35/She/Her. Hey, my name is Sam/Samantha. Mythical Beast. Mothman enthusiast. I'm a dork that loves food, books, unicorns, anything Alice in Wonderland, art as well as bunch of other things. Ask away. I will tag things for you. I track my own tag too.
"Stop saying 15 year olds with weird interests are cringe, they're 15" this is true however you should also stop saying adults with weird interests are cringe because who gives a shit
I want to share some wisdom from my high school art teacher.
In my AP Art class, there was a girl who was just starting to experiment with mixed media. At this point she was still playing around, trying to decide what direction she wanted to go with her portfolio. So one critique day, she brought in an abstract canvas with some rhinestone highlights and painted and real peacock feathers. She loved sparkles and peacock feathers so she thought she’d try introducing them a *little*. And after everyone had given some input, the teacher gave her his advice, VERY roughly paraphrased here:
“So here’s the thing… I do not like this style. These are just elements that do not speak to me personally, but I see that you like them, and you’re doing interesting things with them.
“My biggest critique is, I only merely *dislike* this piece. I want you to make me HATE it. Go crazy with the things that you like. Don’t hold back trying to make it palatable to people like me. Because I am NEVER going to like it. And if the audience does not like it, it should drive them crazy seeing how much YOU love it.”
Her portfolio was chock full of neon colors and glitter and rhinestones and splashes of peacock feathers and it was a delight. Our teacher despised every piece lol, but she got great marks and I think even won some awards. And more importantly, she was happy and proud of the results. Because she didn’t limit herself by trying to appeal to people who were never going to enjoy what she enjoyed.
Takeaway here: be as cringe as you want. Don’t limit yourself based on other ppl’s tastes. They’re not you, and you are incredible 💕
A/N: this out of context post is here instead of with the rest of the chapters because of Patreon's policies. It contains an explicit intimate encounter between consenting adults, but it is not suitable for children. Thank you!
WAIT--where the fuck are chapters 1-12? You can read them free here. Bright Spring is a queer fantasy romance for adults.
Ok, now that all that hoop-jumping is done, the chapter :
Auro could not recall the last time he had been so taken with nerves.
His life had much the same for so long, every change in routine seemed monumental, and since he’d first seen Alexios unconscious on the forest floor, there’d been nothing but changes. Auro tried to calm his mounting anxieties. This feast should be no different than the ones Auro had attended for years. In fact, it should be no different to the ones he spied on immediately after he had been cursed. In the years directly following Ozias’s death, Auro had been so desperately lonely he would have done anything to taste the world from which he had been banished. He’d spied on spring bacchanals each year upon waking, until the life he had left behind became far too painful to gaze upon, and he gave up the practice.
Alexios had practically begged Auro to attend this gathering, and the look on his face when Auro had refused…
They hadn’t spoken in days.
Auro simply had to be there. He only had two cycles of the moon with Alexios, and he couldn’t let this tarnish their remaining weeks. How could he let his fear spoil the only thing he’d allowed himself to want in four hundred years? Perhaps Auro could never truly have Alexios, but he would be damned if he wasted any more precious time.
Before the feast began, Auro retreated to the woods to prepare himself. Normally, he balked at the idea of the tree spirits attending him as servants. Auro did not often feel like royalty, but tonight he needed the courage. His forest friends were thrilled to help him. They bathed Auro, washed and brushed his hair, cleaned his nails, perfumed his skin. The costume of confident nobleman was as important tonight as the clothes he wore.
As they helped him dress, the dryadae teased Auro about the shining golden boy who’d captured his interest so completely. He gently chastised them, but if he added a bit of spider silk to his tunic to give his clothing an iridescent sheen, well. That was his business. He debated adding more of the walnut dye to his hair but decided against it.
The opulent feast was ostensibly to celebrate the spring equinox.
Auro’s time.
Long ago, this feast would have been thrown in his honor. How could he let the fear of mortals keep him from celebrating? From being celebrated? Why should he hide his hair when he knew Alexios loved the color? Anytime his courage threatened to falter, Auro brushed his fingers to his lips, recalling the way Alexios’s had felt pressed eagerly against them.
