Chapter 7 Hal #3
Hal’s hand wrapped around the base, stroking what he couldn’t fit in his mouth. He pulled back to lap at the head, savouring the bitter fluid there, before swallowing him down again with newfound hunger.
But when he pulled up to breathe, the world flipped again.
Alaric moved with surprising strength, using his legs to hook around Hal’s shoulders and roll them until their positions were reversed. Hal found himself on his back with Alaric straddling his chest, that wet aristocratic cock pointed directly at his face.
Before he could process the reversal, Alaric slapped his cock against Hal’s cheek—once, twice—leaving wet trails across his stubbled skin.
Hal’s chest lurched, though the emotion behind it was muddy. Unclear. Gone was the certainty he was in control, but in its place wasn’t anger. He placed his hands on Alaric’s ass and gasped, realising how intently Alaric watched him.
“Beautiful,” Alaric murmured, stroking himself slowly.
Up and down, slick and swollen. The casual dominance stunned Hal, who fell into a kind of trance watching the motion.
The way the foreskin moved, the way the glans emerged, slick and flushed, and fuck, why did it feel like the sun itself was in his chest as he watched the other knight touch himself?
Alaric used his other hand to grip Hal’s jaw. They locked eyes. Alaric tilted his head and let go of him, rocking forward so that every forward thrust scraped the head of his cock against Hal’s parted lips.
“You look so good like this,” Alaric told him. “So desperate. So eager to please.”
Heat flooded Hal’s face, embarrassment mixing with arousal. He made to shove away, to reclaim some dignity, but the knight’s free hand was pinning him down. Alaric rubbed his tip against Hal’s lips, and all the fight guttered out, so when Alaric next guided himself forward, Hal surrendered utterly.
Fuck it. This was. . . so . . .
He opened his mouth and took Alaric inside.
“Good,” Alaric hissed. His voice dropped into an intimate register; he was half whispering to himself. “That’s it, Ser Halden. Yes.”
It was the use of his title that had Hal’s eyes rolling back.
He felt his throat open, head fogging with a kind of pathetic pleasure.
Alaric took advantage, thrusting deep into Hal’s throat until he choked, then pulling all the way out with a moan.
Hal coughed and spluttered, stringy saliva coating his lips, and Alaric stared like he wanted to hold Hal down by the neck and use his throat mercilessly.
The way Hal had intended to ruin Alaric.
But instead, Alaric only gracefully rolled off him and onto his side. He stared up at Hal, his other hand moving low to stroke Hal’s ignored, aching cock.
Hal threw his head back, all his frustration vanishing.
“Feels good?” Alaric murmured.
“Of course,” Hal whispered.
Hal looked at him, brow furrowed.
“Do you want to feel me?” Alaric asked. Hal dipped his eyes to Alaric’s hand; he was feeling him now, wasn’t he? Then Alaric murmured, “Do you want to feel how warm my insides are around your cock?”
Hal’s eyes fluttered closed. A dizziness struck him, a momentary loss of awareness. He couldn’t find the will to reply, either; what would come out if not a desperate litany of yes, yes, yes?
Alaric let go, and now Hal’s eyes snapped opened with an exasperated hiss.
Alaric, if he noticed, ignored Hal’s over eagerness and pushed his legs apart with gentle but inexorable pressure.
Hal felt suddenly vulnerable like that, with Alaric’s eyes drinking him in and his legs spread to either side.
What had happened that Alaric was taking control?
How was it that Alaric could be blunt about what position he would take, and yet Hal was the one spread legged now?
Alaric ran a teasing hand over Hal’s cock. “You want this. Want me. Say it.”
Hal couldn’t. “Fuck you,” he managed, but the words came out breathless. Pathetic.
“Mm. Eventually.” Alaric flashed him a gentle smile. That confirmation—Gods, it would happen. Gods, he’d get to fuck the smug bastard—made Hal knock his head back against the pillow.
Alaric continued, “I was considering straddling you right now. Riding you until you were screaming.”
