by Hurri Cosmo
He shook his head.
The whole thing was very strange. Why would the duke travel here himself, threatening such a thing? It was extremely unusual because he had to know exactly what would happen. If you were to the point seceding from the crown was on the table, you did not come and meet with the crown. You might send word it was your intention. You might send your intelligence to negotiate. But the duke himself was here? Even this duke of this very removed land was not that stupid. Arrogant? Maybe. Greedy? Absolutely. Unwise and brainless? Not a chance. But secession was a serious matter, no matter how it came to him. It meant he had Claymoor Doom people suffering and he would not allow it, so after he relinquished guardianship of Joron over to Nochi, knowing he would take him personally to the king's chambers and stand guard over him, he headed for his throne room. He would deal with this matter swiftly and harshly. He was through being indulgent.
When he arrived, coming through his private entry from in back of the throne, his council was not there waiting for him as he had commanded them to be. Another odd thing. He specifically told his brother he wanted to meet with them, prior to meeting with the duke. He wasn't sure he was up to making decisions on his own yet, with all that had transpired in the last week. He tiredly climbed the steps to his throne and nearly fell into his chair, for the first time not actually seeing the ancient words written on the stones before him.
Maybe he would simply put it all off anyway. If he made a decision at this moment, it would not affect his people immediately and neither would not making a decision. He adjusted his large frame on the hard chair, his pants suddenly too tight around his cock and balls, the fabric rubbing in ways that did not help. He needed to relieve the pressure having Joron in his castle was causing him. He needed to sink his manhood into the tightness that was his Joron and slowly claim the boy again with sure and powerful strokes. Desperately now he needed to come inside that tight ass and hear the moans the prince would produce when he did. And as punishment for leaving him, he might forbid Joron to come at all. He would push him right to the edge, then leave him hang there and glory in his dominance over his boy-prince.
Then maybe he would have better luck in transforming intelligent thoughts into good action.
Yes. That was what he would do.
Suddenly, one of the large doors was opening. He heard, then saw, the latch lifting and the door slowly inch forward, light from the bright corridor spilling in. If this was his council, great. He would have a quick discussion, then he would dismiss them while he thought about their recommendations. If it was the duke, so be it. He would listen and then send him away, telling him he would decide his fate in a few hours. He was king after all. He was under no obligation to provide quick answers to anything, especially something like this. He'd simply allowed his brother to get to him. He'd let his brother expose the guilt he was feeling over finally indulging in something he had never indulged in before. Something he should not feel guilty about.
There simply was no reason.
He waited as the door came fully open to reveal it was not his advisors. It wasn't the duke either.
* * * *
She was beautiful in every way. Her black hair flowed over her shoulders and down her back, shimmering and moving with every step the woman took. Her face was a perfect paleness, showing off her tresses flawlessly as they played around her cheeks in a seemingly random way. But, of course, she knew the right way to brush it for it to do that exact thing. She moved as gracefully as her hair. She floated down the hallway toward the king's throne room. Her big brown eyes flashed with anticipation and desire, her pert nose slightly in the air. Her pouty lips pursed in what could be termed an almost kiss. She had also used the petals of a deep red rose to rub onto her cheeks, to give just a small indication of a blush. She knew all the right things to do, because she had studied hard.
The gown she wore was also ideal in every way. It was a beautiful dark green, heavy silk that hugged her body so perfectly as to be inappropriate. But she was on her way to see her husband, so it was fine. In fact, it was meant to arouse. The front of the gown dived deep, revealing her ample breasts to their absolute best, nearly to the point of spilling completely out. She knew what that would do to a man. Again, she had studied hard to attain just the right look, the right stance, the right attitude. This was her husband and she would be his wife.
His wife back from the dead.
She smiled an evil smile. The king's own brother had cleared the way for her with his little lies and taunts. He had made sure no one would see her, prior to her husband seeing her, making sure Aric was alone when he did. It was very important the first meeting they had would take place without witnesses. Verification would come, but it would have to come later. Her first line of attack was to shock her husband into submission, then make sure he took her to his bed.
Plus, when the people saw her, they would confirm it was the king's poor, dead wife anyway. There would, of course, have to be a story of how she was actually back from the dead. She had one, too. Yes indeed, she was sick after running out into the storm and due to the illness, she had been unable to return to the kingdom. Sadly, later she learned they all thought she was dead and she dived into a deep depression--something like that anyway. Oh, there was more to the story and she had learned it all by heart. She wouldn't forget any of it. The only thing any of them would truly need to know was her one and only desire was to return to her king, her son, and her people.
She laughed to herself, standing outside the throne room door. If the man did not die of heart failure, she would be queen before the day was done. What a lucky, lucky day it had been when Prince Relel found her and claimed she must be the twin sister of Abydell, the deceased queen. She would have to come up with a way to keep him quiet as well, since his only aspiration was to confuse the king and take some little plaything the king had claimed for himself. She had bigger plans. But again, all that would come later. She would have time to make Relel shut up. Though he, too, was a beautiful man, he could be demanding, immature and very irritating. It seemed both he and the king were smitten with a boy. A boy. Here she was, a stunning example of womanhood, and these two would rather take a boy to their bed? It wasn't right, not at all, and from this day on, over for the king.
