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Mezerath

A chill ran down Rath’s spine, his fire twitching in the core of his being that burned beyond all else.

A young man knelt at Rath’s side, affectionately rubbing his cheek along his knee as the empty throne room hummed with magic along every gilded surface.

It even glimmered in seams across the stone floors.

The barrel-vaulted ceiling carried whispers among the buttresses to the grand pillars, shaped from living stone to appear as if twisted into the very rock of the mountain.

The whispers carried tidings, and his head shot with pain as he tried to tap into their meanings. A pity.

“What’s wrong, my liege?” His bedservant, Jeron, glanced up at him with twinkling eyes the color of citrine, a common trait among his kingdom’s humans, glimmering in the crystal lamps that framed his gilded throne.

His ginger hair and yellowed eyes were a common thing, but Rath found it comforting.

It made him certain that he’d find one that looked the same in a few years, when his contract was up.

Or they grew tired of him. A dragon did not force a bedservant to perform.

Sex was only a minute duty of a bedservant.

Rath shifted uncomfortably, the padded velvet beneath him more of an inconvenience than a status symbol. His father had found it appropriate, but Rath despised the thing.

He extended his quite-human hand, all soft flesh, save for the trace pattern of scales, almost like a tattoo, running along his forearms. His black-tipped nails brushed through the male’s hair, lightly trailing.

“Would that I could tell you, boy, for you’d be far more bereft than I. ” Sadness kindled in Rath’s heart.

“I’ll listen.” He glanced up hopefully. Those same glistening eyes that he’d found enamoring mere weeks ago had grown stale.

They fared far better, staring up at him with Rath’s cock in his mouth.

The thought sounded, but it wasn’t that he’d grown too old or changed in some way.

Truth told, he was in his prime, but Rath was distracted .

And something new had come along, something interesting.

“Yes, I know you will, so obediently. But maybe it’s not your affections I long for.

” Rath ran a single finger down the side of his face and under his jaw, tilting it up to stare at the boy, as appealing as gruel to him since he’d the fates telling him his mate was ready.

He cast his gaze away and scoffed, sighing once more.

He so hated disappointing people, and he waited for Jeron’s tears.

’Twas the inevitable end of a bedservant’s contract.

Some would lament, despite every measure being taken to not have feelings for one another.

Instead of the sourness Rath anticipated, the boy’s eyes brightened. “Has my liege sensed his prince?”

Rath could kiss the boy, a reward for his understanding. And joy? It almost made Rath want to keep him. Almost.

“I have. Infrequently, I feel pulses of him run through my soul. Great anguish. It’s grown strong as of late.” Rath flicked his finger off the boy’s chin and resumed stroking his head.

“Call out to him. Isn’t that what a dragon does, my liege?” He blinked up expectantly. Ever the voice of reason, a bedservant quelled a dragon’s more primal impulses. They were both bedwarmer and sitter.

“I do, but all I get is pain in response. Either he must die and I wait for another to come or endure the suffering to bring him to me.”

“Isn’t this your first mate you’ve sensed?” Jeron looked up expectantly, his eyes aflame with delight. Rath was very young by dragon standards, in his midtwenties—he’d have not had time to sense another. Rath was practically a child himself, in some senses.

“It is. And that’s what vexes me… He’s my perfect one, and if I miss his arrival, the next the fates try will never be as perfect.

I want a perfect eternity. And I am impatient.

Does this bother you that I pine for another?

” Rath trailed the tips of his claws through the boy’s hair, witnessing him shiver.

“I can no more allow myself to fall in love with you than you me. You are unreachable and beautiful, and I so far beneath you. My king, you have needs as any male, and I am honored to meet them.”

This is why I picked this one. The memory of their first meeting, one of a few young men, brought to him some two or three years ago, came to.

He had that eager eye, a dragon worshiper.

He viewed their sex as ritual to the gods themselves.

Rath snapped his fingers, quite pleased with himself for remembering.

“May I ask a favor for my service to you, my liege?”

Rath refocused on the boy’s glimmering eyes, the corner of his ever-stoic mouth tugging up. He’d been told it was an eerily similar gesture to his father’s roguish smirk. “And that would be? Dear Jeron?”

Coy little creature… No wonder I liked his ember of heart.

