Chapter 62

Kosha shrieked, his body jolting with a sharp tremor.

“Ah, ngh! Your Highness, why all of a sudden? Are you… are you back to your senses?”

“Mm. I’m back to my senses.”

Lucien tightened his fingers and pinched the nipple.

Kosha’s sensitive body arched completely backward. His abdomen contracted instinctively, clenching around Lucien’s cock.

Lucien was already rigid again and had been for some time. In fact, he had nearly reached the limits of his patience. One bout of manual stimulation and a single full round of intercourse had left him distinctly unsatisfied.

Although the potion’s influence had receded, he could not honestly claim to have regained his senses completely.

What man could remain entirely sane in the middle of something like this?

Supporting Kosha’s waist as the Mage continued to arch, Lucien lowered his mouth to the nipple and dragged his tongue slowly across it. He then eased Kosha onto his back. His cock slipped free of the loosened opening with a soft thwack. Lucien removed his cumbersome trousers as well. Only once he was entirely naked did he feel truly satisfied. The sensation of the Mage’s sleek legs tangling with his own bare limbs was intoxicating.

“I’ll do better this time,” he promised as he settled beside Kosha.

Lucien had tried to sound gentle, but exhaustion had left his voice rough and hoarse.

Kosha blinked at him, apparently unable to comprehend what he meant.

“What…?”

“What do you think I mean?”

Lucien laughed and turned Kosha onto his side so that they lay face-to-face. Catching one of Kosha’s legs, he guided it over his hip. The movement naturally parted the Mage’s thighs, allowing Lucien’s cock to slide against the tender flesh between them.

“I won’t hurt you this time, all right?” Lucien drew him closer. “I’ll be gentle, just as we promised at the beginning.”

“A-ah, no…”

Lucien felt an obligation to make amends. At least, that was how he understood his own intentions.

The possibility that intercourse had caused the potion’s effects to recede had never occurred to him. He simply adored the Mage’s body at that moment and suspected he would continue to adore it. More than anything, he wanted to prolong whatever relationship was beginning to form between them.

For that to happen, the Mage needed to surrender himself more completely to the act. Lucien wanted Kosha to crave his body as fiercely as he craved Kosha’s.

“But I’ve… I’ve already had too much…”

Kosha’s voice trembled with confusion. His backside ached, and even the tip of his cock felt raw. How could Lucien expect him to remain aroused any longer?

Lucien merely chuckled, as though Kosha had made an amusing joke.

“We’ve only done it twice.”

Kosha had no idea what number would be considered proper or average, so he could offer no response.

“Hmm?” Lucien brushed their noses together. “I’ll make you feel good.”

The thick head of his cock pressed into the thoroughly loosened opening without waiting for permission.

Lucien pulled Kosha’s thigh more tightly around his body, driving himself deeper.

“Augh…!”

“Doesn’t this keep me from going too deep?”

Kosha could only assume that was what Lucien had intended to accomplish. He burrowed against Lucien’s chest and shivered violently.

It was true that the position prevented Lucien from reaching quite as far. Nevertheless, the strange curve of his cock continued to prod a shallow point along Kosha’s inner wall, a place that felt as though it should never have been touched.

The urge to urinate returned. Kosha’s leg thrashed where it lay draped over Lucien’s body, his sweat-slick thigh rubbing against the man’s waist and pelvis.

To Lucien, the movement resembled nothing so much as an invitation.

“Ah, is it here?” He pressed against the spot again. “You like that?”

Kosha buried his face against Lucien’s chest.

“See? I told you I’d do better.”

Lucien whispered the words while holding and soothing him, apparently expecting no answer.

As promised, Lucien continued slowly and gently. He enjoyed the Mage’s body at his leisure, like a man lingering beside a fire after its fiercest flames had subsided.

Kosha could do little more than lie there panting while fluid continued to leak from his body.

Their slow intimacy stretched on in near silence. Kosha had no way of knowing whether he was doing anything correctly, but he could judge Lucien’s pleasure from the low groans and uneven breaths spilling beside his ear.

The Mage’s weak, pitiable body soon reached its limit.

When the world finally went black, Kosha thought the man holding him might have spilled inside him again. Perhaps he had not. Kosha no longer possessed the strength to tell, nor the will to remain conscious long enough to care.

***

When Kosha opened his eyes again, dawn had washed the room in blue.

At first, he thought he was alone. Then he became aware of the warmth pressed against his back and the thick forearm cradling his neck.

Lucien’s limbs enclosed Kosha’s entire body.

They were still naked. Kosha could feel the weight of Lucien’s cock resting between his buttocks, and a faint wave of nausea passed through him when he shifted.

A languid voice drifted from behind him.

“Mm… are you awake?”

Lucien appeared to have roused from a light sleep as well.

Kosha wriggled until he could turn and look at the man lying behind him. He studied Lucien’s relaxed expression, the slow movement of his eyelids, and the blue-gray irises gradually emerging beneath them.

