by Kirby Crow
Scarlet nodded. Liall spoke to Nenos in Sinha and Scarlet heard his name. He flicked a questioning look to Liall. Nenos bowed and then left them alone, and Liall put an arm around Scarlet's shoulders and drew him toward the bed.
"I should not have allowed you to come with me,” Liall said distantly, pulling him into a fierce embrace. “It is far more dangerous than even I had expected. You might have done better taking your chances with the Flower Prince's mercy."
"Too late for that now."
"Yes, of course,” Liall said. He cupped Scarlet's face in both of his hands. “And I know you can take care of yourself, but while we are here, you must heed me in everything. You must guard your words; engage in no quarrels or disputes. It is far too dangerous."
"I haven't—” he began, but Liall stopped his mouth by kissing him, slow and sweet, and Scarlet could have no complaints about that.
Liall drew back and studied him gravely. “You and I, we had a bad beginning, t'aishka, and there is a part of you that still does not trust me. Yet you must, and you must heed me and be guided by me while we are here, or we both may die."
"I trust you,” Scarlet said, but neither of them had forgotten how he had recoiled from Liall time and time again, how he had mistrusted the older man even in bed, and how they had once come to blows back on the Nerit. He wondered what Liall was getting at. “I do trust you,” he insisted. “I just don't feel very in control here. I haven't felt in control of anything since we left Volkovoi."
Liall looked at Scarlet for a long moment. “We are going to play a game,” he said seriously.
Scarlet huffed, though the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile. “What kind of game?"
"A lover's game,” Liall said, and kissed him again, sliding his hand beneath the wool of the robe to caress Scarlet's skin through the silk of the nightshirt.
Scarlet shivered. “A lover's game?” He had never heard of such. “How?"
"You must not ask,” Liall murmured. There was an odd look on his face as he pushed the robe from Scarlet's shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. “The only thing you must do is to command me to stop at any moment that you cease to trust me."
Scarlet was not sure he liked that, but Liall was pulling at the laces of his silken nightshirt, and he focused on removing Liall's virca, or trying to.
"It's a damned dress, it is,” Scarlet muttered, and Liall laughed softly and kissed Scarlet again before drawing back to attend to the buttons of the virca himself.
Liall's hands were very warm and big. Everything about him was big: his fingers as they drew lines across Scarlet's chin and lips, his tongue that teased and tickled within Scarlet's mouth, even his sex. At no other time was Scarlet so reminded of the differences between Rshani and Hilurin as when he was intimate with Liall.
Scarlet scarcely noticed when the silken nightshirt slid to the floor and puddled at his feet, but he yelped in surprise when Liall lifted him up and tossed him on the bed to lie sprawled naked on red silks and fur.
Liall laughed. “You see, this is the point,” he said, his voice low and hot as he climbed into the bed with Scarlet, leaning over him. “Did you want me to do that?"
"I have no idea."
"Well, think about it. What do you want me to do right now?"
Scarlet did not understand, yet he hardly minded. “Undress?” he asked hoarsely.
Liall leaned in for a kiss, and then sat back on his heels and took off his black silk shirt. “Yes, my lord.” His pale eyes glinted with mischief.
Scarlet watched him undress, which Liall did slowly and deliberately, holding Scarlet's gaze at all times. When he was nude, Liall took up his black shirt again and turned it this way and that, and then ripped the long collar off.
"What did you do that for?"
"Shh, trust me for a moment,” Liall said, and straddled Scarlet's body with his knees. “All you have to do is order me to stop."
Scarlet nearly pulled away when Liall put the silken scrap over his eyes, on the verge of panic. He did trust Liall, or at least, he did in this. If he hesitated when they were alone, it was not lack of trust, but the fact that Liall himself could be almost overwhelming.
I do trust him, he thought. I do.
Liall tied the silk around Scarlet's eyes before gently tucking his black hair back to suckle on the spot beneath his ear. It was amazing what sensations Liall could produce on parts of him that he had not expected to be sensitive. Without sight, it felt even more intense, and Scarlet jumped when cool fingers skimmed over his bare shoulder.
"Relax. You know I would not hurt you,” Liall murmured. His voice was warm and lulling. “You know this."
