Duty
THE CEREMONY DID not go as Ardor expected. Everything happened so quickly, and he was preoccupied with Raven Hara’s presence. Had his mind played tricks on him?
Ardor had only ever seen the king in shadow, and barely touched him at all.
In the warm light of the audience chamber, Xandar was like a different man.
He was moderately fit with powerful thighs, and Ardor would surely have remembered those features.
His voice was slightly different, too. The timbre and cadence were softer, just as they’d been earlier that day.
In fact, he seemed softer all around, except for one notable thing.
The erection was, by far, the most surprising part of all. The king’s advisors had finally talked him into taking an aphrodisiac, clearly. But why now? Hadn’t the entire point of his exercise been to humiliate Ardor and prove he could not rouse his consort to passion?
Ardor had prepared for three different scenarios, and none involved Xandar getting hard, let alone coming all over him in five seconds. The surprising heat of the king’s release was still with him.
It was one thing to self-inseminate each night from the meager saucer of seed Xandar’s manservant provided. It was quite another to have the king of Kysan prematurely ejaculate all over Ardor’s lap as he shivered with excitement and barely contained arousal.
For the first time, Ardor’s bloom pulsed, warming.
The narrow opening was unusually pliant as his finger slipped inside, and he didn’t know how to feel.
He’d masked his surprise reasonably well from the Kysanians, but he couldn’t hide from the keen eyes of his mother’s spy.
Of course, Raven Hara promptly paid him a visit afterwards.
The loyalist posing as his champion had one purpose: the Archon’s will. She would as soon betray Ardor as protect him if her orders demanded it. Surely his mother considered the loss of a broken Flower a small price to pay for Kysan’s verdant fields.
“Beloved Eminence,” Raven Hara said, smiling pleasantly.
She spoke his familiar title easily, as if she’d known him her whole life.
Like all the Archon’s spies, Raven Hara blended in seamlessly with crowds and wore a friendly, approachable demeanor until the moment of betrayal.
Routine cosmetic surgeries ensured she had no scars or blemishes that made her stand out.
She was a ghost, rarely noticed and easily forgotten.
“Champion,” Ardor replied. The lie was poison on his tongue. He ached to be with Jain, his bedrock, so he could lower his guard and process what had just happened. But as long as a spy was around, he could not afford to make any mistakes.
“You’re getting along well with your consort, it seems.”
“Did my family send word?” Ardor asked, knowing they hadn’t.
Raven Hara surveyed him, her eyes lingering on his flat stomach.
“I won’t fail,” Ardor said. “I will do this.”
“It’s not for me to presume whether you will or won’t. For what it’s worth, I believe in you, Eminence.” He wondered if the flicker of sympathy in her eyes was real. The Archon craved war, but the legislature and her inner circle did not. Perhaps her spies did not either.
“What will you tell my mother?”
Raven Hara inclined her head. “I will report what I have seen. The king of Kysan is most eager to breed his Flower. A besotted royal is a fine thing. The Archon will be pleased to hear it.”
His mother would be pissed. She’d expected Xandar’s infamous arrogance and foul temper to set things in motion by now.
However much the Archon sought war, domestic politics demanded she wait until the Kysanians offered a suitable pretext for invasion.
An insult to Pavar’s Flower would demand retribution.
Perhaps he should let his mother think an insult was inevitable.
It would buy him more time. Ardor ran his fingers through his hair, allowing the sleeve of his robe to ride down, exposing the bruises on his pale skin.
Raven Hara’s eyes flicked to his wrist and back, so swiftly she might not have looked at all.
“They’ve asked us to leave within the hour,” she said.
“Kysanian hospitality at its finest. I’m sure you will teach them proper manners by the time this is through, Beloved. ”
Ardor’s heart quickened. Was this a vote of confidence?
He longed to ask how much time he had before the Archon took matters into her own hands.
“Tell mother I expect to have a child within the next few weeks,” he said, drinking in every aspect of her countenance, searching for some clue.
“I will notify her as soon as possible.”
Raven Hara’s bland smile did not waver. “Surely, if the king is so besotted, you’ll have a child much sooner than that.”
