35. Kisano

Chapter 35

Kisano

E verything was a mess in Kisano's head as he entered the sanctuary of his library. After he returned home from visiting Sephen at the temple, he was torn between being in utter disbelief he had acted so forward and being thrilled he hadn't been too scared to take a chance. Leaving the castle grounds to visit Sephen had already been an enormous step outside of his comfort zone, but the memories of kissing the young mage made it hard to regret his decision.

"Well, somebody certainly had a good time," Kizoshi teased from behind him.

Kisano spun around guiltily, blushing a deep scarlet at knowing his sister could smell Sephen all over him. "I…" Kisano's words wouldn't come to his defense in his embarrassment.

She gestured for him to follow her to a seating area in front of a fireplace. "Be at ease, Kisano. I am merely teasing."

He took a seat next to her on the comfortable couch. "But I…"

"There is nothing wrong with what you did," Kizoshi reassured him, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"I failed Sephen by acting so shamefully," Kisano finally confessed. "Never in my life have I said or done anything so forward. I do not understand what came over me."

Her expression was sympathetic. "That is you. Your dragon is another matter."

His brow furrowed in consternation. "Why do you continue to insist I have a dragon?"

"Did you not sense something stirring deep inside you, which drove you to accept what was so willingly being offered despite your normal reservations?" Kizoshi asked. "Did words of dark desires escape you which you would never dare think normally, let alone ever say out loud?"

It was exactly what had happened. Kisano still felt the sting of humiliation from murmuring to Sephen they had to stop, " Because the things I want to do to you would have you screaming my name and alerting everyone about what we were doing ." How could he have said such a naughty thing to someone as sweet as Sephen?

Kisano rubbed his chest, which felt tight in Sephen's absence. "Whenever I am around him, it feels like something deep within me burns with an unbearable heat. I crave him in ways I have never experienced before. That feeling urges me to do things to him I should not."

Her voice was gentle. "You must be careful, dear brother. You do not have any experience in holding your dragon back. He will want to claim Sephen before you're ready to accept it."

His sister's insistence was strange when he had been without a dragon for nearly two millennia of being alive. Kisano had so many embarrassing questions. "How could the start of Sephen's heat stir those kinds of intense feelings within me? I have always been so mild-mannered. Never in my life have I felt so wild and unrestrained as I did when I was alone with him."

"It is your dragon looking to make up for lost time." Kizoshi took her younger brother's hand in hers to give it a squeeze. "If it is any consolation, I get the distinct impression Sephen would not mind being ravaged in the least."

Kisano didn't know which comment was more confusing. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, dear brother. Surely, even in the depths of denial, you can tell that sweet boy is completely smitten with you," Kizoshi said with a laugh. "Finding out you were Reskin only strengthened those existing feelings within him."

Kisano still had a hard time accepting her claims despite the evidence to the contrary. "I do not understand why. I have done nothing to merit such feelings."

She gave her brother a kindly look. "You exist, dear brother. It is all the reason Sephen needs to love you."

Kizoshi's approval lessened some of Kisano's fears, but he still worried about his younger brother's reaction. "Surely, Kitsuki will be displeased I am interested in Auslin's brother."

"Why would you think that?" Kitsuki asked as he walked over, startling Kisano. He had been so engrossed in the conversation he hadn't realized the shifter king had entered the library. "Have I not been supportive enough of your interests in Sephen?"

"But is it not awful I have fallen for the only other non-family member who has shown me kindness other than Auslin?" Kisano asked in a pained tone as Kitsuki sat in the chair across from them.

Kizoshi patted her brother's hand she still held. "Sephen was made to love all of you, Kisano. You do not need to fear having feelings for him for the wrong reasons."

"Do not make the same mistakes Auslin and I did by creating unnecessary boundaries between yourself and what you want," Kitsuki added. "The only person saying you cannot have Sephen is yourself."

It scared Kisano how much he wanted Sephen. Words continued to fail him.

"Take the rest of Sephen's heat to get your thoughts sorted," Kizoshi suggested. "You will be better prepared to have the conversation you need to upon his return to the castle."

"But what if he already regrets what happened and never wishes to see me again?" Kisano whispered in anguish. He couldn't bear the thought.

