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 Eighty-Eight: Jorin

88: Jorin

We approached the Rose Gate on horseback, in what felt like the most brazen sneak attack in the history of war. We marched right through the village, me and Kan in the lead, our faces hidden by the hoods of our cloaks, with several men on horse coming behind. Roichal and Marksin were not among them, however. They hung back, dressed as traders.

The people of the village eyed us nervously, but we were not challenged.

I jerked suddenly as it looked like our enemy appeared in the road, and my horse danced aside, but as I blinked I saw nothing was there.

“What is it?” Kan asked.

But I could not answer. I could only wave my hand at him to stay still, while I closed my eyes and tried to see what had just crossed my vision, in my inner eye.

My stomach lurched as I suddenly not only saw the inside of a room in the castle, but felt the iron manacles around my wrists, the harsh metal against my neck holding my chin high, and the obscene spike pressed deep into my guts through my ravaged arsehole.

Sergetten!

I know not what magic allowed him to reach out to me thus, but I clung willingly to it, painful though the empathy with him was.

What I had seen was Seroi passing in front of his field of vision. One eye was open. The other one, I could not tell if it was swollen shut or if it had been blinded.

Seroi was laughing. “You thought yourself so clever. You think I know not how you meddled in Kenet’s birth?”

Sergetten’s answer was a croak. “You are the one who meddled in the prince’s birth, my lord. Not I.”

“Oh, but I could feel something amiss. Perhaps it wasn’t right at the moment of his birth, but shortly thereafter? Admit it, Sergetten, you thought to do exactly what I wished to, to enslave the royal scion. How did you get your milk into the infant? For surely you would have injured him with that grand cock of yours.”

I shuddered as Seroi stepped close and stroked the dangling flesh from Sergetten’s groin. At least, I thought, he had not taken that from him yet. My own cock swelled in my trousers, though I felt ill at the thought that Sergetten could have…?

“I did no such thing,” Sergetten hissed.

“That meddling dirt-eater Jorin did not come along until he was a toddler. Only you could have been responsible before that. How else do you explain the way the bonds of my spells kept slipping loose from our prince, then, hmm?”

“You… you are master…” Sergetten could barely speak, the way his throat was stretched by the iron posture collar. “…of far more magic than I, my lord.”

“Well, it matters not what you did, or did not. You will confess to Korl that you raped his infant son and had dark designs upon him all along. You night-bound Jorin to you, as well, and the two of you together despoiled Kenet and made him unfit to rule. Now that your plot is exposed, you will pay whatever price the king deems fit.”

I was shocked to feel the spasm of Sergetten’s chest and throat and realize that it was laughter. “There is nothing you can do, my lord, to make me betray myself or those I serve. Your plots may be beyond my power to thwart, but you cannot compel my aid.”

Seroi stared into Sergetten’s eye, and for a moment I almost feared he could see ME staring back at him. But he merely sneered. “You still believe you have virtue? You merely cling to the illusion of it, Sergetten. You are as corrupt as I am.”

“I do not doubt your sadism,” Sergetten rasped. “Nor your ambition. Though I must… question your methods.”

“Oh? Is the rusted phallus in your arse not large enough for your liking?”

“Tcha. Not that. If… if what you desired was to bind royalty in slavery, why not Korl?”

Seroi laughed and tugged on Sergetten’s cock until he was fully erect. “Indeed, why not Korl? Or his father? I began with Kurtil, actually, but he was already too well entrenched in his power before I could slip the leash onto him. So I set my sights on his first-born. But Korl resisted my spells just as fervently as he rebuffed your advances.”

Sergetten growled. “You used me to try to ensnare him!”

“Tcha. You loved him and would have spread your legs for him gladly. If I had given you that, you would have been content. Instead, he resisted us both, and you became my apprentice instead. I did not think you regretted the choice… until now. Tell me, Sergetten, if Korl were to love you now, would you go to him?”

Sergetten did not answer.

“Or did that filthy orphan steal your heart? Ah, what a fool you are, Sergetten. When you made yourself vulnerable to him, you made yourself vulnerable to me, as well. You were like a fish who does not realize he has swallowed a hook while eating a worm. Was Jorin quite delicious? Ah yes, I can see it in the broken parts of your mind that he was. After I capture him and bind him to me, I shall taste him for myself…”

I could feel Sergetten trying hard not to move, not to show any sign that this taunting was affecting him. I however may have made a dismayed sound. Was his capture my fault? Because he loved me too much?

Seroi’s taunts continued. “That would be justice, I suppose, if the king allows you to live. Yes, for your treachery, I’ll take your morsel for myself, and give you to Korl. Do you wonder how he would treat you now, were I to bind you to him? I should have realized he was too much a sadist to be submissive. He needs a victim to feel whole, and exacting revenge on the man who ruined his precious Kenet will keep him occupied for some time. Besides, he needs a place to shove his cock…”

Sergetten snapped. “You are a monster!”

