by J B Black
Sipping at his ale, the red dragon asked, “What changed?”
“I saw his crown.”
“Even those born to royalty can practice forbidden arts,” Radek suggested. “He’d have to be rather powerful.”
With a hum and a hand outstretched to signal the barkeep for water, Castor let the conversation fade between them.
***
Having gotten a late start after getting drunk the night before, Castor hadn’t expected Radek and Julian to show up before he managed to properly drown himself in grief once more.
The red dragon shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking incredibly nervous. “Castor - you know Julian.”
“Love of your life - so I’ve heard,” the warlock replied, and the black dragon flushed a pale pink at that.
Radek glared but didn’t refute the comment. “Julian thinks he might know who your mate is, and after hearing it, I think he’s right.”
The world seemed to slow as the few sips of drink burned their way from his system as the warlock concentrated fully on the black dragon. “Do you?”
Julian nodded. “I believe he is the demigod Athanasius.”
“Athanasius...Nasi,” the warlock huffed out a small laugh before the rest caught up with him. “Demigod?”
“The son of the god of the underworld and a mortal queen. He’s the result of a deal which occurred before his godly father was claimed by a god of spring,” Julian explained. “Legend says the god of spring announced he would be removed from the line of godly succession, which left him without territory or a way to become a god.”
“So Athanasius became a general, conquering the majority of the continent,” Radek added, smiling as if to point out he had recalled the dreams of war which the warlock had once confessed haunted him as a child.
Julian laid a hand upon the red dragon’s thigh, and Castor wanted nothing more than to rush them to continue, but he couldn’t find his words. Pulling out a map, Julian pointed at an odd marking. “His conquest took time away from his stepfather, so the god of spring supposedly cursed him to these ruins here.” Black eyes glanced at the red dragon before returning to Castor. “They say that he has to produce life to break the curse.”
“A child, specifically,” Radek added.
They had to have a child. A child scared the tall, muscular demigod enough to stop him from wanting Castor to find him. Or did the man not realize warlock’s could conceive? Did he think that Castor would seriously refuse to bear his child if it meant the two could spend their lives together?
“That idiot,” Castor said, shaking his head. The red string between them glowed brightly, and where he could only see it if straining before, it seemed to light up like a beacon now that he had heard his mate’s true name. Standing, he smacked both on their shoulders. “I’ll be off then.”
“If you’d like, I can -” Julian began, but Castor held up a hand to cut him off.
“I need to do this myself,” he told the pair. “Everything you’ve said fits, and my string feels more connected than it ever has. I have no doubt my mate waits for me there, and terrified of his countercurse as he might be, I have no intention of living this life without him.”
“Good luck,” Radek offered.
Smirking, Castor replied, “And to you too. I’m sure your mating will be just as fruitful.”
In a bright flash of the blond’s magic, he sent the other two on their way. He had a mate to rescue.
Chapter Thirteen
Traveling to meet his mate, Castor tried to settle the nerves within himself. He had recognized that as a warlock, he would likely be the one who would have to conceive if they wanted a child, but what he hadn’t expected was having to carry a child just to free his mate from the curse which held him prisoner. He couldn’t help but wonder if his mate had realized his reluctance before he even had. Besides the one time, they hadn’t done any penetration, and a finger - especially only to the first knuckle - hardly seemed to suggest anything at all to his mate.
Despite his desire to march straight to the ruins, Castor forced himself to sleep, and when he found himself alone in the ruins, he growled in frustration.
“Athanasius!” he called, storming through the strange half-blurred world. At least that he could attribute to the curse. “Athanasius, I suggest you come out and talk with me. It’d be better to sort this before I arrive to free you.”
He found the man in the furthest section in a hot spring in the ruined bath section of the dilapidated keep. His hair fell about his shoulders, and quicksilver eyes widened at the warlock’s face.
“Is something wrong?” the man asked, rising from the spring.
