by J. M. Snyder
Behind him, Amery called out, “Gentlemen.” When no one responded, the regent clapped his hands to get their attention.
Not NOW. Tovin lunged for Giles. Not when I’m winning.
The older man stumbled back and, for a second, Tovin thought this was it—he had won again. It was down to just him and Lohden then, and that was no contest…but Giles caught himself and parried Tovin’s next thrust with a deafening strike that numbed Tovin’s wrist when their swords clashed. “Giles,” he growled, pushing his friend away.
“Gentlemen, please,” Amery called out. Tovin laughed at the frustration in the regent’s voice. “We have matters to discuss here—”
“We’re in the middle of something,” Tovin explained, as if Amery couldn’t see that. “A few more minutes, Your Highness, and we’ll be right with you.”
He turned and winked at the regent, who stared at him as if stunned. In a harsh whisper, Amery spat, “How dare you defy me.”
Then Giles’s sword crashed down on his again and Tovin cursed himself for letting that smooth hair and those smoldering eyes distract him from the fight. The regent fumbled for control of the moment. “I said—”
Through clenched teeth, Tovin replied, “We heard what you said.” He parried Giles’s next thrust more easily and slashed at the older man without mercy. “We’re ignoring you.”
“Tovin,” Berik warned, his low voice a growl beneath the clash of steel. “Ye gods, you two, don’t start again.”
Stepping between the sparring partners, Amery glared at Tovin. The intensity of his gaze set Tovin’s blood on fire, but he crushed the lust that rose within him. We’re not alone, he reminded himself, stepping around Amery to attack Giles. Tonight we can smother each other with sweetness but right now the others are here, they don’t know, they CAN’T… “Get out of my way,” he snarled, shoving Amery aside.
“Sir Tovin,” Amery started, tugging on his arm to distract him. “I am your regent. You obey me—”
Giles brought his sword down on Tovin’s arm, hard, the steel biting into the metal armor the knight wore to protect himself. With a grimace, he shrugged Amery off and turned to meet Giles’s challenge. “This has gone on long enough,” he muttered, raising his sword to strike his friend to the ground. “Won’t you fall already?”
Giles flashed him an unctuous smile. “I’m tenacious.”
“Sir Tovin, listen to me.” The regent caught Tovin’s arm again, stepping into the fray. “I command the both of you to stop this now!”
Suddenly Giles’s blade slipped beneath Tovin’s own, dangerously close to Amery. Too close. Reacting on instinct alone, Tovin shoved the regent out of reach. As he did so, Giles’s blade danced along his armor and slipped easily between the links in Tovin’s chain mail.
Bright pain blossomed beneath Tovin’s ribs, forcing him to hitch his breath as he spun away from his opponent. “Gah,” he gasped. For a heart-stopping moment he staggered on his feet, his knees buckling beneath him. He pressed a hand to his side, as if he could extinguish the fire flaring through him. I won’t fall. I can’t. I was supposed to win. “Giles…”
Then Amery’s arms were around him. Tovin let himself fall into his regent’s embrace. “Oh, hell,” Amery whispered, hands fluttering over Tovin’s own. “Let me see. Tove, let me see the wound. Please…”
Above them, Giles’s grin turned sick, as if he’d swallowed something unpleasant. “I’m sorry,” he was saying to anyone who’d listen, but Amery pushed him away when he tried to lean closer. “I didn’t mean—”
“I told you to stop it,” the regent admonished. “But, no, you won’t listen to me. I’m just the regent. It’s just my damn kingdom.”
“Shut up,” Tovin breathed. In the safety of his lover’s arms, he felt the thrill of the battle drain away, leaving him shaky and unsteady. His side throbbed, but it wasn’t a stabbing pain—he didn’t think the blade had managed to pierce his skin. Taking a deep breath, he sat up and leaned his head against Amery’s shoulder. So warm, this body beside his. So strong, these arms that held him. When he glanced up to see the concern written out on Amery’s smooth face, he wanted nothing more than to kiss it away.