“For giving the man what he so desperately needs and yet has denied himself all his life?” Seroi stepped back. “I will suggest your enslavement as a better punishment than castration and death for what you did to Kenet, not to mention poor Kenet’s mother…”

“You animal! Your magic killed her while you shaped her son’s will in her womb!”

“After all, I know you will not say no to your king. You have no power to resist him as you do me.”

I cried out aloud as a searing pain seized my cock, as if boiling oil were pouring over it. But I clung to the connection, trying to find out as much as I could.

“Your power to resist, in fact, makes you the most delightful toy, Sergetten. I will never have to stop torturing you if you never surrender.” Seroi’s teeth were even and white, as strangely perfect as the skin of his face. “Korl does not like for his fucktoys to experience pleasure. Perhaps he will let me castrate you after he binds you as his slave. I will take an inch at a time, perhaps one inch a month. Did you know that the pain of burning away the flesh remains for weeks even after the wound is visibly healed? If you confess your part in the plot to despoil Kenet, I shall convince Korl to leave you intact.”

“You are too transparent, my lord,” Sergetten rasped.

“Oh, but I can feel how much you yearn for him.”

“The only reason you did not force-bond Korl to you is that he was too strong. The royal blood protected him, didn’t it? And you could not touch him. But you soured him against the touch of men forever when you tried to coerce him to take your cock, is that it?”

Now it was Seroi’s turn to laugh. “Oh, you would like to believe so, wouldn’t you? That it was my fault that he never loved you as you wished him to, that he never shared his precious milk with you though you would have suckled him gladly? Anything but the truth, which is that he found you so repulsive even today he will not look a man in the eye as he fucks him.”

At that I felt Sergetten struggle, jerking in his bonds, which only drove the thing in his arse deeper with a painful scraping. I had never felt him lose control of his anger so completely, had I? Seroi had scored a deep blow.

But he gathered his wits quickly, panting as he tried to regain his voice. “You will fail, Seroi. Kenet is stronger than you think. The royal blood runs hot in his veins.”

Seroi laughed heartily at that. “But of course! I know that. That is why I worked so very hard to seduce him to my cock, so that he would be bound to me willingly. However, perhaps it has all worked out best, now. He is so strongly bound to the Jorin boy that if I defeat Jorin, Kenet will surely fall into my hands. Once I have broken him to my will, even if I cannot bond directly to Kenet, he will have to do as his master bids, even if that master is my slave. ”

Seroi stepped close again, and stroked Sergetten’s cock until it was erect once more. It felt slick and I wondered if perhaps it truly was heated oil he had poured over it. Sergetten’s breath was harsh in his throat.

“He will then come to me willingly, Kenet will, for he will still need Jorin’s milk to live. The pair of them will kneel at the foot of my throne. If Kenet begs sweetly enough, I will let him suckle Jorin for my entertainment. Let them play like puppies. The prince is not an idiot.”

“And what of Korl, once the prince is in your thrall?” Sergetten asked, between gasps, while Seroi continued to stroke him.

“If it suits me, I shall retain him as figurehead. Perhaps I shall breed him again, so that when Kenet grows old or is no longer so pretty, I shall have a replacement.” Seroi’s teeth seemed to sharpen as he smiled widely this time. “Now, my dear apprentice, I have an appointment to keep. So I am going to make you spill. And your very milk will burn you like poison from the inside, as if full of shards of glass and rose thorns.”

I nearly fell from my saddle as Sergetten blacked out, mercifully, after a few moments of orgasm.

“Jorin!” Kan had ridden close, and had a hand at my back to steady me. “What did you see?”

“Sergetten,” I croaked, as if my own throat were as parched as his. “It was like some kind of far-seeing, except I was seeing through his eyes. Seroi is torturing him.”

Kan said nothing, merely rubbed his hand in a small circle between my shoulderblades.

“I learned much,” I said, but my head was spinning too much to recount it all. “He means to enslave me and Kenet…”

“Well, yes, that we knew,” Kan said.

“…because he tried to enslave the king when he was a child and failed. Sergetten is alive, but I fear for him. He seems to be able to resist being forcibly bonded to the mage… but it sounds like he would not be able to resist if our king were to enslave him.”

Kan made a face like something smelled bad. “Is my father truly such a puppet of this mage?”

“He has been in his thrall for a long time, Kan,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Do not… do not judge your father too harshly.”

Kan barked a laugh. “I thought you hated him.”

“I waste no love for the man. But he is Kenet’s father, too, and we may yet need him.”

“Fair enough.” Kan encouraged his horse forward and mine followed. Up the hilly street we went, until we were crossing the wide-open space in front of the gate.

The Rose Gate is round, and the massive door itself rolls aside, into the shield wall. When fully open, it holds room for two men to ride abreast across the threshhold, perhaps three if in tight formation.

Atop the wall I could see three castle guards, two I recognized and one I didn’t. Kan kept his hood low over his face and slumped his shoulders, as if in defeat or fear.