She reached down to the handle of the large thick door, turned it, and pushed it open. With no guards to present her, she simply walked in.
"Hello, my dear husband. I have missed you."
The look on his face was priceless.
* * * *
What the fuck?
"Abydell?"
He had to be dreaming. Hell. He had to be hallucinating. He was on his feet and had stumbled back down the stairs to meet her halfway across the large expanse of floor between the throne and massive doors. She had said "husband," hadn't she? She was smiling at him and he said his dead wife's name, right?
He was unable to make any other word come out of his mouth. Not that he had anything he could say, because words revolved around in his head but stringing any of them together into something that could possibly make any sense at this point wasn't doable. He knew his eyes were wide and his mouth was hanging open as well. He had to look like an idiot. There wasn't much that could surprise him, but clearly the sight of his long dead wife simply walking into the room shook him right to the core.
She was long dead. She had gone over the Nor Ferry Mire cliffs and there was nothing but sharp rocks and pounding sea at the bottom, which was more than fifty feet straight down. Sure the tide had been in at the time and honestly, he didn't actually see her fall, but he did hear her tortured scream...and she never returned. They never found her body but they surmised she had been pulled out to sea. She was dead.
She was dead.
He had been devastated, but not due of any normal reason. It wasn't about whether he loved or didn't love her. They had been betrothed from birth, as was the custom for crown princes. He grew up knowing he would marry her, have children with her,
and rule with her by his side. They didn't have to love each other, only understand what their roles were, what was expected. Aric had no trouble doing it, why shouldn't she? And, of course, she didn't. When they finally wed, they went right to work, making sure the Tamusi name would endure. Aric had been king for a number of years at that point, his father having died in a skirmish in the northlands. Surprisingly it took a while, but when Abydell finally became pregnant, there was a great celebration that lasted for days.
But time sated all personal desires, or at the very least made them less important than so many other things that landed on the king's desk. He left her without leaving her, so it truly was his own fault she felt neglected. The descent into her depression had been gradual, but she began to do things to call attention to herself. At first they were subtle, like not answering a summons, even from Aric himself, until he had to personally go find her to see what the problem was, and of course, there never was one. Or the times when she would lie in bed, swearing she had some incurable disease, complaining of unbearable pain, and once Aric arrived in her rooms, those pains would miraculously disappear. But unfortunately, Aric did not connect her behavior with his own and only became irritated to the point of no longer falling for her "games," as he called them. Soon she was doing far more destructive things, screaming at him all the time, hurting herself whenever they would argue.
That night had started much the same way.
Was there some way she had survived that fall?
Or perhaps she never fell...
"Abydell?" His voice sounded foreign, not his own. But this time she, the apparition in front of him, answered him.
"Yes, dear, I heard you, and you are correct. It is I." She stopped in the middle of the room, a scant three feet from him. Her silk skirt moved forward then back in shimmers and waves, demanding attention. A slight waft of lavender washed by him. It was Abydell's scent. He remembered it vividly.
But it was different...somehow.
"What the hell?"
"Oh, darling." She threw herself into his arms or, more accurately, she threw her arms around his neck. Aric simply held his arms out and away, not wanting to make this moment any more bizarre by proving to himself this person was real, though she hung from him. She pulled slightly away, her arms loose now. "Aren't you glad to see me?"
The sound of her voice wasn't quite right either. "You're de... Abydell's dead. You're an imposter." That was it, of course. Had to be. This was either a very bad nightmare or she was definitely an imposter.
But she smiled as if she'd expected him to say exactly that. "Darling. Of course I am not an imposter. I am you're loving wife, finally well and able to return to your strong, kingly arms." She rubbed her hips up against his. Was she trying to see if there was something to rub against, a bulge perhaps? Even if he had been excited by the woman, this was too odd for him to be that crass. She turned the edges of her pretty mouth down for an instant, most likely confused that her very presence, the cleavage, her womanly scent, had not produced the physical reaction she anticipated.
Suddenly revolted, Aric grabbed her arms and pulled them off of his neck and pushed her away. "No...this isn't..." but he didn't go any farther because Relel was in the room and crooning at the fake queen.
"Abydell? Abydell! What in heaven's name?" He shouted the words, which, of course, brought more people into the throne room. Guards and villagers and castle servants, all crowded in to see Abydell. More and more voices joined Relel's, as the king stumbled back.
What the hell is going on? Where are all these people coming from? They continued to swarm in and surround him, surround her. Aric's head was soon swimming with the commotion. Abydell, or whoever she was, seemed to be drinking it all in, as if she gloried in this, which of course, the real Abydell would have done.
But something was not right. Beyond the fact Abydell was dead, something was not right.