Normally, the sight of his naked mate would pull him from his fury, but hurt settled firmly in his chest. “Did you think I’d refuse to have your child if it meant I could spend the rest of my life with you?”
The demigod’s eyes widened. “How-?”
“I know who you are, Athanasius. You are mine, and I won’t give you up because of something as beautiful as creating a child with you,” the warlock announced, and the flush of pink might’ve endeared him if quicksilver eyes hadn’t darted anywhere but at Castor’s face. The man before him seemed terrified. “I love you, you idiot. Do you think I wouldn’t want to have a child with you?”
Athanasius ducked his head, shying away from Castor. “I’m a weapon. Weapons don’t have children.”
“You are a man and my mate,” Castor retorted. “I don’t care why you were conceived. Your idiot of a father abandoned you, and that bastard of a stepfather made sure that his children took your purpose, but that just means you are mine!”
The words seemed to overwhelm him. As his mate struggled against the fate he had grown up expecting and the one which was cursed upon him, the warlock found himself unable to wait. Desperation drove him, but when he reached out, despite the shyness of his posture, Athanasius did not run. Water trained down his muscular form, and when Castor pressed forward - grabbing him by the hips and kissing him, the demigod moved where the warlock guided him. Almost like a dance, they spun, and pressing his lover into the smooth stone wall, he pressed his clothed body against him.
“Castor…”
The warlock bit the other’s lower lip. “You are mine.”
Immediately, the black-haired man flushed a pale pink. When he tried to duck his head once more, the warlock stopped him, kissing him desperately. Once more, a taste sweeter than ambrosia covered his tongue. Castor’s hands traced his mate’s body. Pinning the black-haired man in place, he rocked their hips together, grinding his aching cock against the other’s growing arousal.
It would be all too simple to push him down and steal what he wants from his fated mate. Their courtship existed in dreams. Slow and steady, Castor learned the demigod’s body. Learned what touches bent him to pleasure, and rough grinding wouldn’t do it. Athanasius - his dear self-destructive Nasi - needed more. Hot kisses aroused him only so far, and a hand upon his cock didn’t have him bucking the way the warlock would have in the same situation, but when calloused fingers settled on his shoulders - neither pulling him closer or pushing him away, Castor pressed tight against him. As their tongues entwined, he slid his fingers down the warm wetness of the hot water still clinging to the black-haired man’s spine. He dragged his fingers down to press, and he yearned to take the softness as he pushed a finger inside to mean something. To mean that the taller body would bend beneath him.
Nasi cried out beautifully. His cock hardened at the intrusion. Each thrust of Castor’s digit moved his hips forward, rutting into the warlock’s own clothed arousal. Pale pink flushed his features. Quicksilver eyes fogged with arousal, and nipping at the edges of the other man’s strong jawline, Castor pressed forward. He needed more. Ached to taste his spend on his mate’s lip. To see his seed dripping out of Nasi’s tight hole as it spilled down his muscular thighs.
“I am coming,” the warlock proclaimed, shoving a second finger inside along the
first. “I am going to free you.”
Nasi sobbed, hiccuping between keening wails which went straight to the warlock’s already throbbing erection and cries of frustrated desperation. “Castor, I’m not -”
“You are beautiful.” The blond refused to hear another word of self-loathing from his love’s lips. “You are mine. We will make a family together, and I will make you happier than you’ve ever been. I swear it, Nasi. You will be mine, and I will be yours, and we will be happy.”
When his name became a chant - desperate and repeated over and over, Castor spun his mate around, bracing him against the stone as he reached one hand around to jerk his love’s cock as he pressed a third finger next to the first two. All he wanted was to push inside. To claim the sweet tight heat of his mate’s body and bite like some rutting beast.
“Castor! I-I can’t. Please-please,” the black-haired man begged as Castor worked three fingers inside him, curling them until the taller man keened, rocking his hips back.
The warlock nipped at one muscular cheek. “Go ahead, Nasi. Come.”