Scarlet took a deep breath and nodded. “I know it.” It was strange, not seeing, only feeling. He was conscious of the caress of fur, of the warmth of Liall's breath on the curve of his neck, the heat of skin against skin. He turned his head blindly, seeking Liall's mouth, and was rewarded with a luxurious kiss, Liall's tongue teasing his own.
Scarlet reached to embrace him. Liall took his hand and held it. “No. Not unless you can tell me yourself what you want. What do you want me to do?"
Scarlet opened his mouth to complain, but Liall kissed him again until the words had flown away. Liall then fitted his hands around Scarlet's waist and shifted Scarlet up higher on the pillows.
Scarlet was disoriented with the blindfold, but Liall guided him, his touch gentle, and Scarlet sank back against softness. He tried to reach for Liall again, and Liall took his wrist and kissed the inside of it, touching a wet tongue to the pulse there. Scarlet squirmed, and Liall stretched Scarlet's arm out, up over his head, and looped something soft around his wrist, binding it.
Suddenly alarmed, Scarlet tried to sit up, but Liall kissed his mouth gently before forcibly pushing his shoulders back to the cushions.
"Now, this is how it is,” Liall's deep voice rumbled into his ear, passionate and thick. “You must not free yourself. If you cannot bear it, then you must tell me and I will free you. I will do nothing that you do not command me to do.” His mouth was very close to Scarlet's ear. “You think you are not in control. You are very wrong about that. I have been bound to you since we met."
Scarlet took in one shaking breath, and then another while Liall stroked his hair, thinking it over. Finally, he nodded.
"Yes? Good. Very good. I will bind your other hand now."
Oh, Deva, why did that frighten him so?
Liall stretched out Scarlet's other arm the same way, and he felt soft fabric—velvet?—looped around his wrist. When Liall drew back, Scarlet tested the bonds briefly, tugging against them, before he forced himself to stop.
"You are so beautiful,” Liall whispered, and stretched out beside him. Scarlet's arousal had flagged, but Liall kissed him long and slowly until he was arching against the other man, wanting more.
"I want your hands on me,” Scarlet gasped. “I want to feel your weight over me."
Liall's lips moved to his throat. He suckled at the hollow and plied his teeth to lines of Scarlet's jaw and throat until Scarlet longed to break free and wrap his body around Liall.
Liall's tongue lapped against his collarbone, and Liall shifted to straddle him, just below his hips. Scarlet groaned and had to bite his lip to stop from speaking, for Liall's weight across his thighs was too low to give him any relief.
Liall tasted him, licking down his chest. When Liall's teeth tugged gently on a nipple, Scarlet cried out and tried to push up against him, but Liall would not permit it.
"Please...” Scarlet moaned, hating the sound of his pleading voice, but not being able to stop.
"Please what?” Liall asked reprovingly, and his weight lifted.
Scarlet bit his lip, but his skin now felt cold where Liall had been. He felt Liall rise from the bed. Straining to listen, he heard only the clink of metal on metal and tensed. Scarlet jumped when Liall drew near, unheard, and touched him.
"Ah, Love,” Liall said and stroked his hair. He was s
tanding beside the bed. “If you cannot trust me, you must command me to free you."
Scarlet thought long and hard. In the interim, Liall sighed deeply and began to fumble with the knots at Scarlet's wrist.
Scarlet made a sound of dissent, jerking his bound hands away, and Liall stilled.
He heard Liall's measured breath close to him. “What is it you wish?"
Scarlet let out a shuddering sigh. “I want you to kiss me. I want to feel your body on mine, your mouth on me."
Immediately, Liall's weight sank down on the bed beside him.
"Yes,” Scarlet murmured. Liall's hand learned Scarlet's face, mapping it as if Liall were the one deprived of sight. Liall rested his cheek against Scarlet's chest, and Scarlet felt the warm touch of a tongue on his nipple.
