The Swithin Chronicles 3: The Comet Cometh Read online

  “Uly.”

  One of the men was calling to him; lost in thought, he couldn’t distinguish which one. He looked into Markis’s eyes. “It helped,” he admitted, frowning as he did. Ryanac’s chuckle tickled his ear.

  “I thought it might.”

  Still frowning, Uly looked at him. “Why?”

  The guard’s large, thick fingers were surprisingly soft as they drifted over his skin, tracing lazy circles. The touch stirred and tickled; the sensation remained even when the touch moved on.

  “Change things. Use it. Make it something else,” Ryanac whispered. As he spoke, something inside Uly grew quiet, settled.

  He still suffered from the occasional bad dream. These dreams irritated more than frightened him, although that wasn’t entirely true. He did fear them. He also resented them interfering with his new life. What these men were trying to show him wasn’t about ending the dreams. Ryanac had told him next time he dreamed and became aware of it ‑‑ as he confessed he often did ‑‑ he should follow the dream to its conclusion. Watch it as an observer, not a participant. In these dreams, he always fought. He didn’t want to see the thing he feared because…

  Uly sighed. Both men looked at him in puzzlement, but he shook his head. He didn’t die at the end of the dream. He already knew that without going to the end. In the dream, he knew what was coming almost as if he experienced a premonition, and what he knew would happen was that he faced a separation. The dream took Markis from his life, took Ryanac. He wasn’t dying; rather, it felt as if someone took the people and things he loved away from him. This was what he feared now. Maybe losing people he loved was something he’d always feared. Either those that showed him affection left, or others took them away from him. His birth parents had sold him, his adoptive parents looked after him only for a time, and then men had taken a good friend who cared for him from Uly’s life. Maybe if he could accept his fear existed, it would cease to haunt him. A dream was just a dream, after all. Ryanac wanted him to take control of the dream, just as here he’d been the one in control, even when tied to the bed. This game ended on one little word that was his to say.

  “Sema,” he said. The word whispered out between his lips, although he wasn’t entirely sure why he said it. He sensed it, though. For the first time, it felt as if his consciousness touched on what they were doing.

  A slight frown tightened Markis’s brow. For a moment, he even wondered if he’d truly heard Uly say sema just now. He studied Uly’s expression, looking for signs of comprehension. When he saw what he was looking for, he smiled. “It seems you did learn something.”

  When Ryanac first suggested this, Markis had instantly objected. Uly and Ryanac weren’t lovers in their own right yet. He sometimes wondered if they ever would be. Uly let the big man touch and pet him, and sometimes in the heat of a tangled, sweating mass of bodies, the once street thief let go, clutching at the big man’s arm or hand, even leaning into and resting against him, but so far the desire for comfort appeared to dominate their relationship. Still, listening to his friend’s arguments, Markis had eventually done what he always did, and put his faith in Ryanac.

  Part of Uly letting go of his past required acceptance. Bad things had happened to him, and Uly had once attempted to bury them where they would never see the light of day. All this achieved was for his memories to lie dormant, ready to surface at inauspicious moments. They had convinced Uly that if he didn’t accept his past, face it, and move on, it would affect him for the rest of his life. Uly didn’t have to confess that he was so used to things going wrong in his life that he expected something to take this new life away from him. Markis feared the same thing. He just wouldn’t let his fear rule him. If Uly lived only in fear of what might happen, he’d gain little joy from the good things in life. He didn’t want that for Uly. Both he and Ryanac had thought the art of semaris would help. Markis had tried to explain it to him, but the young man struggled with the concept. Now, apparently that moment had occurred naturally…if you could call someone tying you to a bed natural. Still, it seemed as if Uly finally understood what the word sema meant, but Markis wanted to be certain of it.

  “You understand what it means now?” Markis asked him.

  Uly gave a single nod of his head. “Letting go. Accepting.” His gaze wandered across the ceiling. His brow tightened into a frown. “Yet it goes deeper than that. It’s about making acceptance a part of you, and it’s about trust. It’s almost intangible. You’re in control even though it appears you’ve given your will over ‑‑”

  Markis stopped Uly speaking by pressing his fingers to the younger man’s lips, before his mouth ran away with him. “Close enough for now.” Markis’s smile broadened. “And you’re correct in that it’s difficult to put into words, anyhow. I can see a hint of understanding in your eyes, and that will suffice.”

