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 Fifty-Six: Jorin
56: Jorin
Sergetten spoke to the royal messenger alone and returned to me in a foul temper.
“Eyes down. No, close them. Don’t you dare look at me. Peek and I shall know, and your punishment shall be severe. On the floor. Hands and knees. Do not move. Don’t even tremble.”
I did as he asked, but I could not stop the sudden hammering of my heart. I tried to draw deep breaths, reassuring myself I had done nothing to draw this ire. I was burning with curiosity over what the messenger must have said, but either he would tell me when he wanted to, or he would not. This was certainly not the time to ask.
I heard him moving back and forth at the work table, opening and closing things, and ruffling the pages of a book. A sulfurous, burnt scent came to me as he set to doing something. Burning the message? Brewing something?
Don’t look, I told myself, though my head had cocked a little at the smell. Don’t look, don’t look.
He clucked his tongue as if disappointed. “Head down. Forehead on the floor.”
I bent and waited long moments, anticipating something more, whether a word or a blow I could not determine.
A word. “Reach back. Spread yourself. And then hold still.”
I did as he asked, but I felt my face flood with heat, something akin to humiliation there, twisted with a thread of lust only made my cheeks burn hotter. He made a pleased sort of grunt, and that sent another wave of feeling through me, half humiliated and half gratified.
I stayed that way for a long time while he worked at whatever he was doing, but the burn of my emotions did not subside, and they flared two-fold again as I felt his attention return to me, as I heard the sound of his booted feet walking in a slow circle around me.
He came to a stop behind me and quite suddenly there was something cold and slick and smooth pressing against my hole, too large, too wide, too rigid… I cried out as he forced whatever it was inside, but the pain was momentary. For half a moment I thought he had withdrawn the object again, but then I felt its cold weight inside me.
His voice came to me from one side and I wished he would touch me, just lay a hand on me to steady me and let me know all was well. But he was circling again. “They must presume you dead,” he said. “As far as the military knows, survivors of the attack that freed you were few, and many bodies were lost to the river. They know not, of course, that Kan and his men do not kill soldiers of Trest; they think you dead for certain. None would guess in a thousand-thousand years that you would be the boy serving me. However we cannot take the risk that you might be recognized. We will lighten your hair. You will wear a hood, you will not speak, and you will do whatever I say without hesitation, no matter how unpleasant or questionable the order may be. To do any less jeopardizes us both. Do you understand?”
I was surprised by the question, then realized that my answer was required in some ritual fashion. What had he put in me? “Yes, Sir,” I said. “But if I will be wearing a hood, why lighten my hair?”
“I did not say it would be the hair on your head,” he answered.
He bade me stand then, and bound my eyes with strips of cloth, and then led me to the low bed, and bound me hand and foot to the posts. He painted me then, brushing the hairs at my crotch and under my arms, and yes, on my head, with a vile-smelling concoction. And then he left me for some time.
I admit I dozed a little while he was gone. I was still tired from having been beaten and used earlier and I knew not how soon we would be leaving for the castle.
When he returned, it was with soap and water and cloths, but he did not set me free or let me see while he wiped and washed away the stuff, pouring scented water over me with no heed for the bedclothes.
Then he pushed one finger into me and I gasped. He probed around and I wondered if he could feel whatever it was he had put into me earlier. “We must make haste,” he said, in a softer voice than I had heard since the messenger had come. “Eyes closed.” And then there was one soft touch to my thigh.
I decided to grasp at it as if it were a kindness, though perhaps it was only incidental. Because what came next was as harsh as anything he had done to me before. He removed the bindings from my eyes and limbs, and fitted something close over my head. From the feel of it, the hood was akin to those they sometimes put on war horses, laced leather and shaped to cover my eyes, but leave my mouth free. So I could breathe? Or so he could hear me scream? Or so I had more than one accessible place to be fucked? Probably all three, I thought, as he pushed me up against the wall.
“Palms to the stone,” he ordered, “legs spread. Back.” He had me leaning foreward as if I were trying to push the wall down.
The next thing I felt was a searing pinch on one nipple. And then another to match on the other side. I was barely keeping in a cry when the pain intensified, and then was matched by another like it, but this one at my milksacks. Being bitten by rabid rodents couldn’t have been more painful. I broke out in a sweat and fought to keep breathing. Another and another and another, and this time I heard the metallic sound like a buckle as he set whatever it was that was biting into my skin and then let it go.