* * *
AS ARDOR WAITED in the examination room, his hands folded in his lap, he processed the morning’s events. If he didn’t know better, he’d say Raven Hara was right, and the king was besotted.
But why now? What had changed?
Their marriage had been on shaky ground from the start.
Xandar was furious when Ardor did not bloom on their wedding night and took it as a personal insult.
Ardor anticipated this. Consorts were under tremendous pressure to prove their virility by “pleasing” their Flower and naturally coaxing the bloom to open.
Thus, Ardor sought a compromise and suggested mechanical insemination.
To him, it was a logical solution, but to Xandar, it was a slap in the face, and that’s when the problems started.
In public, their exchanges were cool and formal, but well within the bounds of politeness.
Behind closed doors, however, Xandar let loose.
Every part of Ardor’s body was now subject to inspection and ridicule.
What good was a Flower who couldn’t bloom?
Who couldn’t breed? It was the only reason he existed, after all: to produce heirs.
Clearly, Ardor was not divine at all, and Xandar cursed the Archon for knowingly bartering him a worthless mate.
At first, the verbal abuse was so shocking and unexpected that it took all of Ardor’s will to remain calm.
But soon, he grew accustomed to the bile that poured from his consort’s mouth and saw it for what it was: the pathetic rantings of an insecure man who was terrified of betrayal and obsessed with securing his lineage.
Ardor might be broken, he’d never dispute that, but Xandar was an insecure, proud fool, and that was far worse.
Ardor had no option but to fulfill his contractual duties despite his mate. He endured insult and sacrilege for a scant spoonful of semen dispensed in a cup each evening, and quickly realized the problem was far worse than a closed bloom.
The king had extremely low sperm motility and was nearly infertile.
He was born of a Flower, as all royals were, so it could not be a hereditary condition.
Jain suspected stress and his daily antidote regimen had something to do with it.
Perhaps it was Ardor’s fault for approaching his consort directly, knowing what a paranoid, proud man he was.
But he was desperate to get pregnant, and when he privately met one evening to request a doctor’s oversight, Xandar snapped.
Ardor spent his entire life untouched by anyone but attendants and Jain, and only when they wore gloves. He’d never been slapped before. And he’d certainly never been manhandled or held down. Xandar threw him to the ground and tore open his robes, and…
Ardor’s cheeks burned at the memory. Even under violent duress, his bloom would not budge. It remained tightly sealed.
“You can’t even be forced,” Xandar snarled, his breath hot with anger in Ardor’s ear. “You truly are worthless.”
And for a tiny, squirming moment, Ardor wished he could be raped. Having his bloom forced open was surely better than living this way, bound to a man who despised him, unable to fulfill his contract and sole purpose.
But this morning, everything changed. It was as if they’d started over, and that nightmarish encounter and everything leading up to it never happened.
Xandar approached the breeding bed like a royal newlywed, uncertain what waited for him but keen to find out.
He was aroused and eager, as a consort should be.
It was the reception Ardor had hoped for all those months ago.
You are the most beautiful man in the universe.
Lord Patel must have convinced the king to take a stimulant or aphrodisiac.
But why did Xandar capitulate now? What caused him to put aside his indomitable pride?
The jarring contrast between the soft, eager consort who’d crawled over him that morning and the hateful man who abused him at night left Ardor’s nerves raw and exposed.
The mere sight of Xandar put him on edge, and he was still in fight-or-flight mode, waiting for the lash to land.
Ardor rubbed his wrist as Jain excitedly bustled around him, talking a mile a minute. “I knew it was only a matter of time, Eminence. He’s finally come to his senses and appreciates you.”
“He was like a different person,” Ardor murmured. Xandar’s arousal wasn’t the only change. He’d actually apologized for something. Ardor hadn’t believed him capable. The king of Kysan was always right, even if being right was to the detriment of all.
“He is under a lot of pressure to produce heirs,” Jain said, carefully collecting a sample of the semen coating Ardor’s chest and putting it in a jar.
Kingly semen was so jealously guarded these days Ardor hadn’t dared wipe it off.
“Maybe his advisers finally knocked some sense into him and gave him a few aphrodisiacs to go with it. The way he’s treated you...
” Her dark eyes flashed. “Unacceptable.”