18. Elric
18
ELRIC
T he following morning, Lukas delicately re-attaches the rope around Elric’s wrists, padding the rope with strips of linen to cushion where the skin is still sore and red. They gaze at each other as Lukas knots it in place. Every time Lukas’s hook brushes his skin, Elric shivers.
When it’s done, Lukas leans in, kisses Elric’s temple and whispers, “You’re beautiful Lordling. A beautiful slut. My concubine of the Rose Palace.”
Elric coos with pleasure and murmurs, “Imagine if you had not run away. If you had stayed at the Rose Palace. You a sly Bastard Prince, and I the royal concubine sent to your bed. You could have done anything you wished with me.”
He sees Lukas’s eyes darken with lust at the thought. “I would have made you scream all night long, my precious whore.” He leans closer. His voice turns darker. “As Prince Rafus’s son, I could have demanded to keep you. Had my rich father pay yours a fine amount of coin so I could own you wholly and never let you leave my bed. My beautiful pillow slave.”
Elric feels a strange warmth in the pit of his belly. “You are beautiful too, Bastard Prince,” he says, “every part of you.” But the warmth is not all pleasure. It burns too hot. They will be in Lunatum by noon and all of this will be over. They are neither of them nobles of the Rose Palace anymore. And any future they could have together is only a sweet dream.
They don’t have far left to go, down the rolling hills to Lunatum sparkling on the edge of the Mortingale sea. But as they draw closer and closer to the city, Elric can feel the tension building in Lukas. “You don’t want to go back there,” Elric says, “do you?”
“Just bad memories,” Lukas says with what sounds like false briskness. “It’s not like they can cut my hand off again.”
Elric raises an eyebrow, “Well, I suppose...”
Lukas smiles. “Don’t. And I’m fine. In some ways, it will be good to be back. I have many old friends in Lunatum.”
Elric glances at Lukas. The way he said ‘old friends’ makes Elric think those friends ought to be watching their backs.
“However,” Lukas continues. “I shall have to be careful. There may still be a price on my head in Lunatum.”
Elric raises his eyebrows. “Really?”
“I escaped from Lunatum gaol when it was blown up by the Mortingales. I'm still a wanted criminal.”
“And you think they might arrest you?”
Lukas shrugs. “It’s been a year,” he says as if that is the end of the matter. But Elric wonders how safe Lukas will be in the city that took his hand.
After a short while the track they are walking on joins another track running east and west, at a broad crossroads, and becomes a much wider road heading to the city gates.
Inga shouts to Lukas and Elric, “You two. On the cart.” It’s the first words Inga has said to them all day. The morning’s striking of camp and preparations for the last part of the journey had been wordless. The tension between Lukas and Inga is still sharp. Both of them still have visible bruises on their faces.
At Inga’s instruction, Lukas and Elric hop up into the back of the cart. Little Lamb climbs in too and makes sure their weapons are hidden in the large boxes which turn out to be full of bolts of cloth. Inga pulls her sword from its rope belt and tosses it to Little Lamb who stows it with the rest. Lukas pulls a heavy cloak from one of the wooden boxes in the cart and wraps it around himself, pulling up the hood to hide his face.
When he sees that, Elric wonders again how dangerous it truly is for Lukas to be here. He watches as Lukas removes his hook and slides it underneath himself where he sits on the cart’s boards. He tucks his handless arm inside the cloak carefully and spreads the edge over Elric’s bound wrists. When everything is done, they look no different from the other merchant carts on the road.
The wide gates to the city are heavily guarded. An enforcer in grubby Azurian colours questions Inga, but her story about being a cloth merchant on her way to the dockside trading posts is believed when Little Lamb shows off that the wooden boxes are full of linen bolts, and they are waved through.
