Duet

He’d warned me about the young prince but I still felt my breath catch in my chest when they walked in. Those cold-fog eyes seemed to cut straight to me, pick me out from amongst the others, and see down to my bones. The attention made my feet ache to shuffle, my neck and arms want to wiggle out the tension, but more eyes than just the prince’s were on me. Failing under pressure wouldn’t do at all.

Instead, I swallowed and stared straight ahead. A part of me hoped his nature wasn’t as cold as his gaze.

A part of me hoped it was.

“You spoke the truth,” the prince, Marcus, said to my master, Lord Tomas Hernandez. His voice was low, seemed to rumble from his throat like thunder over the hills beyond the estate. “She’s easy to spot.”

Now they both stared openly, appraisingly. I kept my eyes forward and forbid my limbs to move and the wine in the decanter I held to shake.

I even forbid the smile that tried to come as Tomas laughed and shook Marcus’s shoulder.

“That’s merely the first of many truths I told you about her,” Tomas said. “But first, let us dine and talk of other matters.”

Dine they did, the wait staff whisking plates and bowls back and forth as masterfully as though it were a dance only they knew the steps to. My part was simple, unbefitting my status but aligned with the wishes of my lord.

I filled their cups with wine.

It had a two-fold purpose, the least sadistic of which was so that Tomas might have a spare set of ears on the conversation. Later, likely tomorrow once the prince had gone, we’d discuss what seemed of significance and what Marcus might have said without saying at all.

Of course, that could still have been done if Tomas had let me keep my sword and stand sentry in the corner but no. That would never do, especially not with the prince in attendance. So I was left at the estate during the hunt, dressed in a server’s clothes, and given a pitcher of wine to hold and instructions on how to pour.

Today might have been the most I’d ever heard the wait and kitchen staff laugh.

“You must have it bad for that man,” Cook had said with great humor as she watched me refill her cup from the pitcher for the fiftieth time. “He want to dress me up like a scullery maid just to make fun of me? Nuh-uh. Cook be gone at the first word.”

I’d set her cup back down and bowed deeply with a flourish. “Will that be all, Madame Cook?” I asked dramatically. “Perhaps a shoulder massage, or a hot bath for your aching feet?”

Which had set her to laughing again.

“That’s not how you do for that man, and I don’t want how you do for that man.” She stood and smacked me on the shoulder. “You happy she can pour the wine, Clarence? The ducks going to be burning.”

She hadn’t waited for an answer, just laughed her way back to the kitchen while Clarence glared at me.

Clarence was the manager of the whole affair, minding the staff, ordering the supplies, and checking the dusted ledges with a white glove. He was a humorless man who’d never much taken for me, and it slighted him more to have me replace the usual cups girl than she or I minded.

She got the night off.

I was supposed to be humbled and embarrassed by the low station Tomas put me in and maybe I should be. I could at least pretend to be for his edification if it were demanded of me later but choosing not to care thumbed my nose, so I chose not to care.

Though I didn’t know what he’d told the prince, and perhaps that was the rub of it. The Seduction of the Lowly Cups Girl.

Maybe it didn’t matter who bought it and who didn’t. My presence in this country wasn’t unknown, though I hadn’t been formally introduced.

It made me wonder, then, if I was passed off as the wine-bearer, what the prince would do when faced with the deception of it?

My reverie was interrupted by the prince setting his cup to the side, my cue to refill it. I slipped in to his right, carefully tipping the wine as to not spill a single drop.

“Lords and ladies may spill gleefully as much wine as they want,” Clarence had instructed, “and you will apologize for it. If you spill wine, however, you’ll be replaced, taken out back, and beaten for being wasteful.”

I had managed not to laugh at the thought of him attempting, but I took the lesson and let not a single drop mar the table. I curtsied, and made to back away.

Before I could take more than a step, Marcus seized my wrist and pulled me towards him, looking me up and down.

Something gave the game away, and I’m sure Tomas would let me know what it was later. Whether it was how I raised the pitcher instinctively, ready to strike, or the quick anger I could feel flash across my face, or my complete inability to react like a serving woman who couldn’t defend herself, it didn’t matter.

