Chapter 7 War Council #2
Clyde stood by through all of it. Silent, patient, steady. He knew the truth: that this was no lord’s authority, no heir’s arrogance. It was fear, gnawing him hollow. It was grief for something not yet lost.
By the fourth night, the eve of departure, Aerion was drunk. He staggered in his chambers, robe half-unbuttoned, hair mussed, a goblet of red sloshing as he waved it wildly.
“You’re leaving me,” he slurred, eyes glassy with fury. “Leaving me like everyone else. My father, my courtiers, even the gods in their bloody frescoes—they’ve all abandoned me. And now you—”
Clyde stood by the hearth, arms folded, watching. Quiet.
Aerion stumbled closer, thrusting the goblet aside so wine splattered crimson across the floor. “Say something,” he demanded. “Anything. Prove you’re not made of stone. Gods, Clyde, do you even feel?”
When Clyde didn’t answer, Aerion’s hand snapped out before he could stop himself. The slap cracked through the chamber, ringing louder than thunder.
Silence followed, thick and absolute.
Aerion froze, hand still raised, lips parted as though even he couldn’t believe it. His heart hammered against his ribs, breath sharp.
Clyde’s hand moved fast, catching Aerion’s wrist in an iron grip. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t snarl. He only held him there, steady, unyielding, until the tremor in Aerion’s fingers betrayed him.
Their eyes locked—deep blue and storm-grey.
Then Clyde pulled him forward and kissed him.
It was not soft. It was not gentle. It was a clash, a collision, all the tension of weeks breaking like a dam. His mouth was firm, unforgiving, his grip unrelenting on Aerion’s wrist as though he feared letting go would undo it all.
Aerion gasped into it, shocked, wine-sweet breath spilling against Clyde’s lips. His body arched closer before his mind could think better of it, every nerve alight.
And just as abruptly, Clyde released him.
The kiss ended, but the echo of it throbbed between them, louder than the storm that had once caged them in the cabin.
Clyde’s voice was low, ragged. “That’s all I can give you.”
Aerion stood trembling, breath shuddering, lips still burning.
Clyde’s words—That’s all I can give you—hung in the chamber like smoke after a fire, suffocating, unbearable.
“That’s not enough,” Aerion whispered, his voice cracked, almost boyish in its ache. “Not after this. Not when you’ve already—” His throat closed around the rest.
He lunged.
Aerion’s mouth crashed into Clyde’s again, desperate, wild, tasting of wine and fury.
His hands gripped at steel and leather, clawing at buckles, pulling at the rough layers that separated him from the man beneath.
Clyde’s first instinct was resistance, his body stiff, his hand gripping Aerion’s shoulder as if to hold him back.
But Aerion’s moan—ragged, broken, pleading—dissolved the last of it.
With a low growl, Clyde shoved him backward, hard enough that Aerion stumbled and hit the bedpost. The goblet clattered to the floor, spilling the last of its red across the stone like blood.
Before Aerion could speak, Clyde was on him, one hand seizing his jaw, the other pinning his chest to the carved wood, kissing him so fiercely Aerion thought his lips might bruise.
Aerion gasped into the kiss, fingers tangling in Clyde’s hair, pulling hard enough to hurt. “Yes—” he panted between kisses, “—yes—”
Clyde’s armor hit the floor piece by piece, pauldrons, leather straps, bracers.
until only his shirt clung to him, dark with sweat.
Aerion fumbled at the ties with shaking hands, cursing when they wouldn’t yield fast enough.
Clyde tore the fabric himself, the sound of ripping linen breaking the night air.
His chest was bare, scarred, the lines of every battle written across him.
Aerion’s hands flew over that flesh as if reading scripture. Over the scar at his collarbone. Down the plane of muscle hardened by years of discipline. Lower—fingers trembling when they brushed the waist of his trousers.
Clyde caught his hand, grip bruising. “Aerion.”
The name was a warning. A plea.
Aerion stared up at him, eyes blazing, lips swollen. “If you stop now, I’ll burn this keep to the ground.”
Something in Clyde broke.
He spun Aerion, pressing him flat against the bedpost, mouth at his throat, teeth sinking hard enough to mark. Aerion cried out, hips jerking back, grinding shamelessly against the hardness he felt through Clyde’s trousers. Clyde’s breath was ragged against his skin, every exhale fire.
They fell onto the bed in a tangle of silk and flesh. Aerion clawed at his own robe, shoving it from his shoulders, baring pale skin flushed with heat. Clyde stripped him roughly, piece by piece, until Aerion lay beneath him in nothing but desperation.