However, once Auro approached the front doors to the villa, thrown wide to mingle the sounds of spring evenings with the sounds of human revelry, the heavy air pressed upon him, suffocating, and there were people staring, staring at him, he was certain. He was hardly the most opulently dressed—nor even the only one with hair of an inhuman hue, but he still felt out of place. The decorations and music and smells from the kitchens bombarded Auro. The very walls vibrated with sound as he walked through the interior atrium of the royal villa where the feast was in full swing.
Auro froze in the arched doorway that led to the throne room, the centerpiece of the celebration. Musicians played, their songs echoing discordantly with the sounds of gossiping nobles, and Auro found himself tempted to turn heel and flee back out into the night, where it was cool and dark and quiet.
But no. He could not allow this chance to slip from his grasp, especially after how disappointed Alexios had been, and after the lovely gift Alexios had given him—and all it represented. After their sweet, hesitant kiss had left an unanswered question in its wake. It was a question Auro was determined to answer tonight, so he steeled himself and stepped cautiously into the crowd.
His eyes found Alexios immediately, as if they couldn’t help it, every time he turned around. Alexios was festooned in gold, from head to toe, and Auro did not think even the sun could possibly hope to outshine him. A crown of gilded leaves nestled in the waves of his thick hair, but his face was pinched, his smile strained and false. Auro watched sullenly as a beautiful young woman drew him apart from the crowd, laughing as she touched his arm. His stomach dropped, and his hands shook so badly he almost dropped his drink. Auro edged behind a massive urn, watching as Alexios fed the girl a morsel of something from the table, his guts twisting like burning hot snakes.
The next time Alexios disappeared from his line of sight, Auro was determined not to find him straight away, afraid of what he might see. Auro retreated inside himself, allowed his years of social grooming to take over, instincts he’d forgotten he had about how to stand, how to smile. The right words to say to flatter those around him. People engaged him in polite conversation, and he supposed he answered them. He allowed himself to be carried in a drifting eddy of conversation, music, wine, and laughter, until he found himself washed up on the fringes of the party.
His feet had brought him outside, and he stood by an ornamental tree whose branches overhung the terrace: a flowering dogwood Auro had helped by amending its soil and coaxing the branches of nearby trees to grow in a different direction. He had to prune some of the neighboring trees back, too, to allow the dogwood to get enough sun to bloom. Auro touched one of the buds now, thinking how pleased he was to have helped it.
“You know,” said a voice behind him. “I’ve had that tree for four years, and it has never once flowered.”
Auro jumped and turned to find himself face to face with Queen Clio, Alexios’s mother. He bowed deeply. “Your Grace,” he said.
“Auro,” she said. She stepped up beside him and examined the tree herself. “You have quite a way with plants.”
“You are kind to say so,” he said carefully.
“You’re far too modest,” she said. “Some people have a gift, a true gift, for helping things to grow and flourish.” She paused. “My son is different since he met you.”
“Oh?” He wasn’t sure he understood the connection.
“He’s never been so determined to be a part of matters of state. I didn’t think he was mature enough to negotiate the tricky waters of a betrothal treaty, but he did well. I was very proud.”
“You should be,” said Auro, before he could stop himself.
The Queen gave him a knowing look.
“He just wants to be the sort of prince his people need,” said Auro. “The sort of prince you and His Grace would be proud of.”
“Well, he’s certainly becoming one since meeting you.”
“You give me far too much credit,” Auro stammered. “Perhaps it was the head injury.”
The Queen laughed, and Auro couldn’t help but smile sheepishly, too. She looped her arm through Auro’s, and he startled but did not pull away. Her touch was comforting, nurturing. “Someday soon,” she said, “You must tell me all your secrets.”
“My—my what?”
“Your gardening secrets,” said Clio. “Alexios tells me you leave for the next leg of your journey at the end of spring.”
Auro’s heart sank. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Well,” said the Queen. “Alexios will be sorry to see you go.”