A sudden shiver climbed the length of Kosha’s spine.

When he trembled involuntarily, Lucien’s brow furrowed.

“Are you cold?”

He was not.

He could hardly have been cold with Lucien wrapped around him.

Embarrassment kept Kosha from answering honestly. He continued to hesitate until Lucien finally rose from the bed.

Lucien covered him with the quilt before gathering the trousers scattered across the floor and pulling them on haphazardly.

Kosha remained where he was, dazed, watching Lucien search the room.

Before long, the prince appeared to find what he wanted. He knelt before the small hearth along one wall, arranged the firewood, and struck the flint. His practiced movements suggested the task was hardly unfamiliar to him.

Flames caught, and warmth spread through the narrow room.

Even so, when Lucien returned to the bed, the heat of his body was more welcome than the warmth of the hearth. He slipped beneath the quilt and gathered Kosha against him from behind.

“Sleep a little longer. The city is under curfew anyway…”

As a prince, Lucien possessed the authority to pass through the city gates regardless of the curfew. He chose not to mention that fact.

Kosha had also been thinking that he wanted to preserve this moment a little longer, so the deception hardly troubled him.

The boundary between sleep and wakefulness gradually blurred until sunrise.

Lucien used the dying embers in the hearth to warm a small amount of water. He found a dry towel, soaked it, and began wiping Kosha’s body.

His touch was strangely clumsy.

Discovering such an awkward side to someone who ordinarily seemed capable of anything was both surprising and endearing. Kosha suppressed a private smile. Since he was in no condition to sit properly in a saddle, Lucien wrapped him completely in a gray robe, carried him outside, and mounted the horse with Kosha in his arms.

The distance from the citadel in the rear hills to Ostrabache’s main castle was not great. Even at the leisurely pace Lucien maintained, the journey ended almost before Kosha realized it had begun. They had only just entered the inner walls when a frantic voice shattered the quiet surrounding them.

“Your Highness!”

Something discordant and ominous rippled through the air.

Lucien dismounted first and reached up to lift Kosha down. The instant Kosha’s feet touched the ground of the inner courtyard, the hazy, dreamlike world they had inhabited seemed to vanish.

Hard reality closed around him once more.

A brief wave of dizziness struck Kosha. Lucien caught and steadied him reflexively, but the approaching footsteps were faster.

“Your Highness, where were you all night? Or rather…”

The speaker was Gosrick. His voice was frantic and desperate, while the knights following behind him wore expressions as rigid as masks. Gosrick’s gaze darted between Kosha and Lucien. Then he lowered his voice as much as his urgency permitted.

“Last night, the King authorized Bastian’s expedition.”

Lucien went still. “What?”

“Three thousand infantry and two thousand mounted archers. Your Highness, the King has signed a declaration of war.”

The King had long since withdrawn from every matter of state.

Lucien frowned. He understood each individual word, yet their meaning refused to register. There had been no warning, not even the slightest sign. It was the last news he had expected to receive after returning from a single day of respite.

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

For reasons Kosha could not explain, the air felt increasingly sinister.

He drew a sharp breath.

Gosrick shook his head. “It happened on the very day Your Highness was absent. There was only so much we could do in response. I was told the Tower Master incited the King during a private audience.”

“How could that woman possibly meet with the King in private?”

Everything concerning the Gaecrux delegation’s visit was supposed to have been managed through Lucien in his capacity as Regent.

Lucien walked away but then suddenly halted. His eyes turned back to Kosha, who was standing nearby, clearly uneasy. All the retainers around him shifted their focus to where Lucien was looking.

Kosha shifted beneath their scrutiny and swallowed.

“I will return to my room.”

Kosha had presented the solution with tact, yet Lucien’s frown only grew more pronounced. His gaze wandered across the courtyard, as if he were searching for someone he could trust to accompany Kosha. The castle was perpetually bustling, but only a handful of its residents were trustworthy. At the moment, every dependable person was occupied elsewhere.

Kosha shook his head. He was not so badly weakened that he could not walk.

“I can go alone. I know the way well enough now.”

Besides, he was a Mage.

Kosha attempted an awkward smile, but Lucien’s expression hardened further.

There was no other choice.

After a brief hesitation, Lucien caught Kosha by the shoulder and pulled the hood of the gray robe over his head.

“Go directly to your room. I’ll send someone to you separately.”

“I will.”

“Go straight there.”

Lucien repeated the instruction with deliberate emphasis before turning away. The speed of his retreating footsteps betrayed his desperation.

Kosha watched him for several moments, then lifted his eyes toward the open sky.

The West Wing’s long wall curved in a gentle arc before him. Tall towers rose from it at measured intervals, their outlines stark beneath the clear blue expanse above.

A sinister current was undeniably swirling through the castle now, one that had not been there before.

***