Without taking his eyes from Fort’s, he took his cock in a firm, sure grip and pulled. His hips came off the bed with the drawn-out pleasure of the stroke and his eyelids drooped, though he didn’t free the other man from the tether of his gaze. “Gods, that’s good.” A pause while his chest rose and fell. “And you don’t have to do a thing, except—ah, fuck!—watch.”
He compressed his foreskin between thumb and forefinger, working it up and over the glans, shining with oily secretions. When he threw his head back, his eyes slitting with pleasure, the fading bruises on his throat caught Fort’s eye and something dark and powerful surged inside him. He hesitated, torn between the enticing action in Griff’s groin and the need to touch the marks he’d left. His marks.
But the decision was taken from him. “C’mere.” Griff paused at the top of a stroke and snagged Fort’s arm above the elbow with his free hand, tugging him down onto the pillows beside him. “Show me…” a rasping inhalation, “how you do it. What you like best.”
Involuntarily, Fort’s fingers clenched and a wave of pleasure streaked from his balls and up his spine, buzzing deep in his ass. Ruler God, he hadn’t even realized he’d grabbed hold of himself again!
“Gods, yes!” Griff’s head rolled toward his on the pillow, his breath warm and sweet against Fort’s neck. “Keep going!”
Fort blinked and a firestorm of sheer need tore through his defenses as if they’d been paper, sending him to the edge of madness. And beyond.
With a guttural roar, he lunged, gripping Griff’s chin in ruthless fingers to hold him still. He plastered his mouth to the tumbler’s, kissing him so ferociously their teeth clinked. With his other hand, he grabbed Griff’s wrist and jerked it away, replacing the squeezing fingers on the other man’s cock with his own hard, desperate grip.
Griff huffed out a laugh that was more a moan, right into Fort’s mouth. Both hands came up to grasp Fort’s biceps, the strong fingers digging in. His hips rolled, pushing his engorged shaft flush into the big man’s palm, while he sucked hard on Fort’s tongue.
Ruler God!
The sensations were nothing short of amazing—the living column of slippery satin-steel in his grasp, the musky smell of aroused male, the lithe strength of the body pinned beneath him. Everything hard, muscular, brutal. The other man’s pleasure completely under his control. No need to hold back, to gentle or coax. No need to guess what would feel good. He knew.
Ruler God, everything he wanted, there for the taking!
Fort took. He more than took. Growling continuously under his breath, he plundered, he ravaged, he devoured.
And Griff gave as good as he got.
His mouth still working its fierce magic on Fort’s, he shoved a fist into the big man’s belly so that reflex had him moving back, putting a few inches of space between them. Immediately, Griff snaked a hand down and grabbed. Wrapping his fingers as far around Fort’s weeping erection as they’d go, he pulled up strongly, dragging the skin over the aching hardness beneath, pushing over the crown in a searing, mind-numbing caress.
Gritting his teeth, Fort pumped Griff ruthlessly, waiting until he went completely rigid and his moans took on a desperate quality. Then he stopped, tearing his mouth away from the other man’s and clamping a big hand over the tumbler’s busy fingers, stilling them despite Griff’s murmur of complaint. His cock throbbed in protest, but he ignored the sensation, intent on Griff’s face.
For an instant, neither man moved. Or breathed.
Griff’s sloe eyes snapped open, glaring into his. “Bastard!” he hissed. “Do it.” His buttocks flexed, pushing him into Fort’s hand. “Twister, finish me!” A hectic flush covered his neck and cheeks.
“Ask.”
Griff bared his teeth. He tried to clench his fingers on Fort’s cock, but the big man had his hand in an iron grip. The tumbler’s hips jerked. “Kiss me,” he grated.
“No. I want to see your face.” Slowly, Fort squeezed, rasped a deliberate thumb over the head. “Ask.”
“I swear I will make your life a living hell. Ah!” Griff made a small keening noise in his throat and Fort’s heart soared with greedy, lip-smacking pleasure.
“You already have. Ask me, Griff. Ask me!”
“Bastard.” Griff’s eyes burned into his. “Please!”
