Chapter Eleven 2

“I ask that coin be sent to Bissori and Agathe Bronmura of the hamlet of Vuldam for Bissori battled at our side and Agathe healed my brother who was gravely injured,”

I stated while trying to shake a vine that had found my fingers and was slowly wrapping itself around my wrist while asking for a touch of pot ash on its soil. Some plants were very demanding.

“The coin shall be sent via the king’s treasury. Now, I ask that you all…do I know you, pixie?”

“Fuck,”

Tezen whispered and released my braid to stand tall on my shoulder. “Yes, I think you do know me, Grand Advisor. I am Lady Tezen Plumwax of the Royal Court of Pixies. My father is King—”

“I see your father in you, young princess. We thank you for your aid in this elven unpleasantness. Please pass along our well wishes to your sire when you return to his court,”

Umeris said in such a courtly manner I had felt the need to bow to someone. “Now, I wish to finish my paperwork and rest. Please go wash. You all reek of horse and death. The feast will begin when the bells of the kitchen ring out at dusk. I suggest you all wear clothing befitting a hero of the vills, which means no robes with bird droppings on them, Kenton.”

“Yes, of course, Grand Advisor,”

I said, easing back out of the solarium before he could dig into me for some other fashion grievance. A pretty maid, slim with long delicate ears and her dark hair cut to her shoulders wearing the plain black robes that the staff wore, curtsied to us when we left the solarium.

“Greetings, I’m Kinda, and I am to show you to your suites. Please, if you would come with me?”

We followed along, the others chattering away as we climbed onto the third floor of the keep. Kinda led us to a bright yellow room with sheer curtains and a bed that could sleep four yeti, then motioned Tezen to enter.

“This is your room, Lady Tezen. Hot water for a bath is on its way as per the grand advisor’s request. If, after your nap, you need help dressing, please pull the cord in the corner for assistance.”

Tezen flew inside just a bit, hovered, and looked back at Beirach and me in the hallway.

“I didn’t pack for a hero’s fete,”

she confessed, then went a bit pink in the cheeks. “You think that old elf with the tight pucker will mind if I show up in my old breeches and a corset?”

“We’ll find something for you, Lady Tezen,”

Kinda assured her before closing the door on a very dour looking princess of the pixie realm.

Kinda then hustled off.

She led us to a suite on the western side of the keep.

This area was set aside for dignitaries and heads of vills when they visited.

The huge room done in dark woods with forest green bedding, rich gold throw pillows on the bed as well as two long lounges before a patio, and lush tapestries on the walls.

A large dark armoire stood in the corner, a desk in front of the open doors leading to the patio, and a bath filled with steaming water behind a screen imported from the Black Sand Isles.

“You are to rest and bathe here, Elder Dreyath and Prince Kenton,”

she explained, backing out of the room after a nod of her dark head. She rushed off, probably to finish some chores to ensure the feast hall was set up for the feast.

“You did not correct her when she called you prince,”

Beirach pointed out as he dropped his saddlebags to the floor. “Do you finally embrace your lineage?”

I shrugged, my mind on other things. “Titles are important only to those who deem them so. What I am more confused over is why I am to rest here and not in my room in the tower. Surely they do not know that we are lovers.”

“I should beg to differ. For all it would take would be a glance when I am looking at you to see my love and longing for you.”

I felt a subtle heat touch my cheeks. “Ah, well, perhaps. Tezen is always teasing us about how we drool over each other.”

“That she is. Someday that scamp will find a young lad or lass and lose her heart. Then she will see how hard it is to not look upon the one you adore in a besotted way.”

I chuckled softly at the thought of such an esteemed archdruid feeling besotted. “If you do not wish to bathe and rest with me, then please do not feel pressured to do so.”

I turned from the view out over the garden to find him staring at me. His whiskers had grown in thickly other than for the white scar on his chin. His hair was wind-whipped, his clothing covered with road dirt. I had never seen him look more appealing other than that eve spent in the hot springs.

“I wish nothing more than to wash your back then lie with you,”

I softly answered, suddenly unsure of where we stood in this wobbly relationship. “If you would rather, I will gladly go to the tower to—”

“Come to me, Kenton,”

he whispered, opening his arms wide. I ran to him, eager as a young pup, and threw myself into his embrace.

His mouth settled on mine, the taste of him as he slid his tongue into my mouth beyond joyous.

We’d had little time for each other on the ride home. And even if we had found a moment of solitude, his grief over his son was something I did not wish to intrude on with sexual demands. “Your lips are like the dewdrops on the primrose plant, sweetened by nature to draw the hungriest to sip from its petals,”

he whispered when the kiss broke.

I clung to him like that tenacious vine in the solarium had my hand. “I longed to taste you on the way home, but it seemed unsightly to ask for your love when you are mourning.”

He slid his hands up under my ass, hoisting me off the ground. My legs wrapped around his waist as I plunged my fingers into his gritty hair.

“I have found that while in the darkness of grieving, the heart needs equal amounts of sunlight. You, my beloved, are my sun. You balance me with your genteel smile, soft laugh, and love of all things wild and free.”

