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-Six: Jorin

76: Jorin

How many times had I dreamed that Kenet was in my arms? I had long since lost count. And after all the men who had shared my body and touched my skin since last I had seen him, I had begun to doubt my memory of his scent was true.

If it is a dream, let me enjoy it for a while, I thought, as I buried my nose in golden strands and breathed deep. Oh, how my heart ached at that scent, even if imagined.

“Jorin,” he said, his voice sweet as well water to a thirsty man.

I blinked suddenly. I was not asleep. The room was lit with sunbeams coming from a high window and this was no dream. Kenet was in my arms.

I did not question this turn of events for even one instant and crushed my mouth to his. He clung to me then, a small whimper escaping as I parted his lips with my tongue, as I tasted him. Oh, Kenet! One of my hands was on his chin, guiding the kiss, the other snug under his arse, pressing us together.

We were both breathless when we broke apart, and I only did so because my need to find out how he came to be in my arms finally outweighed my need to claim him.

“Are you well?” he asked, his fingertips tracing my temple.

I had to stop and think for a moment. “I believe so. Where are we?” I remembered but still knew not. “We saw you. Sergetten and I saw you. He said you were in Pellon. I saw a man trying to… to…”

“We are in Pellon and I am safe,” Kenet said. “Some kind of magic protected me at the last moment. I’ve been waiting for you, Jorin.” His words began to tumble out of him with increasing speed as his urgency to tell me everything grew. “I’ve been waiting so very long! I’ve traveled so far! The night you were banished…. I had resolved to give myself to you then! I wanted… and I still do! That very night I wanted so very much to lie with you as a maid does a man. Before—”

I kissed him to stem the torrent of his confession for a moment. “I know. I… I didn’t know it then, but Sergetten learned much of Ser—of our enemy’s plans. I don’t know how, but I held out hope you would wait for me.”

His cheeks colored, though, so easily visible under his pale skin. “No cock has breached me. But I… I’ve had to do things… There have been men… I have…”

“Hush, hush.” I pulled him close. “I’ve had many lovers while trying to return to you. I can hardly be angry with you for the same.”

He was silent a moment. “I saw, Sergetten’s… when you appeared, he was…”

“He was inside me, I know. That is how a Night Mage rides his slave like a horse.” I did not wish to hide anything from him, but I did not know how to explain Sergetten. “How much has he told you?”

“He says you are his slave, but that he will release you from the binding so that you can bond with me.” Kenet’s voice was quiet, as if he barely dared to speak these things aloud.

“I am. I was sent to Tiger’s Mouth, you know? A suicide mission. In my travels I discovered many men who desire men, but who hide their desires.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “I have discovered the same.”

“My battalion was attacked by the Night Riders, but I fell in with them, and was initiated into their number. But the spell of loyalty they used took too strongly to me, and Sergetten saved me from the bond spell gone wild by bonding with me himself. At first… neither of us was pleased with the arrangement. But we quickly realized we had more in common than we had against each other. In particular, we had our loyalty to you.”

“But Sergetten is my father’s closest advisor.”

“No longer. Your father is completely in the mage’s thrall and has declared Sergetten a traitor to the crown. He is loyal to you now, my prince. His manner may be rough at times, but Sergetten is a good man, with a good heart. Please… please be good to him.”

He frowned at me, as if puzzled by my words. “Why would I be else to him? If he serves me well, he will be rewarded.”

I chuckled. “You’ve changed, my prince. You’ve grown.”

He smiled. “So have you. And yet, you haven’t.”

I pushed him onto his back then and teased and sucked at his neck. He groaned and thrust his hard cock against my hip. My own stayed limp, though, and I knew Sergetten must be holding me in check. I dove under the covers and took Kenet’s cock into my mouth. As when I kissed him, I simply needed to taste him. Sweet, clear nectar flowed as he became more and more aroused, and he whimpered in pain and need.

I kissed him with the taste of his own arousal on my tongue and he swooned deliriously. “I know what you are feeling,” I murmured into his ear. “I felt it myself before Sergetten completed my bond. You ache with emptiness. You hunger for my cock. Nothing will satisfy you until then. And only my cock will do.”

“Yes, yes!” he said, clinging to me.

“Suffer for me a little longer,” I crooned, kissing his eyelids, his cheeks, and then once again, softly, his mouth.

“Yes, my lord,” he whispered in his delirium, and I felt the word “lord” go straight to my cock, making it jump even though it was limp.

“Very good, sura’an,” I answered. “My beloved. But now there are things we must do.”

We rose and I ransacked the wardrobe of the room we were in for some decent clothes to cover ourselves with. The Pellonese favor loose, flowing clothes, which was convenient as everything fit us well enough.

The manservant Kenet introduced as Jort was waiting for us outside the door and led us to the comfortably appointed reception room where a long table was set with food. Two servants were taking down the flowers wound into carved wooden screens and replacing them with fresh ones, filling the air with sweetness. General Roichal was there, and we talked amiably with him while we ate—or I should say, while I ate, as Kenet took nothing. The old soldier clearly doted on Kenet, but I could tell he was tough as boot leather under it all. I suppose one does not become military commander under Korl if one is soft.

He seemed not dismayed at all that Kenet ate nothing, so I said nothing about it either, instead devouring everything within my own reach.

Tendrif and Sergetten came to join us shortly after I finished. They stood side by side, but from Tendrif’s posture he may as well have been kneeling at Sergetten’s feet. Sergetten, as usual, was implacable and proper.

“We are concerned, my prince, that the defensive magic that knocked Solliran from you might also endanger Jorin, should he try to complete the bond,” Sergetten said.