"You taste so good,” Liall murmured, licking, and then switched his mouth to the other one. “I could devour you, so sweet is your skin.” His fingers pinched and rolled the neglected nipple as he sucked and lapped at Scarlet's chest, until Scarlet was writhing on the bed and straining against his bonds. Liall stopped abruptly and his hands drifted down Scarlet's torso. Scarlet shivered at the ticklish touches to his belly as Liall bowed his head to scatter light kisses around the navel. Scarlet gasped and jerked when he felt Liall's fingers curling around his hard length, and then Liall planted a kiss on the crown.
His voice was broken. “Please..."
Liall did not chide him again for begging, but lazily curled his tongue around the head of Scarlet's member and sucked lightly.
Scarlet thought he might faint. He made a strangled sound of pleasure, dizzy with sensation.
"You want this?"
"Yes."
Scarlet had seen slaves offered for sale in Morturii perform such acts, and it had seemed an ugly sight to him then. But oh, he never imagined it was a thing of such pleasure! How could he have known? Liall's tongue was fire. It was ice and flame and slick, soft, delicious suction empowered with the ability to lure every nerve in his body straight to his groin.
He could happily die like this.
Scarlet's body was drawn tight as a bowstring, his legs parted wide as he strove to push deeper into the incredible heat of Liall's mouth, but after a short time—too short! Oh Deva, don't stop, don't ever stop that!—Liall pulled away.
Scarlet groaned in mournful protest and Liall raised up to silence the sound, his hot tongue thrusting deep. Scarlet suckled on it, and Liall drew back a little. Scarlet could feel Liall's smile in the curve of his lips as they kissed. Liall's leather necklace, with its two cheap Byzan coins, brushed against Scarlet's throat, and it reminded him so much of all they had been through together that he moaned again and nipped at Liall's lip.
"Please ... more."
"Not so quickly,” Liall whispered, taking another kiss. “I want to make this last."
Liall got up and Scarlet heard him extinguish a few of the blue lamps, then the warm, naked length of Liall's body covered him. Scarlet pushed up with his hips, seeking to bury himself in skin, and Liall made a rumbling noise deep in his throat that sent a curl of fire down Scarlet's spine.
Liall's hands roamed. His mouth and tongue rooted out every pleasurable spot on Scarlet's body—some he had not even imagined could be pleasurable!—and Scarlet knew no more coherent thoughts. Liall learned his lover's shape so thoroughly that Scarlet thought he might be committing it to memory.
"T'aishka, what shall I do now?"
"I don't know. I don't know how, or what.... “Scarlet panted. His head thrashed from side to side.
"Do you want me to go further?"
"Please. I want you to do whatever you want. I just want you. I want you, please..."
Then there was the smell of incense and beeswax swirling around in his head, mixed up with the feel of Liall's mouth and hands and body, and he floated in the center of it, burning and gasping and bound, until Liall's fingers gently untied the silk that blinded him. Liall urged Scarlet to wrap his legs around Liall's waist.
Scarlet could see Liall at last: his expression of careful urgency, and how gently Liall sought to breach that entrance. Scarlet tried not to cry out as Liall continued in his delicate and deliberate conquest, but it was too much, and eventually Scarlet was shuddering and moaning steadily. Liall would freeze at each keen and gasp, but only for a moment as he coaxed Scarlet's body to gladly submit, feeding the fire in Scarlet's bones until the younger man was panting and arching up to him, pliant and hot. Then, like a prince taking a rival country, Liall would advance again, pushing closer to his goal.
One final stride, and Scarlet's last sharp, shocked cry was muffled against Liall's amber throat as their hips met and Liall let out a tortured groan, moving sinuously inside him.
He's not a wolf, he's a snake, a serpent. Scarlet's mind babbled on as Liall's body coiled and uncoiled fluid as a leopard, piercing impossibly deep.
Liall rolled his hips and lifted Scarlet, pushing in at an angle that made sparks flare in Scarlet's brain. Scarlet shouted as his body hurled onward, oblivious to who might hear, uncaring. He felt like he was dying, or living more completely than he had imagined possible.
The lamps had burned down to a blue fireflies, and Liall, his face dripping with sweat, looked down on Scarlet with wide, wondering eyes before a violent shudder seized his frame and wracked him dry, and he called out helplessly in strange, flowing words that sank liquid into the scented air.
9.
