Taste the Dark

by Tibby Armstrong

  “Yeah. I guess it does.” Akito dropped into a slipper chair.

  Akito smiled, remembering the moment he’d seen Lyandros in his leathers. The outfit screamed vampire mora, but now all he remembered feeling was Superman has nothing on this dude. Perhaps he’d rewritten history in his own head, but who the fuck cared. All that mattered was that he got things right, here and now.

  “You came to me when I would have been really lost, and showed me how to survive. You didn’t have to do that.” Akito shook his head, looking away. “Nobody ever did that for me before. Not even Nyx or Ben. It was always me trying to save them. I never…” Akito cleared his throat of the constriction that lodged itself there. “I never knew I needed that too. You know?”

  “I wanted to know you from the first moment I saw you—”

  Lyandros’s confession brought Akito’s chin up.

  Lyandros stood, crossing to him. “Did I tell you I saw you on the bridge that day Nyx came to find you? It was late winter.”

  Akito shook his head, transfixed by the idea that anyone like Lyandros would have noticed him.

  “There was this moment, when I thought you had seen me.” A sad smile played about Lyandros’s mouth, flattening its peaks. “I spent the next weeks wondering if I’d imagined it. And then…” Expression darkening, he stared into the fire. “The next time I saw you, you were standing on the edge of the bridge. I knew you were going to jump, and I would have given anything to save you. But I was powerless.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Akito whispered.

  Neither of them had been able to help those they wanted to help most. Akito through willful mismanagement of his situation and giving over of himself to the Morgan, and Lyandros because that choice had been taken from him.

  “Do not pity me,” Lyandros said, eyes blazing. “Your choices ultimately landed you in my life.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” No one had ever looked at him this way. Had ever seen him this way.

  Lyandros returned to the bed and faced Akito. “Will you join me here?”

  The request brought Akito’s head up. Without the security of an explicit demand, he approached the bed in halting steps.

  “If you would,” Lyandros said when Akito joined him, “please lay down?”

  Akito glanced to the pile of pillows and rumpled satin coverlet. He could say no if he wanted, he knew. A cool tangle of silken sheets welcomed him, the feather mattress dipping under his weight. He lay back, enveloped by an abundance of pillows.

  Adjusting his position, Akito cleared his throat. “Is this what you, um, wanted?”

  Lyandros leaned over him, weight on one hand, and used his other to caress Akito’s cheek. “Tell me what you want.”

  “I—” He could ask for anything, and yet all that came to mind was, “Kiss me.”

  Akito felt the gravity of Lyandros’s gaze. Inexorably, the vampire dipped his head. Their breaths eddied and mingled, cushioning the moment before Lyandros brushed his lips, dry and warm, against Akito’s mouth. Akito sighed, enjoying the first seconds before the kiss turned heated.

  Lyandros sampled the corners of Akito’s mouth with the point of his tongue, and Akito returned the gesture with hesitant licks. Groaning, Lyandros slid his arms under Akito’s back and lifted him into the kiss. Hands explored bunched fabric and leather, releasing warm male musk. Akito tugged at his own buttons, freeing them in impatient jerks. Lyandros slid his hand down Akito’s chest to his waistband, then dipped lower and cupped Akito’s straining sex.

  “I have yet to taste you here,” he observed.

  Akito laughed, breathy with arousal and embarrassment. “Well, it’s not like I’ve been stopping you.”

  “I suppose you haven’t.” Lyandros punctuated the moment by undoing the button to Akito’s trousers. “I have only myself to blame there.”

  “Whenever you use a contraction it sounds wro-ng.” Akito groaned the last word, as Lyandros slipped his hand beneath the trousers.

  “You talk of grammar with me at a time like this?” A brush of Lyandros’s thumb over the head of Akito’s cock forced a whimper from him. “I must not be capturing your attention.”

  “Oh no. No.” Akito laughed. “You’re doing it right. This is about as right as it gets.”

  Lyandros hummed, clearly not convinced, and trailed his kisses down Akito’s chest. When Akito had asked for a kiss, he never thought Lyandros was going to be quite so thorough. He said something to that effect and Lyandros, somewhere around his navel, peered up at him from beneath lowered brows.

