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 Seventy-Three: Kenet

73: Kenet

I came to in a bed even more luxurious than the one I had known in my room in the castle, and for a moment I feared the deed was done. I sat up to find I was alone in the bed, with Roichal and Jort each asleep on a low pallet at the foot, one on the right and one on the left, like a pair of hunting dogs.

“Master,” I whispered.

One of Roichal’s eyes opened, and he sat up with a grunt.

“Must you stay down there?”

He stood and came close. “My prince, we cannot…”

“You are my master until something changes,” I said. “I say that not as a prince’s decree, but the truth I know in my heart. I have been yours for a long time.”

He reached out and brushed the hair aside from my face, and I fitted my cheek into his palm.

“I even remember the moment I first knew it,” I said. “When you… it was one night in the camp, and you… kissed me on the forehead. You marked me as your own in that moment.”

He swiped his thumb gently over the spot on my forehead where his lips had once touched. “I remember it, too,” he whispered. “At the time… at the time I did not dare voice what I felt, but I desired you so strongly I could not help myself. I thought it was all in my imagination, the delusions of a lonely man, for surely you felt none of it. But I was wrong. Not only you, but Marksin too…”

“Kiss me, please?” I begged.

His thumb traced the edges of my lips. “Hm, am I the master here, or you?”

I felt my cheeks go hot from shame. “You are, Sir. I… I merely… I thought you liked it when I begged?”

He chuckled at that. “Jort,” he said. “You had best cease feigning sleep.”

Jort grumbled but got up and left the room.

Roichal ran his fingers through my hair. “Yes, Page, I like it when you beg, but you must tell me something. Did the Lord High Mage teach you to beg? For surely a prince knows not how to abase himself.”

My cheeks burned hotter and I felt my heart race a little with fear. “No, Sir… well, yes. He… he would inflame me… and then… and then not allow me release until I had begged in such a way as to please him. But… but! But I never wanted to. I never liked it. That is… until… well…” I realized suddenly that I had been about to lie. I had started to say I had never liked begging until I met Roichal, but that was not true at all.

Jorin had often made me beg, as well, and it had never felt the way it did with Seroi. It had felt so very different I had not even considered them the same thing.

Roichal leaned over and brushed his lips over mine. “Speak slowly, Page. What are you trying to say?”

What was I trying to say? That before Seroi and all his machinations, before his Night Magic spells, I belonged to Jorin?

I could not say that to Roichal. “Please, Sir,” I said instead, “let us not speak of the mage. Unless… unless you think it will help me now, somehow.”

“It is always a help to understand your enemy,” he said, then sat on the edge of the bed. He still had his boots on, I saw, as if he had slept ready to defend me at any moment.

“And what of my allies? I will not submit to Solliran.”

Roichal raised an eyebrow. “The only reason you are not bonded to him now is that he wanted you to be awake for it. He thinks very highly of his prowess as a lover. You should perhaps consider his offer, my prince.”

“I will not submit to him. If I become Solliran’s slave then all of Trest falls under the rule of Pellon!”

Roichal shook his head. “No, not while your father still reigns. If anything, it would ensure that Pellon remains on Trest’s side in the war with Frangit. Usually it is a princess one marries to the foreign monarch, but, well, you are very pretty…”

“I am being serious!”

“As am I. My prince, you must consider Solliran’s offer. It will keep you from the mage’s clutches and secure a powerful ally for your father, especially if Tendrif is now one of the few Night Mages we have on our side.”

My shoulders slumped and I hid my face in my hands.

His hand fell heavily to my shoulder. “I know it is not what you dreamed of. Of giving yourself to the handsome guard you fancied. But consider, my prince. You do not even know if your guard survives. He was sent into the military, you said, and yet we had no record of him at the mustering…”

“Stop.” I took his callused hands in mine, squeezing hard and looking into his eyes. “I can no more believe that Jorin is dead than you can Marksin.”

He jerked back an inch, but could not retreat from my grip.

“Am I right? You have to believe he is alive, somewhere, waiting for you. He who is truly yours.” He whose place I had usurped for too long, I realized. “If you allowed yourself to believe anything else, you could not go on.”

He bowed his head. “Yes, my prince.”

“Then no more talk of ‘if,’ and no more of giving up. I will not give myself to this Pellonese upstart and that is final.”

Roichal tried one more tactic. “What if we do not have time to return to Trest and search for your love before the damage is done? You could lose the ability to spill entirely,” he reminded me.

I sighed. “It is a chance I must take. I would rather be unmanned but be with him than share all the pleasure and power in the world with Solliran. Promise me you will uphold this choice of mine.”

Again, Roichal bowed his head. “I will, my prince.”

I moved over on the bed so that I could cradle his face in my hands, and I kissed him on the forehead, knowing once and for all who truly belonged to whom.

