Chapter 14 Kerik #2
“Master,” Perl says so quietly Kerik barely hears, but he sees how Perl's lips move over the word, caressing it. Kerik does not think he could ever make the word ‘Master’ sound like that, sound like ‘lover’. Perl holds Kerik’s gaze for a moment more before he bows his head.
He is good at this. Not just good. He is perfect at this.
Far more beautiful on his knees than Kerik.
Than Seridil. Than any thrall Kerik has seen in Vylenor.
It is so delicious and so plain on his face. He is aching with desire for it.
Kerik looks at Perl’s white hair, the tiny scrap of his white neck that is revealed above the high collar of his jerkin.
“Very nice,” Kerik says, his own voice heavy with desire. “But let me make you perfect.”
Kerik unfastens the leather collar from around his own neck. Thinking as he does it, that this collar once belonged to Perl. Was once a collar he wore while he knelt for those who were willing to play such a transgressive game with him.
He reaches out and unfastens the laces at the back of Perl’s jerkin. Perl reaches up and grasps Kerik’s hand, “No, I…”
Kerik makes a soft growling noise and shakes free of Perl’s grip, pulling the laces of the jerkin open roughly, eager to see Perl’s body.
The jerkin opens into two pieces and falls away.
Beneath it Perl wears a thin shirt of white silk.
On his back, through this fabric, Kerik can see two dark lines running parallel to his spine.
His wings. His wings where they sit inside his body when he is not wearing them.
But strange as those ridges are, Kerik only looks at them for a moment, most of his attention is drawn to something else.
The scar around Perl’s neck.
How is your neck?
The scar is an inch wide. Red like a burn. Like Perl has been branded there. A collar of reddened skin. Kerik touches it. it is rough, where all the rest of Perl’s skin, his back and chest, is pale; milk-white and flawless, like the skin on his hands and face. “What is this?”
Perl looks up. “I told you. I was lowered with iron as punishment for what I did with Seridil.”
“And what,” Kerik says, swallowing, “is lowering with iron.”
Perl’s voice is cool now. His breathy lust gone.
He speaks as if he is simply relating some old tale.
“A punishment for fae. A humiliation. One is strapped to an iron frame, displayed. Iron is painful for us to touch. So it is often used to punish. Standing with iron wrapped around wrists, ankles, thighs, waist and neck.”
“Did it hurt?” Kerik says. It seems a ludicrous question as soon as he has uttered it, but Perl had said it was meant more to humiliate. But if that were truly the case, how did he get such a mark on his neck?
“The iron burns when it is first put in place. But it subsides.”
“And the marks. Do you have these marks in other places? Is that why you cover all of your skin.”
Perl shakes his head. “No. The marks from the time I spent in the lowering frame were not permanent. However because of the nature of my crimes I was made to wear the collar for a while after I was released.”
Kerik trails his hand over the skin at Perl’s neck. “How long?” he says roughly. “How long did it take to do this?”
“A year,” Perl says blankly.
“You were made to wear a collar that burned you for a year?” Even the Rose Court, Kerik thinks, would find that extreme.
“Correct.”
“And is this why you left? Why you have been gone for a century? Because they did that to you.”
“No, that was…” Perl stops. “No. I took my deserved punishment and returned to my life in Vylenor. I did not leave over that.”
Kerik wonders what Perl is not saying, but he knows well when Perl does not want to speak further. He feels tender. He leans close and kisses the back of Perl’s neck.
Perl shivers.
Kerik picks up the collar. With his other hand, he strokes Perl’s face again and lifts his chin? “You look beautiful on your knees,” he says breathily, meaning every word.
But Perl stiffens in his grasp. “What are you doing?”
“I am continuing what we were doing a moment ago. I want to put this collar around your neck and kiss you. I want to kiss you as my thrall and I know you want me to.”
“Kiss me?” Perl’s voice is suddenly hard. “No. I cannot. I swore an oath. I told you. Not until my work is done.”
Kerik stares down. “I have kissed you once already, before the Queen at the Silver Ball. I would do it again.” He drops his voice low, “I would do it differently.”
“I…” Perl begins. He has more colour in his pale cheeks than Kerik has ever seen. He leans back, getting to his feet. He is staring at Kerik in shock. Kerik cannot stop looking at the mark that rings Perl’s neck. Perl snatches up his jerkin from the bed and pulls it on.
Kerik gives Perl what he hopes is a pleasing expression and says, “I’m sure you’d be happier if you got back on your knees and allowed me to collar and kiss you.” He lets his expression change to something a little darker. “Unless you would prefer me to command you?”
“I would not,” Perl snaps. “You cannot understand how shameful it was for me to even kneel before you once and I only did it…, I only did it, to show you the grace I expect from you.” Perl is refastening the laces that hold his jerkin in place with shaking fingers.
“You should not have removed my clothing. You should not have seen… what was done. I do not show that to anyone.”
“Don’t I deserve a small reward after taking that whipping?” Kerik says softly. “Your beautiful body. Your sweet mouth?”
“A reward,” Perl spits back. “A reward for taking a whipping you deserved and insisted upon.”
Kerik moves fast. He leaps from the bed and grasps Perl’s shoulders, ignoring the gasp of anger as he spins him around and throws him down on the furs.
Kerik climbs up, caging Perl’s body. He is sitting right over Perl’s cock and he can feel it, half-roused through the leather of his breeches.
“Or would you prefer it this way?” Kerik growls down at him. “I have been with many a man who does.”
But when Perl speaks he sounds angry, not aroused. “Mortal men,” Perl says in a soft snarl. “You think I will swoon if you display your strength like this? I am a fae of the Ice Court.”
“Your cock likes it.” Kerik grinds against Perl demonstrating Perl’s hardness by pressing down on it with his own.
Perl gasps, but swallows it. “Brute strength is meaningless. I have magic.”
“Then pretend you don’t. Pretend you are simply a beautiful mortal man and I am a prince, stronger than you, ravishing you no matter how you protest.”
“No, I…” Perl stammers, but he presses up, just for a moment.
His cock grinds into Kerik’s. He is fiercely roused, blood-hard in his leather breeches.
Their faces are a breath apart. “No,” Perl says.
And he’s gone, vanished from under Kerik as if he has melted.
Kerik falls into the bed. He rolls over and sits up.
Perl is standing on the far side of the chamber, beside his desk.
“But you want it. You want this,” Kerik says, confused and smarting bitter from his rejection.
Perl looks at Kerik with eyes narrow, ice-blue slits in his pale face. “My desires are irrelevant," he says. “I have long decided never to act on them. Least of all with you.”