  “You have other instructions?” Palms at Akito’s hips, Lyandros flexed his fingers to curl them around Akito’s waistband.

  “Nope.” Letting his head fall back on the mountain of pillows, Akito closed his eyes. Nobody had ever paid this kind of attention to him.

  Lyandros’s swift yank divested Akito of his pants. The air hit his thighs, making the hairs on his upper legs prickle. Muscles rippled under Akito’s questing touch as Lyandros steadied Akito’s shaft with his hand and blew a stream of moist, heated breath over Akito’s skin.

  “Fuck.” Akito jerked, thigh muscles bunching, and a tell-tale bead of moisture trickle hotly downward. “So not going to last.”

  Lyandros chuckled darkly. “Have you learned nothing over the past weeks?”

  “Nope.” Akito shook his head, hair tangling beneath him. “’parently not.”

  “Hmph.” Lyandros gripped Akito more firmly, and squeezed lightly. “I can help you if you wish?”

  “If it’s all right with you, I think…” Akito lifted his hips suggestively. “I just…you know?” While he liked the dominance play, right now he just wanted to enjoy himself and let go.

  Lyandros swooped down. Heat engulfed Akito. His ass cheeks clenched and his hips came off the bed with his roar. Lyandros had taken him to the root in one swallow. Slick sensation and the press of Lyandros’s tongue accompanied an erotic hum.

  “Ungh,” Akito managed, his only attempt at a coherent statement.

  Lyandros set up a rhythm. Akito clutched at the vampire’s head, shoulders, anywhere he could reach, attempting to slow him down and scrape together some semblance of control. Within four strokes, mindlessness overtook him. His hips followed Lyandros’s strokes with erratic thrusts. Tugs of sensation pulled Akito’s orgasm up his shaft in inexorable waves.

  “Going to…” It was only polite to warn the guy, so Akito tried. “Can’t…”

  Lyandros cupped Akito’s balls and ran his finger along the sensitive skin between his cock and his ass. The first wave of Akito’s orgasm rocketed his hips off the bed. Thighs tightening, toes curling, legs shaking, he jerked upward. Dimly, he realized he’d left bruises and scratches along Lyandros’s shoulders. The second wave hit him, and Lyandros’s greedy swallows compelled sweet aftershocks to linger a little longer, tautening the pleasure, until bliss undid him completely.

  Panting, Akito drifted, feather-like back to awareness. “Incredible.”

  Lyandros made his way up Akito’s body to hover over him. When Lyandros had undressed, Akito couldn’t have said, but the vampire’s cock branded Akito’s thigh with its heat.

  “Do you want to sleep?” Pained arousal traced the edges of Lyandros’s question.

  Akito came up on his elbows, shaking his head. “Hell, no.”

  It felt as if he’d been waiting years, not mere hours, for Lyandros to take him. If he had any say in how this went down at all—which, despite the events of the past twenty minutes, seemed too good to be true—he was going to make sure he got screwed senseless.

  “What, then?” Lyandros, palms on the bed, brought their faces close.

  Akito licked his lips, scenting himself on Lyandros’s skin. Stubble rasped his face with Lyandros’s lingering kiss. What did he want? Pulling away, he searched Lyandros’s expression—the straight nose leading to the barely repressed curl of his upper lip, the frustrated arousal darkening the vampire’s eyes—and decided to go for it. />
  “I want you to show me what you’ll do to me tomorrow.” Gods, he couldn’t believe he’d said it.

  Both of Lyandros’s brows snapped upward. “This was supposed to be for you.”

  Akito nodded. “It still is. I want you to give me the show you’ll give him. But, right now? I want to enjoy it.”

  Lyandros ran a hand down Akito’s flank, adjusting him so they were closer to the center of the bed. “To tell the truth, I had another idea in mind for the fae court.”

  Akito lifted his gaze to Lyandros’s. “All right. Then whatever you do to me tonight, make it dirty as fuck, because I want you to.”

  “And tomorrow?” Lyandros asked.

  Within Akito warred a need to be freed from ownership—because he wasn’t supposed to want to be a 24/7 submissive to a man who had given him zero choice in the matter—and a fascination with the heady hum of the power that constantly vibrated through his awareness at Lyandros’s nearness.