What did matter was Marcus’s deep chuckle as I tried to adjust my gaze from a soldier’s straight-ahead to a servant’s down-cast submission. His fingers dug into the soft of my wrist and I knew he could feel my jack-rabbit heart same as I could.

With a deep breath I willed myself to yield, relaxing into his grasp.

“You did a piss poor job hiding her, Tom.”

Tomas just shrugged and cut another bit of duck. “No hiding. Just trying to kick her down a peg. They raise them to be monsters but they know it.” He shoved the bite of duck into his mouth and chewed for a second before adding, “Her ego is her downfall, so I try to humiliate her as often as possible.”

News to me, though who knew if he believed what he said or not. This was not my place to say.

“You hardly seem the humiliated sort,” Marcus mumbled, more to himself than Tomas or myself. “Put the pitcher down, girl. Let me see you.”

Obligingly, I set the pitcher on the table, delighting in how it made Clarence flinch in the corner. Marcus kept my wrist in his grasp and pulled me sideways so as to better examine me up close. I opted to be the soldier he clearly knew I was, and stared off into neutral territory.

“I can feel your heart race,” he said quietly. “Tell me, do I scare you? Look at me. Answer.”

I had to swallow hard again as I met his cloudy gaze, penetrating and seemingly uncaring.

“No, your grace,” I said evenly, holding his eye. “Should I be scared?”

“Ava,” Tomas growled, knife and fork hesitating above his place.

I ignored him in favor of the crown prince before me, chuckling again.

“That remains to be seen,” he said. “Tell me then, what makes your heart beat so very fast?”

“Mind yourself,” Tomas warned in his native tongue.

“Anticipation, your grace. Of things impolite to speak of before a gentleman such as yourself.”

Tomas just sighed and shook his head while Marcus searched my face as though looking for the meaning of the words. Finally he threw my hand aside as though it were a bit of trash and dismissed me with a wave as he turned back to his plate.

“I like her,” he declared to Tomas.

“She concerns me,” Tomas said as I refilled his cup before retreating to my spot once more. “Too smart by half and exhilarated by all the things that should scare her. I think they matched me up with a broken one.”

The struggle to not smirk was immense. He’d been give exactly what he asked for, and we both knew it.

The dinner continued, as did the talk of land and taxes, borders and allies, coffers and court drama. I had yet to assemble a mental list of all the players–I’d only been in his service for three months and was still learning—but I held enough to fit most of the pieces into place, and made a point of the things I needed clarification on.

True to his word Tomas deftly touched on everything we’d strategized and though Marcus watched his words, he said enough. The whole song and dance was done with such ease and natural grace that to anyone else, Marcus included, it seemed the natural progress of conversation.

Marcus’s increasing interest in me as dinner and wine progressed helped, I’m sure, but he made no other moves and spoke not to me at all until desert was placed on the table and cigars both proffered and sent away. Throughout dinner the sun had faded from behind the heavy curtains over the windows and candles brought in for the table and the edges of the room.

“The rest of you, leave,” Tomas said once the plates of mixed berry pie topped with heavy cream and sugar were placed before them.

The prince should have felt my heartbeat now as the adrenaline hit, though the feeling was more of finally instead of oh no, here it comes. Maybe Tomas was right. Maybe the wrong things did excite me.

I focused on my breathing as every other attending servant around the room quietly exited, likely breathing a sigh of relief. Clarence was the last, staring long and hard at me, trying to decide if the order excluded me or if I was being “uppity and self-important” again.

A dismissive wave of Tomas’s hand settled the matter for him, and he reluctantly left, shutting the door behind him and leaving me alone with the two men.

Without a look at me Tomas snapped his fingers at his right side, and I obediently strode over. He took the wine from me as I knelt beside him, settling down onto my heels, palms up on my knees. With my eyes down I was left with only my ears, and listened as the wine splashed into both cups and the clink of silver forks on clay plates.

“You didn’t have to bribe me with a hunt, food and your girl there,” Marcus said. He sounded slightly annoyed. Tomas must have heard the note too, for he laughed softly.

“You misunderstand, your grace. Not a bribe at all.”

“I would have said yes regardless.” A cup hit the table hard enough to make something jump and jingle in another dish.