“Yes,” said Auro faintly. “I’ll be quite sorry to leave.”
***
Alexios was drunk.
Not so drunk as to humiliate himself, or fall down in the wading pools, but certainly drunk enough. He’d watched Auro in the crowd, tracking his movements. Now, Auro stood well to the side of the party, talking to his mother as they both examined a tree in the garden. Since Auro’s arrival, he’d spoken not one word to Alexios. It left him feeling surly. But he’d come. That had meaning, did it not?
Although, his neck stood bare of Alexios’s gift. Had it been too forward? This thing between them had only just begun to blossom, and perhaps Auro had balked at being claimed in such a brazen way. Or, perhaps, Dafina had been right, and he simply had horrible taste in jewelry.
“Alexios!”
He grimaced. For the second time, his father summoned him, and Alexios made certain to seize a fresh glass of wine before taking his place at his father’s elbow. Janus had finally left the library to join the party at Queen Petillia’s side.
“I was just telling your father, my daughter, Dafina, is such a lovely girl,” said Janus. “Don’t you agree, Your Highness?”
Alexios’s own frustration seemed matched only by that of King Cletus of Órnio, who openly scoffed at Janus. “She is not your daughter yet, Praetor.” Cletus spat out the honorific, dripping with venomous sarcasm.
Janus’s eyes flashed cold, narrowed dangerously above the beak of his costume, but his Queen laid a hand on his arm to steady him, giving a tiny shake of her head. “No,” said Janus smoothly. “Not yet. But I love her as my own flesh and blood.”
After his brief, but illuminating talk with Dafina herself, the claim seemed a bit less sincere.
“And where is your daughter?” King Cletus asked. “I don’t see her.”
“Travel upsets her constitution,” said Queen Petillia primly.
King Cletus scoffed again. He turned to Alexios’s father, sizing him up. “You don’t want some frail thing for a daughter-in-law, Nelios.”
Alexios had to hide his grin. He had no need to stir things up, just get three kings—or would-be kings—together and stand back. Their peacocking would provide enough of an upset. He caught the eye of King Cletus’s daughter, Princess Eleni, who looked mortified at her father’s behavior.
“My daughter is not frail,” said Queen Petillia shrilly. “Though perhaps she is not as…robust as some. She loves to paint and play the harp, and she rides horses just as well as you, Alexios, if you’ll forgive a mother’s boasting.”
“How delightful for her,” Alexios snapped. The wine had loosened his tongue and dulled his sense of decorum.
King Nelios’s eyes flashed, but Janus and Queen Petillia laughed good-naturedly. “Your son is as blunt of word as you, Nelios! I am certain that will only endear him to Dafina, who values honesty above all else…”
King Cletus rolled his eyes, a muscle going in his jaw. Alexios knew how he felt.
“They will make a splendid match,” said King Nelios firmly, with a glare at Alexios.
“Agreed,” said Janus, while Queen Petillia nodded earnestly.
“If this is the sort of affair Prince Alexios plans, I do believe I will surrender all preparations for the royal wedding to his discerning eye,” said Queen Petillia.
Alexios put on his most gracious smile. “You are too kind, Your Grace. I would be delighted to do so.”
That should satisfy them for the moment. Queen Petillia, at least, seemed mollified, and Alexios’s father gave a reluctant nod to show he’d done well enough. King Cletus, however, looked livid. It was clear he had no idea how far along the betrothal process had already progressed, dashing his hopes of throwing his own daughter’s hat in the ring, so to speak. He turned rudely and strode from the conversation absent any words, Princess Eleni trailing behind him. Alexios caught her eye and saw she looked a bit relieved, unlike her father. A wake of heated whispers followed them as they left the hall.
With King Cletus’s rudeness to occupy his father’s thoughts, Alexios managed to slip away. He made straight for the corner of the terrace where Auro and his mother stood. “Good evening, Mother,” said Alexios.
Auro jumped, but even as he startled, a smile broke over his face, as if he couldn’t help it. He dipped his head quickly, putting his face into shadow, but his eyes sparkled.