But they weren’t alone. Remembering the others, Tovin sat up on his own and slapped at Amery’s hands. “I’m fine,” he mumbled, trying to inspect the broken links in his mail, but with everyone crowding around him, he had no light. “I said, I am fine. It’s just a scratch. Giles isn’t that good with the blade and you guys know it, so get off me, all of you.”
“Tovin,” Berik started.
But Tovin pushed himself to his feet and wobbled for a second before breaking away from them all. “I’m fine,” he repeated.
And he was—there was no blood on his surcoat, so the sword hadn’t made it past the armor, right? He didn’t think so. Cautiously he stretched his arm and felt the muscle pull along his side. “I demand a rematch,” he declared. Frowning at his friends, he added, “That didn’t count.”
Giles’s face broke into a toothy grin. “Like hell it didn’t count. I won. You fell by my blade—”
“I was distracted,” Tovin told him, glaring at Amery, still on his knees. “The regent—”
Amery surged to his feet. “I forbid it,” he said hotly. “I did not send for my best knights just so you could maim and kill each other in my drawing room. No.”
Ignoring him, Tovin bent to retrieve his sword, but Amery placed one foot over the blade to force the knight to look up at him. “You can spar later. I have things to say that cannot wait.”
“We had to wait for you,” Tovin reminded him. With a twist of his wrist, he slipped the blade out from beneath Amery’s foot, knocking the regent back. “You can wait for us.”
“I won,” Giles said again. “So now I spar with Lohden.”
But Tovin shook his head. “I demanded a rematch. That means the last one didn’t count.”
“I want a rematch, too,” Berik stated. “That’s not fair—”
“Shut up,” Tovin and Giles chimed in unison.
When Tovin took a challenging stance in front of his old friend, Amery cleared his throat noisily. “A night in the stocks if you fight again,” he announced.
Giles wavered between raising his blade to meet Tovin and listening to the commands of his regent. At that hesitation, Amery pressed his advantage. Looking from face to face, he confronted all four of them. “Am I talking here? Is anyone listening?”
“I’m not fighting,” Lohden pointed out. He sank into one of the chairs at the conference table and sighed lustily. “Is this going to take all night? Because I have things to do.”
“Like what?” Berik wanted to know as he took a seat across from his friend. “Sleep? What an exciting night life you have.”
“Giles?” Tovin cajoled. He raised his sword in anticipation. “Are we fighting here or what?”
Giles glanced at Amery’s fiery gaze and shrugged. “I didn’t come all this way just to sleep in stocks.”
“He’s bluffing.” Tovin knew the regent too well; as long as Tovin was at the castle, he knew he wouldn’t be sleeping in the prison. The regent would never allow it. No matter how angry Amery grew with him, Tovin knew he’d sleep in the regent’s arms at night, but he couldn’t say that out loud. Instead, he deepened his voice and intoned, “I challenge you, Sir Giles. Do you deny or accept?”
“Tovin,” Giles warned with a jerk of his head in Amery’s direction. “Can’t this wait?”
Amery declared, “It will wait.” In three steps he was in Tovin’s face, bristling, and Tovin struggled to keep from smiling at the anger that clouded his lover’s features. Quietly, so the others wouldn’t overhear, the regent asked, “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Tovin whispered. He glanced past Amery to frown at Giles, who had abandoned the sparring field to join their friends at the table. “We can discuss this later. They’re watching us.”
“Let them,” Amery muttered. “Am I not the regent here? Can
I not inquire after the health of my best knight?”
Tovin felt a smile tug at his lips. “We were fighting for that title,” he admitted, sheathing his sword. “I have not yet won it.” He raised his voice to add, “If that coward Giles would be so kind as to return to the pitch, perhaps we can fight on.”
“No.” Avery turned to glare at his other knights, as if a look from him alone could prevent their match. “I forbid it.”
Absently, the regent reached out, his hand finding the chipped links in Tovin’s armor where Giles’s sword had cut. Even through the chain mail, Tovin felt his blood surge at the touch. He closed his eyes, imagining the two of them alone, the armor gone between them and those fingers trailing over ticklish flesh…
Then he remembered their friends, damn it, and Tovin swatted that hand away. “Amery,” he warned. Before the regent could reply, Tovin stormed past him to the conference table, a scowl twisting his face in anger. Throwing himself into an empty chair, he glared at Amery, a challenge shining in his eyes. “Well? What is it you needed to tell us that couldn’t possibly wait until our contest was over?”
