Chapter 9
Hydris flew home ahead of me as we approached the palace because neither of us knew if anyone was missing either of us.
Plus, we hadn’t really talked about how we were going to make our relationship work—the prince and the laborer—and I thought maybe we’d avoided that discussion on purpose.
Were there laws against commoners dating royals?
Was it scandalous? And even though I didn’t want to consider it, could me being human be a problem?
I wasn’t even sure if same-sex marriage was allowed here.
Not that I was thinking of marriage! At all. That would be crazy.
Sarosh was right there waiting with his hands on his hips as I steered Mason toward the stable. “I refuse to let you blame the horse,” he said, “for why an eight-hour trip took you twenty-eight hours.”
I chuckled at him as I got down from the cart. “Did you miss me?”
He glared. “I was about to send a search party.”
Aww, he’d been worried. I gave him a sideways hug before going to get a wheelbarrow to unload the grass bundles from the cart.
“Oh,” he said. “I see. Well, I’ll allow it then.”
“Allow what?”
Sarosh twirled his finger at me and grinned. “You’ve had sex.”
I felt my face heat with embarrassment as I laughed.
“And that confirms it,” he said with a haughty grin.
I shrugged. “Maybe I did.”
He started unhooking everything on Mason. “Did you at least get your questions answered at the barrier?”
“Some of them.”
I told him about the lake, Milo, and… Well, I went ahead and told him that Hydris had shown up, too. Sarosh hadn’t been surprised since he assumed Hydris had an extremely boring life, so following me around would’ve been an adventure.
“No one missed him?” I had to ask.
“Not like ‘sound the alarm’ kind of missing him. I assume someone noticed, though.”
That it hadn’t been some kind of emergency was a good thing, of course, but I kind of wanted it to be a much bigger deal that their prince had been gone for a whole day. I hadn’t asked if he’d left a note or something, but who didn’t react when the prince took off, note or not?
“Hold on.” Sarosh squinted at me as Silver Sparkle, the unicorn, ate a long, thick blade of grass from his hand like she was slurping up a spaghetti noodle.
I looked at Sarosh and could see that he was maybe about to connect the—
“Did the prince join you at the inn?”
“Uh, yes.”
“For more than dinner?”
“We had dinner in…our room.”
He gasped all the air out of the stable, but then came over and gave me a hug. “Well done, my friend. Very well done.”
I chuckled, not sure if I should bow or maybe defend Hydris’s honor.
“I’m glad I’m not the only one thumbing my nose at tradition.”
That gave me pause. “Pardon? What do you mean?”
Sarosh grinned wickedly and whispered, “There’s a certain lord whose bed is always warm for him every night.”
“Oh, is there? And how do you know that?”
He winked. “I’m the one warming it.”
I laughed at him. What a dork. But then I sobered because here was someone who could answer the questions I didn’t really want to ask. I needed to, though.
“So I’m guessing your relationship has to be a secret then?”
Sarosh shrugged and fed another blade of grass to the unicorn, like sticking a dollar into a vending machine.
“I’m sure plenty of people know, but they don’t care.
He’s a minor lord, I suppose, but he is on the council.
If we took our relationship public, married even, I would be expected to retire to his estate, while he served out his term on the council for the prince.
” He made a nope face and shook his head.
“I’d much rather be here with my horses and with him. ”
“I mean, yeah, that makes sense. And gives me hope, so thanks for that. But I have to ask, it’s not Mannix, is it?”
“No! Ew no. It’s Ottokar. Mannix is rotten inside. Dynius is sunshine and laughter,” he said with a silly grin.
“I’m glad to hear that. Both about Lord Sunshine Giggles and how you—”
A bark of laughter jumped out of Sarosh. “Lord Sunshine Giggles? I’m definitely telling him that.”
I smiled. “You can also tell him that Hydris considers him one of the good ones. Him and Lady Naunet are two people he knows have been actively trying to help him.”
“Bless him, His Highness is right. Dy’s been trying to help the prince gain self-confidence, but I’m not sure he’s going about it the right way. It’s all sword fighting and wrestling and hunting.”
“Oh, no, that’s not Hydris.” I couldn’t even imagine him doing any of that.
Sarosh nodded. “I agree.”
“I can tell you that Hydris is more confident now than he was yesterday.”
“Just needed a good dicking, did he?”
I laughed. “No, shut up. He just needs to know there are people who want him to succeed. Who believe in him. I think he feels like he made a replacement who’s better than him at everything.”
“Oh, that’s not true,” he said seriously. “Mannix is killing the court in the prince’s name.”
“That’s the other thing. The people by the barrier were pissed to the point of wanting to fight him over some new tax. Hydris didn’t know about it, and they didn’t know Hydris hadn’t done it.”
Sarosh was nodding. “They don’t see him, only what they think he’s doing to them.”
That another person knew what I’d learned made me feel right for everything I’d said to Hydris so far. “I’m going to work with him until he’s ready to tell Mannix to get the hell out.”