  “A few more lessons wouldn’t hurt.” Ryanac chuckled.

  From the look in his eyes, Markis let Uly know Ryanac was just being Ryanac, and he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to do. “That’s up to Uly,” Markis told his friend. He turned his head to look at the discarded and now sliced garments. “Although if we keep destroying clothes like this, we’ll have the seamstresses after us.”

  Uly blushed. Perhaps he even remembered the night Markis had sliced his nightshift from him, the first night they had made love. They shared a moment, smiling at each other. Ryanac broke their reverie, pulling Uly’s head around to face him.

  “You’re hard as a rock.”

  Uly blinked as though he didn’t understand the words. As one, the three men glanced down. Uly’s blush deepened in colour. His erection had subsided, but sometime during the conversation, perhaps due their amorous kisses, his wanton flesh had risen to the occasion. Rather than take blood from his erection, his blushing appeared to pump more into it. He twisted as though he would struggle out from between the two of them, but he had nowhere to go. Ryanac caught Markis’s eye and, barely faltering, Markis caught hold of Uly’s hands.

  Markis watched Uly’s face for any true objection. Those grey eyes flicked to where Markis gripped him firmly around his wrists over the cords, and then Uly shook his head. “Don’t tie me. Not…now.”

  “I won’t,” Markis promised, but he moved Uly’s hands above his head as he did so. Lowering his face, he whispered against Uly’s lips. “Grip the headboard.” Frowning, Uly hesitated, but then did as Markis asked. Uly’s fingers encircled the wooden spindles in a light grasp. “Grip them as tight as you want or need to,” Markis told him. The frown only deepened. Markis couldn’t help smiling. “You’ll know what I mean. Lie back, sweet Uly. Lie back and enjoy.”

  Soft kisses whispered over Uly’s brow, his closed eyelids, his cheeks, and his mouth. The two sets of lips felt disembodied. He was aware only of their touch, not the bodies of the two men kissing him. Somehow, they managed to hold their distance. When fingers began to stroke his neck, he jumped. More feathery, light kisses calmed him. Equally light caresses whispered over his skin, from his neck to his shoulder, back to his collarbone, and then in a direct line down the centre of his chest to his navel and back up again. He lost track of which fingers belonged to which man. This time, when the strokes played out over his shoulders, they whispered down his sides to his ribs. His nipples stiffened in response as they passed close but failed to make contact. A small gasp left his throat, and he bit his lip, hoping they would stroke over those small, taut nubs on the return journey. They didn’t. He moaned in protest, feeling heat rush back into his face as he did. He hadn’t meant to make a sound. His grip on the wooden headboard tightened, then relaxed. He let one hand drift down.

  “Keep hold,” Markis said softly. “Nothing’s going to keep you there but willpower. If you let go, we stop.”

  Uly swallowed, lost to the darkness behind his eyelids. Slowly, he opened them. Both men lay there calmly, one on each side. Markis still wore the robe, but the two sides had separated. The sight of Markis’s skin
flashed beneath like a dark promise. Something in his eyes said he meant what he said. If Uly released his grip, both men would stop what they were doing. Something argumentative rose up inside him. He wanted to tell Markis he wouldn’t play this stupid game, but he couldn’t do it. Part of him wanted them to keep touching him, but it was more than that. He was being foolish and the game wasn’t stupid. Part of him recognised the emotion behind his resistance, and it had more to do with him not giving in to what others wanted of him. What Markis offered though, had nothing to do with that. The heart of this game was benevolent. Ryanac had started the game, and this was just a continuance of it.

  “Close your eyes for a little while,” Ryanac told him.

  Open them, close them. When would Ryanac make up his mind? Despite his mental protest, Uly closed his eyes. At once, the touch of the two men whispered over him, up and down his skin, moving in. When he was certain that one of them would touch a nipple, had to for they were so close to it, and he was even turning, seeking their caresses, they fooled him again. A hot, wet heat engulfed both nipples at once. Two tongues swirled and pressed into him, teasing the firm flesh.