  “Tomorrow, I’ll do whatever you say because I want to make things right.”

  “Very well.” Rolling him over, Lyandros smoothed a hand down Akito’s flank. “I will take you, and you will tell me to stop if you want me to. You will have always have a say in this. Understood?”

  Voice muffled by the pillows, Akito echoed, “Understood.”

  Lifting his hips high, Akito sighed with pleasure as Lyandros prepared his body. When Lyandros pushed forward, Akito met him halfway, determined that tomorrow he would earn the vampire’s forgiveness.

  Chapter 25

  Lyandros stared into the semi-darkness, awaiting Nyx’s wakeup call. Akito slept nestled in the crook of his arm. Hair tangled, body languid with sleep, his tribute appeared not to have registered the noise or movement that had disturbed Lyandros’s slumber. Movement caught his eye, and he tensed before registering Nyx standing at the end the bed. He hadn’t seen him open the door.

  “It’s time,” the fae said.

  Sitting up on one elbow, Lyandros glanced to the window. It was still full dark out, but a dimly dancing light said torches had been lit in the garden. Silently, so as not to awake Akito, he slipped from the bed and followed Nyx to the living room as he shouldered into his robe.

  “They want you to go to the gardens first,” Isander explained as Lyandros closed the door behind him. “To test the equipment.”

  Well, at least the fae followed safety protocol, he noted through his bleary annoyance. “What time is it?”

  “Five a.m.,” Nyx answered.

  The fae, who had moved to the fire, appeared to plunge his arm in the flames. Rummaging around, he grunted, then stood, something in his right hand. Soot and ash clung to his sleeve, but his outfit and his person appeared otherwise undamaged. The magic spoke of transfiguration, but other than that, Lyandros had no real understanding of its power or meaning.

  “Do we have a plan for a distraction?” Lyandros asked. “So that we can reach the bridge?”

  Getting out of the room was one barrier surmounted, but Lyandros had no doubt they would be under the watchful eye of many weapons-toting guards.

  “You and Akito are not using Lady Morgana’s bridge,” Isander answered, turning at Nyx’s approach.

  “All right.” Frowning, Lyandros quizzed his brother. “What about you?”

  “I can’t leave. My mother has arrived for the show.” Nyx, palm open, contemplated a sooty piece of metal in his hand before he put it in his pocket. “I can’t hide from her here, so I’ll be your distraction.”

  “All right.” Lyandros eyed his brother. “And Isander?”

  Eyes of dark blue, so much like Tzadkiel’s own, returned Lyandros’s gaze. “I will take care of our interests here.”

  “This is crazy.” Lyandros raked a hand through his hair and let it fall to his side. “We did not gain your freedom only to lose you again. Who will help Tzadkiel defeat the Morgan?”

  “You will,” Isander said.

  “But I’m—”

  The outer doors swung open, and the fae guards who would be his escort appeared, cutting off Lyandros’s dead.

  Isander handed Lyandros his leather harness and trousers with a cryptic, “Have faith, brother.”

  Regret that he had not taken the time to say the things that pressed upon him now—reflections of their childhood, resolutions to silly arguments, and most of all the love they shared—constricted his chest. Real communication with the guards present was impossible. Aware he and Isander might never see one another again in this life or the next, Lyandros took his clothing from his brother with meaningful handclasp. “I would overrule you if I could.”

  “Then it is good that you cannot.” Isander squeezed Lyandros’s hand tightly before letting go.

  The journey to the gardens was a blur. The fae made him dress at the center of the garden, where a scaffold had been erected as the king had promised. On top of the scaffold rested a machine with a blade made of starlight. Its sinister sickle hung had been suspended over a St. Andrew’s cross. A reminder of the king’s threat. Stadium seating floated above the hedges, whether by aid of magic or architecture, Lyandros couldn’t tell.

  Glancing to the sex swing’s silken fabrics, Lyandros forewent the whip and other implements that had been coiled for him on a nearby table. As the fae court trickled in, Lyandros tested the swing’s strength and range of movement. Warm air had melted the snow, providing comfort for the court. A carpet of flowers—forget-me-nots and buttercups—bobbed in the morning dew.