Forgive
Scarlet was cuddled up to Liall's chest, belly to belly and naked as the moon, his hair smelling musky and sweet with Rshani soap. Gods, but I hate to get out of bed this morning, Liall thought.
He wanted to wake the young man with touch, to ply his lips to that ivory skin until Scarlet shuddered and woke and begged him for more. And last night...
Liall smiled and clasped the memory to him, happier than he thought possible. Beside him, Scarlet mumbled and his hips moved, brushing their bodies together, and Liall could feel Scarlet was hard in his sleep, silky erection brushing his thigh. His own greedy sex stirred in response. Oh, that will not do, not at all. If he did not move at once he would never get out of bed. Very gently, Liall disentangled himself from Scarlet's arms and swung his long legs over the side of the high bed.
The Queen had said there would be an opportunity to speak directly to the Baron of Maekva that morning about Cestimir's succession, and Liall could not afford to miss even one chance. Nadiushka insisted that Cestimir, not Vladei, must inherit the throne of Rshan, and Liall had been away from Rshan too long to trust his own judgment on the matter. His mother, on the other hand, had ruled the continent for sixty-three years in his absence. Surely she knew what was best?
Liall drew on a robe and padded into the antechamber, buried in thought. The meeting was only one of the dozen things he had pressing on him that morning. Another, more isolated issue was the tangle of Scarlet. The Rshani crew on the Ostre Sul had been bad enough, but at least their dislike of Scarlet had been simple. Hate can take many forms. There were those in the palace who would detest Scarlet and wish to harm him because Liall was his lover, or because he was a foreigner and not noble-born, or simply because he was beautiful. There were subtler motivations, too. If Scarlet were harmed, Liall would perhaps be distracted from his purpose, or less dedicated to it in his effort to protect his love. If Scarlet were killed, that, too, would be a warning to Liall. So many dangers to keep watch for.
I should not have allowed him to come, Liall berated himself for the thousandth time. If something terrible happens, I will be to blame.
But oh ... last night! Once more, Liall let the memory take him: how Scarlet had been hard and silky against Liall's tongue, the taste of seed flooding his mouth, how the younger man's body had yielded at last, after much careful coaxing, and allowed Liall to penetrate him. The joy of that moment was almost enough to make Liall turn around, march back into the bedroom, and wake him to start over again.
Shall I stop?
Liall had said those words to Scarlet gently, the words sticking in his throat, praying that he would not have to. He wanted Scarlet so much, he nearly shot the first moment he attempted to press inside, which would have spoiled everything. And then Scarlet had sucked on Liall's tongue and spread his legs, so eager and hot and loving and gods he was rising just thinking about it.
They had been lovers in many ways since they first met, and Liall's heart had been lost to Scarlet since the moment he saw the proud red-coat. No, amend that: since Scarlet spoke, and Liall heard something in the young, willful voice that begged an answer of him. Scarlet's fiery spirit stirred a dormant soul that Liall had put to sleep decades ago. Just being near Scarlet made it painfully obvious to Liall that he was incomplete, and finally his own iron will rose up, demanding that he wake and reclaim his life.
Now Liall was like a drunkard, besotted by the feel of Scarlet, forever touching and kissing and holding, barely able to keep his hands to himself. He hoped Scarlet did not tire of it and begin to think him overly lecherous, for Scarlet's opinion of him seemed to be a fey thing at times, apt to change quickly, and it mattered very much to Liall that Scarlet thought well of him. There was not a person in all of Nemerl whose estimation meant more, in Liall's eyes.
Liall's clothes were laid out in the dressing room next to the bath. Thoughtful Nenos had seen to it. He dressed swiftly and slipped into the formal salon nearer the dining room. It was quiet, only the crackle of the fire and the soft hiss of snow on the window behind the heavy, closed draperies.
"Nenos?” Liall called softly. He opened the door between the kitchen and the partitioned dining area, and he saw the old man standing at a counter with his back turned, brewing a pot of che.
"Here, my prince.” Nenos's shock of unruly white hair was like a pale nimbus surrounding his head. His skin was a darker brown than Liall's, and he had many creases and merry laugh-lines framing his bright blue eyes. He had a hawkish nose and his jowls were lined with age, but his expression was gentle.