The Red King (10 page)

He felt Rory moan, the vibrations tickling
his lips, and the molten iron in his guts lessened further,
becoming more of a pressure. A pressure which, now that he was weak
and dizzy from shock and pain, began to build into something more.
Rory’s mouth moved to his throat, teeth scraping Andrew’s skin and
tongue following to soothe. Andrew let his head roll to the side,
offering more, finding pleasure in Rory’s attention. Andrew’s hands
uncurled from fists and rested on the flats of Rory’s ribs, barely
touching, trembling.

Rory groaned again, slid one arm beneath
Andrew and lifted him. His knees nudged forward, his thighs
catching Andrew’s weight, and the next thrust felt…different.
Andrew opened his eyes and found his vision crowded with the
tangled strands of bright red hair that fell across his face. On
the next, there was a flare of heat, low in his middle. He turned
into Rory’s neck, gasping, as that flare grew brighter with each
slide of Rory’s cock.

The brightening flare and the building
pressure combined. He felt his mouth open, gulping in air only to
have it forced out by Rory’s increasingly powerful thrusts. His
back arched and he groaned a broken, startled sound that snagged
Rory’s attention. The man propped up with one arm, the other still
holding Andrew around his waist, and stared as he drew back to push
in again. That same stuttering moan, from deep in Andrew’s chest,
filled the room.

“Hell and damnation,” Rory muttered, his gaze
raking Andrew’s body from his face down to where their bodies met.
The man seemed dazed, his eyes wide and his skin flushed and
shining with sweat.

Andrew looked, too, wondering what it was he
saw. His pale chest was red, heaving above his fluttering stomach.
The dark hair above his cock, which was twitching and filling as he
watched, still sparkled with drops of seed. When Rory lifted his
hand from the floor to place over Andrew’s tight, pink nipple, the
scrape of callouses drew gasps from them both.

“Rory?” Andrew breathed, panting.

Rory’s fingers closed on his, pulling until
they could wrap around his cock, together. “Keep your hand here,”
he growled, and bent back over Andrew’s body, balanced on one elbow
beside Andrew’s head.

His other hand gripped Rory’s shoulder,
digging in as the thrusting resumed at a more frantic pace. He felt
teeth at his neck, sweat drip onto his face, and the tickle of hair
on his face and more scratching at this bottom but these things
only fed into the unbearable heat blooming in his groin. The
fingers of both hands tightened and his hips lifted of their own
accord. He did it again, his skin sliding in his grasp, and Rory
arced above him to thrust harder. The sounds in his ear, Rory’s
snarling, his breathy moans, increased in accordance.

Andrew’s body began to tense, undulating up
to meet Rory’s momentum. He heard his own startled yelps, felt the
hot, hard flesh in his hand throb and thicken, and then the fire in
his belly burned through to his back. He bent, arched like a bow
and just as tightly strung, wailing as he was scorched from the
inside. The lights behind his eyelids resembled the flames that
shot through him and his only thought was of ash and cinder and
Rory
…

Andrew’s next recollection was of lying flat
on the wooden deck, shivering, covered with the weight and heat of
another. He opened his eyes and was surprised to see Rory’s face
hovering close to his own. His hand felt sticky where it still held
his cock, trapped between their stomachs. He could feel Rory’s
heart hammering where their chests pressed together, as if trying
to break free to join his own.

Rory lowered his head, pressing gentle kisses
to Andrew’s lips. He licked them, licked up into Rory’s mouth, too,
and asked, winded, “Was that…”

The man waited, close enough to taste his
breath.

“All right?”

Rory laughed, and Andrew thought it was the
most wonderful sound he’d ever heard.

The iron shackle bit into his skin, chafed
it raw.

He worried with it, pulled at it, shook his
leg in frustration.

“
Shhh…” he heard in the darkness. Fingers
slipped into his hair, stroking his scalp and the back of his
neck.

“
It hurts, Father,” he whimpered. His
voice was deep now, not the childish inflection he’d had when the
shackle found him.

There was a shift and the hand in his hair
wrapped around his ankle. The iron fell away and in its place was a
soft ribbon.

“
I’m still bound,” he protested.

“
Does it hurt now?”