In fact, all of Auro seemed to sparkle—but that could very well have been the wine.
Alexios knew people watched them, a thing Auro must know as well. “Your Royal Highness,” he said, bowing deeply.
His title in Auro’s mouth did something to Alexios. It made him hot and squirmy, and he could not tell for sure if he liked it. “Pardon,” said Alexios. “I must borrow him for a moment.”
“A garden matter to discuss?” asked Queen Clio archly, looking between them.
If Alexios were more sober and less frayed that might worry him, but as such, it didn’t. “Yes,” he said bluntly. He was out of patience with this party, and everything that came with it. He wished to abscond with Auro and escape the strangling press.
The Queen left them, with a lingering look at her son. Auro accompanied Alexios a bit farther into the garden, outside the ring of candlelight and floating banners. They approached a low marble bench. “What is it?” Auro asked, as soon as they were out of earshot of the Queen.
Alexios shrugged, wrong-footed. “This party. My impending marriage. All of it. You.”
“Me?”
“I didn’t think you were coming.”
“I wasn’t—but it was important to you.”
“It was. Is.” Alexios noticed something hard in Auro’s eyes, something he had never seen there before. “What?”
“Was that her?”
Alexios did not need to ask who ‘her’ was. “Yes.”
Auro seemed to chew on that a bit. “She’s lovely,” he said after a while, taking a step away from Alexios.
“I suppose,” Alexios admitted.
They stood in silence for a while, until Alexios said, “We’re to marry in six months.”
Auro examined his fingernails. “Oh.”
“Yes.”
“I will be asleep then.”
Alexios felt his heart compress in his chest, squeezing, crushing. “You will.”
Auro turned to look at him, lips in a hard line, eyes blazing. “I am not asleep now.”
“No,” Alexios agreed, looking Auro over from head to toe. “You are not.”
Auro did not look away this time, as he often did, dipping his head to hide, demurely. He stared at Alexios, waiting.
“I had hoped to spend the whole season with you, Auro,” said Alexios.
“Can’t you, still?”
Alexios cast a nervous look over his shoulder, toward where his parents stood, slouching as if by doing so he could disappear entirely.
Finally, Auro tutted impatiently. He placed a hand on Alexios’s chin, tilting it up into the light cast from the party. “Alexios,” he said sternly. “You are the Crown Prince. The heir to this kingdom. Perhaps you must remind them of that.”
“What?”
“You told me before that you feel like a child, unable to make your own choices. That will never change if you do not start.”
“Start what?”
Auro gave him a fierce look. “Making your own choices. Forging your own path. What can they do? You are the prince.”
Alexios blinked stupidly, opening and closing his mouth like a fish.
“Do not think overmuch,” said Auro. “Just clear your mind and think about what you want. What do you want, Alexios?”
Alexios’s pulse hammered in his ears. Despite the fact that he had grown up having every whim catered to, no one had ever, ever asked him that question. He’d always felt like he “wanted” for nothing, but absent any wants of his own—who was he? Auro’s green eyes shone out of his face as he stared at Alexios, piercing. Alexios opened his mouth to blurt that what he wanted most of all was Auro, any way he could get him, but he was momentarily distracted by his mother’s high, clear laugh.
He turned toward the sound and saw her standing close with his father. He, Queen Petillia and Janus had joined her on the terrace. King Nelios now stood gazing at Queen Clio fondly, wearing the soft smile he donned for his wife alone. He was a tall man, and he stooped to press a sweet, tender kiss to Queen Clio’s cheek.
Alexios realized, watching his parents, that was what he wanted—the bold display of casual affection, the love between them obvious to anyone present. He wanted Auro, surely, but he did not want him in secret, in shadows. He wanted him here, twirling to the musicians’ songs, eating tiny delicacies from Alexios’s hand while they shared a private joke. He wanted to kiss his knuckles where their fingers intertwined, and not care who saw.