“Gods,” Aerion gasped, arching up as Clyde’s hand finally closed around him, firm, sure, merciless. His cock throbbed under that calloused grip, every stroke deliberate, unrelenting. His back bowed, thighs spread wide, and he moaned without shame, head thrown back into the pillows.
“Yes—fuck—don’t stop—”
Clyde’s mouth crushed against his, swallowing every sound, every cry.
His tongue claimed Aerion’s, tasting wine, tasting desperation, tasting him.
Their hips ground together, rough, hot friction sparking sharp bursts of pleasure that had Aerion clutching at Clyde’s scarred back like a man drowning.
His nails left red trails down muscle, and still Clyde did not falter.
Then Clyde tore his mouth away, lips wet and bruising against Aerion’s throat. His hand slid lower, down the flat of Aerion’s stomach, over the tremble of his hipbone. Aerion gasped when those calloused fingers brushed lower, circling the tight ring of muscle that clenched at nothing.
“Clyde—” Aerion’s voice broke, high and needy, “—please…”
Clyde groaned against his neck, the sound guttural, feral, as he pressed a single finger inside.
Aerion’s whole body jerked, back arching, thighs falling further apart to take him in.
The stretch was sharp, burning, but Clyde was patient—curling, testing, pulling out and sliding back in until Aerion was writhing against the sheets.
“More,” Aerion panted, voice cracking into a moan. “Gods, don’t stop—give me more—”
Clyde answered with another kiss, deep and merciless, even as he pushed a second finger inside.
Aerion whimpered into his mouth, hips rocking helplessly, chasing the friction, chasing the stretch.
The second finger scissored him open, rough calluses catching against sensitive flesh, making Aerion cry out, nails digging harder into Clyde’s shoulders.
“Fuck—you’ll tear me apart—” Aerion gasped, but the way his body clamped down, begging for it, betrayed him. Sweat slicked his temples, his chest heaving as Clyde worked him open with steady, relentless strokes.
A third finger breached him, and Aerion’s cry shattered into the air. His thighs shook around Clyde’s hips, his cock hard and leaking against his stomach. Every push made him twitch, every curl brushed deeper, searching, pressing until stars burst white behind Aerion’s eyes.
“Clyde—” His voice was raw now, wrecked, pleading. “I can’t—I’ll break—”
“You won’t,” Clyde growled against his lips, his forehead pressed hard to Aerion’s. “You’ll take me.”
And gods, he wanted to. Aerion lifted into every thrust of Clyde’s hand, tears stinging at the corners of his eyes from the sheer overwhelming pressure and pleasure of it. When Clyde finally pulled his fingers free, slick with him, Aerion whimpered at the loss, his body aching, open, desperate.
Then Clyde shifted, pushing Aerion’s thighs up, spreading him wide. The blunt head of his cock pressed against Aerion’s loosened rim, slicked with his own release, poised to enter.
The pressure built—slow, agonizingly slow—as Clyde began to push in. Every inch forced Aerion open further, every inch stole his breath. He cried out, nails raking Clyde’s back, head thrown against the pillows, eyes wild and glassy.
The stretch burned. The fullness overwhelmed.
And still, Aerion lifted his hips, begging for more.
“Yes—fuck—yes—” he sobbed, voice breaking, “don’t stop—”
Until Clyde was fully seated inside him, buried to the hilt, breath shuddering ragged against Aerion’s ear.
Aerion clung to him, trembling, nails sunk deep into scarred flesh. His whole body quaked from the invasion, from the pleasure that bordered on unbearable.
And Clyde, finally inside him, groaned low and guttural, the sound vibrating through both their chests.
Clyde stayed buried deep for a breath, chest heaving, his forehead pressed to Aerion’s as though anchoring them both. Aerion trembled beneath him, body stretched around the thickness of him, the burn sharp but intoxicating, his thighs quivering with the effort of holding him there.
Then Clyde pulled back—slow, deliberate, the drag of every inch making Aerion’s mouth fall open in a soundless moan. For a heartbeat he hovered at the edge, the blunt head of his cock just inside, and then he drove back in with one long, merciless thrust that knocked the breath from Aerion’s lungs.
“Gods—” Aerion cried, his voice breaking into a sob.
Clyde growled low in his throat and set a rhythm of deep, punishing strokes that slammed Aerion into the mattress, the bedframe striking the stone wall in time with their bodies.
Every thrust forced a cry from Aerion, sharp, desperate, unguarded.
His nails raked furrows into Clyde’s back, legs locked tight around his waist, dragging him in harder, deeper, as though he could fuse them together.
The sound of flesh meeting flesh filled the chamber, slick and brutal. Clyde’s cock split him open with each stroke, hitting deep, striking that spot inside him that made Aerion’s vision shatter into white stars.