It was a single, crystalline moment of peace. A moment later, the door burst open, and the room was quickly full of Solliran’s men, their swords drawn. One of them had a knife to Jort’s throat, and with a crossbow aimed at my heart from across the room, their leader motioned for Roichal to step away from me.

Solliran and Tendrif swept into the room a moment later.

Tendrif snapped his fingers. “Tie the old soldier’s wrists behind him. Put him in a chair and bind his ankles to it. The manservant, too.”

Roichal growled as they forced him into a carven wooden chair, but he could do nothing to protect me when it would take but a moment for the crossbow bolt to reach me. Jort was bound into a chair a few feet from him, both of them facing me.

Solliran was wearing his robes of office now, his hair was brushed to a high sheen, and he had a gem of some kind perched on his brow with silver wire, the suggestion of a crown without actually being one. The only thing that marred his beauty was the nervous way he chewed his lip. “You’re sure this will work?” he asked Tendrif.

“Yes, my lord, I’m quite certain,” Tendrif said, though he sounded anything but. “It is an unfortunate circumstance of Night Magic, but once the deed is done, neither of you will suffer any ill effect. Any ill will he feels toward you will be entirely quashed by the intensity of the bond to you. He will be completely loyal to you, as well as utterly in need of your… ahem. Your attention.” He had the good grace to blush.

“And you are certain I do not need his consent for this?” Solliran’s face held both skepticism and hope, and I recognized the light of lust in his eyes as he gazed at me.

“As I have explained, my lord, the stronger his objection, the greater the intensity of the magical power invoked. Which is why… i-i-if you have the stomach for it…” He drew from his own robe a short whip like the one my father had used to tear open Jorin’s skin just a few months ago and handed it to Solliran.

Solliran held the whip like it was a live snake and dripping with venom. “No, I don’t think so. Kenet, we can do this calmly, pleasurably, if you wish it. I will treat you well and I will not leave you unsatisfied. That much I promise. I will have you. The choice is yours whether I have you willingly or unwillingly.”

I crawled out from under the bedcovers so that my legs would be free in case some avenue of escape showed itself. There was nothing near me I could use for a weapon. I had only my hands and teeth.

The more of my skin I exposed, the more Solliran looked as if he might drool. “Solliran,” I said, “has your mageling told you one of the consequences of my condition? I require a man’s milk in place of food. Come and give me some breakfast first, and then we may discuss what comes next.”

But they were suspicious and Solliran was not made stupid with lust. “Take the milk of one of my men,” he said, “and once we are bonded you may drink mine whenever you wish it. I promise you that.”

Whenever I wished? In my mind a wicked picture formed, of me demanding that he allow me to suckle him while he entertained a delegation from Parvain. It brought a smile to my face, but my words were not happy ones. “I will not submit to you.”

“Remember, my lord,” Tendrif said nervously, “you need only get your cock into him and all resistance will cease.”

Solliran sighed and accepted a jar of cock grease from Tendrif, opened his robe, and anointed himself. Then he snapped his fingers, sending two soldiers to seize me. But they hesitated.

“What are you waiting for?” Solliran demanded.

“My lord, h-his is royal flesh,” one of them stammered.

Solliran rolled his eyes. “Think you that lightning will strike you where you stand? I assure you it will not. Royal he may be, but he is a Night-bound whoreslave, too.” When neither man moved, Solliran shrugged off his outer robe in disgust, leaving him in just a gauzy open shirt. “Very well. I see I shall have to do it myself. As sovereign lord of this land, I declare you for my own, Kenet, Prince of Maldevar and heir to the throne of Trest.”

He doffed his gilt slippers, and then he came for me.

I was ready for him, though. I caught him on the chin with one of my elbows, and kneed him in the gut before scrambling off the bed. That slowed him down quite a bit, but there was nowhere for me to go. I resolved that I would fight until my body could fight no more. At least in my heart I would know that I had given none of myself to him, that I had fought to the last to save myself for Jorin.

He came at me again, now on the wide rug before the hearth, and bore me down this time before I could do much damage to him. I tried to scratch at his eyes, then tried to twist free of his grip, but I only succeeded in turning myself within his hold. Now he had me flat against the carpet, my ever-hard cock trapped painfully under me and his own nosing between my arsecheeks.

“No!” I screamed and tried again to get away, but he held me in place. I rocked my hips from side to side, trying to keep him from finding the right angle. His greased cock slid enticingly, though, igniting the flaring ache of need in me. Oh, how I wanted it! And surely this would not be so bad, nothing like the gruesome multi-headed cock Seroi wanted to tear me open with…

My hole seemed to kiss the curve of him, almost inviting him in.

“No!” I screamed again, and this time there was a rumble of thunder when I did.

Solliran tried once more to thrust into me, to push his flesh into mine, but all I felt was the sudden shock of something like fire all across my skin, as lightning flashed blinding me, and a thunderclap deafened me, and the weight of Solliran was suddenly gone, as if a tremendous hand had swept him from my back like a wave.

* * *

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