I stood in my stirrups. “Hoy, Seroi! We’ve come!” We came to a stop several yards short of the gate, while the rest of our men hung back at the edge of the flagstoned yard, by the last of the village’s modest wooden buildings. “Kenet will open the Gate! Send out Sergetten and the king, and we will ride through!”

For half a moment optimism flared as a guard came out of the small door at the base of the tower. But then he strode toward us, his gait stiff with fear.

“Jorin,” he said as he came close, and I saw he bore a small wooden box in his hands like the one Roichal had kept. “The prince, he…”

“Hand him the box,” I said. “I know what it is. It will prove it is Kenet, am I right?”

The guard nodded and went around to Kan’s foot. He kept his head ducked and opened the box, then handed it back to the guard, who was still eyeing him skeptically.

“The road has not been kind to him,” I said, at which moment Kan pretended to begin to cry, and hid his face entirely.

The guard looked stricken. “I’m sorry! Very well. You are… you are to dismount and then the prince is to open the gate and both of you continue into the courtyard.”

“Where are the hostages?” I asked. “We were told we would be taken in exchange for the freedom of Sergetten and the king,” I said.

The guard looked surprised.

“This is clearly news to you?”

“Jorin, you don’t understand. He has all of our sons. He’ll do terrible things to them if we don’t do exactly as he asks. Please, go through the gate. I don’t want my boy hurt.”

“I assure you, I do not want your boy hurt, either.” I suddenly recalled the man’s name. “Bolan, don’t you see that fighting him is all we can do? He has the king in his thrall and wants to enslave Kenet with Night Magic! Help us to defeat him.”

“Please go through the gate,” he said, his eyes welling with terror. There was no reasoning with him.

Kan encouraged his horse forward then, and I had no choice but to follow. He leapt down and put his hand to the brass crest to one side of the massive gate, then stood back as it rolled aside.

Before the guard could shout, I spurred my horse forward, swung Kan onto my horse’s back, and charged across the courtyard inside the walls. Our plan all along if no hostage exchange took place was to assault the castle and we had discussed just this: ride in and try to make it to the secret entranceway in the rightmost wall of the courtyard. My horse’s hooves were loud on the cobblestone as we raced toward the place Kenet had described.

Outside, our own men emerged from their places at the edge of the village and began a barrage with bows and slingshots, keeping the guards atop the wall busy.

But standing there in front of what looked like an archway full of stone, but which was actually the entrance to the catacombs, stood Seroi. He laughed as I brought my horse up short and the bay reared, dumping Kan off the back.

He was already drawing the short sword from under his cloak and I slipped my own free as I dismounted. There were two of us and only one of the mage. Could we end it all here? Kan said he was flesh and blood in the end, regardless what magic had kept him from aging since the days of Kenet’s grandfather.

But Seroi moved quickly, sidestepping my too-aggressive attack and putting me between himself and Kan. Kan was as quick a fighter as I was, but Seroi moved so that one of us was always in the other’s way. We hacked and slashed at him as best we could, but it became clear to me that he was toying with us. We would never land a blow that way.

I backed off, casting about for our next strategy.

“So, I see you were not entirely as gullible as I had hoped,” Seroi said, gesturing to Kan. “And where did you find this imposter? He can’t be just a soldier with a bit of resemblance, else the box would not have opened at his touch.”

We were not going to play his game. Neither Kan nor I answered. I heard a cry from above as one of the guards there took an arrow through the arm. It was only a matter of time before we accidentally killed one of them, or a stray arrow fell and hit me or Kan. It was too much to hope for that one might hit Seroi.

We circled the mage slowly. For a moment, Kan hesitated, as it appeared I was going to mistakenly trap myself between the mage and the wall.

But it was not a wall. When the blocked archway was directly behind me, I took a chance. I could almost still taste Kenet’s milk on my tongue from an hour or two ago. Would it be enough?

The archway slid aside more quickly than I would have imagined it could, and then I turned and slashed at the arm reaching in after me. I heard a strangled cry, and the arm disappeared, the secret doorway shutting me in darkness.

Or near darkness. I blinked and my eyes adjusted to the thin cracks of light coming from between bricks far overhead. What was happening now? Was Kan facing the mage’s wrath?

I pushed open the door, ready to stab at anything in long robes, but this time it was Kan who stumbled forward, cursing.

“Where is he?” I gasped.

“Gone.” Kan leaned against the shut door. “Apparently he cannot open the passageway. You came close to taking his hand off, there, Weltskin. Well done.”

“But not well enough,” I said. “What now?”

“Where has he gone to lick his wounds, do you think?” Kan asked.

“He has a tower to himself, where it is said he performs arcane rituals…”

“And can you find this tower?”

“I am sure that I can.”

“Then lead the way, Weltskin! I cannot imagine that this is the way the mage expected things would happen for him, hm?”

With my sword still dripping, we pressed further into the darkness of the passageways, hunting mage blood.

* * *

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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.