Lunatum is smaller than Attar, but Elric could believe it contains just as many inhabitants. The city is loud, people are shouting and racing everywhere. The dusty streets are lined with taverns and market stalls. Streets too narrow for carts wind off the main road from the gates to the docks, vanishing between multi-storied, timbered buildings that get wider as they get higher, leaning so close to each other above street level that they almost touch. Elric thinks that if you went to the upper floors in one of the buildings you could easily cross the street by climbing from one window to the one opposite. On every corner is something new. Some of them, things Elric has never seen in Attar. A wooden building with a golden ram painted on the door. A temple to Lucent. Blatant heresy. On another corner stands a thin bald man with vivid dark eyes, ranting about Pia and Prim. A Priam . Zai priests walk past in solemn procession, dressed in grey and yellow robes, marks of Zai drawn on their foreheads in charcoal. Rats dart about, chased by cats. The sight of the cats excites Marko who runs around in the cart, barking, as Lukas tries to calm her, making soft sounds and stroking her fur with his hand.
Elric looks around, drinking it all in like fresh water. After so long travelling with the Mortingales he is here. There had been many days and nights of travel where he’d truly wondered if he could possibly live to see this place.
Lukas hops up to the front of the cart to give Inga directions as she urges the horses through the streets.
Traders come right up to the cart, hawking wares, everything from apples to gemstones. The air is full of all kinds of city smells. Sharp, nasty scents of sweat and rot and shit and animals and hot flesh, but also some delicious smells of roasting meat and rich spices. Elric’s stomach growls. He’s been eating travel food for more than an entire moon since he left Attar. He would give anything for some roasted fowl in a richly spiced sauce and a cup of peach wine.
There were many Imperial soldiers on the streets and spilling out of taverns and pillow houses with red faces and raucous shouts. The port might have had its laws strengthened with the presence of the Imperial Army and the enforcers they brought with them, but soldiers are never held strictly to Zai’s laws.
This is not the Azuria Elric is used to. Not the controlled, orderly Jewel of the Empire. There seemed no possible number of enforcers that would make Lunatum lose its lawless nature and edge of danger.
Lukas directs the cart to halt at the mouth of one of the dark side streets. Inga jumps down and comes around to the back of the cart to collect her sword. Little Lamb replaces his axe in his belt. Lukas attaches his hook and they all climb down from the cart, Lukas helping Elric to manage with his bound wrists.
Inga pays a street brat a copper penny to watch the cart and Little Lamb takes the horses to a stable yard opposite, before Lukas leads Elric down the narrow street, Inga and Little Lamb following behind.
They arrive at a tavern called Sparrows’ Hall. Inside, in a bawdy, smoky public room. Elric waits in a shadowy corner with Inga and Little Lamb, hoping no one notices how he is bound, while Lukas goes over to the counter. He exchanges words with a serving woman, who turns away and brings a stout dark-skinned man out from a back room. He speaks to Lukas for a short while, both of them nodding.
A moment later, Lukas turns and comes back over. Quietly he says to Inga, “The envoy is here. She has a ship anchored just beyond the horizon at the docks.”
“She?” Inga says with a small, amused expression on her scarred face.
Lukas nods with a raised eyebrow.
“And she will see us?”
“According to the contact here, word will be sent and if she is willing, she will meet us here tomorrow at first light.”
Inga takes a breath. She seems relieved. “First light. Very well,” she says. “Then we will stay here tonight. It will be good to spend the night in a bed.”
Inga arranges lodgings. A plump maid with yellowish hair leads them up a small set of wooden steps. Cramped under the building’s eaves, there are two low doors. Inga opens the first. The chamber beyond has a wide window looking onto the street and a large bed, Inga claims she will take this room for her and Little Lamb.
“This one’s yours,” Inga says to Lukas, pointing to the other, it’s a smaller door, clearly a meaner room. “You and the prize can stay in there and keep your fucking cocksucking behind closed doors for once.” As she says that, Marko jumps from Lukas’s arms, trotting back down the stairs to the public room of Sparrows’ Hall, no doubt in search of table scraps and other dogs.
