20. Twenty
twenty
Neira didn't feel rested, but at least she felt clean. And after days of dwindling marching rations, a hot, fresh meal had never tasted better – especially when, once whatever magic had procured it had been dispersed, the food from Brightmere’s larders had deteriorated rapidly, leaving them with the stale remains. She was aware that most of the soldiers hadn’t eaten for at least a day by the time they had finally reached the border.
Now she lay in an unfamiliar bed, scooted as close to the wall as she could without outright pressing against it – she wouldn't give Erqis that satisfaction – staring up at the dark ceiling. Brightmere was chilly on the best of days, but the summer afternoon here had been hot, and the night was proving to be stuffy and warm. Neira had pulled the blanket up to her nose regardless. Pure spite kept it there, even with sweat pricking at her hairline.
It was a blanket that she had to share with the king, who had insisted they would share everything until they reached Duskport and was determined to see that promise through.
She was still angry with him. Angry that he had gone back on his word, regardless of its necessity. Angry that he had dragged her through her entire realm on foot, knowing how difficult the trek was. Angry, too, that despite all that he was nothing but considerate – the forced sharing notwithstanding, of course.
Angry beyond anything that he didn't even feign modesty; Erqis wasn't wearing anything but his smallclothes, his half of the blanket shoved down to his bare waist. The way he had tucked one arm behind his head accentuated the brawn of his upper body. The flickering light of the candles on the mantle tinted the curls of his hair golden, both on his head and on his chest. He had found time for a blade today, she noticed, his jaw and upper lip shaved smooth.
Along his side, dark bruises bloomed along his ribs. Neira wanted to press her fingertips against the battered flesh.
"You know," he said, his voice low and thrumming between them, rudely pulling her out of her dark fantasies. "You can relax. You’ve been tense all day."
Neira huffed quietly. The soldiers had kept their distance when she had gone downstairs to eat, but she had caught more than a few wary glances.
"No one is going to harm you."
"You don't know that," she argued. It was more than just a rebuttal; it was the truth, and it made panic flutter in her chest. She had nothing to defend herself with, after all; no magic, no weapons. She was still the enemy, and she was in their home now.
Erqis rolled onto his side so he could look at her. Reluctantly, Neira turned her head to meet his eyes. "I do know that," he told her. "You are mine."
"Yours." She scoffed.
"Yes. Mine." There was no humour, no smugness glittering in his green eyes. "My princess, my hostage, mine to keep or to set free. Mine to spoil or punish."
Neira searched his expression for any falsehood, any sign of a joke. She found nothing but a raw openness. Erqis meant every word he said.
"I don't agree to that,” she declared.
Finally, a small smirk tugged at his lips. Her gaze was drawn to the lush curve of his mouth. The last person she had shared a bed with had been Safir, through a particularly nasty, loud thunderstorm, and her maid had certainly not set her heart racing like this.
It was utterly ridiculous.
"That's the beauty of your hostage status – you don't have to agree to anything."
"A hostage," she told him primly, "has someone willing to pay for her to be returned." I have nothing . She didn't know whether Erqis heard the unspoken words, but he reached out, the backs of his knuckles running down her warm cheek.
"You're not wrong about that." His hand spread against her cheek, her jaw, his fingertips stroking past her ear. "What do you want to be, then?"
"Are you asking me for my aspirations in life? Now?"
"Do you have anywhere else to be?"
"Maybe I want to sleep."
"Neira, if you were tired, you would have given me your back to ignore me a good, long while ago, don't you think?"
Asshole .
"I want to be queen."
Did she? The realm that had been her entire life, her singular goal – it was empty, and the longer she had been forced to walk through it, actually experience it for herself, the less sure she had become. It was, however, the only thing she could think of, the one thing she could still identify herself by.
"Really? Still?" Erqis rubbed his thumb over the frown line between her brows.
Neira pushed his hand away, but he merely delved his hand under the blanket to grasp her waist, tugging her firmly against his front. Her breath caught in her throat, one palm pressing against his sternum. His skin was warm, curiously soft. His eyes held her in thrall, shadowed suddenly, heated.