"I can guarantee you the only regret Sephen has is you stopped when you did." Kizoshi's knowing look brought another blast to Kisano's cheeks at the implication.

It was a reminder of his failure. "I never should have let things get so far beyond my control."

"Practice will help get your dragon under your command," Kizoshi told him. "But you will soon come to understand what it is like to live with one."

"No matter how much you insist, I still do not think it is possible," Kisano argued.

"We shall see which of us is right." Kizoshi's enigmatic smile made Kisano worry more when she was never wrong.

Kitsuki took a different tactic. "Do you wish Sephen to be yours?"

There was a litany of reasons why it was inappropriate and forbidden, but Kisano's heart didn't care about such things. "Yes."

"Then make it so," Kitsuki urged in a gentle voice.

"I do not know how."

Kizoshi laughed behind her hand. "Fortunately for you, Sephen can help with that."

Kisano found it an odd statement. "What do you mean?"

"It means Sephen will have his own ideas about how to convince you to give in to what you both desire most," Kizoshi clarified. "After all, he is very well-read and informed. He has a thirst for all kinds of knowledge, including the kind the mages at his temple would not approve of if they were aware of what he hid on his bookshelves."

The thought of Sephen reading those types of books made the hot burning within him flare. Kisano had to stop those thoughts right there while his two siblings were still in the room. Those were thoughts best left for when he was alone.

"All will work out as it should, Kisano."

"I can only hope." Kisano desperately wished his sister was right despite feeling like he didn't have the right to long for such things.

She stood up, then gestured for Kitsuki to do the same. "We shall leave you to your thoughts. Please do not convince yourself you do not deserve this extraordinary gift you have been blessed with."

Kisano bowed his head in acknowledgment. "Thank you."

"All will be well, brother," Kitsuki promised as he also stood. "Should you need anything, please do not hesitate to ask."

Kisano thanked them both. "Your advice and guidance are most appreciated."

Bidding Kisano a pleasant evening, Kizoshi and Kitsuki left him alone in the library. Only after the door closed behind them did Kisano dare to release a sigh. The confusion that followed in the wake of conversations with his sister made his head swim.

No matter how wrong Kisano believed it was to desire Sephen, something inside him clamored to be near the human mage.

Even now, the scent of Sephen remained on Kisano's clothes. It drove him wild with lust as he remembered what they had done in the mage's bedroom. He never should have transgressed the boundaries of what was acceptable, but Kisano couldn't make himself regret crossing that line by kissing Sephen. The memory of their passionate kisses filled Kisano with an increasingly familiar heat burning in his veins.

If Sephen's early heat scent had pushed Kisano into acting so uncharacteristically, the shifter could only imagine what it would drive him to do at the apex of it. The human already smelled like the best thing in the Living Realm at the beginning of his heat. How could it get any better?

Memories of Sephen's smell surrounding him as their bodies pressed so close together stirred Kisano's desires even now. He could hardly believe he had acted bold enough to grow hard in front of Sephen. But he reminded himself Sephen had also been aroused, which made it impossible to regret as their bodies moved together as one.

Kisano retreated to his bedroom attached to the library. It was too disconcerting to have those kinds of thoughts in his sanctuary space. However, alone in his room, it became much harder to avoid the replay in his mind of what it had felt like to pin Sephen down on the bed.

No amount of telling himself it was inappropriate to think of Sephen that way would stop his cock from hardening at the memory of drowning in the mage's heat scent. He dropped onto his bed with a frustrated groan. No matter how much he tried to distract himself, his thoughts were stuck on a loop.

Fire burned in the pit of Kisano's stomach, pushing him to take himself in hand. His vivid imagination punished him by graphically picturing what would have happened if he had given in to Sephen's desires to return with him back to the castle.

In Kisano's mind, Sephen brought him to stand in front of his shelves of Reskin's books. The human mage dropped to his knees to suck Kisano's cock with an appreciative moan. Kisano leaned against the bookshelf, submitting to Sephen's oral efforts. He threaded his fingers through the human's white-blond hair as he sighed in pleasure. It didn't take much for Kisano to come in real life with a shudder.

He stared at the cum in his hand in disbelief. It was wildly inappropriate to think about Sephen in such a way, but it didn't stop Kisano from experiencing the ache in his soul, which begged for more.

How was he supposed to resist wanting to claim Sephen for his own?