Hal’s head swam with the vision that assaulted him; Alaric’s lean musculature bouncing on his cock, holding Hal down to get his own pleasure.
It wasn’t quite the reclamation of power Hal had imagined for himself—not quite as hot as fucking his better into the mattress until the other man screamed—but he felt his hips tilt up all the same.
Alaric noticed too, and finally his hand wrapped around Hal’s cock again, stroking in slow, long arcs.
“But first, I’m going to make you beg for it. Going to reduce you to nothing but need. And tomorrow, when you’re trying to concentrate on the joust, you’re going to remember exactly how you fell apart for me.”
Hal sneered. “You fucking—”
Alaric’s mouth returned to his cock, and whatever semi-coherent argument had been brewing became stupidly irrelevant.
Hal fell back and closed his eyes with a high-pitched moan.
This time it was different; he couldn’t even think to be embarrassed.
Alaric took his time, alternating between long, slow sucks and quick flicks of his tongue that had Hal writhing.
His hands roamed everywhere—pinching Hal’s nipples, squeezing his thighs, pressing against places that made Hal’s back arch off the cot.
Every part of Hal’s body felt suddenly made for pleasure.
Not pain, as he’d always thought. There was more to his physicality than jousting; more to his worth than what honour he might bring a noble house.
There was his body—the use of his body—for whatever he wanted. And he fucking wanted. . .!
“Please,” Hal heard himself gasp. “Please, I need—”
“Need what?” Alaric pulled off just enough to speak, his breath ghosting over Hal’s wet cock. “Tell me what you need.”
But before Hal could answer—before he could put into words the desperate ache building in his body—the tent flap opened.
Hal jerked at the movement. Perrin stood in the entrance, his thin frame backlit by dying campfires.
His face was a study in shock, dark eyes wide and mouth slightly open as he took in the scene before him.
Hal knew what he was seeing: his knight on his back, naked and hard and obviously debauched.
Alaric between his legs, equally naked, his lips still wet with Hal’s precum.
For a moment, nobody moved. The tableau held frozen, three men caught in a moment that couldn’t be explained away or ignored.
Then Alaric laughed.
It wasn’t the pleased chuckle Hal had heard this evening, but something cold and sharp and calculated. He had been edging from stranger to lover, but the sound re-established the gulf between them.
“I think your pet is in love with you, Ser Hal.” Alaric climbed off the cot with leisurely grace. He made no attempt to cover himself, completely unashamed. “Perhaps you should go tend to him.”
Hal scrambled upright, his mind struggling to process what was happening. Perrin just stood there, staring, his face cycling through expressions Hal had no names for. How dare he—how dare Perrin stand there and look hurt!
“Perrin,” Hal started, reaching for his breeches with shaking hands. It came out trembling, like Hal was about to apologise. He shook his own head, mouth running dry. But it was fury he felt. An embarrassed rage. “The fuck are you standing there for, boy? Leave us.”
Perrin, who had been obedient as long as Hal had known him, did not move.
“S-sorry, ser.”
Sorry, he said, and still, he did not move.
Alaric was pulling on his own clothes now, and the moment—a small, blissful moment of real pleasure—was disappearing. Fuck Perrin right in the ass.
The young man raised his chin. Wait—Hal had been wrong; it wasn’t hurt in his eyes, but fear. Perrin glanced at him, then fixed his gaze on the back of the tent.
“I think. . .h-he’s using you, ser.”
Hal blinked at him. “What?”
“I think I know,” Perrin whispered, “who he is.”
Alaric’s head lifted very slowly, but something about the movement made Hal’s blood run cold.
The warmth that had filled the tent moments ago drained away, replaced by a creeping horror as Alaric turned to face him.
His silver eyes were cold as stone, holding no trace of the heat they’d shown before.
Hal was looking at Alaric, but he was seeing the Nameless Knight. Alaric didn’t look away as he asked Perrin, “And who do you think I am?”
“Lord Vaelor’s son.”
There was no twitch of recognition in Alaric’s face, but he was a good liar, wasn’t he? Hal shifted his gaze to Perrin.