"You know," he murmured, leaning closer to brush their noses together. "I just so happen to know a king. One without a wife, but with a nice, girthy-"
She clamped her hand over his mouth. "Don't finish that sentence."
"-empire to rule." Erqis grinned, the words muffled behind her hand. A kiss was pressed into her palm, the brush of his lips shivering all the way up her arm. "What did you think I was going to say?"
He laughed when she glowered at him and kissed her palm again. She dragged it down to once again rest it over his heart. His own cupped the back of hers, keeping it pinned there.
"You are much too tense to be queen, anyway."
"Know a lot about being queen, do you?" Her words came sharper than intended, but they bounced off him harmlessly anyway.
"Being king and being queen isn't so different. Either way, people watch your every move, your every expression, weigh each of your words in gold. Wait for you to fail." He shrugged, one broad shoulder lifting briefly. "King or queen, you’ll crumble under the pressure if you let it get to you."
"I don't think you are suited very well to rule anyone."
"You may think that an insult, but you're not wrong, and I'm not arrogant enough to deny it. But ask anyone – if pressed, everyone would give being king a try. All that power, all that wealth. Even the most righteous hero would be lured in by its promises, and so easily corrupted by its truths."
"And you are not?"
Neira's breath caught when he shifted, pushing himself onto his elbow so he could loom over her.
"I was thoroughly corrupted long before I took this crown, pet."
"Perhaps I am, too. You don't know me."
"Oh, but I want to know you, my love." Erqis lowered his face and kissed the side of her neck.
"Then you must believe me when I tell you about myself," she said briskly, pushing harder at his chest. "I am not soft. I will not crumble."
"No," Erqis hummed. He ran the tip of his nose against her skin, then looked down at her again. "You are unbending. Someone soft – someone relaxed – finds ways to sit the throne without breaking." His lips pulled into a smirk. "The throne or themselves."
It was better advice than her father had ever given her. A hazy, unformed feeling washed into her mind again – something like the soft touch of dread, a trembling panic that there was more than she could remember. That something didn't add up, something she used to hold as a core value.
"How do I do that?"
Erqis looked as surprised as she felt that she had asked instead of hurling another verbal barb at him. "Do what?"
"Sit without breaking." Neira knew she had made a mistake when something like dark glee flitted over his face.
"Well, firstly, you must learn how to sit relaxed. Listen closely, this is a very exclusive lesson I don't teach very often."
Neira narrowed her eyes.
"That means you need to be comfortable sitting anywhere at all. Like my face, for example."
"…what?"
"Think about it," Erqis insisted, already flopping back to lay flat on his back. He went as far as to pull the pillow to the side, too. "If you can sit here and relax, a throne should be even less daunting."
Neira sputtered, sitting up. "What is wrong with you? Why would you even think about that?!"
"Because I haven't stopped thinking about the way you taste, ever since I had my fingers inside you." He quirked a brow at her. "Don't tell me you have forgotten how much you enjoyed my tongue when it wasn't between your thighs."
She was certain that her face was scarlet at this point. "I am not sitting on your face!" She hissed.
"If you keep yelling about it, someone else will swoop in and steal this chance from you, love." He clicked his tongue at her, and Neira had to bury her face in her hands to avoid his burning stare. The worst part was that it was a very, very tempting offer. "Don't tell me you're actually shy under that bristly front." He reached out, his hand running up her thigh. "You can keep your nightgown on. What harm?"
What harm indeed. "If it means you stop talking."
"I won't say another word for the entire night. Promise."
"I don't want to hear anything out of you before I have my tea in the morning, either."
"Deal."
When Neira looked at him again, his hungry expression left her breathless.
She knelt, the blanket shoved against the wall, and watched him – really let herself look at him for once. Erqis was tan from campaigning, and not even Brightmere's moors had managed to fully leach the sun’s kiss from him, more pronounced along his forearms, his face and the deep, narrow v the shirts he liked left bare on his chest. His brassy curls were in disarray, had likely dried without a comb anywhere near them after his earlier bath. His sensual mouth was curved in a smile.
"Is this why you shaved?"