Wailing, Nasi came, spraying his seed across the cold stone where Castor bent him over. Pulling his fingers free, the blond shoved down his trousers just enough to free his own hard sex. Jerking his cock, the warlock spilled, painting stripes across his lover’s hole. His fingers slid through the mess, and pressing his cum-covered thumb into the softened entrance, the blond shivered.
“I’m coming for you, Athanasius,” the warlock proclaimed. “And I am going to free you.”
“Castor - it’s not that simple,” the black-haired man argued, and even though he knew his name and would soon be at the ruins where he had been trapped, the demigod’s features blurred before the warlock’s eyes.
The warlock rutted forward, sliding his cock through the mess he had made. “I’m a warlock, darling. If it takes a child to free you, I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”
Quicksilver eyes screamed of his anxiety. “And what if I’m not?”
The words reawakened Castor’s fear that his mate did not want him, but the blond pushed aside his terror. Athanasius - his beloved Nasi - could be afraid of children and a domestic life he never believed he would have. They would explore it together.
Though his body was smaller, he pressed the black-haired man into the furs, kissing up the demigod’s scarred back. “I love you, and we will discuss everything when I get to you, but I am not leaving without you.”
If a shiver traveled through his lover’s body, Castor focused on the blush on his face and the way he submitted so shyly. After being born destined to take care of so many, he was so unused to being considered in return. Castor intended to spend the rest of their lives spoiling him.
Chapter Fourteen
Awakening from the dream left Athanasius cold. His body trembled, and though his seed spilled across the furs in his sleep, his hole clenched around nothing - slick and wet with wanting. In dreams, his body loosened faster than it had before the curse, but he hadn’t revealed this aspect to Castor. What would the warlock think when he saw his mate wet like some kind of wild animal?
Castor seemed eager to plunder his body, but his words confused Athanasius. Warlocks held power over their ability to sire and conceive, but the curse required the demigod to be the one to create life. He would have to allow himself to be taken, and as marvelous as the warlock’s clever fingers felt, a strange arrogance - a pride he could not readily overcome - thrummed in his chest at the thought of letting another man breed him. Even if Castor were his mate - and Athanasius had no doubt he was, the black-haired man led legions. He conquered almost the entire continent. Forest gods fell beneath his blade. Dragons and fae and all sorts of beasts found their end before his might. Motherhood suited softer creatures than him. A child was too fragile.
Curling on his side, the demigod fought back tears. His mind turned to Lydos - his human half-brother. He adored Lydos. Athanasius had doted upon his brother, and when he could not be the god of the underworld, he turned his attention to conquering the world, for he had never been meant for gentle affairs. Once, his brother had called him back, presenting his niece - his brother’s firstborn. By the time he returned from the front, she was two years of age. Sweet Lysandra with her porcelain doll. They had used her mother’s hair for it, and even at two, she had carried it everywhere with her despite it being almost her size. She was so small - just like a doll herself. When Lydos presented her, the poor girl cried at the sight of him, and even when Eunike - Lydos’s wife - presented the doll in an attempt to encourage the girl to form a connection with her uncle, the child had shrieked, crying out as if he were a monster. Despite his best endeavors, her terror never abated. Worse still, she ran whenever she saw him. He did his best to keep a distance, requesting to return to his conquest, but Eunike was pregnant, and his brother wanted him to form a relationship with the next child as if seeing the infant would make the toddler less terrified of him. Lydos always had too much faith in him.
“She’ll get used to you,” Lydos assured him. “Besides, Eunike has agreed that we’ll name the next one Athanasia if it is a girl as we believe.”
Athanasius had wept. “I do not deserve a child named for me, brother.”
“You won them an empire when I would have given them a kingdom. I think it is the least I might do in thanks,” Lydos had retorted. With a crooked smile, he had slapped Athanasius on the back - hurting his hand for the effort. “You’re my beloved brother after all.”