“You making this up, Perrin?”
Perrin’s lips pinched together. “An educated guess, ser. I—was worried.”
“So you came to find me?” Hal hissed at his squire.
Was this an act of care from his squire, or something petty?
Hal risked a glance back at Alaric. Whatever it was, scolding the squire here in front of his rival wasn’t safe.
Leaving would be the best move, and instead he wet his lips and nodded to Perrin. “Fine. Tell me the story.”
Perrin straightened. “Lord Vaelor was a border lord who fell out of royal favour two years ago after he was accused of raising arms without leave. After he was charged for treason, his eldest son vanished from court. It would make sense,” Perrin said firmly, “for him to be so interested in besting you, with your common birth. He reasserts the old order and begins to clear his name.”
Hal considered this. Alaric’s face still betrayed nothing. “So, what? You think he plans to reveal his name tomorrow? He wants to beat me again to announce his newfound path?” Hal asked.
“You should leave now,” Alaric said, and his educated accent had sharpened into something almost cruel.
But something passed in his eyes—what? If only Hal could read emotions as well as he could a knight’s jousting tells.
“Both of you. This,” Alaric gestured rapidly between Perrin and Hal, “has been illuminating.”
Hal had just gotten his breeches on but couldn’t seem to make his hands work well enough to lace them. “Listen,” he said, turning to Alaric. “My squire is as damn forward as me. But if you are Lord Vaelor’s son, fucking me won’t—”
“Did you really think,” Alaric interrupted, his smile turning cold, “that I wanted you here for any reason other than tomorrow’s match? That I invited you to my tent out of genuine desire rather than strategy?”
A cold knot formed in Hal’s stomach. He shut his mouth, felt himself close and retreat back to the safety of his anger, his volatility.
And still, because he could never learn, he muttered, “I don’t—”
“You don’t understand?” Alaric’s eyebrow rose, aristocratic and contemptuous.
“With your breeding, of course not. So, let me make it simple for you, then. Tomorrow we face each other in the finals. I needed an advantage. And you—” His gaze raked over Hal’s half-naked form with something that looked like disdain.
“—you were so eager, all I had to do was suggest it.”
No. No, that wasn’t. . . He shook his head. That couldn’t be true. The way Alaric had looked at him. . .could desire like that be forced?
“You said you wanted to prove your worth without your name,” Hal hissed. “Was that a lie?”
But if Alaric heard him, he ignored Hal’s word.
Alaric finished dressing and turned to face both of them fully.
“Tell me, Ser Hal—do you think you’ll fight well tomorrow, pent up as you are?
With your body aching and your mind replaying every sound you made, every desperate plea?
Because I certainly won’t have that problem. ”
The cruelty of it stole Hal’s breath. Even if Alaric was lying, even if he wasn’t who Perrin thought, this was the same ugly brand of hate every noble had thrown his way.
Hal had lived in the shadow of this muck his whole life.
Was Alaric embarrassed? Was embarrassment enough of a reason for—for this? What a petty asshole.
Fuck. Fuck it all.
Hal looked at Perrin, whose face had gone carefully blank in the way it did when he was trying not to feel anything at all, and shame burned through Hal like fire.
Because it didn’t matter if Alaric was lying, then. He was right about one thing: Hal would be thinking about this for quite some time.
“Get out,” Alaric said, his voice final. “And thank your squire for providing such a timely interruption. I was starting to worry I’d have to find another way to end this before things went too far.”
Hal’s hands curled into fists. Part of him wanted to hit Alaric, wanted to wipe that cold smile off his face and make him hurt the way Hal was hurting.
But Perrin was already retreating from the tent, and the sight of his squire’s thin shoulders hunched against the night air broke something in Hal’s chest.
He grabbed his shirt and stumbled toward the entrance, unable to look at either of them. Behind him, Alaric’s laugh followed—soft and satisfied and entirely devoid of warmth.
“See you tomorrow, Ser Hal. I do hope you’ll still give me a good match.”