Guarded (15 page)

****

Volos paced the spacious room he now called home. He had put on the ridiculously extravagant clothes he was expected to wear to formal ceremonies: shiny black boots; soft trousers so tight as to leave little to anyone’s imagination, the outer legs marked with a stripe of elaborately embroidered red ribbon; a shirt in a matching shade of silk; and a black velvet vest, pinned with various gold and silver insignias of rank and the buttons capped with rubies. His familiar old sword was strapped around his waist in a new bronze-and-steel scabbard, and he wore a cloak— midnight-black on the outside, red silk on the inside, and trimmed with soft black fur. A heavy gold chain hung around his neck, suspending a gold and ruby pendant at his chest. That was the only bit of finery he treasured, because it had been a gift from Berhanu to signify their union. Volos had given Berhanu a finely made sword with a jeweled hilt— by far the most expensive item Volos had ever purchased— and Berhanu wore it every day.

But right now Berhanu was missing and Volos paced. Berhanu had said he’d return to their quarters to change after his afternoon duties were over and before the queen’s farewell dinner began. The dinner would start very soon, and there was no sign of him.

When a knock sounded on the door, Volos rushed to answer it. A maidservant bowed at him. “Prince Berhanu awaits you in the Grand Hall, my lord.”

Grumbling to himself, Volos followed her down the hall.

Every Wedey citizen with a drop of noble blood had turned out to say goodbye to Queen Draga, and she’d brought a large retinue of Kozari with her. As a result, the hall was packed and the noise level was high enough to give Volos a headache. Still, he found Berhanu right away— the prince was even more breathtaking than usual in his royal finery, and he smiled at Volos from across the vast room.

Getting to Berhanu was like fighting a battle, only instead of swordplay there were handshakes and bursts of greetings in two languages, and enough glittering jewelry and shining silk to make Volos’s head spin. But Berhanu fought to get to him from the other direction and they met halfway. They embraced, but Berhanu quickly made a startled grunt and drew back.

“Is something wrong?” Volos asked.

“No. And I’m sorry for the delay. My… errand took longer than I expected.”

“But your clothes…”

“I had a servant fetch them when I started to realize things were dragging on.” For no reason Volos could discern, Berhanu snickered. “Dragging on. Anyway, the servant told me you weren’t in our chamber.”

“I went for a walk.”

“Good. Now come eat.” Berhanu took his hand and led him through the throngs to the dais at the end of the room. A long table had been arranged on the platform with ornate chairs for King Tafari and Queen Draga, who sat side by side. Still not quite out of the habit of kneeling before royalty, Volos executed an awkward bow. They both smiled and nodded back.

Although Volos had been seated at the royal table for the past several weeks, he still felt as though someone had made a mistake, putting him there among men and women who ruled nations. Not that the others seemed to mind. Berhanu had a private conversation with his father very soon after he and Volos had pledged to one another, and King Tafari had welcomed Volos with open arms. Sometimes, when it was just the king, the princes, and Volos in the room, King Tafari called Volos
my son
. Every time he did so, Volos felt warmed from head to toe, and Berhanu smiled so widely his cheeks must have ached.

So now Volos took his seat beside Berhanu, servants filled their glasses with wine, and the speeches began. Everything took twice as long because it had to be translated, and the more wine the speakers drank, the longer and more flowery their addresses became. Volos might have been more bothered, but Berhanu was leaning against him, holding his hand, and exchanging funny little comments about the speeches in half-choked whispers.

Halfway through Queen Draga’s gushing praise over her new Wedey friends, Volos had a very strange moment. He looked out over the sea of richly dressed people— people from both his mother’s country and his father’s— and then he turned his head to look at the handsome man seated beside him. Berhanu squeezed his hand. And briefly, everything seemed so wonderful, so too-good-to-be-true, that Volos was convinced he’d blink his eyes and wake up on a lonely barracks cot. Or naked and broken in a prison cell. But after he blinked his eyes, he was still on the dais with his belly full of good food and his beloved at his side.

An ancient shard of ice deep in his soul softened at that moment and began to melt.

“Hey,” Berhanu whispered, giving him a nudge. “What’s wrong?”

Volos smiled at him. “Nothing. Nothing at all, actually. I’m just… happy.”

Berhanu’s eyes glittered and he swallowed twice. “Me too,” he finally rasped.

****

After the din of the Grand Hall, Volos welcomed the hush of their room. A servant had set a fire against the evening’s chill and placed some fruit and bread on the table for the unlikely chance that Volos and Berhanu might still be hungry after the dinner.

“Would you like me to call for the bath to be filled?” asked Volos as he untied his cloak.

“No, not tonight. In the morning. Or… better yet, we’ll spar and have a nice run, and then we’ll bathe.”

“Fine. But if you think you’re going to win, you’re mistaken.”

“What if I choose to practice wrestling instead of sword fighting? Then I’ll win no matter what.” Berhanu waggled his eyebrows.

Volos hung his cloak on a hook, shrugged off the vest, and pulled the shirt over his head. “I don’t know that we need to practice
that
sort of thing. We’re already pretty good at it.”

“Ah. But one must always strive for perfection.” Berhanu strode closer and caught him around the waist, pulling him close. He nuzzled under Volos’s ear. “In fact, I think we should practice tonight too.”

