“Are you all right, love?” Storm asked from the seat next to Sky. Startled, Sky looked around the breakfast table. Cloud was looking at him, an eyebrow raised, and the beginning of a smirk twisting her mouth. At the head of the table, the king was staring into his plate. He hadn’t talked much since his wife had been executed by Sera.
“Stop hovering, brother.” Cloud clicked her tongue and turned her attention to her plate. “He won’t disappear from right in front of you.”
“I’m fine,” Sky said, stabbing a piece of sausage harder than he’d meant.
“You’d tell me if anything was wrong, wouldn’t you?” Storm took Sky’s hand in his, the knife caught between them.
Sky sighed and nodded. Storm was right to ask. Sky hadn’t said anything about the situation. Hadn’t made one single comment about needing Storm the way he needed him before this happened.
“We’ll talk after we finish our meal. I promise.” He winked at Storm and shoved the piece of sausage into his mouth, chewing and smiling.
Storm relaxed, beaming at his husband. “It’s a date.”
While Storm rushed through his meal, in his normal fashion, Sky picked at his food. He wanted them to get back to how they were, but he was anxious about bringing his concerns to Storm. They’d both been through a lot, from the day they’d met, while they’d been apart, and especially since they’d married. Sky didn’t want to seem ungrateful, or too concerned with superficial aspects of their relationship. Either way, he couldn’t deny his feelings, nor could he deny Storm his honesty.
“Done, love?” Storm asked, pulling Sky out of his reverie.
“Oh, sure.” Sky smiled, taking in Storm’s half-bored, half-impatient face. When he was like that, Storm looked younger, almost as he was when they were teenagers.
Sky pushed himself up and took Storm’s hand, giving it a little pull. “Come on, then. This conversation is a waste if you are not there to have it with me.”
Storm chuckled and followed behind Sky as he led them both to their chambers. At night, the king still slept in the adjacent room to theirs, and sometimes Cloud would come to their bedroom in the middle of the night, more so after a particularly bad dream. She hadn’t been dealing well with her mother’s death, even if she knew there was no other punishment for the former queen. During the day, though, they tried their best to avoid Sky and Storm. The king, because seeing them reminded him of his loss and his own weakness; Cloud because she didn’t want to impose more than she needed to.
The stillness of the room relaxed Sky. He treasured these moments, when it was just Storm and himself, no one else to breach their intimacy.
Storm wrapped his arms around Sky, hugging him from behind, and resting his chin on Sky’s shoulder. “What’s weighing on your mind, Sky? Is there anything wrong?”
The hushed, low voice and the rush of warm air washing over Sky’s face made him shiver. “You are on my mind. Us. I feel…” Sky took a deep breath and turned to Storm, needing to see him, watch his reactions. “I feel this space between us. It shouldn’t be there. And I miss you.”
“I am here though,” Storm said, tightening his arms around Sky. “I’m never going anywhere. Nothing will ever happen to you.”
Sky groaned and let his head fall on Storm’s shoulder. “That’s the problem. Nothing happens. Nothing!”
“What do you mean?” Storm pushed himself back enough to look down at Sky.
“Since we’ve returned,” Sky started, hiding his face even more, “you treat me like I’m broken. Or about to break. You barely touch me. We haven’t made love once. And I tell myself it’s because you’re afraid of hurting me, of my reactions. But there’s this voice in the back of my mind, wondering if you see me as damaged now. You saved me in time, but he still touched me…”
Storm kissed Sky, cutting the rest of his words. Storm’s feverish lips parting his own were bliss, but Sky still stopped the kiss.
“Don’t you ever say you’re damaged,” Storm grunted. “You are right, I was afraid of going too far, thinking it would trigger a reaction that would hurt both of us. I never wanted to make you feel like I no longer desired you. I should have used words, not only actions.”
Sky chuckled and touched his forehead to Storm, staring into his eyes. “I won’t break. And I won’t even bat an eye at your touch. You are home. You are safety. You are love and everything good in the world.”
“That’s how I feel about you. I was happy to wait until you’d recovered more. The nightmares…”
Sky shook his head and placed a finger over Storm’s lips. “The nightmares stop when I wake up in your arms. I understand why you’d think being intimate would trigger memories of what happened. Yet every time we touched, all thoughts of that ordeal went very far away.”
“But if I straddle you, or act too roughly…”
Sky rolled his eyes and sighed. “Then get on the bed, lie on your back, and let me ride your cock.”
Storm shivered and turned his back to Sky. He took fast, determined steps and went straight to the bed, undressing in but a moment and jumping in the middle of the pillows. “I like it when you take charge,” Storm said and winked.
Sky chuckled and shrugged. “Someone had to do it.”
Storm motioned for Sky to join him, a teasing smile curving his lips. That enticing smirk caused heat to spread through Sky’s entire body. He found it hard to breathe, anticipation making him forget how air intake was. Sky shook his head and went over to the bed, throwing clothes on the floor as he went.
When he was naked and on top of his husband, looking down at Storm’s eyes, pupils bursting with lust, Sky relaxed. He slowly lowered himself, moaning when his lips touched Storm. Despite the pent-up lust, the kiss was slow, tender, almost feeling like it was nurturing Sky’s soul.
Sky had ordered his husband to the bed, he was now looming over him, straddling Storm’s impressive erection. He wasn’t the one in control though. Minutes after his naked skin touched Storm, Sky was lost in a trance like state where all he could feel was Storm moving underneath him. Lips trailing kisses, hands caressing, cool, scented oil spread over his hole.