Tendrif went on. “We have been exploring the reach of your enemy. To put it mildly, it would appear his hand can reach even here.”

Kenet’s eyes widened in alarm and then as I put my hand onto his leg under the table to calm him, he jumped, startled.

“What do you mean, his hand can reach?” he demanded, covering my hand with his own.

Sergetten spoke. “I cannot explain it but in metaphors, my prince. Imagine that the magic that connects Jorin and I, for example, appeared as strands of yarn. There are spells Tendrif and I performed that allow me to see the strands.”

“Ah. I worried… you know one of his abilities is invisible hands that he can send to do his bidding? When I fled the castle he… he chased me with them.”

Sergetten bowed. “Magehands are a difficult spell, my prince. I doubt he can manipulate them this far away. The strands of spiritual connection, on the other hand, once made, can spool long distances.”

“Can you see the threads now?” Kenet asked, putting his free hand flat on the table, beside his empty plate.

“Yes, my prince. And you have many strands entwining you.”

“Many?”

“There are dozens of faint threads, no doubt to every man whose cock you have touched. A few are stronger, especially the two to Roichal and Jorin. Jort also has a strand, and another strong one is to someone distant in Trest. There can be no doubt that is the lord high mage. Indeed, I have felt his spiritual presence.”

Kenet cringed. “And these strands of yarn, could he use them to… to pull me to him, like a fish on a hook?”

“Sometimes if the bond is strong enough, that can happen, but…” He broke off as if trying to come up with a better way to explain it.

I hazarded a guess how it worked. “Was that how we landed here, in the very room with Kenet? Because we followed the strand that connected me to him?”

“As I said, the metaphor is not perfect. Yes, Jorin, it is something like that. If our enemy could have plucked Kenet to him, or followed the thread himself to Kenet’s side, he would have long ago. I think the strand is not strong enough, perhaps, and he fears severing it. Or perhaps the bond to you and the others interferes in some way. Which brings us back to the question of the magic that attacked Solliran.”

Tendrif shuffled forward a step. “It is my theory that the competition between the strands for dominance has created a kind of web of protection, but that means the bond can only be completed now after dominance is established.”

Kenet frowned. “What does that mean?”

But I had gleaned it. “He means that if I am to make my claim on you the legitimate one, I must defeat my rivals. Only then will the magic accept me.” I caught Roichal’s eye and he nodded to me.

“Just so,” said Tendrif with a small bow. He stepped back again.

Kenet’s frown only deepened and he looked at me. “So, you must be freed from Sergetten, and then you must, what, fight with Jort and the general? What if you do not win?”

Tendrif held in a chuckle. “No offense to the esteemed general, but this is a fight that he is not equipped to win.”

A fuck fight. “I will win, my prince. Fear not,” I said.

“Although, this is all speculation,” Sergetten said. “I, for one, believe that the power of the crown might have served to protect you.”

“Or both!” Tendrif added eagerly, only to wither before Sergetten’s glare.

Kenet balled his fists in frustration. “And how can we be sure?”

Tendrif answered. “We can… test the theory of the strands, if Jorin and Roichal are willing.”

I squeezed Kenet’s knee under the table. “It wouldn’t be a fair fight, though, you said. Does that matter?”

“I do not think so,” Sergetten said.

“Wait, how can there be a strand from Roichal to me if they are from every man whose cock has touched me? When Roichal…” His voice faltered.

“When I am not equipped?” Roichal finished for him. He raised an eyebrow at Sergetten, as curious about the answer as the rest of us.

I saw Sergetten steel himself to deliver the answer. “The web of fate that draws men together…” he began, then shook his head in defeat. “Roichal’s cock has, in fact, touched you, my prince. For it had to be your enemy who took it from him, long ago.”

I saw Kenet blanch, then, and my hand was at his back steadying him as he swayed a bit in place. He looked as if anything he had eaten would have come back up, except of course he had eaten nothing. He struggled to speak, and no man dared interrupt.

At last he managed to get the words out. “I have seen it. Well, I mean of course I did, before I fled. But I mean recently. In a dream. It’s even larger. That’s why it’s so… His…” He covered his mouth with his hand then, his eyes closed.

“I’m here,” I said, sliding my hand across his shoulders as I moved to stand close to him. To the others I said, “He has taken Bear’s cock, too.”

“It’s hideous,” Kenet whispered. “He’s… he’s going to split me open with it!”

“He is not!” I took Kenet’s face in my hands, willing him to look at me. “He will not. Every man in this room stands against him. We will not allow it. Please, Kenet, don’t allow yourself to be eaten by fear. I need you to be strong with me.”

He nodded, letting out a shaky breath, and I let him go.

Roichal stood. “Well, then, we shouldn’t waste time. Lord Sergetten, are there special preparations we should make, or should we just wrestle right here?”

Sergetten considered. “Kenet has not yet had his breakfast, and Jorin had best digest his before getting into any wrestling matches.”

Kenet’s hand found mine. “Would it not be best for me to drink Jorin’s milk? Would that increase the strength of the strand between us?”

“Better him than Jort,” Roichal put in, even as Jort made a noise of protest.

I squeezed Kenet’s hand as I saw a flash of something dark in Sergetten’s eyes. “Come with us, sir,” I said. “If there is danger I may be compelled to go too far, we shall need a chaperone. Besides, there is… there is still much we need to learn from you.”

His gaze toward me was benevolent and I saw my suggestion had appeased him. “Very well. Come with me. I am sure the prince will be grateful if I command you to wash first. Your hole is no doubt still crusted with my milk.”

Kenet flushed at such bold words, but I was accustomed to Sergetten shocking people—Korl in particular, I recalled—with such crude pronouncements. I laughed and to the baths we went

* * *

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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.