"No, I rarely plan that far ahead. But aren't you glad I did? Must be destiny."
"You said you'd shut up."
"You asked me a question. " He patted the top of his chest, just below his collarbones. "Sit here and we'll go from there."
Neira slowly straddled him, one hand on the carved, sturdy headboard, and Erqis brushed her gown up her thighs before she sat. Her behind had barely met his chest when he curled his arms high around her thighs and yanked her closer. She yelped, barely catching herself on the headboard, the sharp sound half-drowning the deep groan Erqis uttered when he ducked his head under the pooling fabric.
His breath caressed her before he placed a soft kiss at the very top of her slit.
Her father's throne flashed into her mind, how cold and hard and unforgiving it had been, when Erqis' tongue dragged against her.
There was nothing cold, hard, or unforgiving about that.
The thoughts washed away with the next well-placed curl of his tongue, cleaving her with unerring focus, his fingers pressing into the meat of her thighs. He groaned again, the sound muffled by her flesh, and dragged her closer yet until she was sure she would suffocate him.
Erqis' tongue seemed to grow hotter – wetter. Softer. Unable to stop herself, Neira rocked against him, her fingers white-knuckled around the top of the headboard.
"Gods…"
He sucked her clit between his lips, insistently, and her thighs almost snapped shut around his head. His tongue stiffened enough to stab into her, not far, but enough that she was eager to ride his face, chasing her peak with no regards to his air supply. Need coiled at the small of her back, hot and trembling, ready to spill over. The heat of his mouth had become almost unbearable, and still Erqis held her right there.
Neira keened her pleasure. The world fell away in a dizzying whirl of white-hot bliss, his curls fisted between her fingers, and his growl, vibrating against her, the last push she needed.
She came to gasping, writhing each time Erqis tenderly licked her aching clit. It quickly became too much, and this time he allowed her to squirm away, using the hem of her nightgown to wipe down his face before she flopped over onto her side of the bed, still trembling and trying to catch her breath.
"See? Nice and relaxed." Erqis rolled over and slid his hand against the inside of her thigh. "Gods below, you're a little gusher, aren't you? I love it. See how wet you get?"
Neira raked her hair back from her forehead with a frown, cheeks aflame. "You promised to shut up for the rest of the night."
"You didn't really expect me to keep that promise, did you?"
“I should have let you suffocate.”
“And what a glorious death it would have been!”
She turned her back to him, glaring at the wall, but she didn’t resist, either, when he curled himself against her back and kissed the side of her neck. His hand resting low on her belly and the unmistakable hardness of his cock jutted against her ass.
He said nothing, but eventually Neira sighed.
"Don't you want to do something about… that?"
"How kind of you to offer."
"I didn't-" She felt him shove his smallclothes down quicker than she could protest, and then a hard length pressed between her damp thighs. "What are you-"
"I don't need much."
His voice had dropped low, gravelly, and she felt him shifting before he dragged his cock back – then pushed back in. His arm was banded around her hips again, and with each low moan against her ear, Neira found herself wishing he would aim a little higher, slide into her still trembling core. Her thighs parted, welcoming it, but he pushed her thighs shut and curled himself around her, one hand plunging into the neckline of her nightgown to grasp one of her breasts. He rutted against her, her nipple a hard pebble against his palm because damn if this wasn't somehow the most heated thing she had ever experienced, using her own wetness as a lubricant to fuck between her thighs.
She clenched them tighter, once, twice, just to hear that little whimper echo in his moans when she strangled his cock like that. And he hadn't lied – he didn't need more than a dozen thrusts or two to stiffen against her back, squeeze her breast to the point of aching, and then wet heat splashed against her skin, his teeth rasping the side of her neck.
" Fuck ." Erqis slowly let go of her, but he didn't fully shift away, his body heat still radiating against her back like the summer sun.
“Now shut up and go to sleep.” Neira wiped her thighs with the nightgown as well, her mind blissfully blank. It didn't even bother her that the inn's walls were thin, the windows wide open, and everyone had very likely heard them.
At least she wasn't cold anymore, the last traces of Brightmere burned from her soul.