Alexios stood, stepping into Auro’s space. With trembling fingers, he cupped Auro’s cheek. Auro’s eyelids fluttered closed, and Alexios leaned in, pausing when he could feel Auro’s breath skitter across his cheeks, allowing him the chance to pull away if he desired.
Auro did not pull away. The sounds of the party melted into the background like the hum of insects, and their lips were only a whisper apart when the noise of shattering glass and hissed curses brought reality screaming back. Alexios jerked his head back, heart pounding. He wanted Auro here, or anywhere really—but he couldn’t. Not with half the kingdom and his parents looking on—not to mention his future mother-in-law. Auro’s brows knit together, and he made a small, disappointed sound, but when his eyes fluttered open, they were full of understanding.
And, unless Alexios was mistaken, heat.
Alexios’s mind filled immediately with a deluge of lustful thoughts and images, passing through him as if he stood below a waterfall. He swayed on his feet, struck by the promise in Auro’s eyes as they gazed up at him.
“What I want,” Alexios whispered, “is to leave this party. With you.”
Auro smiled. “As you wish, Your Highness.”
Alexios and Auro walked several paces apart, but he still felt as though every eye was upon them as they threaded through the fringes of the crowd at the edges of the throne room. He could feel the stare of his father on the back of his head, but he forced himself not to acknowledge it.
When they reached Alexios’s door, he half expected Leofric to follow them inside, but he simply bowed and said, “Your Highness,” before taking his place to stand guard outside the doors.
In the dark, quiet air of Alexios’s bed chambers, the silence descended upon them like cold water. Alexios froze, twisting his hands over each other, suddenly at a loss of what to do now that he had Auro alone. Without the lavish backdrop of the rest of the feast, its costumed guests, Auro shone like a beacon. His costume suited him, making him look so otherworldly, so divine. Auro deserved to be taken care of, worshipped, and Alexios wished desperately to burn away the thought of everything they could not have—and he had no notion of how to do that.
Luckily for Alexios, the same paralysis had not struck Auro, who crossed the room to collide with Alexios, full force. At the first taste of Auro’s mouth, Alexios’s nerves vanished—especially when Auro stretched his neck, allowing Alexios’s lips to claim the column of his throat. “Oh,” he said softly.
“Yes.” Alexios encircled Auro in his arms, pressing them together, his cock stiffening beneath his tunic as they clung to one another. “Stay with me tonight,” he whispered, resting his forehead against Auro’s.
Auro’s grin was wicked, his lips kiss-plumped and delightfully slick. “How could I refuse a prince?”
“You couldn’t.”
Auro fell upon Alexios, ravenous for his touch, tangling his fingers in the wool of Alexios’s toga as if he couldn’t bear to let him go. Neither of them paid much heed to where they were going, and Alexios felt the small of his back collide with his desk. The wood shuddered as Auro shoved him against it, knocking something heavy off the edge to shatter upon the floor.
Alexios gasped, looking down at the broken pieces of Dafina’s face strewn around their feet.
“Oops,” said Auro innocently, and Alexios grinned.
He pushed back against Auro, guiding him toward his bed in the center of the room, eager to see Auro garbed in moonlight and nothing else. Auro, it appeared, was of a similar mind. “I would undress you, Your Highness.”
“You have to stop calling me that,” said Alexios, the title crawling hot and squirmy under his skin.
Auro grabbed two fistfuls of fabric and repeated, “I would undress you…Alexios.”
He groaned, his name on Auro’s tongue the most erotic thing he’d ever heard. Alexios spread his arms and allowed Auro to unwrap the vast swaths of fabric and undo his belt before kneeling to take off his sandals.
When Auro busied himself with the leather straps, his curls parted, exposing the bare nape of his neck. The wine, the kissing, all of it made him bold. “You do not wear your gift,” he said.
Auro did not look up, so focused on his task. His palm on Alexios’s calf scorched as he lifted his foot to remove one sandal, and then the other. “Yes, I do.”
Alexios had to windmill his arms a bit to keep from toppling over as he stepped out of his shoes to stand barefoot on the floor. “You—hang on,” he said.