  Uly arched, cried out, and almost lost his grip. His head thrown back, his eyes suddenly shot wide open, and he stared at the spindles in the headboard, tightening his grip with one hand and flailing to grab the one from which his other hand had slipped. He heard a chuckle and realised that both men were laughing. Thankfully, they didn’t stop. In the wake of their caresses, they now licked and bit until Uly struggled to remember he needed to maintain his grip. Between the two of them, they were making him dizzy. He couldn’t hold on for much longer, and yet he squeezed the spindles with his fingers even as the thought occurred to him.

  All he needed to do was let go, and they would stop. The pleasure crested, no longer the shivery need of growing arousal. He lay drenched in necessity. Their mouths worked on his neck and chest. Their fingers fluttered over his legs, stroking his inner thighs. His testicles tried to crawl up into his body even as they swelled in anticipation.

  “Please,” he whispered, his eyes now alternately fluttering open, then closing. Markis’s mouth broke away from his skin.

  “What do you want, Uly?”

  He shook his head. He didn’t know. He gasped as fingers worked into the heat of his groin where his leg joined his body. The backs of their hands touched his scrotum, lifted his balls, only to move away again. Certain the move was deliberate, he cursed. They laughed in unison. Still no one had touched his cock. It lay rigid up the line of his stomach.

  “We can both fuck you,” Markis offered.

  Again, he shook his head. No, he didn’t want that. He didn’t quite know what they had in mind, but he wasn’t ready for that from Ryanac yet. It alarmed him to consider that Markis might be using the moment to persuade him, but he had to put that down to his suspicious nature. Either he was willing to trust Markis or he wasn’t. There could be no questioning in their relationship. No doubt, Markis just made the offer. What happened was Uly’s choice. It would always be his choice. He believed that. As for the two of them doing it together if Markis meant… Well, he wasn’t ready to let anyone besides Markis use his mouth, and he had only done that once. The experience proved less than wonderful, his anticipation turning out to be better than reality. Markis enjoyed taking that tender flesh in his mouth and appeared to gain more than passing satisfaction from the knowledge that he could cause Uly’s descent into blissful, heady convulsions. Uly wanted very much to return the favour, but feared it would be yet another dismal failure. Markis had said it wasn’t a failure, but Uly had choked. Things hadn’t gone the way he wanted. Until they did, he wouldn’t be happy even though he was under no pressure.

  Trying to pull in his wandering thoughts, Uly considered that he had all the time he needed, yet he feared the passing of time itself. He had learned that things changed, moments passed, never recaptured. What if his fears grew out of proportion? What if he lost Markis or Ryanac someway, somehow, and always regretted not seizing such moments?

  “Uly.” Markis was stroking his lips, Ryanac his side. As he looked at Markis, his love, the guard kissed his shoulder. The two men continued to touch him. Their fingers drifted, sliding across his belly, combing through the soft, pale blond hair at his head and groin. The touching of hair was an intimate act between the Swithin, no matter where on the body. Uly loved fingers raking over his scalp. Now they raked over the tender flesh surrounding his cock, too.

  He wanted to relax into the sensation, but some other part of him remained tense, wondering what was coming, what they were going to do. What he truly wanted was to be more of a participant. Often, he didn’t understand his own reluctance. He wanted this. He wanted them. It was just…Ryanac. His biggest problem was Ryanac, not that he wanted the man to stop touching him.

  Their teasing continued. He was half-glad things hadn’t escalated, half-disappointed. His whole body pulsed, but his cock throbbed most of all. He had lost the steady rhythm of his breathing, but didn’t know when it had happened. They played his flesh as though it were an instrument, mimicking, duplicating what the other did on either side in almost perfect unison. They followed the same sequence, even stroked the back of his calves, circled around his knees with their fingers. They had tried to touch his feet, but he kicked out almost violently. He couldn’t stand having his feet tickled. Uly couldn’t help shivering under their touch. He pulled away and leaned into it by turn, never sure what he truly wanted.

  “Lie back and let us bring you,” Markis whispered. Not knowing the expression, still it spoke to something deep inside him. Yes, bring him to fruition. Uly whimpered in reply.