Beside me, Tomas settled back into his chair. “You could have said no to the land deal from the start and I still would have extended the invitation. You wound me, to accuse me of such. How long have we been friends now?”

He plucked a berry from the pie and held it down to me, same as you’d offer a bit of scrap to a kitten or hound. I sucked it from his fingers, relishing the explosive sweetness on my tongue. That same hand brushed my braid aside and clasped my neck, squeezing and massaging nearly to the point of pain, something he did when he was deep in thought, or approaching discomfort, yet I relished the touch.

If I was being honest, I was coming to relish all his touch.

“You mean to tell me she isn’t a bribe? How could she not be? You finagle your way into a guard from the Academy, proclaim to me her exploits and delights, and all but offer her on a tray yet have the gall to say she is not a bribe! Tell me then what to make of this.”

Tomas gave my braid a quick tug. “Tell me, dear, might you fit on a tray?”

“Should it please you, Lord, but give me but a tray and I will,” I said, eyes still down.

“No,” Tomas, answered. “I do it not for you. Perhaps honestly will ease your mind. I do it of selfish reasons, both mine and hers, knowing already where your proclivities lie and that they are aligned with ours. I was, after all, the one with you that night in Vosiph.”

“Vosiph,” Marcus repeated reverently. “Now there was a city to match us.”

“Nearly undo us, to be honest. I don’t dare go back, I fear my stamina wouldn’t be of a match anymore. But if you’re not interested, your grace, I can see you escorted to your quarters?”

There was a long silence, then the scrape of metal on stone.

“Our proclivities, you say,” Marcus said with an audibly full mouth. “Yours…and hers?”

“Quite,” Tomas said, and squeezed my neck until I drew in a sharp breath, then withdrew his hand entirely. As always it left me cold and abandoned, yearning for more. Which made me feel pathetic, which only made him happier.

“I may be game,” Marcus said, though the way he shifted in his seat dispelled any notion in my mind of him needing further convincing.

Tomas popped another berry into my mouth and tapped me twice under the chin.

“Undress,” he said as I stood and I obeyed. Tomas pointedly ate at his pie while Marcus settled for pouring more wine and leaning back to watch me.

No matter. Though he intended for it to be unsettling, my body was of no shame to me, as should nobody’s. That was a thing that always confused me outside of the Academy, the societal fears of flesh and pleasure.

So I undressed, enjoying the slide of the rough tunic over my skin, and the way my flesh prickled in the cool air. After carefully folding and hanging that, the skirts came next and likewise went, folded, over the back of a chair. I then stood as I’d been taught, feet shoulder width apart, hands clasping forearms behind my back.

The wine spent a long moment forgotten in Marcus’s hand across the table as he stared, caught himself, cleared his throat and drank deeply. I merely kept my breathing even, eyes locked at the wall across from me as Tomas scrapped at his plate. He picked out a raspberry with his fork and set it on the edge of the plate.

“Head here,” he said, and tapped on the table in front of the plate. “On your back.”

Delicately as I could I obeyed, careful not to upset any cup or candlestick as I gently crawled on the table, back of my head level with the men’s plates. Automatically I crossed my wrists above my head, and spread my legs until each heel touched the very edge of the wooden top.

“Open,” Tomas said. He picked up the raspberry and set it gently between my teeth. “Hold that,” he commanded. “No matter what.”

It was so soft and delicate that it took focus not to crush it nor let it slip into my mouth. Tomas left the table while on my other side, Marcus scrapped up the last bite of his pie and settle back once more with his wine.

My breath quickened as Tomas wove coarse rope around both of my wrists. No silk cords or soft touches tonight. That rope would burn and itch and hurt until it was removed.

I loved it already.

Satisfied my hands were captured, he tied loops around first one ankle then the other, tossing the long ends back towards the head of the table. I knew where this was heading and tried to focus on the raspberry even as it made me drool and the barest beginning of a tension ache formed in my jaw.

Tomas looped the long ends of the rope through my wrists, crossed them to opposite ankles, and pulled tight. My heels fell from the table and he continued to take up slack until my back arched and I whimpered around the raspberry. Already the rope felt as though it were cutting my skin and my limbs burned from the unnatural position.