Fort smiled, slow and evil. “Yes.” Without preliminary, he milked and pulled, long, insistent strokes that had Griff arching off the mattress, crying out, swearing. “Offer for me.” He increased the pace, watching the younger man’s beautiful body shudder with the onset of climax, his eyes half closing with the luxury of his pleasure.
His balls were going to explode any minute and blow the top of his head off, but it was worth it to have this. He’d never seen anything as erotic in his life as Griff straining beneath his touch, his cock dancing as Fort willed. He leaned forward. “Look at me,” he demanded. “You wanted this. Look at me, Griff!”
The tumbler’s golden-brown lashes lifted. His soul looked out of his eyes, straight into Fort’s, his mouth open, gasping.
“Now,” whispered Fort, his lips gone numb. “Now!”
Beneath his fingers, Griff’s shaft hardened impossibly. The younger man made the most extraordinary noise, half scream, half groan, but he kept his eyes on Fort’s, fighting the natural desire to slam them shut in the extremity of his passion. His cock rippled and scalding fluid spurted over Fort’s hand, dripped onto Griff’s stomach.
The smells, the sounds, the sight of Griff’s agonized face, the feel of the tumbler’s frantic fingers clutching his cock, sent the seed boiling out of Fort’s balls to surge up his shaft in an excruciating flood, so thick and hot his vision grayed out. With a strangled grunt, he lurched forward, collapsing over Griff, their bellies sealed together with warm, sticky juices.
A few minutes or a lifetime later, he felt Griff’s fingers moving in his hair. He didn’t think he’d ever felt so sated, so drained. So stunned.
“Next time.” The tumbler’s breath gusted warm against the top of his head. Griff rose up on one elbow, his lower lip trembling as he gasped for breath. “Next time, you come down my throat, in my ass. Twister, on my face! Wherever you want.”
Fort’s tired brain reeled with lascivious visions. His hands tormenting the other man’s shaft, orchestrating his pleasure, controlling, dominating. Lufra’s tits, Griff with his wrists bound, completely helpless, unable to stop him from doing as he willed. Griff, groaning, begging for release, promising anything, anything.
His. All his to fuck, to master.
His mind seized up with the delicious force of it. And as if it had been waiting for the hiatus in his thoughts, memory swept over him like an ice storm from the frozen depths of hell, all slashing edges and freezing breath.
Chapter Seven
Herewith is the judgment of the Ecclesiastical Court of the Straight Church. You shall be taken from this place and hung by the neck until you are dead. Sodomy is abhorrent in the eyes of Ruler God, an evil Crookedness that pollutes the Straight Way and a grievous offense to your Brethren. Before execution, you shall be whipped upon the obscene parts so that others shall witness your agony and know—
Guards, he’s fainting! Quick!
Transcript from the archives of the Ecclesiastical Court of the Straight Church, Prelate-Judge Bishop Honor Denison presiding. 9995 ATF (After the Firsters)
Sobriety McLaren had wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, pushed his chair back and risen, filling the small kitchen with his presence. “We’d better get going.” He’d pinned Fort, stacking firewood by the door, with the flick of a bloodshot glance. “Come, boy.”
He could still recall his mother’s instinctive motion of protest, quickly controlled, her chapped fingers twisting in her apron. “The hanging?” she’d murmured. “But he’s just a boy…” He’d been nine, ten at the most. The Straight Church didn’t celebrate natal days, so he couldn’t be sure.
“Don’t be foolish, woman,” said Sobriety. �
�No son of mine shall remain in ignorance of the traps of the Crooked.”
His mother had closed her mouth and turned away.
And so they’d stood in the first row of the all-male crowd, his father’s fingers digging into Fort’s skinny shoulders. He’d been bored by the Prelate-Judge’s rambling speech, but impressed by his magnificent cowled robe with the four parallel lines running up the front. Nonetheless, something about the press of bodies, the smell of sweat and fear and sick excitement, made his stomach heave and pitch with formless anxiety.
Even now, he could hardly bear to think of it, the two men trussed naked to the whipping bar, the cane falling with a meaty swish on their tender genitals, again and again, until the parts that made them men were a bloody ruin and they had passed beyond screaming into unconsciousness.