  This time they pinched his nipples, causing pain. Instead of flinching in fear, he gritted his teeth against a groan as it flashed white heat down to his testicles. To his shame, a bead of moisture left a glistening trail across his stomach. The air felt cooler where it caressed the wet skin, and a moment later, Ryanac dipped his fingers into the moisture. Uly closed his eyes, refusing to watch as embarrassment won out over desire. Ryanac’s touch moved away, only to return a moment later to repeat the gesture. This time Uly raised his head to see Markis lick Ryanac’s fingertips. He was sure Ryanac had licked them the first time, Markis the second.

  He couldn’t stand it. He wanted off the bed. He just wanted it to end. Yet he felt pinned. Uly stared upwards at his hands in amazement, fingers glued to the wooden spindles as though his life depended on it. The two men made love to his body, took pleasure as they gave it, and he strained for their contact as much as he tried to pull away from it. The inner argument would tear him apart if it continued like this. Surely, it had to.

  Markis must have seen where his gaze lay. “All you have to do is let go.”

  He shook his head. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t even certain Markis meant the spindles. A hand stroked the side of his face, calming in its familiarity.

  “You can let go if you want.” As with many things, Markis’s suggestion definitely contained a double meaning.

  This time, Uly shook his head frantically, tossing it from side to side until his hair lay in strands across his face; he lay breathless, and sweat broke out over his body.

  “What? What is it?”

  Damn! Markis could be as relentless as Ryanac at times. He couldn’t say it. He wouldn’t.

  “I…” No!

  “What? You don’t have to do this. You can let go, and it’s finished. Tell us what you want, and we’ll do it, or lie back, say nothing, and let us bring you. Let go, and it ends. You can end this.”

  “No.”

  “No what?”

  “Hmph.” That wasn’t quite a word or a whimper.

  “Uly…”

  “I don’t want to.” The words tore out of his throat, but felt ripped from somewhere deeper even than that. They spilled up from his chest, his stomach, and lower things. “I don’t know what I want, but I want something. I can’t… You can’t just stop.
”

  If they left him now, he would be lucky if he could move. He already felt wrecked. The thought of them leaving him there, still yearning, seared him more than his desire.

  The door to Markis’s private room opened, and the man turned his head. Uly couldn’t see past him, but he tensed, gripping the headboard now for other reasons. Thankfully, whoever it was, his body lay mostly hidden beneath the two men. Of course, in certain situations that might have been awkward, but these men were Swithin. Their race calmly and frequently took lovers of either sex. Still, even Markis seemed less than pleased by the interruption.

  “Get out,” he said, coolly enough.

  “I just…” Tressa’s voice began, and Uly pictured the small Swithin queen standing there, dark eyes flashing, the light making her equally dark hair gleam, her expression startled, irritation and impatience winning out over any embarrassment.

  “Not now!” Markis snapped, losing his steady tone, and a little yip sound filled the room, followed by the door banging shut. “You still need us?” Markis whispered, at once turning his attention back to Uly.

  The interruption might have, probably should have, cooled his ardour, but it hadn’t. Uly hesitated, and then nodded, closing his eyes as he did. Every part of his body felt tight. So much tension surely made his body stiff, unyielding, yet one part of him surrendered freely enough. Markis’s lips covered his and he opened his mouth to the kiss, letting Markis tease his tongue into a dance.

  He almost screamed, the sound muffled, fading into Markis’s throat, as Uly’s cock plunged into a hot, wet cavern. He hadn’t done this with Ryanac. He hadn’t done anything as remotely intimate. The man’s mouth drew, sucked, and plunged. His tongue stroked.

  Uly trembled, all of his muscles tight and straining against the onslaught. Even though he still gripped the spindles, only Markis’s weight held him down. The man breathed the word, “Hush,” into Uly’s mouth. A sound of protest escaped him in response. He couldn’t form words, but the complaint was clear. The tip of Ryanac’s tongue probing the small hole at the end of his cock made him gasp, then moan. The sounds came thick and fast in sharp contrast with one another, denial and plea all at once, and Markis drank the noises down. How could he argue verbally with Markis when his body betrayed him so apparently?