I had to give Tomas credit, it was brilliantly done. If I tried to relieve the pressure on my shoulders, it increased the strain in both hips. If I tried to stretch a leg forward, it yanked both arms and the opposite leg farther back.

All of which he watched me discover, a familiar hunger in his eyes as my suffering increased.

Which is why I didn’t see the first pour of wax coming, as focused as I was on Tomas. While I was distracted Marcus had merely tipped the nearest candle, drizzling a thick line of hot white wax from the nape of my neck to below my breasts. Once the puddle ran out he held it, dripping, over my belly button until the depression was overflowing and felt as though it were melting itself.

I hissed around the raspberry in the teeth, clenching my eyes as much as I couldn’t my jaw. Before I could open them again Tomas draped a cloth across both, deftly tying it behind  my neck.

“There we go,” he muttered, and another splash of wax made me mewl deep in my throat, this once crossing from shoulder to shoulder across my chest.

Somebody chuckled. Steps, and a “Ready?” from Tomas. I could head the smile in his voice, and I loved and hated it.

Twin pours of wax came down directly on my nipples, the wax coming so fast and thick that it ran burning down my sides and onto the table. Unwittingly I struggled, limbs singing painfully as they jostled and pulled, rope biting deeper. Before I could recover from the last a new pour hit, zig-zagging across my stomach and trailing south. It petered out and another took its place, stopping at the rise of my pubis.

I braced as best I could for what surely must follow, a thin trail of raspberry juice following my teeth down to my tongue.

Instead, cool breath blew from two directions across my torso and I moaned. The men blew out the heat on my nipples, and the sides of my breasts, and across my chest and I shuddered with involuntary pleasure. They blew until I relaxed into the ropes and took a deep breath.

Then one of the rotten bastards upended a candle, the wax spilling down between my legs, coating the most sensitive parts of my body.

I yelled. I jumped. I tried to rise up off the table but the more I struggled the worse the pain was. My teeth sank a tiny bit more into the fruit and I coughed against the juice.

“Hold still,” Tomas growled and I willed myself, save for the involuntary starts and jerks in my arms and legs, to stop moving.

Another fall of wax running and burning and cooling between my legs and I balled my hands into fists, struggling not to move.

The men continued, collecting candles from around the room, coating every inch of my torso and thighs as I found to remain calm and still, even blinded and burning. There was no end of ammunition for them, the candles they started with refilled with wax by the time they made it through the last. The shell tugged at the small hairs on my hips, the hairs on my stomach and thighs. It ran on the insides of my thighs and in parts seemed to glue me to the table itself.

This game ended only when they tired of it, Tomas pressing his lips to my neck and behind my ear, kissing and licking and whispering how well I’d done. More lips, and teeth, so hard with the teeth, caressed the opposite side of my neck and it was just another sensation sinking through the fuzzy world of pure feeling I floated through.

I hardly noticed when both stopped, but in the absence of their ministrations I heard a kiss, and it was, I noted, nowhere on my body. One of the men grunted, another laughing against the other’s lips. Another kiss, another chuckle, and a “Here.”

Somebody kissed my lower lip, my jaw trembling to hold the berry still in place. I could tell it was Thomas by his scent of sandalwood and forest greens, and he gently licked the raspberry.

“We’re going to get that wax off,” he said quietly, and my heart skipped a terrified beat. “You ready?”

And still, I nodded and took a deep breath.

The first strike of the crop came from my left where, given the kiss, I knew Marcus stood. Tomas’s own fell directly after that and they fell into a quasi-rhythm, striking down hard, and brushing cracked wax off with the end loop of the crop. As a method, it was remarkable inefficient.

As a beating, it served its purpose cruelly and without mercy. Eventually they gave up even pretending to remove the wax, instead settling for letting it fall off however it may. No area was spared, from my knees to my collarbone.

I lost my grasp. The pain became a steady wave and it carried me along in its tide, my mind unmoored and drifting free. Every strike was unique and yet none stood out, each hurt yet became part of a greater whole of pain.

At least not until the first strike landed square between my spread legs and, again, my body tried to leave the table without my mind being ahead of the action. Fingers, long and slender, pressed against my neck, leaving me struggling to both breathe, and keep my hold on that damn berry.