Sarosh’s chuckle was low and wicked. “Did you hear that, Silver Sparkle? We’re going to stage a coup to put your boy back in power.”
The unicorn nodded her head several times.
“She’s on board,” he said. “I do believe three constitutes a quorum, so I hereby call the first meeting of the committee to reinstate the prince concluded until tomorrow.”
I smiled at his antics and shook his hand.
“Now get to work,” he said and shooed me away. “I’m exhausted from covering for you while you’ve been playing with princes.”
I gave him a saucy salute. “Right away, sir.”
Feeling a little more emboldened to actually make some changes around here, I got to work taking the wheelbarrow around to the stable’s feed room.
At the end of the day, I was in the tool shed putting things away when I heard someone sigh behind me. Turning, I found Hydris biting his bottom lip, a blush on his cheeks, and one hand massaging his cock through his trousers.
“Well. Hello there.”
“Hi.”
I hung up the hammer I’d been using and wiped the sweat from my brow. “Did you need something?” I teased.
He walked closer and slid his hand inside the opening of my shirt to fondle my chest. “Yeah. Yeah, I do need something.”
I chuckled at him and held his hand, kissing the back of it. He smelled fresh and clean, unlike me. “Why don’t you go up to your room, I’ll go take a quick bath, and then I’ll sneak up and join you?”
He nibbled his lip again and shook his head. “You can do that afterward.”
“Afterward?”
Hydris looked me up and down, then glanced around the shed.
It wasn’t a large space and was crowded with hand tools, wheelbarrows, and boxes— Apparently, that was what he’d been looking for, because he picked up a box, took it over to the one section of blank wall, and then stood on the box facing that wall.
He dropped his pants.
Good grief. He couldn’t possibly… “Hydris?”
“Please, Bridge.” He bent enough to stick his little ass out. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
I gulped at the sight of him because this was hardly the place. “What if someone comes in?”
“I don’t care.”
Yeah, I was caring less by the second.
“I don’t have any—”
He held out the jar of lube toward me.
I ran out of excuses.
Taking the lube from him, I opened my pants and slicked myself up before wiping the rest on him.
He was the perfect height for me to take him like this.
And his iridescent, dewy-looking wings were right there, trembling and fluttering as I worked my cock into his tight, hot ass.
I held his hips and fucked my way into him until I couldn’t get any deeper.
I nudged his head to the side and kissed his neck. “Is it possible,” I said in his pointy ear, “that a filthy, hard-working man turns you on?”
“Yessss,” he said like a throaty hiss as he tried to fuck himself on me.
I chuckled at him before mashing him against the wall and fucking him fast and hard. The slap of our skin was loud in the room, his moans and mine could probably be heard outside, but I couldn’t seem to care. Let someone hear us. Let them know.
Hydris was mine.
I slowed down, fucking him in long strokes that made him whimper, and pressed my nose into the flowers growing from the top of his head. I was making him so dirty as I held tight to him, a day’s worth of working with the earth transferring to my pristine little prince.
When he reached down to stroke himself, I looked over his shoulder to watch. “You gonna come for me, huh?” I whispered in his ear. “How many times have you thought about me and touched yourself?”
“F-four. Four times. Oh, Bridge!”
“Such a horny prince.” I picked up my pace as he started crying out like he was about to come. “Come on, give me number five.”
Hydris came with a wail, shooting all over the wall. The squeeze of his ass was so tight, I couldn’t resist following him into bliss. I thrust deep, wrapped an arm around him, and bellowed as I came inside him.
We panted there for ages until he tried to turn and get a kiss. I pulled out, savored his last moan, and turned him around for a proper kiss, all slow and deep. With his eyes closed, lips red, and face flushed, he was so beautiful.
“Spend the night with me,” he whispered before he opened his eyes to blink up at me. He nuzzled his cheek into the palm of my hand.
“Okay. I’ll bathe and then meet—”
“No, I’ll call for a bath, and we can clean up together. I’ll have dinner brought up, too. Like at the inn. Just us.”
“That sounds perfect.” I gave him a kiss and tucked a blue curl behind his ear. “You go first. I’ll be there soon.”
He nodded and fluttered over to the door. When he opened it, Naomi and Doran sprang away like they were trying to pretend they hadn’t been listening. Hydris flew right over both of them and zipped out of sight.
Knowing what I knew now, I was okay with quipping, “He was inspecting the tools.”
“Oh, was he now?” Naomi said with a big grin. “Find them all in order, did he?”
“Yep. Even tested one of them.” I adjusted myself as I walked by, and Doran snorted while Naomi laughed.
They were a small portion of the population, but that they didn’t get upset and weren’t scandalized, had me feeling pretty damn good as I headed for the palace. I would still sneak since I wasn’t supposed to be above stairs, but I wouldn’t hide. There was no need for that.
I stopped by my room to grab a change of clothes before taking the back stairs two at a time up to Hydris’s room.