* * * *
Not for the first time, Amery wished he could put an end to the charade between himself and Sir Tovin. When Giles’s sword had struck true, he could’ve sworn the blade cut deep into his own body, he felt it. Without caring what the others would think, he’d rushed to Tovin’s side, gathered him in his arms, held him as close as he could…
But his knight’s mind had been on the others. Tovin was always careful around their friends, around anyone. Why couldn’t Amery take the knight into his arms and not worry who said what? Was he not the regent? Wasn’t his word law?
Then why could he not love whom he wanted? Why could a simple knight like Berik flaunt his sexuality while the regent himself had to curb his desires? His father had tried time and again to explain to him why he must keep himself aloof from love, his heart unfettered to any one person. The people needed a regent they could rally behind, a warrior in whom they could trust. Lying with another man just to satisfy a sexual need was frowned upon amid the lower classes, and unheard of among the gentry. In his father’s eyes, why Amery would choose to rut with a man like some sort of barbaric animal when there were women enough willing to be queened for a night in the regent’s bed threatened the very fabric of his existence.
Amery could still recall with vivid detail the night his father had called for him. The young prince had just turned eighteen, a fact he’d celebrated days earlier by finally giving himself to Tovin. It had been special, loving, the culmination of years of unspoken desire, and since that moment, Amery couldn’t be bothered to think of anyone other than the fair knight, with his long curls, his dark eyes, his thick cock…
The stern mask on his father’s face curbed those thoughts. Amery knew this would not be a pleasant discussion. Without preamble, King Adin announced, “I forbid you to frolic with that knight.”
Surprised to find his father’s words mirroring his own sordid thoughts, Amery started, “I don’t—”
“Sir Tovin.” Each word was succinct, clipped, as if the king wanted nothing more than to cut them from his vocabulary completely. “You’ll not see him again.”
“He’s my friend.”
Twin spots of bright red rose to color the king’s cheeks. “I have heard otherwise. You’d do well to keep your hosen on and your breeches tied, boy, if you plan to assume the throne one day. I’ll not have a scandal in my castle, nor in the stables, either.”
Amery flushed with embarrassment. How much did his father know? That he’d been in the stables with Tovin, obviously. The day before, the two of them had snuck away from the others to lie together in the loft above the horses. The hay provided a soft bed beneath Amery’s back, and he’d gripped one of the worn ceiling beams, biting the wood like a cribbing horse to stifle his cries of pleasure when Tovin finally entered him. Closing his eyes, Amery remembered the touch of strong hands on his hips, the feel of Tovin’s thickness filling his ass, the heated rhythm they found and the heady kisses that followed their simultaneous orgasm.
Cutting easily into that memory, the king prodded, “Son? Do you understand me?”
Amery had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from railing in anger against his father’s stubborn, ignorant words. His hands clenched into fists behind his back as he struggled to keep his voice neutral. “Yes, Your Majesty. I understand completely. I shall no longer be a friend to Sir Tovin.”
Silently, he added, I shall become so much more, old man, and neither you nor the people of Pharr shall stop me.
Chapter 3
When Amery broke the news to Tovin, his friend shocked him by laughing.
“What the hell can you possibly find so damn funny about this?” the prince demanded. They lay together on the divan in his quarters, Tovin stretched out beneath him, both anxiously glancing at the chamber door in case a servant appeared unannounced. “My life is over. If I can’t have you—”
But Tovin had tousled Amery’s hair, ruffling the normally smooth surface of that auburn curtain. Though Amery shooed him away, he couldn’t help but grin at the touch. “So we’ll simply no longer be friends,” Tovin explained.
Amery didn’t understand why the knight’s voice sounded so…so happy at the thought. A world without Tovin seemed bleak and lifeless. How would he get through the day? “I shall plunge a dagger into my heart,” he announced with all the seriousness of a teenager in love. “I shall pluck out my eyes, and cut off my hands, and—”
“Both of them?” Tovin teased. At the tortured look that flickered across Amery’s face, he kissed the prince’s nose. “If you cut off one, what will you use to hold the knife to sever the other?”