  Flute music heralded the coming of the king, and Lyandros covertly scanned for Nyx and Isander. His brother, he found in the stands closest to the hedge maze. Nyx was nowhere to be seen. The king took his seat high in the stands, and Lyandros bowed in his direction. At the wave of the king’s hand the crowd fell silent.

  “It would seem the Justice Giver has good sense, after all,” the fae monarch noted. After a gloating pause, he pounded his crystal staff on the ground. “Send in his tribute!”

  A trill of fear—Akito’s—registered in Lyandros’s consciousness. He answered with calm reassurance. Nothing would happen that Akito did not want to happen. They had played out the scene in the wee hours, sans swing, and at the end both he and Akito had been replete with pleasure.

  No one, Lyandros reminded him now, has mandated how we do this.

  As Akito arrived, dressed in Lyandros’s black silk robe, Lyandros held his gaze. Akito had been instructed to hold his head high and not to look away. A smile ghosted his tribute’s lips, and he blinked once—their prearranged signal that all was well and would go to plan.

  Slowly, Lyandros began undoing his own harness. The leather creaked and a breeze played with his leg hairs as he shucked his trousers. The court made appreciative sounds, but he ignored them, his attention on Akito and Akito alone.

  Naked, he stood before his tribute, who still wore the robe. “Ready?”

  Nodding, Akito licked his lips. “Ready.”

  Pleasure trilled over Lyandros’s skin, tingling his tailbone and pooling in his sex. There was nothing more sensual or beautiful than the act in which he was about to engage with a man he cared for. This was a balancing of the scales between them, and Lyandros relished the moment, wrapping it around himself so that it created a hushed cocoon in which only he and Akito resided.

  The swing creaked as Akito brought it forward. Lyandros settled himself into the fabric, and the crowd murmured, their confusion evident in the increased hum. Feet in the stirrups, Lyandros relaxed his weight backward and gripped the silken ropes to either side of his head. The chilled seat warmed quickly under his buttocks.

  Akito stood between Lyandros’s legs, and reached into one robe pocket. He produced a bottle of oil and made a show of unstoppering it. Slick drops pattered to Lyandros’s skin. He hissed through his teeth at the first contact, and then groaned when Akito fisted him. The swing rocked, creaking with the lift of Lyandros’s hips.

  Holding his gaze, Akito stroked. Wet sounds echoed upward to the
viewing stands, filling the verdant gardens with a different kind of lushness. Lyandros’s harsh breathing joined the sensual symphony, eddying around him until he ceased to hear the crowd. Tension mounted in his abs, rippling the skin so sweat trickled into his navel. His toes curled and he arched, gripping the swing ropes in a spasmodic jerk.

  Akito released him and Lyandros fell back onto the swing, panting. Akito grinned and poured oil into the palm of his already-glistening hand. While Lyandros appreciated his extra care, he could have done with a little more speed. Wordlessly, he let his eyes beg for him. Heated fingers pressed at Lyandros’s entrance. His thighs fell to the side and his buttocks spread to give Akito easier access.

  Akito eyed him appreciatively. “Very nice.”

  Lyandros groaned and bit his lip so hard he tasted blood. His fangs throbbed, extending as they were pushed outward by the engorging sockets. He bit his wrist and heard the satisfying crunch of cartilage, tasting his own salt and tang before lifting his wrist to Akito’s lips. The blood smeared prettily across Akito’s mouth as he turned his head to suckle the offering. Tongue darting, he lapped at the wound suggestively and inserted three fingers into Lyandros’s entrance where he curled them with an insistent pressure.

  Lyandros arched, his orgasm taking him by surprise. Light and sound rushed past him in a cataclysmic surge. The dawn pink sky greeted him as he blinked open his eyes, and realized that Akito had replaced his fingers with the head of his cock. Slowly, rocking forward, Akito entered him, splitting Lyandros’s world apart once again as he found the angle that would pleasure his Justice Giver most.

  Though he opened himself to Akito, Lyandros felt submission in Akito’s every deep penetration. Each thrust was about Lyandros’s pleasure. Through their bond, he understood that Akito gave him this gift of his own free will. Not because Lyandros deserved to be worshiped as Justice Giver, but because it pleasured Akito to do so.

  Akito panted, his rhythm faltering. “Going…to…”