Elarhe wrapped fresh bandages around Kite’s head. “There, my ill-tempered patient. You’re ready for bed.”
“I’m not ill-tempered.”
“No, you’re just an ass.”
“I’m hurt,” Kite pouted. “You should be nicer to me.”
Elarhe let that one go. He stood and wrapped Kite’s arm around his shoulders instead. “Slowly, now. Take it slow. Lean against me if you feel woozy.”
“I hate being weak.” Kite sounded irritable.
“You took a hard fall. You have a sizeable lump on your head. Anyone in your condition would be weak.”
Kite only grunted. They shuffled through the door and down the hall. Elarhe pushed the door to Kite’s room open. Kite caught the doorframe. “Thank you for your assistance. I have it from here.”
“Nonsense. I’m tucking you in your bed.”
Kite clung to the doorframe, his face blanched in the gray light coloring the windows at the end of the hall. He leaned on Elarhe wearily, surrendering. Elarhe felt strangely sorry for him. He was such a mysterious, proud man.
And then he saw it. In the center of the room stood something that looked like a great metal coffin.
Chapter 14
“What the hell is that?”
“My bed,” Kite said in a small, weary voice.
With trepidation, Elarhe opened the lid. Inside, the contraption looked even more foreboding. Long nails lined the top. Iron shackles were bolted to the sides. Kite gripped Elarhe’s arm and climbed in. He attached the irons to his wrist and ankles.
“How do you get out of there?”
“Goose frees one of my wrists each morning.” He grimaced as the back of his head touched the pillow.
“You should sleep on your side.” He added, “Don’t look so ashamed. You have a gash back there and a bump larger than a chicken egg. Little wonder you’re tender.”
He turned on his side, facing away from Elarhe. He began working on some kind of metal thing near his head, slipping nails from it. To Elarhe’s horror, he wrapped the strange circlet around his head, taking pains to keep it away from his injury. The front, however, was studded with long nails, turned with their points toward Kite’s forehead.
“This is how you sleep?” He couldn’t keep the revulsion from his voice.
“I do what I can to keep my household safe.” He pulled the covers up to his chin. Then he pulled a rope and shut himself inside.
Elarhe opened the lid, climbed into the contraption, and squeezed in next to him so that they lay like two spoons in a horrible nailed drawer.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Kite roared.
“I’m not going to sleep with you. I’m going to snuggle with you until you fall asleep.”
“Damnit, Squirrel!”
But Elarhe began rubbing Kite’s stomach, massaging the ripples of muscle with his palms and digging into the crevices with his fingers. Kite sighed, defeated by Elarhe’s touch. The sound aroused Elarhe. His hand kneaded around Kite’s navel, then sank lower. His fingers toyed with the brown hairs of Kite’s pleasure trail. He luxuriated in the soft skin beneath his fingertips. On a man as hard and cold as ice, this skin was soft as the petals of a tulip.
Elarhe ground his erection against Kite’s ass. Kite moaned softly. Kite’s hard cock thrummed against Elarhe’s flirty hand. Elarhe teased it with the backs of his fingers, letting his knuckles bounce against Kite’s tender, swollen glans.
Using spit and Kite’s copious precum, Elarhe lubed Kite’s hot hole. His head entered, tentative, exploring. The chains of Kite’s shackles clanked loudly. The sound spurred Elarhe to plunge deeper.
Kite gave a breathy groan and bucked against Elarhe’s hips. Elarhe caressed Kite’s upturned ass cheek. He swiveled inside Kite, feeling how his hole sucked against him, the delicious, hot tightness of it.
The close confines of the horrid thing Kite called a bed and his wariness regarding Kite’s injury kept his movements small. He stayed deep inside Kite, thrusting in slow, gentle strokes. Even if he hadn’t known the angle put pressure on Kite’s prostate, Kite’s huffing moans told the story. He delighted in the thought that Kite was enjoying himself. It added to his own pleasure.
When he felt his own release was imminent, he started pumping Kite’s hard cock. He thrust and swiveled as he pulled up and down Kite’s precum-slick cock. He felt Kite clamp down on his cock, felt a rush through his own body at the same time Kite erupted, spraying cum all over his hand. Elarhe gasped with pleasure, shooting surge after surge of cum into Kite’s scalding depths.