Amery sighed. “Stop being so contrary. I cannot live without you.”
“You did well enough before we met,” Tovin pointed out.
His slight smile was infuriating. Sitting up, Amery straightened his disheveled coverlet and tried to look as callous as Tovin’s words sounded to him. He struggled to choke back hot tears that blinded him. “Why must you be so cruel? I love you.”
Tovin pushed himself up from the divan and leaned his chin on Amery’s shoulder. “And I you,” he whispered, “more than you know. But if your father forbids it—”
“Fuck my father,” Amery spat.
He felt Tovin grin against his ear. “I don’t really want to,” he teased. One arm came up around Amery’s thin waist. “I’d much rather fuck you.”
“We can’t.” Amery’s voice came out strangled. “He said—”
“We can’t be friends,” Tovin whispered.
Amery nodded; in his chest, his heart felt as if it would burst, and his whole body began to shake with desire at Tovin’s closeness, at the arm around his waist, the breath soft in his ear. In anguish, his hands twisted in his coverlet.
Tovin’s voice dipped lower, filling Amery up inside. “So we won’t be.”
The prince started, but Tovin held him tight, leaning against him as if to hold him still. “Not out loud,” he added. Amery let his words sink in. “What we have will be shared only between the two of us, my prince. Let the world see what they need to. Their opinion will never change who you are to me.”
Thus, their public feud had begun.
* * * *
When the king disappeared, Amery was not immediately crowned in his place. The royal vizier and his advisors thought it best if the young prince was named regent, on the slim chance that King Adin returned. Amery thought it unlikely—his father was a warrior first, and if his shield had fallen unclaimed to the battlefield, it fell from lifeless hands. But two years had passed since the shield had been found, and there was no further word from the enemy to give hope that Adin might still be alive. The advisors were beginning to believe that a ceremony to crown the new king might be just the encouragement the people needed to continue fighting the invaders from the north.
Taking the crown meant choosing a queen. Doze
ns of young women haunted the castle courtyard, hoping to catch the prince’s eye, but Amery had thus far successfully managed to avoid them all. But becoming king meant he had to marry; it meant producing an heir, becoming a father, and leaving Tovin behind.
Amery did not think he could sacrifice so much for the common good.
But the crowning was only so much talk at the moment—the real threat were the Cyrians from the north. Every day, reports came in from the battlefield, more ground lost, more lives taken, more men dead beneath the barbarians’ blades. Rumor had it that their steel was tipped in a poison so strong, it refused to allow the blood to clot or skin to heal. A simple nick in the armor was enough to bleed a man to death. Daily, the number of soldiers who fell on the front lines was rivaled by the number of deserters who left their posts out of fear.
And recent runners brought with them news that the battle was advancing on the castle. In desperation, Amery had decided to call home the four knights who commanded his troops.
Now they sat before him, the three boys he loved as brothers and the one he loved much, much more. Taking his place at the head of the table, Amery studied each of the knights in turn, letting his gaze linger on Tovin. The sweat beading his lover’s skin, dampening his forehead and tightening his curls, only added to his beauty. Amery didn’t want to put him in danger—didn’t want any of them hurt. With a sigh, the regent admitted, “I’ve called you here because the northern border is crumbling. The Cyrians threaten to break through our defenses any day now—”
“We know this,” Tovin said, exasperated. He was still sore at losing to Giles, and probably a bit frustrated because the others’ presence prevented any real reunion with Amery. The regent’s own feelings were just as stymied. Tovin refused to meet Amery’s gaze, instead turning to their friend as he asked, “Berik’s got that covered, don’t you?”
Berik, in command of the kingdom’s northern forces, gave a noncommittal shrug. “They’re a strong race,” he said. “But my men try to keep them at bay.”
“Rumor has it they’ve gained the river.” Amery fixed Berik with a steady stare. Berik shrugged again. “If they pass the forest—”