When Auro regained his feet, Alexios placed his palms on either side of his delicate neck, feeling for the chain.
“It is not around my neck,” Auro said absently.
Alexios had the distinct impression of his mind wiping utterly blank, as if it were a new universe being born. “What.”
Auro toed off his own sandals, and Alexios could wait no longer to seize the bottom hem of Auro’s tunic and yank it up over his head. When Auro stood naked in the room, Alexios could only gape. The tiny, dainty links of rose gold wrapped about Auro’s hips, nestled against the soft flesh of his waist, the flowers and pearls joining together where one end of the chain dangled down into the pink hair around Auro’s cock.
“Fuck,” Alexios swore and tumbled Auro back onto the sleeping couch. He blanketed Auro’s body with his own, ignited by the feel of their skin pressed so close together, the heat of Auro’s flesh and the softness of him, with one notable exception, pushing hot and insistent against his thigh.
The cold metal of the chain tingled against Alexios’s lower abdomen, sending a shiver down his spine as he rained kisses upon Auro’s brow, his cheeks, and finally his lips.
“I cannot recall the last time I spent the night in a bed,” said Auro suddenly when Alexios drew back for breath.
Alexios stopped in his tracks, shocked. “Pardon?”
“Well,” said Auro, “During the spring, I always find myself in the forest. When I sleep, I make my bed in the boughs of a friendly tree, or on the floor of my temple.”
Now he thought about it, Alexios wasn’t certain what he pictured when he imagined Auro spending his lonely nights every spring. Watching him now, seeing the lovely picture he made here, in Alexios’s bed, he felt a pang for how Auro had been living for centuries.
Auro arched his back a bit, blinking up at him, wriggling about on the luxurious cushions beneath his body. The moonlight streaming in illuminated his pale skin, bounced off the chain around his waist, the shine of it drawing Alexios’s eye to Auro’s groin. “No longer,” Alexios vowed. And he meant it. “You deserve only the finest things.” He lowered his lips, offering Auro a soft kiss. “You should be laid out in silks and worshipped,” he declared.
Perhaps the wine had not entirely left him yet.
Alexios’s face reddened, but he was determined not to look away. He might have kept such declarations to himself—but that did not make them untrue—and Auro gazed up at him, eyes hazy, like he quite liked that idea being worshipped a bit. As if absent thought, Auro let his thighs fall open, making a safe cradle for Alexios between them.
The weight of that trust was sobering. For a while, Alexios just looked. He loved having permission to feast his eyes, and he intended to gorge himself on the sight of Auro’s body. Auro reclined on the cushions, one arm crooked behind his head, the other resting by his side, hand splayed across his belly. Alexios began at the top of Auro’s head, examining the shine of his curls, so happy to see them washed of the dull, ugly dye. He wished Auro did not have to hide it, but part of him loved that he was the only one who knew the truth of Auro. His eyes raked over Auro’s face, his brow, his flushed cheeks, the hollow below the apple of his throat. Alexios was determined that he should commit every detail of this vision to memory.
Auro’s expression was quizzical; perhaps he did not expect Alexios to have this level of restraint once they were abed together. It wasn’t restraint, Alexios would have told him, had he asked. He needed this time. When Alexios was certain he would not forget a single eyelash, a single candlelit shadow playing across Auro’s skin, he carded a hand through Auro’s hair and leaned down for another soft kiss that quickly turned hungry. Alexios let his eyes fall closed and slid his tongue between Auro’s lips. A muffled sound escaped where their mouths met.
“Wait,” gasped Auro, sitting up. He laid a palm on Alexios’s bare chest.
Alexios was pleased to see Auro flushed from navel to hairline, the pupils of his eyes blown wide, his chest heaving.
“I…” Auro gazed down, breaking eye contact. “When I told you it had been a long time since I had been touched…it wasn’t the whole truth.”
Alexios drew away, puzzled. “Oh?”
“In fact…I have never been touched, like this. I’ve never done any of this before,” he confessed in a whisper.