He kissed me again, gentler but no less arousing. My prick grew stiff in my trousers. I felt his cock thickening as the kiss grew longer and wetter. “You are the light that was missing from my life.”

“Shall we bathe?”

I asked, breathless and hard, eager to peel him from his clothes and gaze upon his masculine beauty. “I would have you wash my hair.”

“And braid it when it is dried and lustrous?”

“Yes. Please braid my hair.”

His hold on me slackened just enough that my boots touched the gray stone floor. His hands lingered on my ass, kneading, working the orbs in such a way that made me grind against him, seeking release already.

“I’m too eager,”

I panted, nipping along his whiskery jaw and running my tongue over his scar. “I need to learn restraint as you show, but when you are holding me so close…I cannot stop the urges that overtake me.”

“Mm, my sweet Kenton, never curb your desires. That you want me so deeply fires me like nothing else. Here, turn. Let me work on your braids.”

The last thing I wanted to do was leave his arms, but I slowly spun around, but not before I shed all my clothes. I moved around the screen, opening it wider, to stand by the huge tub filled with scented water. Pink water lily petals had been sprinkled over the surface.

Every grimy thing I had worn landed in a pile atop my dirty boots. When I looked over my shoulder at him, his eyes were dark with wild passion.

“Never have I seen a more glorious creation of the goddess than when I drink in your beauty,”

he said, his hands yanking at his clothes as he strode across the room to where I stood by the tub.

He touched my face with rough fingertips before gently turning me with the lightest touch to my shoulders.

He pulled the knot free, sending the thick mass of braids down my back.

The tips tickled the cleft between my buttocks.

My eyes closed as my breathing began to rise.

He lifted one braid, untied it, worked the plait free, and then kissed my bare shoulder. Another braid, another kiss, over and over, dozens of times. My balls ached and my cock leaked steadily by the time he had the last plait unraveled.

I turned to face him, hungry for his lips on mine. He drew me close. I went to my toes as his mouth fused to mine. His tongue delved deeply into my mouth just as his fingers were now seeking my hole betwixt my cheeks.

A whimper escaped me when one thick finger found my opening. As his tongue swirled over mine, he pressed on the edges of my entrance, lighting me on fire.

“Now we wash,”

he said into my mouth, easing away to step over the side of the limestone tub. “You look aggrieved,”

he teased, standing in the water, his prick thick and hard.

“I feel aggrieved,”

I replied, climbing over the edge, uncaring if I kicked the washrag or bar of scented soap into the water. The water was hot, just this side of painfully so, but I went to my knees just the same, gasping only slightly when the hot water hit my balls. “I think your cock in my mouth will lessen my irritation.”

He tipped up my chin. “You do not need to take me into your mouth.”

“I think that I do,”

I argued, splashing about for the rag and soap. I lifted the sodden rag from the water and wrung it out over the thicket of auburn hair at the base of his shaft. He sucked in a sharp breath. I wet his body from the waist down, using the rag over his thighs, between his legs, and even on his firm ass, my mouth always close to his cock. The shaft twitched when I took him in hand to lather his cock and balls.

“By the goddess,”

he groaned, his hands moving into my hair, carding the white locks tightly, then releasing them. “I may spend before you even place your lips on me.”

I worked his cock wantonly, rinsed it several times, and then let the soap drop into the water. I plucked a petal from his abdomen, kissing the thick line of hair that ran to his shaft before I eased the furl of skin back and tongued the slit of his cockhead. His hips lurched.

“Slowly, my love, for I am teetering on the edge,”

he begged, but I had no intention of going slowly. I ran my tongue up the sides of his cock, moaning at the taste of soap and man as I licked my way up and down. His fingers worked my hair, knotting it and smoothing it. I took him into my mouth hungrily, the head of his prick hitting the back of my throat. I gagged, but dug my fingers into his thighs to ensure he did not withdraw. I had no practical knowledge of cock-sucking but I knew what I had enjoyed when he had done it to me, so I did what he had done. “Kenton, your mouth is a…gods be damned…”

He pulled out of my mouth with a hiss, bent down to lift me from the water, and swept me off my feet. Out of the tub we went, water running from us, on a direct course to the bed. My back hit the mattress, and he was atop me, his lips seeking mine. I arched up to drive my stiff cock into his belly. He growled low in his chest as his tongue danced with mine, his prick riding beside mine as he began to pump.

“Please…I need you…in me,”

I cried out as my release neared.

“We have nothing to ease the way,”

he said, reaching between us to gather both of our aching cocks in his large hand.

“I do not care!”

“You will, trust me. Let us find our pleasure this way for now.”

My heels dug into the goose down bedding as he began to stroke us.

The press of his prick next to mine was sublime.

His thumb gathered the droplets of spend that gathered, then spread it down and over.

I bit down on his shoulder as my release arrived out of nowhere like one of the summer storms that swept over the vills.

Hot spurts of spend coated his hand, making the sensation even better.

My balls contracted.

Then he grunted. More hot warmth. More slick thrusting and stroking. Eyes closed, I rode out wave after wave of pleasure, his big frame pressing me into the bedding as his prick jerked.