The hanging had come as a mercy.
Halfway home, he’d stumbled to the side of the track and thrown up his supper. His father had scoffed and called him a girl, but the satisfied gleam in his eye told Fort he was well pleased with the effect of the lesson.
“Sir?” he’d asked, his voice reedy with the effort of control. “What did they do? What’s s‑sodomy?”
Sobriety had tilted the jug he carried to his lips and sent Fort a narrow-eyed glance. “Unnatural,” he grunted. “A Crookedness.”
“But what—?”
His father cuffed him around the ear with casual brutality. “Filthy.” Another slap. “Degenerate.” Fort swayed back, riding the next blow, knowing from experience that dodging would only enrage the man. Sobriety’s voice rose. “I’d kill you with my own hands, boy!” A big hand clamped on his shoulder and shook him ‘til his teeth rattled. “Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
In the end, one of his cousins had told him, as crudely as possible. Living and working on a farm, Fort knew all about mating, but this—! He hadn’t been sure he believed it at first, but those men had done something. Not even the Ecclesiastical Court meted out such extreme punishments on a whim.
* * * * *
“Fort?” Powerful fingers gripped his knee. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
With a shudder, he opened his eyes. Pale bars of early morning sunlight streamed into Griff’s wagon, striping the floor like a cheerful mat. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring sightlessly at the door, while Griff kneeled on the floor, peering up into his face with knitted brows.
“Where did you go?” asked the tumbler.
Fort simply shook his head.
“It wasn’t good, was it?”
The sweat chilled between his shoulder blades. “No.” Brushing Griff aside, he rose and grabbed his trews. “Have to go.”
“Not yet.” Griff uncoiled in a single, graceful move. “I’ll put the water on for roberry.” He grinned, completely comfortable in his skin. “And we can wash. I’m all sticky.”
Speech was beyond him. Fort’s belly roiled as he bent to tug on his boots. That accomplished, he pushed past the other man, his head down. If he didn’t get out of there in the next five seconds, he was going to vomit. Griff was still speaking, but his words were no more than a distant buzz in the background.
Fort reeled out into the cool, bright quiet of the fairground at dawn. Moving at an awkward jog-trot, he lurched toward the sanctuary of his own small wagon, his long legs rapidly taking him out of earshot of Griff’s voice, first puzzled, then angry. By the time he stumbled in the door, his racing heart had slowed. He braced his hands against the wall next to the worship niche and sucked in deep breaths. Thank Lufra, he hadn’t been seen, he was almost sure of it.
He couldn’t seem to process a coherent thought. Numbly, he wet a cloth in the water bucket and pressed it to his face. Then he dropped his trews and wiped his chest and belly, around his genitals. Clean clothes, a mug of roberry and he was ready to face the Ten Nations Fair.
Except that everything in him flinched at the thought.
For that very reason, Fort set his jaw and forced himself out the door and over to the menagerie. Tonight, he thought grimly. Tonight I’m going to Valaressa to get laid. And drunk. And if there was a brawl—he bared his teeth—so much the better.
The day was interminable, wretched. Leo’s cheerful chatter drove him insane, so he was even more brusque than usual. The hurt and resentment in the man’s face gave him fierce satisfaction, though he knew it was petty. Several times, he glimpsed Griff’s straight back, disappearing into the Big Top, or passing Magrit’s noodle stall. Each time, the sweat popped on his forehead, his heart skipped a beat and he castigated himself for a coward.
Late in the afternoon, he came around the side of the tavern tent and nearly walked straight into a knot of men, Griff among them. Shit!
“Hey, Fort!” said one. “Coming for an ale?”
Immediately, Griff’s head jerked around. His lips parted then closed, firming to a grim line. His shoulders stiffened, his dark gaze unreadable.
Fort grunted a negative, spun on his heel and strode away, but Griff’s steady stare slashed at his heart. Seeing the tumbler’s expressive face, usually so full of life, reduced to a smooth handsome mask made everything worse. Gods, he felt like shit!
By nightfall, Fort had little stomach for carousing. Nonetheless, he bathed carefully, changed and saddled up his favorite vran, a huge mare with a confiding nature and dusty brown feathers. He departed for the Pleasure Leaf at a sedate trot, not looking back.
