by Jez Morrow
“I will not,” Marcus said.
“I can’t do this!” Devon cried.
“Son, you’ve already done it,” said Marcus. “You got a knife in the back. No one just walks away from that kind of wound dancing. Go to sleep. Get drunk. Get laid. You got beat up. Lick your wounds and get back up. I’ll see you back at the city next moon, ma dahn.”
Devon refused to take up residence in the Harpy’s Rook. He stayed in a wide canvas-sided tent pitched in the desert, his flag and standard posted out front. He summoned Xan before him.
Xan entered the tent. Devon was alone, wearing soldier blue, his gold coronet on his head. His black hair was cut short.
An ache lodged in Devon’s throat. Xan appeared in plain-spun Raenthe tunic with a stiff leather sword belt and a Raenthe soldier’s boots. His giant frame filled the space. His hair hung loose about his broad shoulders.
Devon pardoned him for his crimes and paid him for his service as first guardsman. “You are free,” Devon said, like cutting off his own arm. “Go home.”
“That is all?” Xan said.
“Of course that is all,” Devon said. His gaze was somewhere over Xan’s head.
Xan’s brow contracted into a deep fissure down the center. He frowned. They were alone together. Xan seized Devon just below his shoulders. “Say it to my eyes.”
“I don’t…” Devon faltered.
Xan’s gaze bored into Devon’s soul. Xan demanded, “What do you want?”
“It has never been about what I want,” Devon said. “I know my duty.”
“I do not understand you,” Xan said.
“No,” said Devon. “You don’t.” It was not as if there should, could, be anything more between them.
“Devon.” Xan spoke his name for the first time.
Devon’s eyelids flickered briefly. Something sang inside at the sound of his name in Xan’s low, rumbling voice.
“I have seen you smile, so I know you can,” Xan said. “But never for me.”
“I have had little enough cause to smile.”
As if he had found no joy at all in Xan’s touch.
Of course Devon meant the ordeal, the betrayal, the flight across the wild lands. But he would not explain. Let Xan think what he would. Devon needed to keep some detachment, even if the very idea of detachment was an unholy sham. Devon’s heart was well past any point of possible return.
But he still had his station, his unassailable sovereignty.
Xan’s hand cupped Devon’s chin. The warmth of his touch made Devon shiver. His rough, calloused skin felt soothing. Xan’s eyes shifted back and forth across his face, searching.
Devon looked down. He said, “You have served. We are done.”
Xan’s voice sounded intimate. “Is this Devon or the Sovereign who says so?”
“Does it matter?” Devon said in sorrow.
“It must be Devon,” Xan said. “The Sovereign is not so cruel.”
“Then I am cruel.”
“And will you not meet my eyes?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Devon locked his gaze on Xan’s chin, the golden beard stubble there, the blade scar. “I dare not.”
Again, “Why?”
“Don’t press me, Xan.”
Desire was a pitiless god. Desire it must be, because Devon dared not call this feeling love.
Xan said, “You want me as badly as I want you.”
Devon shuddered as if in great pain. “I cannot be dominated. I am the Sovereign!”
“Is that it? It that all? You cannot go down for love?”
“Love?” Devon tried to say, but his voice failed.
“I know the Supreme Reigna has a consort,” Xan said. “I know that a woman rules the mighty Raenthe Empire. It is always a woman. And not just a woman. The Reigna must be a mother. She is required to feel a heartbeat inside her other than her own. That means she has allowed a man inside her. Does that make her less powerful? Why her and not you? And does she not lie in her man’s arms afterward? Do they never join in pleasure and comfort each other in sorrow?”
Devon couldn’t answer.
Xan’s voice turned to bitter irony, “Or does she eat his head after he’s serviced her?”
“Xan, it doesn’t matter what I want.”
“It matters.”
“Why?”
“Because you matter.”
“Because I go down for you like a Krasian whore?”
Devon blinked, his mouth stinging. It took him a split second to realize he’d been slapped again.
Devon touched his face. He told Xan, “I am getting tired of that.”
“I normally express wrath with the edge of a sword.”
“Whom did you slap? Devon or the Sovereign?”
“Whoever just called you a Krasian whore.”
Devon touched a finger to his lip, expecting blood. There was none. He said, wry, “Next time, don’t defend my honor.”
“Give me a next time.”
Devon’s voice came out breathy. “A next time to slap me?”