“Very well,” says Lukas. “
Inga gives Lukas a twisted smile and leans closer to him, “And stay hidden. I don’t want any enforcers asking about you.”
Lukas leads Elric into the other chamber. Elric looks around. It is a good deal smaller than the one Inga took, with a smaller bed and a window that looks onto a yard behind Sparrows’ Hall with several privy huts. Elric wrinkles his nose. “The other chamber was far richer.”
“Inga’s just making sure I know my place,” says Lukas. “She is Abul’s daughter. Now Red Wolf is dead, she’s letting me know how she expects things to fall.”
“She’s jostling for her place as his heir?” Elric whistles. “Who’d have thought the Mortingales would be as political as the fucking Rose Court.”
“It matters not what Inga wishes,” Lukas says. He throws off the cloak and crosses the room to sit on the bed. He’s still holding the rope that is tied around Elric’s wrists, so Elric follows, although the chamber is so small he could probably have stayed standing by the door. Lukas looks up at him. “And it matters not which room Inga sleeps in. Abul has refused to name Inga as his successor before now. He knows well that she doesn’t have the temperament for leadership. And in the Mortingales Abul’s blessing will be all that counts when he chooses to pass the mantle.”
“Oh?” says Elric. He pauses, looking at Lukas. “And you think it will be you, don’t you? As Abul hinted at that dinner before we left. You think you will be named the next leader of the Mortingales?”
Lukas nods. He smiles a small smile. “I don’t just think it. I have a promise. When I successfully broker a deal with the Plumians, Abul will name me as his successor and Inga will answer to me.”
“If she doesn’t make good on her word to kill you as soon as you have traded me.,” Elric says, half wary, half playful. “She could do it now. You just told her where to meet the envoy.”
Lukas laughs. “Even if Inga realises that she doesn’t know how to recognise the envoy.” Lukas seems quite happy as he adds, “But I think it would be prudent to make my own way back to the mountains after the deal is done.”
“After you’ve traded me,” says Elric.
“Yes,” Lukas replies, simply, blankly.
“If that happens you will have gone from the Mortingales hated traitor to their leader in only a few turns of the moon,” Elric says. His words hang. He knows Lukas desires reacceptance by the Mortingales more than anything. But Lukas will not make that deal. Elric does not intend to still be in Sparrows’ Hall when dawn breaks. He needs to make a plan for how he’s going to do that. But dawn is still an age away.
“Come then, Underlia,” Lukas says, “Inga told us to keep it behind closed doors. And we are behind a closed door. Let me remove those ropes so I can take you in a bed instead of on the dirt ground.”
Lukas reaches for the ropes on Elric’s wrists. But Elric pulls back. “No,” he says quietly. “Let’s keep these ropes on. I have grown fond of them.”
“As you wish,” Lukas says with a rasp of lust in his voice. He reaches out again and grabs at the rope, jerking it towards himself so Elric is jerked with it, into Lukas’s lap.
Lukas places his hook against Elric’s cheek. Elric sighs.
Lukas leans close and presses a kiss to Elric’s lips, trailing the hook down the side of his face, over his jaw, along his neck.
“Please,” Elric moans, his words swallowed into Lukas’s kiss.
Lukas leans back, licking at Elric’s bottom lip as he does so. He gazes into Elric’s eyes. Lukas’s silver-flecked eyes look darker than ever, pupils wide, the silver in them looks like stars in the sky. Lukas’s face has healed a little. The swelling has calmed but he still has a blue-black bruise on his cheekbone, red in the centre where the skin split and healed. His lower lip is still swollen and scuffed. He is the most beautiful man Elric has ever seen. Elric touches Lukas’s cheekbone. “Bastard Prince,” he says, a soft tease.
“Your Bastard Prince,” Lukas says. “Now, get on your back, my slut. I have some work to do today. I’m going to make sure you never forget me.”