“Be still,” Marcus’s timbre ordered, mouth close enough for his breath to tickle my ear.

I tried. Hounds, but I tried. The pressure on my throat eased up enough for me to get air enough to mewl but he kept his hand there, seeming to like the control.

Joke was on him. I liked it even more.

Four more times did Tomas bring that crop down and every one felts as though it broke me, that I wouldn’t survive another.

And yet I did, albeit shaking and covered in a thin sweat that left me chilled and goose-fleshed. The little pains of their hands picking away the largest measures of wax made me jump and shake hard, teeth aching to chatter.

Somebody pulled the wax free of my sex and it took me a long moment to realize they were at work at something else down there, pulling me farther open and positioning something hard and blunt at my opening. It slid in with ease, gliding on my own lubricant, and the violator’s free hand found the button at the top of me and worked it with his thumb.

A mouth fell savagely upon one of my nipples while their hand raked the hot, abused skin of my other breast. He switched, biting and suckling and flicking my nipple with the tip of his tongue while his fingers scratched, pinched, twisted and slapped. Whoever worked between my legs was steady in his ministrations, driving the object deep inside of me and working relentlessly with his fingers.

It didn’t take long for the ache to build low in my belly and my lips tried to find their way over the raspberry, trying to beg, trying to tell him it was coming, and could I…

The point must have gotten across, for a soft kiss landed on my inner thigh and Tomas said, “Not yet.”

I groaned in frustration and fought the rising flutter, that building crescendo that promised such sweet release, release I had to deny purely because he wished it.

The attention to my breasts grew more intense, as did Tomas’s fingers between my legs until I was panting, every muscle tense, near the point of breaking.

Tomas must have known. “Eat the raspberry,” his voice came, low and husky, “and let go.”

Sweet tartness filled my mouth as I bit down and my mind crumbled. My back arched to the point of pain with the force of the orgasm. Tomas’s finger’s bearing down on that red-hot spot as Marcus bit and twisted my nipples. I wanted to cry out, to scream, to thank the gods, but my mouth was frozen around the berry. I could only whimper and twist in my bonds until my limbs shuddered and shook with every spasm that shot through my core like lightening.

I missed Tomas pulling the thing—a candle, I’d learn later—from inside of me. Only vaguely did I register them removing that coarse, painful rope from my limbs, the soft kisses on the abrasions, and the sweet, painful release as they gave me back my arms and legs. I missed the words they spoke to each other, barely heard the soft chuckle from Marcus.

The world came back a little more when Tomas pulled the blindfold off. His eyes, dark on a normal day, had taken on the black of lust I’d come to love seeing. Still he was gentle as he guided me up enough to raise a cup to my lips.

I drank greedily until he tsked and pulled the cup away, licking the last drops of wine from my lips.

“More when you’re done,” he admonished.

I could only nod in response. Words were beyond me.

I let him guide me carefully up, testing each foot on the ground before trust it to bear my weight. He led me to the end of the table, and I stood quietly as he moved candles, plates, cups and dishes away.

“Hands behind your back,” he said, and bent me down, hips pressed against the end of the boards, chest into the cold wood. After kicking my ankles farther apart, he slipped a hand between my legs and idly toyed with my sex while sipping wine.

A door opened somewhere but I knew better than to look. To be honest, I wasn’t even that curious.

The cold clay of Tomas’s wine cup sent a shiver through my spine as he set it on my lower back, pulled his hand away, and left me there, a glorified extension of the table.

Whoever’d entered brought a whiff of the chill night air with them, the faintest scent of wet leaves and damp earth.

“Take your pick,” I heard Marcus say. “I cut three.”

When I heard the whoosh of cut air, I swallowed hard and pressed my forehead into the table, breathing deep.

Marcus had gone out to cut switches.

This was going to hurt.

And still, I felt the rush of blood between my legs and the threatening dampness.

A few more swishes, and Tomas laughed. “Oh hell, I missed this.”

“At least you have her now,” Marcus said. There was the faintest bitter note to his voice. “Though in the morning I’ll have it out how you got her when my family has been denied access for years.”

