Welcome to The Prince’s Boy by Cecilia Tan, a tale of a prince and his whipping boy ensnared in a plot of dark erotic magic. Warning: explores themes of dubious consent and situations of sexual jeopardy. NSFW.

A new chapter appears every Wednesday. This week is Chapter Forty: Jorin

40: Jorin

I went to Gresh. Somehow, I knew if I was to find an ally among the Night Riders against Sergetten, he would be the most likely candidate.

I was correct. I shared some cold bread with him as dawn broke and Kan and Sergetten were still in hushed, vehement conference. We sat on fallen logs and broke out the rations, waiting for the others to join us. There would be no cooking fire this morning while we hid from detection. “So,” I said, carefully at first, “Sergetten is Kan’s mentor in Night Magic?”

“Aye.” Gresh gnawed the rough crust of the bread, his eyes never straying far from the tent where our leader and my old tutor were speaking.

“He used to teach me the history of Trest,” I said, “and every time I, or the prince, named something wrong, he would rap me on the back of the knuckles with a stick. I would get that same stick applied to my arse if Kenet drew frits in the margins of a book or daydreamed instead of reading his assigned chapter. But.”

“But?”

“But that isn’t why I don’t trust him.” I chewed slowly, choosing my words. “He is Seroi’s apprentice.”

Gresh grunted agreement.

“And if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Night Magic can twist a man’s desires.”

Now he chuckled, low in his throat. “Are you saying you wouldn’t have taken on the lot of us without it? Don’t fool yourself, Weltskin. You love the thorn of the man as much as the rose of the maid.”

“True. But the mage put a spell on the prince to keep him from speaking to me of certain things. Who knows what lies or omissions Sergetten might be subject to?” I shook my head. “Understand me, Gresh. I am bound to obey Kan, by my own honor as much as by magic. But if Sergetten should prove to be our enemy? We must be careful.”

Gresh nodded. “He has always aided us in our cause. But I will keep watch should the snake coil to strike.”

The rest of the band knew who our visitor was by then, but none dared disturb his discussion with Kan. Willim in particular seemed agitated, limping toward the tent more than once as if to see whether they were finished yet.

I was shocked by what I witnessed next. Sergetten at last emerged from the tent, his face a mask of anger and trouble. When he saw Willim nearby he stalked over to the young man and I feared Willim would receive some reproach for eavesdropping.

Instead, Sergetten pulled Willim close against him and bent him backwards in a heated kiss. When the kiss ended, their mouths only moved apart far enough to allow speech, their foreheads still touching.

I had never heard such a tender voice from Sergetten, though compared to someone else he might have sounded brusque as he asked, “How is your leg?”

“I haven’t needed the crutch since your last visit,” Willim answered, a bit breathless, “though the pain has been worse of late.”

“I shall see what I can do about that, my frit,” Sergetten said, holding him by the chin.

“Now?” Willim asked, on the verge of begging.

Sergetten looked up then, his black gaze falling on me. “There are matters I must attend to, but… yes, lad, you first.”

They went to the tent Willim and Pietri had shared the night before, and Pietri came to sit with us, looking a bit put out.

No one had to tell me what it was Sergetten and Willim had gone to the tent to do. The Night Magic cure for everything seemed to be a good arse-coring.

Kan was chuckling when he came up to us. “I need to make the circle safe again. I won’t be long.” And he went off into the trees.

As soon as he was out of sight, I asked what he had meant by that. Pietri explained. “He sets a magical perimeter each night, but sunrise obliterates it and he must do it anew.”

“Have to wait here for the sentry to return anyway,” Gresh said, and then clapped me on the shoulder. “You’d best be ready for Kan to come back thorny as a bramble bush, though.”

“Oh.” Of course. He was using some kind of Night Magic to make a safe circle, of course he was going to be…

Oh. The moment he brought himself to full hardness, I sensed it. I excused myself to the tent we shared, stripped out of my clothes, and lay down. I tugged on my own prick and closed my eyes and I could see him moving through the trees, his own hand milking a droplet of dew to the tip.

If he made a magical perimeter, though, I wondered, why did we need to assign watches? Perhaps it would not keep intruders out, but merely give us earlier warning of their arrival? There was much I needed to know.

He returned after making the way all the way around. He made a dismayed sound when he realized the state I was in, sweat breaking out across my brow as I tried to bite down on the painful need.

“Your mouth,” he said, as he pulled me to him. “Your arse has been treated roughly enough, and may yet be again, soon.”

I took him in gladly then, and he carried the scent of evergreen trees, and sechal bark, and other scents of the forest. He was sizable, with more girth than Kenet, but he moaned with appreciation as I suckled. I continued to tug at my cock with my other hand, and it was not long before we both spilled.

We had not yet covered ourselves when Sergetten threw back the flap. “I must speak with Jorin.”

Kan yawned, unconcerned at his cock hanging limp from his trousers, as usual. “Very well. Alone, or would you like me here?”