* * * * *
He was sitting at a scarred table in the darkest corner of The Unbridled Vran nursing a bottle of Aetherian brandy, when a sweet dark tenor said in his ear, “Given up the Fair, have you?”
“Jan.” Fort nodded a cool greeting, somehow not surprised. “No, not yet.”
“Pity. I could use you.” The Aetherii pulled over a bench and sat, his huge wings rustling in a blue-black cloud behind him.
The squat bottle was still nearly full. Fort pushed it across the table, but the Aetherii shook his head. “I don’t drink alcohol.” His hard blue stare challenged the other man to make something of it.
Fort shrugged. “I don’t eat meat.”
Silence fell.
Eventually, the Aetherii raised a finger and the tavern wench tripped over her own feet to rush to his side. He murmured an order and five minutes later she reappeared with a loaded tray. Jan raised a cover and savory steam billowed out. “Eat,” he said calmly, but it sounded more like an order than a request.
Fort’s belly growled, startling him. Slowly, he picked up a fork and began.
After a few minutes of that patient, assessing stare, he laid it down again. “What the fuck do you want, Aetherii?”
“Can you play Black and White?” asked Jan, unruffled.
When Fort grunted an affirmative, the other man rose to collect a game set from the bar. With swift, economical movements, he unfolded the board and lined up the two boxes of stones.
It occurred to Fort that he’d never seen the Aetherii waste a gesture. “Answer the question,” he demanded.
Instead, Jan held out his closed fists. “Choose.”
“Left.”
The Aetherii uncurled the fingers of his left hand to reveal the black pebble. His elegant lips curved. “White starts. My move.” He slid the box of black stones over to Fort.
Fort swallowed, the vegetable stew hot and spicy on his tongue. “The stakes?”
“A night at The Shuttered Lantern against a task for me.”
Fort’s brows rose. The Shuttered Lantern was a courtesan house so far above his means it had never entered his head to go there. Then he frowned. What? Was his need written on his face?
He set the dish aside. “I am not a whore,” he growled. “Of any kind. I don’t kill to order.”
“But you used to.” Even in the dimness of the tavern, the Aetherii’s eyes shone, hard as gems, level as a drawn sword. His wings lifted and settled.
Under the table, Fort dropped his hand to the long dagger sheathed at his waist. “I was a mer
cenary, not an assassin.”
“I know that.” The Aetherii paused for a beat, a frown marring the pale brutal beauty of his features. “I’m in the market for information.” With a long forefinger, he pushed a white stone into place.
Fort countered the move with the ease of long practice. “Information?”
“The Eyrie has directed the Winged Envoy to establish an embassy here in Valaressa.” Jan placed his next pebble. “I’m looking to extend my network of informants.”
Fort grunted, studying the board. “Spies, you mean.” On the face of it, Jan was following a standard opening gambit. Surely, it couldn’t be so simple?
The Aetherii shrugged and his plumage rustled. “I prefer the term intelligencer.”
Time to push a little. His thighs tensing under the table, Fort said, “Then send your friend Mirry. He seems intelligent enough.” He shifted his stone.
Jan went very still and a chill ran up the back of Fort’s neck. When the Aetherii finally exhaled, he did too. “He is too useful here.”
I bet, thought Fort sourly, remembering the sensual splendor of their tails coiling together.
“Mirry has an encyclopedia to write. He’s busy.”
Fort raised an insolent brow. “What about Fledge? Women make excellent spies.”
The Aetherii’s wings lifted in a great threatening arc. Chairs scraped back all around them as drinkers hastened to put themselves out of harm’s way. Like a feathered whip, Jan’s tail clamped over Fort’s sword hand, pinning it to his knee under the table.
His blood surging, Fort held the chilly, indigo stare. “I carry two blades,” he said blandly. “Remove your tail or lose it, Aetherii.”
After several tingling seconds, Jan took three white stones from the polished wooden box at his elbow, his jaw set. As he slapped them down, the muscled weight of his tail slithered away. “Five wall on a neutral line,” he snapped.
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