every direction. “Tavius’s men will need to be questioned. And Clothurn.”

Benedict sat up, running his hands through his hair and pushing it back with none of his usual insouciance, motions heavy and slow. My heart gave another painful squeeze.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “You don’t need to be there for this. Venet and I will take care of it, and I’ll give you a thorough report.”

The temptation to leave it to Benedict nearly overwhelmed me. I couldn’t imagine anything I wanted less than to dress to ducal perfection, put on my unmoved, unemotional mask, and question hostile, wounded prisoners—and that nasty little viper Clothurn.

How many times had I sworn I’d never become my father, jailing and interrogating my lords and councilors? Of course, Clothurn had committed treason in the real world, not only in my paranoid imagination.

He’d also tried to forcibly bond with Benedict, an infinitely worse crime—morally, if not legally. Anyone might try to overthrow a ruler for a variety of rational reasons, but it took a uniquely loathsome type of scum to take pleasure in enslaving a man to your will by torturing him to death if he didn’t want to fuck you.

“No,” I said, and pulled my trousers up. “I doubt he’ll have much to say that we don’t already know, but he is one of my councilors. I have to question him myself, and do it tonight. It’s my responsibility.”

My shirt could go on inside out, and I’d carry my tunic and shoes. It wasn’t like any guards who might look down the corridor wouldn’t know what Benedict and I had been doing, but the thought of sauntering between our rooms completely in the nude made me shudder with embarrassment. A duke had to have some standards, even if he’d just climbed off of his stepbrother’s cock after learning he’d murdered his father.

Benedict sighed heavily, but he didn’t argue.

As I went through the doorway to the sitting room, he said, “Lucian.”

I turned and looked over my shoulder to find him gazing at me with such intensity in his silvery eyes that it had me breathless. He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Shook his head, expression shuttering.

“I’ll clean up too and meet you in your rooms in a few minutes,” he said at last. “And if you send for something to eat, I’ll intercept it and make sure it’s safe. Although I don’t know if poison is such a risk now that we’re fairly sure that wine was meant for Fabian.”

That wasn’t at all what he’d intended to say, I had no doubt.

But I simply nodded and left, too close to a complete loss of control to trust my voice.

When I shut the door of my own bedroom behind me, I leaned back against it and slid down to the floor, resting my forehead on my knees.

The quiet rang in my ears.

Five minutes. I could give myself that long to be a man rather than a duke.

I let myself weep until I knew I didn’t have time for more, and then wearily rose and made my way to the bath.