“It matters not. But you have yet to eat this morning,” Sergetten pointed out with a raised eyebrow at Kan.

“Point taken. I shall get some bread in my belly and come back in a while.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead, closed up his clothes, and went off.

I was just starting to sit up, one hand reaching for my shirt, when Sergetten’s hand on my chest pressed me down, his dark eyes glittering. “He has told me much,” he said, and I knew he meant that Kan and he had spoken of my condition. But had they spoken of the prince and the danger he was in?

“Have you seen Kenet?” I asked, ignoring the fact that he was holding me down. I would not give him the satisfaction of making me squirm with struggle. “Have you been to the castle?”

“I ask the questions,” he said, voice quiet with menace. “When you have answered them, perhaps I will answer yours in turn.”

“I’m not…”

“How long ago did you leave the castle?”

I had lost count. “Two weeks? Three? Seroi arranged it. He…”

“I heard you were banished after Kenet escaped your attempt to rape him.”

“That’s not true!” Now I couldn’t help but struggle, trying to sit up and face him like a man, not on my back like a whoreslave. My anger surged, but the more I pushed, the heavier his hand felt. I was reduced to snarling at him.

“I did not say it was true,” he said, calm as a frozen lake. “Merely that I had heard that.”

“It’s Seroi who plans to fuck him,” I blurted, finally. “On midsummer night!”

He snorted skeptically. “And how do you know that?”

“After you left the castle, Seroi began tutoring the prince. Up in his tower. Kenet was bespelled not to speak to me of what they did, but he didn’t need to speak to hint to me what manner of ‘tutoring’ he was receiving. It was all preparation for his coming of age ceremony, or so Kenet and the king were told, but…”

Sergetten’s eyes were black and cold. “What was Kenet able to tell you? Or communicate to you?”

“That Seroi milked him and performed spells that turned Kenet’s milk sour. Well, not sour. Bitter. To the flavor of ash.”

A hint of a cruel smile crept onto Sergetten’s face. “How long have you been drinking Kenet’s milk? How many years, ladra’an?”

I tried to wriggle out from under his hand again, but he not only held me fast, he moved so that his other hand took hold of my balls.

“How many years,” he repeated.

“Not years,” I said, wondering when Kan would return. “We only just recently discovered that.”

“We? Be clear with me as to how reciprocal the prince was to you.”

“He tasted my milk as well, if that is what you are asking.”

“It is. And? What else? Who has fucked whom?”

“Since my banishment, half the men west of the Serde have had me,” I spat back, “but there will be no shelter from the storm for any man who has touched Kenet!”

“Save your romantic proclamations for someone who cares,” he said, giving my balls a light slap.

“Seroi is making the prince into a night-bound whoreslave,” I insisted, ignoring the sparks I saw before my vision.

“You lie,” he growled, and slapped my balls again, harder.

I had to catch my breath before I could protest. “I don’t. Didn’t Kan tell you all this?”

“Kan knows more of Night Magic than most, but barely more than you, you ignorant little dirt-eater.” Now I gasped, for as he spoke, instead of striking me again, as his magic held me down he produced a jar from somewhere on his person and in a flash pushed cold, slick finger into me. It was cold enough to make me gasp and he crooked his finger inside me. He lifted the heavy hand but now I found if I squirmed or struggled, I only caused myself discomfort as I was hooked more deeply than any fish. “Tell me again, everything you know. Every detail. Every word or gesture or secret you and the prince exchanged.”

I tried to fight. Everything in me said that I should not answer, that every word spoken was a betrayal of Kenet, that every word heard by Sergetten would flow into the ears of Seroi. And Kenet would be the one to bear the punishment meted out by the mage, not me. Kenet would be the one pricked and bloodied by Seroi’s thorn.

But Sergetten was relentless, and I could not help but tell him many fragments of the story. He seemed relieved to hear that we never had drawn any of the serving maids into our beds, but at times it seemed to me he was more alarmed or more angry about what Kenet and I had done with each other than what Seroi had subjected Kenet to.

But then Kan did return. He knelt beside me with some alarm. By then Sergetten had one of my knees pressed to my chest and one of his long fingers still deep in me. “Is this necessary?” Kan asked.

“I assure you, it is,” Sergetten said. “You’d left him quite sore and the balm on my finger will restore him. However, he is resisting my interrogation. You must compel him to the truth, Kan.”

“I’m not entirely sure that is within my powers,” Kan said. “I hadn’t intended to bond him as a slave at all, you know, merely to loyalty.”

Sergetten laughed. “You asked me before, Kan, what could cause a man to react the way Jorin has to your Night Magic. Listen well, for this key unlocks more than one door.”

I groaned. I knew Sergetten’s lecturing voice all too well and wondered how much longer I would be forced to listen to him while trapped in such an uncomfortable position. Kan just nodded.