Elarhe remained inside Kite until he grew flaccid. And then he stayed a bit longer. Elarhe liked spooning. He rubbed Kite’s stomach from behind and kissed his shoulder. Kite lay quiet and still.
Elarhe sat up. Morning sunlight shone through the window. It sparkled on Kite’s face, illuminating tears. Elarhe leaned over Kite’s shoulder and kissed his damp cheek. “Kite,” he whispered, awed. “Kite, whatever is wrong?”
In a strangled voice, he replied, “You bring light to everything. You bathe everything with your radiance—a light like a thousand glowing suns.”
Elarhe hugged him.
“Go to your room. This is supposed to be a place of pain and shadow—not a fucking pleasure palace.”
Disgusted, Elarhe sat up. “Up is down and down is up with you. I swear if I gave you gold, you would declare it lead and throw it in my face.”
“Get out. I need to rest.”
Elarhe obeyed, but only because he felt like it. He closed the lid. “Only vampires and dead things sleep in coffins, Kite. Which one are you?”
“GET OUT.”
Elarhe slammed the door shut.
***
Sometime around noon, Elarhe sat at the small table in the kitchen. Mole had gone to the market, so he availed himself of the leftovers and ate alone. To his surprise, Kite eased down next to him. He looked terrible with dark bags under his bloodshot eyes and an all around haggard appearance. The bandage around his head was askew and pushing his hair up on one side.
“I didn’t hear you come in.” Elarhe gathered his plate, napkin, and mug to leave.
“I came in through the back entrance.” He stayed Elarhe’s hand. “Don’t leave.” His tone made it a plea. “Finish your breakfast.”
Elarhe put down his plate with a sigh. He ate his bread and jam and didn’t say anything. He had nothing to say to stupid, pig-headed people.
Kite didn’t say anything either. He rested his elbows on the table and jabbed his thumbs into his eyes. After a time, he said quietly, “Dead.”
“Excuse me?”
“A vampire or a dead thing. A dead thing.”
Elarhe sipped his tea and snorted. He had no desire to talk to pig-headed dead things either.
“I’m attracted to you because I’ve never known anyone so full of life.” He gave Elarhe a bleary smile. “And you scare me almost as much as my magic because of it.”
“Kite—”
“I look at you and feel consumed by your fire. I want you like I’ve wanted no other. But inside I tremble. I don’t know who I am—what I am—without the cloak of my melancholy. I’m like a man, so long imprisoned, that he cringes before the sun.”
Elarhe grasped one of his hands—his big, beautiful hands—and squeezed it. He felt overcome. He couldn’t say anything because his throat felt tight with emotion.
“Please forgive me.” Tears clung to Kite’s eyelashes. “I—I—damn!” He banged his fist against the table. “I need tea, damnit.” He rose, but Elarhe pushed him back into his seat.
“Let me.” He retrieved the tea pot and another clay mug and filled both of their cups. He took Kite’s hand again and stroked it with his thumb. “We’ll work our way through this,” he promised.
Kite hung his head over his tea. “I’m sorry for how strange that must have been for you. The chains….”
Elarhe sat up straight and laughed. “I liked the chains. I’ve never done anything
like that before. Having you bound like that—” He closed his eyes with an excited shudder. Unable to finish his thought, he opened them and found Kite staring at him with a weird intensity.
“I liked it, too. I’ve…never…been on that end of it before.” He inhaled sharply. “There are games I’ve played with—others. I’ve always been the dominant one.”
“I’ve never played those games, but I prefer to be the unchained one.”
A smile sat on Kite’s lips. “I have a room filled with chains and more. Perhaps you would like to reintroduce me to my equipment? Whenever I brutalized—others—I always wondered what it would be like to be the one brutalized.”
Elarhe grinned at him. “What do you do to me? You wander in here looking like a day old chamber pot, and all I want to do is fuck you.”
Kite chuckled and hid his face in his hands. “You know how to sweep a man off his feet.”
“A man,” said Elarhe, stroking his arm gently, “not a dead thing, but a beautiful, sensitive man.”