Alexios blinked. How was that possible? Auro was sweet and beautiful, and a god…was it truly possible no one had taken him to bed before?
“Apologies,” said Auro, plainly embarrassed. “I never considered taking a lover before I met you.”
Alexios surged forward, capturing Auro’s mouth in a kiss. When they broke apart for breath, Alexios said, “You have nothing to apologize for.”
Auro cupped his cheek. “Are you certain? I assume you expected someone with more…experience.”
Alexios turned his head, kissing Auro’s palm. “I have never been with anyone, either,” he admitted.
“Truly?”
“Truly. In fact, I was nervous about failing to please you.”
When Auro kissed him again, he tasted a fresh fire. “Well,” said Auro, his voice husky. “Then, why don’t we learn together?”
Their next kiss was mostly a clack of teeth through bashful, excited smiles, before Alexios began, timidly at first, to touch Auro. It seemed almost as though it shouldn’t be allowed, his laying hands on Auro. It felt brutish in a way. Alexios had never been ashamed of his looks—but compared with Auro’s delicate body, the softness of his curves and the creamy smoothness of his skin, Alexios felt big and ungainly, rough, like some sort of clumsy, elbowy oaf.
But the look on Auro’s face…
Alexios smiled, his doubts melting like the frost Auro chased away each spring. He retraced the path he’d made with his eyes, teasing his hands through Auro’s hair, touching his curls, and Auro preened, closing his eyes with a happy sigh. Alexios explored the dainty features of Auro’s face with his fingertips—the bridge of his nose, his eyelids, his round pink cheeks, each touch featherlight, reverent.
Alexios’s mouth ran dry, his body taut as bowstring as he moved his hands down Auro’s throat to stroke his collarbones. He found so many delights as he touched and explored, like the pale birthmark in the triangular divot between Auro’s neck and shoulder, shaped like a cloud.
Auro’s hands were small and soft. Alexios brought each of Auro’s fingers to his lips and kissed them, and then the tiny bones of his wrists. Auro’s chest was mostly hairless, his nipples like two flower petals, until Alexios thumbed over them. Then, they darkened, tightening into buds instead. Auro sucked in a breath, closing his eyes as he arched into Alexios’s touch. Smirking, Alexios gave each one a parting pinch, loving the way Auro responded to every pass of his fingertips, his plump lips parted, his breath coming in short pants.
They were both hard, but Alexios made no move to touch Auro where he plainly wanted most to be touched, favoring instead this slow exploration as if he weren’t seconds from bursting himself. Auro’s middle was pillowy, thickly fleshed with curves Alexios wanted to sink his teeth into. The chain belted his hips, framing Auro’s groin like a masterpiece of berries and cream, his cock and balls cradled in a thick thatch of rosy curls.
Later, when he relived this night—which Alexios would do many, many times—he would not be able to quite identify the moment he stopped using his fingers and began using his lips, but it seemed all at once that Alexios was bathing Auro in kisses. He couldn’t stop himself from sucking bruises into Auro’s thighs, biting the skin of his hips, using his teeth to tug on the chain around his waist. The desperate, pleased sounds falling from Auro’s lips were his guide, as were the fingers tugging frantically on his hair.
“Alexios,” Auro breathed. “Please—”
Unable to form words of his own, Alexios merely nodded, blanketing Auro once again with his weight so he could smash their mouths together. Auro clutched tight to Alexios’s shoulders, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, but Alexios did not care. He gasped as his cock slid along Auro’s, igniting him tailbone to scalp as he rutted desperately against Auro’s groin. Auro canted his hips, pressing every inch of their flesh close so they could thrust against one another. The friction was dry but scorching hot. Alexios had a notion to ease their way with oil, but that would mean disentangling from Auro and leaving the bed, which he did not think he had strength to do. Auro bent his knee to hook his calf over Alexios’s hip, digging his heel into the meat of his ass, as if he could not get close enough. Alexios knew the feeling. The pleasure licked up his spine as they moved faster and harder, and then all at once, Auro released a startled mewl, the heat of his release pooling between them.