“In the morning, then,” Tomas said. Then his warmth was next to me again as he refilled the wine glass on my back, drank, and settled it back in to place.

Sadistic monster.

I feared I was falling in love with him.

“Royalty first,” he said, and Marcus struck hard and true, right across the top of my ass.

It felt like being beaten with blade ends. At first I managed to hold in my cries but as they took turns striking me, one on each side, working their way from my ass to my ankles and back up again, I had to cry out. It was that, or dance with the pain of it, but I knew better than to move. Even breathing made that cup of wine shift precariously; I didn’t dare shift my feet. My whole body felt shaky and that cold sweat of pain was back.

There was no mentally drifting away from this. I had to feel every strike, and bear it. That was my option.

My breathing was shuddery by the time they’d worked their way back up my lower body, all of me threatening to collapse in on itself. I was hardly ill-accustomed to withstanding pain but they’d found a limit and were pushing up to the very edge of it.

Tomas must have noticed, for his strong grip massaged the back of my neck and he gently shushed me.

And still instead of ending my torments, he said, “Two more. Bear down.” Then to Marcus, “Grab that thick one, let’s give her and X to remember us by. Care to do the honors?”

He kept his hand on my neck and pressed down, pinning me in place, though lifted the wine from my back in the smallest of mercies in the pretense of drinking it.

I squeezed my eyes shut as a thick, less-whippy branch fell across my rear, Marcus lining up his shot. The first blow struck top to bottom, left to right, and I pressed my lips together against the scream it ripped from me. The pressure on my neck increased.

“Stand up,” Tomas growled. I hadn’t even noticed my knees had buckled until then but I scrambled to get them back under me as Marcus moved to the other side.

One more. I could do one more. They had to have exhausted themselves after this.

The second blow was harder than the first and more of the scream escaped, though I managed to keep my feet.

“Gods,” Marcus said, and his hands were on me, my heated skin, the bruises and welts they’d left behind. I moaned, unsure myself whether from pleasure, pain, or that intoxicating mix of both.

“Go ahead,” Tomas said, his voice as husky and wanton as the prince’s.

There was no more preamble from Marcus. As fast as he could free himself he was pushing inside of me, meeting little resistance and groaning as I pushed back against him. The wool and buttons of his clothing abraded my abused flesh and mixed with the deliciousness of finally being full, of having someone deep inside of me, hands on my hips, pounding into me.

Then Tomas had my braid wrapped around his fist and was dragging me sideways, forcing me to shuffle sideways even as Marcus drove my hips in the harsh table edge. He pulled until my chin was off the table.

I knew what he wanted, and opened my mouth in anticipation.

Tomas was as merciless thrusting into my mouth as Marcus was behind me, and together they struck a rhythm that bounced me between the two of them. I could do nothing but endure, and I loved it.

Marcus found my sex with a hand and worked me until I was moaning around Tomas’s cock. “You may,” he grunted and I came instantly, my cries of pleasure stifled as he shoved against my throat.

I felt both of them lean in towards each other, leaving me nothing but a pig on a spit between them, and I heard the tender wet sounds of locked lips.

“I missed you,” I heard my master whisper to the prince, and his cock jumped in my mouth with the passion of it. “I missed…this.”

“I know,” was all the prince gave him in return, and then he grabbed my hips and began to pound, past the point of return, driving deep and hard into me as he chased his own release. His fingers cut half-moons into my flesh as came, deep inside me, with a loud cry.

Tomas pumped into me likewise until he gave a soft, shuddering grunt, cock on the tip of my tongue, as I swallowed everything he pumped into my mouth then licked him clean.

Marcus chuckled and slowly relaxed his fingers from where they’d dug into my hips. I stayed still as both men stepped away and listened to the cloth shuffling as they cleaned themselves off and made themselves presentable again.

Marcus slapped my ass, catching me off-guard and drawing a yip of pain from me.

“Gods above and below,” he exhaled, and gave a laugh.

“I know, right?” Tomas answered.

“If she wasn’t bonded to you I’d steal her from you and keep her all to myself.”

Tomas gave a small laugh, but it was stiff and unamused, followed by a beat of silence a hair too long to be comfortable.

