Chapter 8
Bryn kisses him first.
Or he tries to. He surges up on his toes and his mouth finds the corner of Ithyris's jaw because the prince is too tall and Bryn has misjudged the angle entirely and for one mortifying second he is fairly certain he's just kissed the dragon prince of the Drekian Sovereignty on the chin.
Which is not where he was aiming. Which is, in fact, about four inches from where he was aiming, and the miscalculation is so thoroughly Bryn, so perfectly representative of his entire experience in this kingdom, that he almost wants to laugh except that his mouth is on a dragon's jawbone and laughter seems inadvisable.
Then Ithyris moves.
His arms wrap around Bryn's waist and he lifts him clean off the ground.
Bryn's feet leave the moss and he is airborne for the second time today except this time there are no wings, just the prince's hands and his arms and the sudden, shocking strength of him holding Bryn up as though he weighs nothing, as though the effort required to lift a full-grown human to eye level is so negligible it doesn't even register on whatever scale Drekians use to measure exertion.
Ithyris brings him to his height, Bryn's face level with his, and his mouth finds Bryn's and the world ends.
Bryn has never been kissed.
He doesn't know what he expected. Something gentle, maybe.
Something tentative and careful, the polite negotiation of two mouths meeting for the first time, the kind of first kiss that belongs in one of the three romance novels in Everen's forty-seven-book library.
What he gets is not that. What he gets is consuming.
Ithyris's mouth is hot and sure and he kisses Bryn with a focus that makes the flight through the Ashveil Pass look casual by comparison, his lips parting Bryn's, his tongue sliding against Bryn's, slow and deep and deliberate, tasting him.
And the sound Bryn makes, a low, broken thing from somewhere behind his ribs that he did not authorize and would not have approved if consulted, is involuntary and embarrassing and he feels it vibrate against the prince's mouth.
Ithyris's arms tighten around him and the prince groans back, a sound that resonates through his chest and into Bryn's, and the knowledge that Ithyris is making that sound because of a noise Bryn made sends a bolt of heat straight through his stomach and lower and his brain, which has been running the show for eighteen years without interruption, quietly abdicates its position.
His hands. He doesn't know what to do with his hands.
They find Ithyris's shoulders, then his neck, then the short dark hair at the back of his head, and he fists them in it and holds on because the ground is gone and Ithyris is the only solid thing in the world and Bryn is kissing him back with a desperation he didn't know he had in him, biting at the prince's lower lip, licking into his mouth, clumsy and hungry and graceless and entirely without technique.
He is, by any objective measure, terrible at this.
He has no experience and no finesse and his teeth keep catching and his nose is in the way and he doesn't care because Ithyris responds to every fumble as though it's exactly what he wanted, as though Bryn's inexperience is not an obstacle but an offering, and the prince meets each clumsy attempt with patience and heat and a thoroughness that makes Bryn's toes curl.
Ithyris's restraint unravels in layers, and Bryn feels each one go.
First his hands. They slide from Bryn's waist to his hips, fingers digging into the thin fabric, pulling Bryn flush against him so that there is no space left between their bodies.
Then lower, gripping the backs of Bryn's thighs, spreading them so that Bryn wraps around his waist, and the new position presses Bryn against the prince's stomach, against the hard, unmistakable line of him beneath his trousers, and Bryn feels how aroused Ithyris is, the full, rigid length of him against the inside of Bryn's thigh, and the reality of it sends a shock through him that is equal parts fear and want in proportions he can't separate and doesn't try to.
He is hard too. He has been since the flight, maybe since before the flight, maybe since the prince said good morning on the platform and Bryn's body decided to make a series of deeply inconvenient decisions without consulting his brain.
The friction of their bodies together draws a gasp from him that Ithyris swallows with his mouth.
Then Ithyris's mouth. He breaks from Bryn's lips and drags his mouth down Bryn's jaw, down the side of his neck, open and wet, his tongue tracing the tendon, his teeth grazing the spot below Bryn's ear, and Bryn tips his head back to give him room without thinking about it, without deciding to, his body offering access before his mind has processed the request. The sound that comes out of him is not dignified.