“You have drawn part of a circle,” Sergetten said, wiggling his finger in me for emphasis, “inside Jorin. The partial circle is like a hole you have dug. Water will keep flowing into the hole to fill it, unless you fill the hole with something else, or complete the circle so that it is sealed.”

Kan frowned. “Can you never speak plainly?”

“The hole is not merely a metaphor,” Sergetten said, stabbing his finger into me and making me yelp. “Poor Jorin feels that with every inch of his skin, every beat of his heart. He needs to be filled.”

“We know that.”

“And you also know it is worsening. Where will you find enough men to sate him when it took seven of you the last time? The circle must be closed. Only after that can we contemplate undoing the bond which is trying so very hard to close on its own.”

“So, close the circle,” I gritted out.

Kan put a hand on my shoulder, squeezing with gentle affection. “Closing the circle means completing the master-slave bond. Doesn’t it, Sergetten?”

“Just so,” Sergetten said.

“Fine.” I squirmed, even though it sent painful shocks through me. “Let Kan bond me as his own. And then we can set about undoing it.”

Sergetten spoke to Kan as if I had said nothing. “You do not have the skill to do it in such a way that the bond can be undone later. You want him too much, Kan. You cannot be the one.”

Now Kan’s eyes flashed with defiance. “Can’t I? Perhaps you need to teach me more.”

“You know far too much for your own good, as this mess proves.”

“I suppose you are the only one with the knowledge and skill to do it?”

“Of course I am the only one,” Sergetten said, sounding surprised. “Be reasonable, Kan. This man is not yours to hold in bond for life.”

“Nor yours!” Kan’s hand was on my shoulder.

“And I will not make him mine for life!” Sergetten’s shout shook the tent. “You idiot, there is only one man he belongs to, and he has belonged to him, body, heart, and soul, since he was barely old enough to walk! He belongs to the prince and none other!”

I was thunderstruck. To hear him say it that way, to hear him say aloud that which I had felt in my heart since the day Kenet had plucked me from the dirt, left me stunned speechless.

Sergetten went on in a quieter voice then. “You know this to be true, Kan. You have played at games with this boy, but that is all they can be. I must bond with him so that the braid can be undone later, without destroying him.”

Kan’s caress on my shoulder brought me back to the present. “I’m sorry, Jorin. He’s right. Sergetten must be your master now.”

“No,” I said, looking from Kan to Sergetten. “I won’t agree to that.”

Sergetten pinched one of my nipples and I cried out. “You have no choice. Not if you wish to be sane much longer.”

I growled at him. “I won’t negotiate my own enslavement with a man whose is finger-raping me while we speak.”

Sergetten let out a huff, withdrew from me not at all gently, and said, “Ungrateful wretch. Very well. Put some clothes on, as well, if it will make you feel better. It will not change the facts of the situation, nor my urgency to see this done.”

I sat up and put a shirt on but did not bother with the rest. “While we are here debating points of magic, Kenet is in danger,” I said.

“Jorin,” Kan began, but Sergetten silenced him with a gesture.

“Do you think you will just ride up to the gates and ask the guard to send him down?” Sergetten asked with a laugh. “Soon the only saddle you’ll be able to stay on is one with a phallus affixed to its middle. Is that what you want, ladra’an? You will be reduced to begging these men to fuck you, not just every day, but every few hours, then perhaps every hour. Kan tells me you already needed three at once…”

“Enough. I understand. If I do not take a master, I will be reduced to a drooling hulk of need. Tell me what happens when I do take a master, though.”

“Your master needs to be someone who is skilled in Night Magic, first of all to be able to control you without allowing you to come to harm, secondly to actually be able to fulfill the needs you exhibit, both those triggered by the spell and your own twisted, internal lusts, and third, to train you for your eventual lifelong bond.”

Sergetten had called me an idiot often enough. But perhaps he was right, for I found myself having to ask, “What do you mean? Eventual lifelong bond with whom?”

“With Kenet, you idiot!”

Oh. I was thunderstruck again.

Perhaps if I had been given a few more minutes, I would have wrapped my head around all that Sergetten had said and understood all he was trying to say, or maybe I would have finally exposed the flaw in his plan that would show him to be full of lies. It sounded as if he had come to the conclusion that Kenet and I needed to be bonded, and that he would help this to come about, and yet there was still so much I did not know and did not understand. But I did not have a few minutes to think it through. From somewhere nearby a birdcall sounded that sent them all into action as Kan whispered to me, “Man approaching on horseback!”

I got into my pants and boots as quickly and quietly as I could, then. If we were about to face soldiers or guards, it would be a battle best fought with clothes on and knives in our hands.

* * *

Can’t wait a whole week for the next chapter? Skip ahead: download book one (chapters 1-56) for a mere 99 cents from Amazon or from Circlet Press!

About the author: Cecilia Tan is the award-winning author of many erotic books and stories and the founder of Circlet Press.