Marcus filled it by finishing off his cup of wine. “I’ll retire, I must be off early tomorrow. However, I want to draw out of you in the morning how you got bonded to her at the Academy. We’ve been denied for generations, it’s almost suspect you got through.”

Tomas’s hand found the back of my neck and I could feel the tension in his fingers and he squeezed.

“In the morning, then,” he said. “Clarence listens at the doors so if you need anything, just speak it loud enough and he’ll fall over himself to get it for you. Goodnight, your grace.”

Once Marcus was gone, Tomas first helped me up off the table, then swept me up into his arms and headed for the stairs. I wanted to protest but my body was a confusion of pain and pleasure, aching and delight. Instead I buried my face into his neck and let my master carry me, naked and spent, up to his bedroom.

A great bearskin rug lay before the roaring fire his staff had built up, and he settled me gently into the thick fur. I let my eyes drift closed as he pulled the cord to summon Clarence, and had a hushed conversation with him at the door.

I missed a moment, drifting swiftly into the darkness and being summoned back out again as he settled a blanket of lamb’s wool over the top of me, then pulled my head into his lap.

“Still with me?” he asked softly, and I nodded against his legs. “You okay?” Another nod. “Are you going to kill me if I tell you we have a long ride tomorrow and you’ll be in the saddle all day?”

At that, I buried my teeth lightly into his calf, but laughed softly.

“You’re truly a monster,” I managed as I let go. We both stared into the dancing flames a long moment, content and contemplative.

“Did you want to discuss—“ I ventured, but he cut me off.

“Soon. Not yet. Ah, there…” I heard the door open and footsteps approach. A clay cup was set just off the rug, and I could smell the savory scent of meat and potatoes.

“Thank you Clarence,” Tomas said. The steps shuffled behind me.

“Sir, I must—“

“Nothing, Clarence. Go to bed.”

“My Lord, I—“

“Now,” Tomas growled. There was a dramatic harrumph, and Clarence stormed out of the room. We both managed to contain our laughter until the door slammed.

“He really, really hates me,” I mused.

“Don’t dwell too much upon it. Clarence has only ever been satisfied when everyone around him was as miserable as he. Here now, sit up, hold the plate.”

Tomas helped me sit up, my back to his chest, my body nestled between his legs. I held the plate while he cut and tenderly fed me, laying kisses on my neck between bites. I helped myself to the wine and between the sex and the food, I could have died happy right there in his arms.

We stayed silent until the plate was empty, then he sat it aside and set his chin on my shoulder. I held the cup of wine, and we both gazed a long moment into the fire.

“So what do you think?” He finally invited.

“I think the Prince is exactly who you said he is. I think he’s losing control but can’t come to terms with it, and he won’t see what’s coming until it’s too late to react. Your discussion tonight gave me some ideas how to drive wedges in here and there and widen the divides his policies have already made. The only thing that would make him suspect you would be me, to be honest.

“And he’s not wrong. His great grandfather was bonded to a guard, but the Academy has refused his family since then. It’s incredibly suspect that I’m here.”

“So what do we do about that?” He took the cup, drank, and placed it back in my hand.

“I have a well-read letter in my possession that was sent with me. It speaks of how you befriended one of my teachers on a trading trip, and sprung him from a potentially fatal misunderstanding. In return, they decided to offer you the service of one of their trained guards, and paired me with you.”

“They left no stone unturned, did they?” he mumbled, and kissed my shoulder.

“They are very invested in seeing that family out of power. And they must have great faith in you.”

“Or in you,” he said against my skin, and I felt his arousal grow and harden against my backside.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said, finishing off the wine and turning to let him taste it on my lips. “What matters is that by this time next year, you’ll be in front of a palace fireplace, with a crown on your head.”

Tomas pushed me onto my back on the bearskin and deftly captured both my wrists in his firm hands. He pinned them to the hard floor above my head, and lay his body over mind, rocking his hips against my bare skin. With his free hand he fished himself out of his pants, and poised at the opening of sex.

“And who will I be?” he asked, voice gruff and gravelly.

“You, your grace, will be king,” I whispered, and lost myself as he burrowed deep into my being.