The pain was sudden enough, and strange enough, and intense enough that I felt my hands starting to shake and I wondered how long I would be able to hold position—or if panic might come first. The word was out of my mouth before I even thought about it. “Please, oh please, no m—”
He seized me then from behind and my word was cut off by a cry that stuck in my throat as he forced his cock into me. One of his hands was around my throat, one around my waist, and there was no escape from the sudden intrusion. I bucked against him, unable to help myself, and everywhere one of the things was attached jolted simultaneously. And in the next moment he was plucking them off me, even as he drove into me and his other hand sought out my cock. My cock which was treacherously hard, or so I thought, until I realized how thankful I should be, as he spoke the word that made me come and made all my senses go white with intensity.
When I returned to awareness, it was on all fours on something soft. A bearskin? I hissed as Sergetten jerked free of me and then cried out as he plucked the last thing from my milksacks with a harrumph.
“Sky above, Sergetten! Cover that boy!”
All thought of pain left me as I recognized that voice, none other than Kenet’s father, Korl, the king of Trest.
To my surprise, Sergetten laughed. “Don’t pretend you’re surprised. When you summoned me with such urgency, did you think I’d come overland? I have a faster horse than that.” With that he slapped me lightly on the flank and I heard him get to his feet and adjust his own clothes. “My horse needs water, and if you want him covered you’ll have to…”
“Here. Here.”
I heard the sound of cloth rustling, as if the king had just shrugged off his own robe. Indeed, it was still warm from his body and familiarly scented as Sergetten laid it over my shoulders, and then pressed a goblet to my lips. I drank, and pulled the robe around me. It had the same flowery scent as the sheets Kenet and I had used to sleep on, and this more than anything proved to me that we were in Maldevar, in the castle.
I huddled against something large and wooden—a chest or armoire, I guessed—and then tried to pretend I wasn’t there.
“Honestly, Sergetten, is it necessary for you to flout the perversions of your art? Even Seroi—”
“Spare me, Korl. Your messenger spent four days to reach me, and you did specify haste.”
“But could you not have appeared in the mage’s tower?”
“And potentially disturbed some workings of his with the energies of my spell? Don’t be ridiculous. Besides, I would not normally expect to find you in your bedchamber at this time of day. Are you ill? Is this what required my return?”
“Don’t bait me, Sergetten.”
“As you wish.”
I could hear Sergetten bowing low.
There was silence and then the sound of a resigned sigh as the king took a seat. “The plain truth is that I have not been well since shortly after Kenet’s disappearance.”
I heard the scrape of a chair, and then water or wine being poured. I presume Sergetten sat as well. “There has still been no sign of him?”
“None.” In that one word, Korl sounded as miserable as I felt.
Sergetten swore under his breath. “We must delay military action until we have some idea as to his whereabouts.”
“We cannot delay much longer.”
“I will visit Roichal and his men tomorrow,” Sergetten said. “If my horse is up to another ride.”
I whimpered before I could stop myself.
The king slammed his cup down. “Is the cruelty necessary?”
“In point of fact, it is. The spell to carry us that far requires extremes of it. Fear not, Korl. I will not break the boy. He serves me willingly. And when he leaves my service he will be equipped to marry and father children if he wishes it. His fear and reluctance add potency to his submission, and thereby to the spell. Is this not something you grasp intrinsically in all power you wield?”
“Tcha. We have more pressing things to speak of than philosophy,” Korl said, and then set to coughing. When the fit passed he took a drink and I heard his breathing laboring.
“Let me help you to bed,” Sergetten said. “I will sit beside you and we can speak there.”
“Very well.”
There was rustling and movement, and when they spoke again, I could hear they were across the room. I could still hear their voices clearly enough, as the king began to tell Sergetten of the Pellonese diplomats and the spreading blight and the reports of potential rebellion. But all I could think of was that tomorrow Sergetten would “ride” me again. His words to Korl were for me, I realized, his explanation of why he had treated me so harshly. But I knew, now, that it was a mixed blessing. For now that I knew this, would he not have to push me to further extremes to achieve the same effect? I dreaded what tortures and humiliations tomorrow would bring.
And Kenet, where was Kenet? I hoped that wherever he was, he was safe from the pain and fear that were my lot.
* * *
Impatient to find out the fate of Kenet and Jorin? Book one (chapters 1-56) is now on sale for only 99 cents in ebook from all your favorite retailers or direct 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.