Vision blurred and tactile sense on overdrive, Sky gave himself to the experience. He moaned when Storm pushed up and breached his body, he fell into rhythm with the slow thrusts, he kissed, sucked and caressed with the same fervor his husband showed. Although fully aware of everything Storm was doing, everything else—the bed and room around them, the sounds from the outside world—was dull and lost.
The closer Sky came to completion, the sharper Storm’s figure and visage became. Detailed shades and tones painted the spark in Storm’s eyes, the way sweat glistened on his chest, the small frowns he made when he pushed deep inside Sky. His voice when whispering his love, his moans and grunts were the most exquisite music Sky had ever heard.
Mesmerized by the look of his husband and lost in the pleasure he was receiving, Sky came on a roar. The orgasm somehow managed to take him by surprise.
“You are so beautiful.” Storm sounded out of breath, maybe a little desperate, but his words kept Sky anchored to this world, connected to his husband through all that mind-blowing pleasure.
A few more thrusts and Storm joined in the climax, coming on a litany made up of Sky’s name and all the endearments Storm had ever used. They clung to each other, shielded by the covers Storm had pulled over them.
Like this, spent and cherished, Sky was at his happiest. His hopes, dreams, and strength had all been replenished. He didn’t want to make himself sound more important than he was, but Storm looked different. Better, fully relaxed, stronger.
“I was a fool for depriving us both of this,” Storm mumbled.
“Sometimes you don’t realize you’re in the desert and depriving yourself of water.”
Storm chuckled and kissed Sky’s shoulder. “That’s exactly what I was doing.”
Sky hoped they could stay like this, wrapped up in each other, away from the messy world. Th
e loud knock that interrupted them broke the spell faster than was good for Sky’s sanity.
“I’ll get rid of them,” Strom promised. Yet when Fury greeted him, Storm opened the door wider and motioned for him to come in.
Fury greeted Sky who had pushed himself to a sitting position, then turned his attention to Storm. “We’ve heard from Tiger.”
“Speak, man,” Storm urged when Fury wouldn’t say more and kept stealing glances at Sky.
“The Estas queen and her middle daughter are dead. Their throats were slit in their bed and they were left lying in a pool of their own blood. The servants found them the next morning. Other statesmen that Tiger suspected of being involved were found much the same way. Only in some back alley, not in their homes. It looks like the same kind of weapon was used. Possibly multiple assassins, or so they say.”
“Sera’s work then,” Sky said, a shiver making him pull his covers higher. He’d known of Sera’s past with the Interfectrices, he’d known the woman to be deadly. Yet none of that knowledge had prepared him for seeing the old woman in action. Like a perfect weapon, made only to kill. When facing her wrath or determination, no one stood a chance.
“Indeed,” Storm said, seeming as lost in thought as Sky was.
“What orders do you want us to send to Tiger, my Dragon?”
“Send word he should wait until everything quiets down. Then I want him in Vis. Things will change, my father doesn’t seem able to recover as fast as he needs to. I will need all my advisers so we can decide what to do next.”
Sky knew that name, Tiger was the Dragon’s chief of spies. It made sense Storm would have spies in neighboring cities, and he imagined the one located in Estas would need to be more vigilant than ever. Getting back to Vis wasn’t going to be a challenge for the master spy.
With a curt nod, Fury was out of the room, the door closed behind him. Storm, still lost in thought, glided under his covers. Sky lifted his arm and waited for Storm to rest his head on Sky’s chest. He placed a soft kiss on the top of Storm’s head and sighed.
“Troubled times are coming our way.” Sky had known that to be true the moment he’d been taken. Nothing was without reason and consequence when it involved Storm and himself. Sky might love Storm, the man, along with the prince and Dragon that his husband was, but the world didn’t care. Storm’s subjects, the rulers of the lands surrounding Vis’s domain, they all saw him as the warring general of Vis, and now that his father was not all there, they’d see him as the sole ruler as well.
Storm only shrugged and pushed himself closer to Sky. “I have you. I have my warriors, and I have Cloud and my advisers.”
He sounded so confident, Sky envied him. That conviction that they could take anything coming their way, that was so often the only way to survival.
“Sky?”
Sky’s heart twisted at Storm’s worried looked and he tried to kiss the frown away. “You are right, we have everything we need.”
Storm winked and touched his lips to Sky’s. “I have more than what I need, Sky. I have you. That’s everything I ever wanted. I will fight until my last breath to protect that.”
Sky caressed Storm’s face and nodded. “So will I. Having the mighty army of Vis to join us helps matters though.”
They chuckled and embraced each other, pushing away all worries of woes to come. As their names heralded, Sky and Storm formed an unbreakable, unstoppable bound. Besides, Sky couldn’t be so ungrateful as to ask for no trouble at all, ever, when he’d been gifted with a life of wonder.
“I’m extremely happy you forced me into marrying you,” Sky said, a smile playing on his lips.
Storm grunted and crushed Sky into his arms. “Shut up! You never said no to me in the first place.”
Sky laughed, his eyes dancing in tears. “I never could, love. Nor did I really want to.”
THE END
MEET ALINA POPESCU
Writer, traveler, and coffee addict, Alina Popescu has been in love with books all her life. She started writing when she was ten and she has always been drawn to sci-fi, fantasy, and the supernatural realm. Born and raised in Romania, she finds her inspiration in books of all genres, in movies, and the occasional manga comic book. She is a proud geek who needs her fast Internet and gadgets more than she needs air.
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