Chapter 15
When Kite disappeared, Elarhe assumed he had gone, like he did almost every day, to do research. But when he went to the stable to ride Rose, he found the carriage empty and the four black horses in their stalls. Concerned, he went back inside to find Kite.
After a short search, Elarhe found him sitting on the divan near the entrance way. He was dressed, complete with cloak, as if he were going out, but he was slumped over, holding something to the back of his head and a bladder to the front. Elarhe sat down beside him. “Your head is still bothering you?”
“Aren’t you observant?”
Elarhe sighed at Kite’s sarcasm and tried to remind himself that Kite was injured. “What are you holding back there?”
“A poultice from Goose in back. A new bladder from Mole in front.” He deflated a little. “I awoke with my head hurting in the front and the back. I only hit the back. How does that happen?”
“Maybe sleeping with a bunch of nails?”
Kite gave him a most sour expression. “It doesn’t hurt like that. It aches.”
“Maybe your brain sloshed around. Maybe the impact made it hit the front of your skull.”
Kite stared daggers at him. “What are you going on about?”
“Haven’t you seen dead animal brains before? They sit in a sort of soup.” Elarhe’s princely studies had included dissecting dead animals and drawing and identifying their body parts. He had a well-rounded education.
“You think the fall injured my brain?”
Elarhe opened his mouth, but Kite slapped the bladder over it. Kite glared at him. “Stop talking. Just shut up, Squirrel. I don’t want to hear any more of your ridiculous assumptions.” He sniffed. “I never realized you were so gruesome. Or so cruel.”
“The animals were already dead.”
“What part of ‘shut up’ do you not understand?” He put the bladder back on his forehead with a defeated sigh.
Elarhe lifted a side of Kite’s black cloak. “Are you leaving to do research?”
“No.” His voice was soft, devoid of bluster. “I’m too muddled to research anything today.”
“Maybe that’s because your brain—”
Kite silenced him with a dangerous look. “It’s pain,” he said, “I’m in too much pain to focus.” He somehow managed to slump a little more. “It’s a frustrating time to take a break. I feel like I’m on the verge of finding what I want.”
“Maybe I could help you?”
Kite laughed, then winced, then chuckled. “Squirrel. You have a splendid sense of humor sometimes.”
Elarhe rolled his eyes. “You’re such an ass.” On an impulse, he burst out. “I’m not Squirrel, by the way. My real name is Elarhe.”
Kite tried it. “EL-ur-hee. That’s a stupid name, isn’t it? Squirrel suits you much better. The people who forged your papers knew what they were doing.” He shrugged. “Wakelandic is such an ugly tongue.”
“Ayklinn. Not Wakeland. Ayklinn. And no, it’s much more beautiful than the pidgin word hash of the Grandimanderian Empire. Your people don’t even have a true language, you just make noises.”
“I’m not calling you that stupid name. I’m calling you Squirrel.” He scoffed. In a high, mocking voice he said, “Elarhe. Sounds like a little girl farting.”
Elarhe heaved a deep breath. “Someone woke up on the grumpy side of his torture chamber this morning.”
Kite sneered at him.
“What happened to the sensitive man who apologized to me earlier?”
“I don’t know. Maybe his brain got sloshed about in its soup.” He looked rather pathetic suddenly. “You started this.”
Elarhe didn’t agree, but he rubbed between Kite’s shoulders. “Let me finish it.” He traced Kite’s jaw with a fingertip. “Maybe you feel cross because you think you’re about to make a breakthrough, and you can’t work on your problem today.”
Kite glanced at him, then stared at his boots. He gave a small shrug. “Perhaps. I suppose that could be true.”
“Let’s start over,” said Elarhe gently. “Why don’t we go upstairs and find you something more comfortable to wear, then I can hold you for a while. We’ll eat and relax and walk the grounds if you feel like it.” Kite continued to be fascinated by his boots. Elarhe kissed his shoulder. “You might find that after a day or two of rest, you’ll see your problem with fresh eyes. Maybe you’ll solve it in some way you haven’t considered before.”
When Kite looked up at him, his eyes were glassy beneath the bladder. He plucked up Elarhe’s hand and kissed the backs of his fingers. His jaw tensed as he squeezed Elarhe’s hand. “Let’s go.”