“
No.”

“
Good. I would not have you slip
away.”

As the words faded into the drum of his
heartbeat, a light began to shine above him. It grew so bright, so
quickly, that his eyes burned and watered and he still could not
see.

“
Father?” he called, reaching out.

His hand was taken and he was lifted to his
feet. Eyes closed against the glow and afraid, the arms that
wrapped around him were welcome. It was the lips he felt on his ear
that startled him.

“
I’m not your father.”

“You need a bath.”

It was a murmur against his ear. Andrew
cracked one eye open and was met with a soft smile. “So do you,” he
said, voice still thick with slumber. “How long have I slept?”

Rory’s arm tightened, pulling him closer. He
threw a leg across Andrew’s thighs and draped elegantly on his
chest. “Not long, but we’ll need to get back, soon. We have to deal
with …unpleasant things before we make berth.”

They remained silent for a few moments.
Andrew petted Rory’s wildly tangled hair, comforting while
indulging in the feel of the man pressed so tightly to him. He
would have been perfectly content to stay there, naked on the cabin
floor, for the rest of his life. “How do you bathe on a ship?”

“Most of us go for a swim,” Rory answered,
chuckling. “Otherwise, it’s a bucket.”

“I don’t know how to swim,” Andrew
confessed.

Rory raised his head. He was smiling. “A
bucket for now, then, but you’ll need to learn. I will teach
you.”

“What else do you plan on teaching me?”
Andrew replied, tartly. He opened his mouth to receive Rory’s kiss,
sighing when their tongues touched.

“I have a compendium of lessons for you,”
Rory told him, crawling up to cover him once more. Then he rose
gracefully to his feet and stretched his arms above his head. “But
for now, we go to the head for a dousing. I would be rid the grime
and do not wish to inter my friend’s body to the deep still
smelling of death and fucking.”

Andrew blinked, snatched abruptly from his
contentment by mention of the dead man. “Fleming!” he cried,
sitting up. Trying to, at least, before the pain in his back
stopped him. He gritted his teeth and muttered, “Oh, ouch…”

Rory held out both hands. “Easy, you skipped
some steps today.”

Andrew took them, groaning quite differently
as he was pulled up. Rory steadied him, holding him close and
rubbing circles into his back. And lower. “I feel like I fell down
the whole flight.” he said into Rory’s shoulder. He lifted his arms
to wind around the man’s neck. “I didn’t know there were
steps.”

Rory gave him a gentle squeeze before
releasing him. “Oh, there are many. I look forward to showing them
all to you.”

Andrew had not thought much about the ‘after’
when he gave himself to Rory. He’d only wanted to distract, to
offer what he could of pleasure and fleeting contentment. Now, as
he hitched the belt as tight as it would go, his mind was racing,
full of contradicting thoughts. A lifetime of the teachings of the
wages sin was hard to overcome and he felt the need for the ice
cold water of the ocean to clear his head. He followed Rory out
into the light, which was turning golden as the sun began its
decent in the west.

In truth, Andrew found he did not regret it.
The horror of the hours before, of Acklie and Fleming and their
subsequent deaths, made his fornication with Rory seem far less
abominable. He was certain, in his own heart, that he would be
better off asking forgiveness for his murder of the brigand Acklie
than feeling shame for his seduction of the captain. He smiled at
the word as he thought it, at the audacity of it, but there it was.
Rory had offered him escape and yet he had pressed. He was surely
the instigator of his own…deflowering.

“You smile as if you have a secret,
Coinin.”

Malik’s voice startled him. “No secret, just
thoughts, Malik. Too many thoughts and they sometimes present
themselves in unusual patterns,” he answered, his grin a bit
sheepish, despite his easy declaration. He looked up at his friend-
yes, a good friend, he decided. “Which part is the head? I’m to
bathe, apparently.”

One large hand landed on his shoulder. “The
bowsprit; the captain is waiting for you. Listen, first, don’t be
alarmed if you are…” he looked concerned, “called out. There is
little room for secrets on board a ship, especially one this
size.”

“What do you mean?” Andrew asked, wondering
what else could have happened. He steeled himself for the
worst.

“You…” The big man was clearly discomfited.
“You howled, Coinin.”