Xan took Devon’s face between both hands, his thumbs brushing Devon’s cheeks as he answered, “No.”
Xan’s lips grazed Devon’s eyebrow.
“From the first moment I saw you in your gilded box, the young tyrant who sent me to die, you have ruled all my thoughts. I hated that you were so beautiful. I had no idea you were the incredible being you are. Give me all the beats of your heart and I will spend all my days trying to make up for what I’ve done to you and all my nights worshipping you.”
Devon leaned his cheek into Xan’s hand. Devon’s lips brushed Xan’s palm as Devon murmured, “I might agree to that.”
Devon stepped back. He took Xan by the hand and led him back to the Sovereign’s private compartment within the Imperial tent. Devon’s camp bed was there.
Devon lifted his crown off his head. He shook out his short hair. His uniform of stiff soldier blue came off with his boots and his rings.
Xan stripped. The two men stood naked before each other.
Sunlight filtered through the canvas roof.
Devon lifted his hands to Xan’s hairy chest. Xan’s hand circled around the back of Devon’s head and drew him in to a kiss that was tender at first. It became hungry. Then they were groping each other with a fierce need, kissing, sucking and tasting.
Devon threw his head back. Xan kissed his throat. Devon breathed through his open mouth as if starved for air. He felt Xan’s heart pounding as hard as his own.
Xan lifted Devon off his feet and lay him down on the simple camp bed. Xan covered him, his weight pressing luxuriously down on Devon’s body, their cocks trapped between their bellies. They moved together in mounting excitement.
Devon’s hands tangled in Xan’s long, coarse mane.
Xan groped for the oil lamp on the camp table. He spilled scented oil over his hands.
Xan’s hands, slick and smelling of wood spice, groped under Devon’s hips and lifted his ass off the mattress. He massaged sensual smoothness between Devon’s cheeks, over his balls and both their cocks.
Devon circled his legs around Xan’s hard torso and guided Xan’s thick cock between his buttocks to penetrate him. Xan’s cock filled him with blinding joy.
Xan rocked forward and back in a sweet glide. Devon reached down, gripping at Xan’s heavy working thighs. His skin was damp with sweat.
Impassioned breaths seared Devon’s throat. Xan’s sex moving inside him kindled something powerful. Devon’s body became radiant.
Devon reached under his own ass to hold Xan’s balls. At his touch, a tremor passed through Xan’s giant frame. Xan gave a deep, growling grunt into Devon’s shoulder. Xan’s balls contracted.
Xan climaxed, jetting exultation, roaring. Devon’s existence ignited. His balls convulsed with spasms of ecstasy that coursed through his cock. Devon came against Xan’s hot, hard belly.
Devon’s heart hurt from the unbearably beauty of this mom
ent. He must have died in battle. This moment was too perfect for a living being to hold. Words he never meant to say broke free, “I love you.”
Devon lay in his gladiator’s arms. Xan’s head rested on the down-stuffed pillow of the camp bed.
Xan brushed a tuft of gray goose down off Devon’s bare shoulder.
Xan said, “Say it again.”
Devon blinked. His eyelashes caressed Xan’s collarbone. “What would you have me say?”
“Devon, everyone is in love when he’s coming. Say it now to my eyes.”
Devon lifted his head from the rock pillow of Xan’s shoulder. He studied Xan’s rugged face, his soft lips, his crooked mouth, his battle scars, the melting look in his desert blue eyes. Devon touched his fingertips to Xan’s stubbled jaw. Calm, sober, Devon said, “I do. By all gods, I do love you.”
“Then I am yours,” Xan said.
“But what are you of mine?” Devon asked. He moved a lock of hair off Xan’s brow. “Men don’t have male consorts in Raenthe. There is no provision for such a thing.”
“Devon, you ass,” Xan said in tender irony, holding Devon’s face in the palm of his deadly hand. “Sovereign of my heart, I am your first guardsman. And I will ever be your gladiator.”
The End
About the Author
Jez Morrow is a Scorpio with Scorpio rising. The eyes are gray. The hair is blonde at the moment. Rather than the traditional cat, her writing familiar is a large black dog. She is published internationally under several names.
Jez is married to her true love, a combat veteran. (She has a thing for a military man.) Jez and her husband (and the dog) currently live in Ohio, but their hearts are in the Smoky Mountains.
Jez welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Jez Morrow
Lover and Commander
Name of a Wolf
Shadow of a Wolf
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