***
Kite, now free of his black cloak and black velvet robe, sat in his small clothes on a high-backed ebon chair holding the poultice and bladder to his head while Elarhe flicked through his wardrobe. “Why is nearly everything you own black? I’ve never seen this many black clothes except at a funeral.”
“Mages typically wear the color of their main power. Mine is black.”
“Oh. I guess that makes sense. You look good in black. It’s a bit harsh with your coloring, but you’re bit harsh, so it works.”
Kite sighed. “Just give me a shirt and some pants.”
“You don’t have anything with ruffles and lace.”
“Shirt. Pants.”
“Oh, this one’s nice.” Elarhe held it up. “I like the way it laces at the neck and sleeves.”
“Fine. That one’s comfortable.”
“Don’t you have any stockings or puffy trousers?”
“I’m getting chilled.”
Elarhe threw the shirt at him, which Kite didn’t catch because his hands were full. It draped over his head. Over his shoulder, Elarhe tossed some very plain black trousers at him. They landed in Kite’s lap. He turned and found a rather irritable black ghost in Kite’s chair.
He helped Kite into his clothes, despite the fact that Kite told him he didn’t need it. Whether Kite liked it or not, Elarhe enjoyed touching his body. Kite, apparently, liked it, too. In no time they were both naked and Kite was sucking Elarhe from the chair with the poultice and bladder forgotten on the floor.
Kite sucked every bit of Elarhe’s cum, then sucked more until it tickled. Elarhe got on his knees and sucked Kite off, enjoying the way his cum tingled in his mouth. When Elarhe was done, Kite ruffled Elarhe’s long hair and stared at him with soft affection all over his hard-planed face.
They dressed. The water in the bladder had grown warm, so Kite left it on the dresser, but Elarhe bandaged Kite’s head with the poultice underneath. “I think it’s bringing the swelling down,” he told Kite. He massaged Kite’s neck when he was finished.
Kite turned around and kissed him with soft, warm lips. He caressed the side of Elarhe’s face. “Thank you. You make everything better, Squirrel.”
Elarhe sighed. “Do you feel up to a walk?”
“As long as it’s with you.”
“
Hot and cold on the same day. You keep a man on his toes, don’t you?”
***
The next day, Kite’s health seemed greatly improved, but, to Elarhe’s delight, he stayed home. On this day, Kite formally introduced Elarhe to the dungeon. Although Elarhe had inspected it before, seeing it with Kite made everything come alive. Kite gave him a tour, showing him all of the chains, the leather blindfolds, the thing he called a spanking bench, the various paddles and whips.
Elarhe drew his fingers across something that looked like a small harness with weights attached. “Where does this go, exactly?”
“Oh,” Kite looked up from measuring some chains on the wall, “those are ball weights. It attaches to the root of your sack.”
Elarhe examined the heft of one of the weights in his palm. Not my sack. “Hmm. Interesting.” He picked up a leather strap joined by metal rings to a strange, black ball at its center. The ball was of a substance he had never felt before. It had a slight give to it. “What is this ball made of?”
“It’s called rubber. It’s made from a type of tree sap on the newly conquered island of Hedjarra.” Kite’s voice took on a slight sneer. “We could have traded with them for it and other goods, but I suppose it was easier to go to war with them. Easier to burn and pillage their villages. Rape their women and children. Easier to smash them under our heel and fold them into the great Grandimanderian Empire, just like we always do.”
Elarhe had heard something about the brief war while working on the ditch. “Didn’t they attack first?”
“Yes. After we laid siege to their island and starved their people, they attacked us. What primitive, bellicose people—protecting their interests like that. They also didn’t worship the Overfather. Probably because they’d never heard of him, but still—” He gave a sarcastic shrug. “We’re always right, you know. Always the heroes. Protecting the empire, spreading our wisdom…turning entire cities to ash.” Tears welled in his eyes.
Elarhe moved toward him, struck by the sudden change. “Do you—do you need to talk about something?”
“Like you would understand! You happy, go lucky peasant! What have you ever done? You understand nothing!” He was bellowing now, tears still in his eyes. “Not a single soul in this whole rotting world understands!”
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