It is not composed. It is not the sound of a prince or a strategist or a boy who has spent six years keeping himself under control.
The prince's lips close over his pulse point and he sucks, hard enough to bruise, and Bryn's hips jerk against him and his hands yank at the prince's hair and Ithyris growls against his throat.
The vibration of the growl rolls through Bryn's body and pools between his legs and he is so hard it hurts and the hurt is indistinguishable from the want.
Then the growl deepens. It builds in Ithyris's chest, low and resonant, not threatening but possessive, the sound of a creature that has found what belongs to it and is holding it and will not let go, and when it rolls through the prince's body and into Bryn's where they're pressed together Bryn feels it in his spine and his ribs and the base of his cock and he gasps and grinds against Ithyris and his hands pull at the prince's shirt because he needs it gone, needs skin, needs to touch Ithyris the way Ithyris is touching him, needs to know what the scales feel like under his palms and against his chest.
Ithyris sets him down. Bryn's feet touch the moss and his legs buckle immediately and the prince catches him, one arm banded around his waist, and his other hand comes up to cup Bryn's jaw and tilt his head back and he looks at him.
His eyes are black. The amethyst is gone, swallowed entirely, and the scales have spread across his cheekbones and down his neck, flickering violet in the dappled forest light, more extensive than Bryn has ever seen them.
His mouth is swollen from kissing, red and wet.
His breathing is wrecked, coming in deep, uneven pulls that Bryn can feel against his own chest. He is the most powerful being in his kingdom and he is looking at Bryn as though Bryn is the thing that has brought him to his knees, and the expression on his face is raw and open and desperate in a way that Bryn has never seen on another person's face before, certainly not directed at him.
"Tell me to stop," Ithyris says. His voice is shattered, barely recognizable as the same voice that addressed the court and claimed Bryn as his mate. "Bryn. Tell me to stop and I will. I will stop and I will take you back to the palace and I will never touch you again if that's what you want."
He means it. Bryn can see that he means it, can see the sincerity of it in the shattered remains of the prince's composure, and the knowledge that Ithyris would do it, would stop and step back and endure the agony of it, is what makes Bryn's decision for him.
Not the arousal. Not the want. The knowledge that this man, who is trembling with need, is still handing Bryn the choice.
Bryn reaches up and presses his palm flat against the prince's chest. Ithyris's heart is hammering beneath his hand, fast and powerful, and the scales under his fingers are warm and smooth and real and alive.
"I don't want you to stop, Ithyris."
Something in Ithyris's expression breaks open.
Not control, though that goes too. Something deeper.
Some last barrier between wanting and having that the prince has been maintaining since the moment Bryn walked into the great hall, a wall built of restraint and patience and the desperate effort to not be the thing Bryn was afraid of, and the look on his face when it gives way is the most naked thing Bryn has ever seen on another person.
It's not just desire. It's relief. It's the face of someone who has been holding his breath for days and is finally, finally being allowed to exhale.
He pulls Bryn's shirt over his head and throws it and it lands somewhere in the moss and neither of them watches it go.
His own shirt follows, pulled over his head with a single motion, and then his hands are on Bryn's bare skin and his chest is against Bryn's and the heat of him is staggering, furnace-hot, the dragon's internal fire burning beneath skin that is smooth and warm and scattered with scales across his shoulders and collarbone.
Bryn presses his hands flat against the prince's chest and feels the muscles flex beneath his palms and the scales shift and ripple under his touch, responding to the contact, and Ithyris shudders, his whole body trembling.
The reaction is visible and total, and Bryn realizes with a shock that his hands on Ithyris's skin affect the prince the way the prince's hands on Bryn's skin affect him.
That the power here, whatever else is unbalanced between them, runs both ways.
His touch moves the dragon prince. His hands make this creature tremble.
He has never made anyone tremble before. He has never had that kind of power. It's intoxicating in a way he wasn't prepared for.
Ithyris lowers him to the ground.