The idea of their seed mixing hot and sticky on Auro’s perfect, smooth skin, tipped Alexios over the edge, too, his climax punching the breath from his lungs, sudden as a storm. Auro and Alexios clung to one another, panting. Auro’s head fell back, his throat upturned as he gasped for air, and Alexios pressed weak, open-mouthed kisses to the side of Auro’s neck. A feeling of embarrassment kept him hiding there, and a strange sort of mourning that he had quaked so quickly—but then, so had Auro, who now released a weak, giddy chuckle.
Alexios kissed Auro’s temple and stood, padding across the room to fetch a small cloth and douse it with cool water from the wash basin on his sideboard. When he turned back, his heart stuttered at the sight of Auro so debauched, a stream of pearly cum pooling in his navel, his chest and cheeks red, his lips slick and parted. Alexios offered the washcloth first to Auro, to wash the seed and sweat from his body, and then cleaned himself up. He unclasped the chain from Auro’s waist and let it pool on the table at his bedside. Fresh, floaty, and naked, Alexios slid beneath the blankets. He found he quite liked the way Auro fit against him, his smaller body curled on one side with Alexios wrapped around him like a shield.
He kissed Auro’s shoulder blade one last time before drifting off to sleep, a smile upon his lips.
In Alexios’s dream, he was on his knees before Auro, who sat naked upon a golden throne. He used his mouth to pleasure him, loving the taste of dream-Auro on his tongue. As in life, Auro’s hands tightened in his curls, tugging against them. All at once, Auro pulled harder. Alexios hissed, dropping Auro’s cock from between his lips He felt the yanking again—hard. Harder. Cruel. Something deep in his sleeping brain said, Not Auro. Alexios opened his eyes, disoriented, and a large rough hand clamped over his mouth and nose.
Then, he was hauled from Auro’s embrace. He flailed, but this man was far larger, far stronger than Alexios, and held him fast. Alexios made attempt to open his mouth, but the man stuffed a rag between his teeth to cut off the shout forming on his tongue. He pulled Alexios through the darkened bedroom by the hair, and into the bathing chamber. Before Alexios could free himself, or divest himself of the gag, the man pushed him toward the bath and used his grip on Alexios’s hair to shove his head below the surface of the water.
All Alexios could do was hope his splashing would awaken Auro, who could fetch help. Leofric stood outside his door, but that may as well have been a thousand leagues away. He managed to claw the gag from his mouth and when Alexios’s head broke the surface of the water, he took a hasty gulp of air before the hands twisted in his hair and forced him under once again. His heart fought like a caged beast in his chest, his pulse pounding in his ears as his vision blurred at the edges. He thrashed and fought, and heard the sounds of his own struggling as if from far away. He needed to breathe. His world narrowed to two things: the searing pain in his scalp as his hair was yanked out by the roots, and the burn in his lungs. Desperate, Alexios shot his hands skyward, clawing at anything he could reach, and with his nails raking against what he imagined to be the arm of his captor, he was able to get his feet beneath himself. The pool was not so deep that Alexios could not stand upon the bottom of it, and with his feet planted he managed to shove upward and back, breaking the surface and slamming his back into the sharp edge of the pool, pushing what little breath remained from his lungs, even as he found his head at last above water.
The man with his claws in Alexios’s hair cursed, and Alexios thrashed wildly until he was able to flop up onto the edge of the pool. Thankfully, he was still naked, and now slick as an eel with his skin sopping wet. Alexios squirmed and twisted, hysterical strength surging through him, but when he tried to call out, his lungs remained empty, and a wet cough was all he could manage. At last, he was able to strike a blow; his elbow flew back and connected with a meaty, well-muscled chest. The assailant grunted, cursing again, and he yanked Alexios’s head back before dashing his head upon the tiles of the chamber floor. Lights popped in front of Alexios’s eyes, and he held on to consciousness like a man clinging to a cliff with merely his fingertips, knowing that to slide from such would mean his death.
His lungs burned as he tried again to call for help, but no sound passed his lips.
**
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