Volos would travel through the third hell a thousand times over just for the touch of this man’s hands on his skin. He growled deeply and grabbed Berhanu’s muscular ass with both hands.

But Berhanu abruptly drew away and took a few steps backward. “I have a surprise for you.”

Volos liked Berhanu’s surprises. “Oh?”

“Finish undressing first. Then kneel on the bed.”

Over the past few weeks, they had discovered they both enjoyed it when Volos bossed Berhanu around in the bedroom. But tonight, it seemed, Berhanu was in charge— and Volos liked that even better. He quickly stripped out of his boots, trousers, and stockings. By the time he was on his knees on the mattress, with the necklace warm around his neck and his hands resting on his spread thighs, his cock was already bobbing eagerly.

Berhanu spent a long moment staring at him, licking his lips hungrily. But then he shook himself slightly and bent to remove his boots and stockings. His trousers came off next and then his vest, until finally he wore only his blue silk shirt. He walked slowly to the bed. Then in a movement as graceful as any dancer’s, he drew the shirt over his head and tossed it away.

Volos gasped.

A dragon curled around the large scar on Berhanu’s chest. Although the dragon lay at rest, the fierceness of its gaze left no question that it would protect what it held dear. Its scales were executed with fine detail in red, gold, and black. Around its neck hung a golden chain with a familiar ruby pendant.

Volos reached forward to touch, but then drew his hand away. The skin under and around the tattoo was still a bit red and inflamed. “Wedey don’t tattoo themselves,” he said stupidly.

“No. But Kozari do. And as it happens, one of the members of Queen Draga’s retinue is also one of her country’s most skilled tattoo artists. Do you like it?”

“It’s… it’s beautiful.”

“I wanted… It’s guarding my heart, Volos. It’s not that I need a reminder of what you are to me. It’s only that you’re so
important
to me, so deeply imbedded in my skin, that I wanted to mark that. It’s like when my ancestors won a battle and put up some sort of gaudy monument. I won… I won so much more.”

“We both did.” And Volos couldn’t follow orders any longer. He launched himself forward, nearly knocking Berhanu off his feet, and then allowed his mouth to speak his love without words. Soon Berhanu lay beneath him on the mattress, splayed like an offering, whimpering as Volos licked and nibbled at his remaining nipple. When Volos moved down to Berhanu’s lightly furred belly and then his heavy balls, the whimpers turned to loud moans.

And here was a thing they had both learned lately. Sex didn’t have to be a hard, quick fuck— although that was fun too, sometimes. It could be slow and sweet, and they could torment each other with tender torture until nothing was left of them but raw nerves and straining flesh. It didn’t really matter whether they gave or received, because either way the pleasure was equal, each of them delighting in the other’s bliss as much as his own.

Volos slid the heavy, salty head of Berhanu’s cock between his lips and teased a moistened finger into Berhanu’s body, making his lover writhe and thrust, and pull at Volos’s hair. “Volooos,” Berhanu croaked after a few minutes. “I order you to— Oh gods!— f-fuck me. Now. P-p-please.”

Laughing, Volos released Berhanu’s cock and wriggled up his torso. “Of course, Your Highness. I am yours to command.”

Berhanu squirmed beneath him, bending his knees, folding himself, spreading himself for Volos’s entry. Precome was plenty to smooth Volos’s way in, and they both shuddered as their bodies fully connected.

“Hard,” Berhanu ordered.

Volos obeyed— pistoning his hips and driving deeply inside— because their bodies were strong and they could take it. But he also bent down and licked at Berhanu’s tattoo and mouthed gently at his neck, because both men needed soft as well. Berhanu’s cock was trapped between them, and that must have given him enough friction, because when Volos captured his mouth in a kiss, Berhanu’s cry slipped right down Volos’s throat. Clenching muscles were enough for Volos too— he buried himself to the root and jerked helplessly.

Afterward they lay with legs entangled, Volos’s head on Berhanu’s shoulder while Berhanu slowly stroked his hair. The room was dark and smelled intoxicatingly of sex; sweat still cooled their skin. Volos was safe. Needed. Wanted.

“I love you,” Berhanu murmured sleepily.

“I love you too. But I’ll still beat you when we fight tomorrow.”

“I wouldn’t depend on it, Count Volos. I’ve been practicing my swordplay lately.”

“Ah, but so have I.” Volos reached down and began to stroke his lover’s soft, damp cock.

Berhanu reacted by quickly flipping them over, straddling Volos, and rubbing their groins together. Volos countered with a hard swat to Berhanu’s ass followed by a shimmy
ing twist of his hips.

What followed then was somewhere between wrestling and lovemaking. But as they moved together, perhaps the best part was their laughter. It rang out freely, loudly. Unguarded.

The End

Author Bio

Kim Fielding is an award-winning author of several dozen novels, novellas, and short stories. She is very pleased every time someone calls her eclectic. Having migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States, she currently lives in California, where she long ago ran out of bookshelf space. She’s a university professor who dreams of being able to travel and write full time. She also dreams of having two perfectly behaved children, a husband who isn’t obsessed with football, and a house that cleans itself. Some dreams are more easily obtained than others.

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