“I what?”

“It was not a howl, not in the truest sense,
yet it was piercing. It fairly rang throughout the ship.”

Andrew was speechless, red-faced and unable
to think beyond his own mortification.

Malik shook his shoulder. “They will more
than likely jest until you wish to jump over the side. They do not
mean harm by it. Think of them as brothers finding a tender spot to
torment.”

Andrew was rooted to the deck. He hesitated,
dreading the walk to the bow. Ably facing his actions internally
was a strength he’d been granted from birth, but seeing the knowing
looks on the other men’s faces was a test he dreaded. He heard a
call from above deck, one voice after another crying his name.
“Andrew on deck! The captain calls for Andrew!”

Closing his eyes, Andrew did not resist the
urge to cross himself. He made his way quickly, but there were
still howls all around. They followed him; it seemed every able man
at work was privy to the joke. When he reached the head, he saw
Rory already wet, the blackened blood and grime rinsed away and his
hair streaming down his back. He also saw that Rory was trying to
stifle a smile.

Andrew looked at him with an ill-tempered
frown and turned his back on the man. “May I have the bucket,
please? I would like to rinse this taste from my mouth.” He yelled
when the full contents of said bucket were dumped over his head.
While he sputtered and shook his head clear, Rory moved up behind
him.

“Try to forgive them, Andrew. They don’t
realize how tender your feelings are. They only want to accept you
as one of their own and this is their attempt at…initiation.”

“Initiation? They accept…it, what we did, so
readily?”

“Did you think they wouldn’t, that I would
allow otherwise, as captain?” Rory took another bucket from Jack,
who was dropping them to the waterline and hauling them back up. He
poured it over Andrew more slowly this time, giving him opportunity
to rub at the gore and dirt on his neck and chest.

Andrew longed to strip his clothes off and
clear away the…other, but could not find the courage to do so
before so many eyes. “Is it wise to allow such familiarity?” he
asked, nodding that he would take one more dousing,

“It is unwise not to. It’s a test each faces
before they are welcomed as part of the crew. I cannot accept a
shipmate who will not support my command based on where I spill my
seed. We leave them ashore if they’re unable to accept that not all
of us follow God’s laws.” Rory obliged him and, when finished,
handed off the bucket and put gentle hands on Andrew’s face. “They
are loyal to me, and were also to Fleming. They welcome your
presence, especially in his absence.”

As if bidden, Malik’s booming voice carried
across the deck. “
Ruaidhri
, he is ready.”

Rory lost all cheer. “Bring him out.” He
nodded to Jack, who pulled the plank out from its place along the
gunnel. Malik returned, carrying the clean and properly dressed
body of Fleming in his arms. When he was placed on the plank, Rory
carefully inspected his appearance. He straightened the buttons on
the velvet doublet, made certain that his braid was tight and
smooth. Brushing a stray lock from the man’s face, Rory nodded. His
eyes were bright with standing tears. “Very good,” he said, his
voice gruff with the effort of holding them at bay.

Unneeded movement on the deck ceased, all
hands were silent, mournful. No words were said, but each man
stepped up to show respect. They touched their brow, as was the
tradition. Others bowed deeply with hands clasped before them. One
or two lay their heads on his shoulder, weeping openly. When it was
his turn, Andrew moved closer to look down at Fleming’s face. He
covered the man’s heart with one hand. “I will keep him whole,
Charles Fleming. You have my word. Blessings await you in Heaven.
Godspeed,” he said, eyes hot and aching but dry. He stepped back,
away from the tableau of Malik at the plank, Fleming atop it, and
Rory to the side.

Rory bent to him last, pressing a long kiss
to his forehead. “You bastard, you bloody rutting bastard. How am I
to do this without you?” he whispered. He pressed his face to
Fleming’s cheek for a moment more then stepped back. “We commend
you to the deep, Charles Fleming. Keep watch from the sea, for we
may join thee, more soon than late.”

At his nod, Malik tipped the plank up and let
the body slide swiftly into the dark blue water.

After another long moment of stillness, Rory
spoke over the wind and waves. “We give him a proper sending in
Algiers. The faster we get there, the sooner we toast to his
memory. Get cracking!”