So he had tried desperately to win Lysandra’s favor while he was forced to remain in the palace until the day he went to hand her that porcelain doll - scarcely smaller than herself - and it had scattered in his hands. No wonder she had been terrified of him. Monsters with strength such as he should never touch such fragile, delicate, precious things as children.
But regardless - Castor had his name. Soon, the warlock would come, and Athanasius had to prepare himself. Bathing himself, he cleaned the furs, and when he once more had nothing to do, he turned to the ravens watching.
“Please,” he begged, “just kill me, Father. Castor deserves better than someone like me.”
Without responding, the ravens flew away. Inwardly, he cursed the man who so cruelly left him to the curse. Another reminder of how he had been conceived for a purpose and thrown away on a whim. Castor deserved more. He deserved someone beautiful as him. Someone as determined and lovely and open to love. Athanasius planned to die on the battlefield. Red painted his hands. Blood and grime and iron - he deserved no more than that. Stone and ruins suited him. Furs from animals which wandered in - the lack of comfort and the comforts he made for himself, those were the most he deserved. Pieces of the world he could carve out for himself. His stepfather was right. He was an extra, unneeded piece of a messy puzzle better left abandoned, but Castor belonged to a more beautiful world than Athanasius could ever inhabit.
“Nasi!”
Tears lined his lower lashes as the black-haired man turned. “Castor?”
The warlock - in the flesh - raced across the stone of the ruins, sweeping the demigod into his arms, and despite being shorter and thinner of the two, he spun the taller man around and pulled him into a kiss. Their tongues entwined, and everything melted in Athanasius as his tears poured down his cheeks. He ached to hold fast. To never let the man before him go even if Castor deserved so much more than he could ever give the warlock.
“Castor,” the demigod sobbed into the kiss, and the blond kissed his cheeks, licking his tears. “The curse -”
“Will be broken.”
Shaking his head, Athanasius struggled to find the words, but kiss after kiss, he couldn’t bring himself to stop responding - not when he believed each one to be the last he would ever have with the amazing man before him. Instead, he took one of Castor’s clever hands and brought the fingers between the cheeks of his muscular ass to feel the shame of his wet and wanton body.
Immediately, Castor froze. “Nasi?”
&nb
sp; “I’m like a whore,” the black-haired man whispered. “A bitch in heat.”
Green and brown speckled eyes met quicksilver, and determination set the warlock’s features. “So I can breed you.”
Athanasius’s brows furrowed. “You don’t have to.”
“No,” Castor announced, rocking his hard, aching length against the demigod’s thigh. “I am going to breed you. Bend you over and fuck you until it takes.”
As if the wetness had awoken something feral inside him, Castor tore at their clothes, not caring as he bent Athanasius over the nearest parapet. His clever fingers spread the thick muscles of the black-haired man’s ass, and pressing his fingers between, he licked across the slick heat of the demigod’s hole.
“Castor!” he shrieked, clinging to the stone. His fingers dug in, threatening to crumble the wall beneath his might. “Don’t! It’s - it’s dirty!”
But the warlock paid him no heed. Each brush of his tongue sent Athanasius’s heart racing. His body heated. Wetness grew, dripping from his body as his legs spread. Hanging heavy between his legs, his cock swung with each pierce of Castor’s tongue inside his body. Fingers joined, spreading him for Castor to press his tongue deeper. The man seemed determined to ruin any tendril of control Athanasius had, and waves of pleasure built, coiling tight in his belly until he came untouched, shrieking his pleasure for all in the vicinity to hear.
“Mine,” Castor growled, pulling back with a lewd slurp.
Slick dribbled down his chin, and his pupils were blown, stealing almost all the color from his eyes save for a thin ring. His cock stood tall. As his hand slipped up and down the massive length, Athanasius struggled to swallow. Despite their difference in height, Castor had the victory in thickness and length. Athanasius knew himself proportional to his height. Growing up around men and in the army, he saw enough bodies - dead and alive - to know himself to be above average, but Castor dwarfed him. Inside him, something clenched. A voice whispering that he would finally be filled.