He visibly shivered at his name being said.

“Might I be his valet? I would be dutiful to my king dragon’s mate.

I would brush his hair with fine oils and tend his care for you.

As you see, I do a fine job with my own skin.

Might I care for his, to keep his scales polished and his horns shined?

” Jeron reached high, his soft fingers brushing the base of Rath’s horns, the sensation foreign and welcome.

Rath leaned his head to the side, the chain connecting the upward sweep of them jingling, catching Jeron’s eye as he climbed eagerly into Rath’s lap with an air of comfort, not the raw sexual nature he was trained for.

“You would want that? To never lie in my bed again, never feel my cock pulsing between your thighs? Or on your lips?” Rath grinned wickedly, his lips brushing the pointed shape of his teeth, even in his humanoid form, so sharp.

He could look somewhat more human, but it was uncomfortable and made him uncomfortable. Humanity had a certain weakness to it.

“My greatest pleasure is to look upon you, and eventually I would become too old for you, would not be fit for my master’s affections.

I may age or grow withered, but I can still serve your mate.

” Jeron wrapped his arms over Rath’s shoulders, a familiar gesture, but it lacked Jeron’s usual sort of lasciviousness.

His hips stilled and lips did not migrate toward Rath’s.

“What if I rather have a female tend him? I may become territorial of a male in my mate’s chambers.”

“That is true, my liege. I rescind my offer. It was impetuous of me.” Jeron’s disappointment stung a little, and Rath immediately wanted to make it right, like his wants mattered.

“But I have trusted you for these few years and you do seem eager. I’ll allow it on one condition.

” Rath watched the reflection of the blue fire in his dark eyes from Jeron’s glistening gaze.

“That he has to want you as his valet.” Rath tapped the tip of Jeron’s nose, and the boy’s smile stretched wide across his attractive features, dazzling Rath with a reminder of why he chose the boy as a bedservant to begin with.

Would, but it could be so easy. So many dragons before him felt the song of their soul twinge with love and call out for them, leading two dragons to couple.

But others? They were called by the Ashen Ones, great mages with a resurgence of dragon’s blood, humans that carried the soul of a dragon.

A human. A human called for him in his pained soul, and only in torture did Rath’s mate’s magic spark, which made reaching out to the male a painful thing.

“Let me practice, my liege? I’ll ready you for nest, bathe you, show you what fine things I could do for your mate.

” Jeron clasped his hands, and Rath simultaneously wanted to deny him and allow him that pleasure.

Because, as his mind drifted to his mate, he realized that he’d never be able to touch Jeron as a lover again.

And it was a shame, because Rath’s body hungered to be inside someone. Even his hand simply would not do.

***

In his quarters, Rath settled into his sleeping area, a round nest depressed into the floor, filled with all manner of soft pillows, a nest fit to impress a mate.

He’d had it built after his father stepped down, retired to sleep in the deepest caverns, leaving Rath alone to deal with the kingdom and the endless cries of help and jaded anger that the humans seemed to heap upon them.

Rath lay in the depression of his bed, taking in the scents of the bath oils on his skin.

He had to admit, Jeron did a fine job, thorough in his word, treating him with relaxing care.

He could imagine his mate softening under the experienced touch, readying himself to be taken, the faceless mate he yearned for.

Of course, his mate would be human, an Ashen one, a child in a war-torn nation, humans, squabbling over dirt. There’d be a price for him, of course, if they’d even let him take him. But where was the question.

“My liege?” Jeron’s kind voice drew his eye.

“Yes?”

“He is an Ashen one, yes?”

Rath made a noise, noncommittal but agreeing.

“Please call for him. He’ll turn his mind to you.” Jeron sat up, pleading. “I don’t understand why you have not. It surely is not on behalf of my feelings. And if he is in pain, you may save him.”

“Fire child,” Rath called him, for his red hair and yellowed eyes, a human forged of the dragon’s fire. “He is in great pain, and when I reach out to him, it hurts. What if I find him only to watch him die? I will never find another as perfect.”

“I have poppy milk in my apothecary. My matron gifted it to me when you selected me for your bedservant.”

“Why would you have need of such a thing?” Rath furrowed his brow and sat up, staring into his glimmering eyes.