Elric gasps with arousal. He doesn’t think he will ever tire of Lukas calling him a slut. It sounds so sweetly cruel in his refined Artemian tones. His time in the Mortingales has not roughened his accent like it has roughened every other part of him.
Elric obeys Lukas, sighing as he lies back on the small bed. He lifts his roped wrists above his head and lets Lukas tie them to the wooden frame at the bed’s head. Elric tests the bonds. He is firmly held. It feels so good. Lukas starts to unbutton Elric’s shirt one-handed, he curses as he fumbles at the buttons. “Should have thought to strip you before I left us with only one hand between us,” he says, his voice amusement lying over frustration.
Elric is panting. He cannot wait for this. “Use the hook,” he breathes. “Take me with no care. Silverhand, please. Treat me like your captive that you can use as you wish.”
Lukas raises a dark eyebrow. “Are you sure? If I destroy this fine silk shirt I have no replacement for it.”
Elric writhes. “It’s ruined anyway. Please, Silverhand, my bloodthirsty outlaw, take me like the slutty little Lordling you captured in the woods. Rip my shirt off and take me like you are forcing me. Like I am your prize.”
Lukas laughs. “As you wish.” He raises the hook, catches the collar of Elric’s shirt with it and shreds the fabric all down the front, ripping it open. Elric almost spends to see it.
“And my breeches,” Elric gasps. “Strip me with your hook, for your pleasure.” Elric pants out, writhing in the ropes. “I wanted you to do this that night when you first found me in the woods and tied me. I had dreams of being cruelly used by a savage, handsome outlaw.” As he finishes his sentence his breath is so ragged he can barely speak.
Lukas laughs again as he does as Elric wishes, ripping open the placket of Elric’s breeches with his hook and standing to pull them off. Elric hears the fabric tear further. He’ll regret this later, but he ignores any thought of that. Too eager to be naked in front of Lukas.
Lukas takes a moment to gaze at Elric, naked, roped to the bed. “My prize,” he says, darkly, pulling off his shirt. “Snatched from the heart of the Empire. The Rose Palace’s secret treasure. And what a fine prize it is,” His breeches follow quickly and he climbs back on top of Elric.
Lukas finds the bottle of oil Elric keeps in his belt pouch and holds it up, inspecting its contents. Elric is glad to see they have only used half of it. Lukas watches Elric with hooded eyes as he pours the remaining oil over his hand, then reaches down and strokes sweet slickness over Elric’s hole. Elric groans with pleasure, aching, greedy for more.
Lukas’s mouth finds Elric’s for a deep kiss as Lukas’s oiled finger slides into Elric’s hole. Elric shivers in the ropes. Twisting his body, trying to get more of Lukas. More of Lukas’s tongue in his mouth, more of Lukas’s finger in his hole.
After a moment, Lukas slides a second finger inside Elric, twisting and crooking them inside him in a way that makes Elric moan. He bears down as much as he can, greedy for more, which makes Lukas pull back from the kiss. “Zai,” he breathes. Eyes darker than ever.
Elric moans. “Stroke me,” he says with a jolt of his hips. “Make me spend like this with your fingers inside me.”
“Ah, Lordling,” Lukas says, bringing his mouth to Elric’s ear and nipping at the skin just below it. “I cannot stroke you and fuck you that way. Your dastardly bastard outlaw only has one hand, remember.” To emphasise the point he strokes his hook, gently, up Elric’s chest.
“What do I care for a lover with two hands?” Elric says desperately as Lukas’s fingers keep moving inside him. “Must I ask again for you to stroke me with that hook?”
Lukas gasps in response. He keeps moving his fingers inside Elric, teasing the sensitive spot inside him as he brings the hook down and around Elric’s weeping cock. He uses the inside of the curve to tease over its head, slicking the smooth metal, and then he gently strokes it down the length.
Elric can’t stop the sounds he makes. Pure desperate arousal, keening and chattering with want.