Aric searched out Relel and he was grinning ear to ear.
Then suddenly Joron was in the room, standing at the entrance inside the doors. Nochi was standing beside him, eyes wide, mouth open, as he stared at the woman in deep green silk. Aric watched Nochi mouth her name. He may actually have said it out loud, but there was so much noise now in the room there would have been no way Aric would have heard it. He let his gaze shift to Joron, who simply looked confused. But he wouldn't be confused long. Aric watched helplessly as Relel, with a wicked grin thrown at Aric, pounced on the unsuspecting boy. A long, strong arm pulled him into an embrace, like he was going to need comfort.
And he would.
Because Aric was still married.
Aric was a married man.
He looked down at his large hands and the absence of his ring as he stumbled back up his stairs to sit heavily on his throne. He had taken the ring off shortly after Abydell's death. He had put it with hers, locked away in a box in his chateau by the sea. He was sad she had died, worried for their son. But he would have been lying if he said he'd loved her. He'd cared for her, protected her, allowed her any indulgence she asked for, but he had never loved her. Still, the presence of the ring weighed on him, so he had removed it. He doubted highly he would be able to get it back on.
Damn it. He was still a married man and it would be what that asshole of a brother was going to tell Joron. And Joron, in his infinite goodness, would not allow himself to belong to Aric anymore and Aric would not be able to...
No.
No. No. No.
He shot back out of the chair and once again came down those ornate stairs. He pushed into the crowd, needing to get to Joron.
But there was no way he would be allowed.
He knew that.
He saw the way Abydell looked at him, her sly smile. It resembled what he remembered. Could it be possible? Was she truly his wife back from the dead?
Could things get any worse?
* * * *
Joron was tired. He had been back and forth too many times from Blade Rain to Claymoor Doom and now he wanted to stay still.
And be with Aric.
His heart skipped a beat or two. Aric had come for him. Not only that, but Diagus had let Joron leave with him. He closed his eyes for a moment as he let those wonderful feelings wash over him. He had never felt this way before, had no idea at all what love really was, but he was so sure now it was this. He felt giddy and hot and happy and breathless.
The king wanted him. He had held onto him the whole way back from Blade Rain, made him ride right in front of him, held him all night, had his hands on him at all times. He had gently kissed him constantly as well--fast, chaste little kisses, meaning nothing, meaning everything, like he was overflowing and couldn't help himself.
And now Nochi was leading him to the king's chambers. He had overheard Aric tell him to and, once again, he wasn't paying attention. But he also knew this time there would be no need to know, no need to escape. He was going to live in those rooms. They would be his rooms now, too. It took everything in him not to jump and skip down the hallway.
But then suddenly there was noise and commotion coming from behind them. Nochi grabbed Joron by the arm and yanked him painfully behind him, throwing him against the stone wall. Joron cried out, but only because of the surprise. Nochi's body was now pressing up against his own, keeping Joron behind him. Even after he saw the four men, obviously guards, Nochi kept his sword up.
"Halt. Who are you?"
The men stopped and so did Joron's heart. Nochi was the commander of this castle's army. He would know absolutely every one of the soldiers, not only by face but also by name. Joron was sure these men were in Claymoor Doom uniforms. Why did Nochi not know them? Joron was able to see them raise their hands and arms in surrender. "We are the queen's bodyguards."
Queen?
"What are you talking about? There is no queen. Guards!" Nochi yelled out and there was more commotion, but this time it was behind the four men, who still held their arms up in surrender.
"Wait." The obvious le
ader of the strangers shouted. "Come to the throne room. You're requested there by the queen anyway. She's with the king right now. We came to escort you."
"You came to escort me?" It was clear Nochi still did not believe them at all.
"I beg your pardon, sir. We were told to bring back the prince." He pointed toward Joron, who sank farther behind Nochi, as if he could disappear into his pockets. Nochi reached around and patted Joron's hip, the only body part he could connect with.
Queen?
There was a queen?
Wasn't she supposed to be dead?
Nochi made some sort of motion and the four men disappeared. Joron's heart was beating fiercely, like it would come right out of his chest. He vaguely noticed two of the guards, the newly arrived ones, had walked up to them, flanking them, as if they expected more trouble.
Joron looked up into Nochi's eyes. "There's a queen?" He could barely hear his own voice.
* * * *
Nochi's heart broke when he saw those eyes. He wanted only to take the boy into his arms and sooth away the pain he saw there. "No. There is no queen." He spat out the words, not meaning them to sound as harsh as they must have. He usually had better control than this.
He looked to the other two soldiers, who stood and waited for instructions.
"Fine. Let's head back to the throne room. Let's find out what's going on." Nochi knew it was wrong, though. On some level he knew he should have continued to follow the command of his king and take Joron back to the king's chamber. But another little nagging thought told him there was something very wrong in the castle. He was allowing himself to realize it now, as he pushed Joron between the two guards. The look he gave them told them everything they needed to know. Joron was in their hands and they were to protect him. Nochi led the way.