Lukas twists his fingers and moves the hook again. Elric throws his head back against the bed, moaning, and he feels Lukas’s mouth on his bared neck, kissing open-mouthed on his skin, nipping and biting.
Lukas strokes his hook a little faster. He must be taking care with the point, but Elric is too frantic and eager to spend from this to care too much if Lukas stabs him in the thigh.
When he does spend, only a moment later, he cries out, “ Silverhand ,” as his seed pulses out of him hard and fast, painting both their chests and even hitting Lukas’s chin.
When Elric has finished moaning out his pleasure, Lukas brings the hook up to Elric’s mouth and lets him lick the flecks of spend from the warm metal. After that’s done Elric plants kisses along its glittering curve, feeling like he is worshipping his prince’s beautiful hook.
Elric is still adrift on his pleasure when Lukas lies down beside Elric and holds him, whispering into his hair, “You are magnificent my sweet slut, beautiful slut, desperate fucking whore,” all of which makes Elric coo with delight.
Later, Lukas unties Elric’s bonds, fussing over his wrists with the salve before he lets Elric curl down onto the floor to bury his face between Lukas’s legs and suck. He takes Lukas’s hard cock deep and the sweet feel of it is every bit as beautiful and silken in his mouth as ever.
Lukas is even faster to spend than he was the first time Elric sucked him, but as he tells Elric afterwards, “Given the sight I witnessed earlier, I am surprised you got to use your mouth on my cock for more than a moment.”
They lie together on the room’s small bed for most of the day, kissing and touching each other. The sun crosses the sky above Lunatum, far too fast for Elric. They both spend again when Lukas has Elric lie close beside him with their bodies pressed belly to belly and curls his strong left hand around both their cocks, stroking them to pleasure together.
Later still, Lukas makes good on his promises to tease Elric until he begs to spend, Lukas chuckling in his ear, “You’re mine little Lordling. You spend only when I allow you such privileges. Such is the cruel life of an outlaw’s concubine.”
Elric moans. Lukas finally lets him spend and the pleasure is the most intense he has ever felt in his life.
As it grows dark outside, Lukas is sitting at the end of the bed, leaning against the wall. Elric says nothing. He slides naked from the bed onto the floor and kneels between Lukas’s thighs.
“Again, Lordling?” Lukas reaches out with his hook and cups Elric’s chin. There is something so wildly decadent about Lukas wearing nothing but his hook. The way those leather straps are fixed tight around his muscular chest, strapped to a shoulder piece, strapped to the sleeve that covers his forearm. It makes Elric’s mouth go dry. “Bastard Prince,” Elric says, in the breathy seductive tones of any Rose Palace concubine, “I would suck you. One last time.”
“One might almost think your plan is to murder me with pleasure and escape into the night,” Lukas says.
Elric swallows. “Surely you are far too renowned and wily an outlaw to fall for that from your captured prize?” he says.
“I am not sure whether I am or am not. Nevertheless, I am not willing to resist your mouth, Underlia. It is truly the sweetest in the Empire.”
“Why thank you, Sire,” Elric says, leaning forward and taking the head of Lukas’s cock between his lips, rousing it with quick strokes of his tongue until Lukas is panting, breathlessly muttering, “Lordling, you are truly the most skilled of sluts with that mouth.”
He sucks Lukas deep, ignoring the insistent part of his mind that seems to want to brightly remind him that this is the last time he will take Lukas’s cock down his throat.
After a few moments, Lukas spends with a deep groan. Elric wonders just how fast he could make Lukas spend from sucking if he really tried.
But he’ll never get to do that. He’ll never find out.
Lukas leans down and strokes his thumb across Elric’s chin, brushing away a tiny spill of spend. “Zai’s cock you’re good at that.”
Elric says nothing more. There is nothing to say. It is dark outside. This is his last and only chance. He must run tonight while Lukas sleeps. He will never see him again.