When I floated down from the clouds, he was resting on his heels, rubbing our spend over our shafts, the pearly white liquid thick on our cocks.

“Did you enjoy that?”

he asked, lifting his fingers to his mouth. I watched spellbound as he licked his digits clean, his eyes still black with lust, his hair sticking to his whiskers. “Mm, we are delicious.”

I took his wrist and brought his hand to my mouth, taking his thumb between my lips. We were salty and bitter. “Your face says that you are unsure of this manly delicacy.”

“I need more to decide,”

I replied before licking his palm clean. He moaned softly. “I’m not sure I will give up honey cakes for spend anytime soon.”

He chuckled warmly, stole a kiss, and then moved from the bed. “It may grow on you.”

He offered me his dirty hand. I placed mine in his and he tugged me to my feet. We moved to the tub, easing down into it, my back to his chest. The water was perfect now.

The petals floating on the surface had wilted and broken apart, releasing yet more of their floral scent into the air.

Beirach washed me with infinite care, soaping, then rinsing me off twice, before moving to my hair, which he lathered thrice, rinsing with handfuls of water while I battled to stay awake. When the water ran clear, he dropped small pecks along my neck, shoulders, and arms before scrubbing at his chest.

“No, I wish to tend to you,”

I said, easing from between his powerful legs to face him. “It cannot always be you pampering me.”

One side of his mouth hitched up. “I find myself to be much riper than you, my sweet.”

“Pah, you smell like a man just as I do. Now lift your arm.”

He did as bid.

I took my time with his bath, learning his body well as I soaped then washed clean the suds.

He was slouching in the water when I placed the soap on a small stool next to the tub.

The water had cooled off.

With a yawn, he reached for some drying cloths made of fine linen, pristine white with bold borders of darkest red—the Stillcloud color.

With his arms around me, his lips to mine, we stumbled to the bed and fell into it.

I curled into and around him as if I were a tender clematis and he a robust trellis.

I kissed his chest.

He ran his fingers along the sharp point of my left ear, his heart thumping slow and steady under my cheek.

We spoke of things that lovers do as the sun slipped overhead.

The one thing that we did not discuss as we rested in each other’s arms was the future.

He would leave on the morrow, and I would remain.

Aelir needed me.

This vills needed me.

Change had to happen, and it seemed that I was the one to make that happen.

No other would.

If I wanted my people to be treated as equals, then I must be the Rhaes to begin that slow process.

Starting with trying to eliminate the use of that slur.

But that was a worry for later. Now I wished to dream of days ahead where this man lay beside me in a marriage bed much as we were doing now.

Sleep arrived on silent slippers. The exhaustion of the past several weeks caught up to both of us, pushing us into a dead sleep that was broken in the later afternoon by solid hammering on the chamber door.

Beirach sat up, silken sheet slipping off his fuzzy chest to puddle in his lap. I moaned as I buried my face into a pillow stuffed with the softest down I had ever rested my head on.

“No, make it go away,”

I grumbled into the pillow as he left the bed, pulling the sheet with him. I scrambled to find the coverlet that had knotted around our feet to cover myself just as Beirach gruffly called to the knocker to enter.

A slim elven servant, short strawberry blond hair and pale green eyes, slipped in. He wore the ebony robes of the castle staff. Over his arms were thick velvet capelets and what looked to be trousers and shirts. On his fingers dangled fine leather shoes with brass buckles. He bowed deeply.

“Good eventide, Elder Dreyath and Prince Amergin. My name is Larell. I am to serve as your attendant for this evening. The grand advisor has had these sent up from the finest tailor in Renedith for you to wear at the feast.”

He remained bent as he spoke.

“Please rise, Larell. Neither of us cling to protocol so you may call us Beirach and Kenton,”

Beirach explained as he knotted the sheet around his waist. Larell glanced at me. I nodded and smiled as I held the cover under my chin.

“I cannot do that, but I thank you just the same. Shall I draw a fresh bath?”

He scurried around the room and draped what I now saw were richly appointed court clothing over the back of a padded seat behind the changing screen. One was a deep dark green like the Verboten in summer and the other a royal blue.

“No, that is not necessary,”

I said, smiling to myself as I recalled taking several icy cold T P & A—tuppy, pits, and ass as Tezen coined them—baths in brooks and small ponds all over the Verboten.

“As you wish. Then shall I begin braiding your hair, Your Highness?”

He showed me a handful of cloth strips, cut thin, that matched the green outfit. “I am quite good at the intricate braids that the children of the forest favor for—”

“I shall braid his hair,”

Beirach interjected, stalling the servant mid-sentence. I gaped at the rough edge to his tone. “You may leave us, Larell.”

“But I should at least stay to ensure that the measurements are correct.”

Larell waved a quaking hand at the clothes.

“We’ll ring for you if they need to be amended,”

I said as kindly as I could.

“As you wish, Your Highness.”

Larell dropped the cloth strips onto a silver tray atop a small dresser that held other grooming items, including a hand mirror with red rubies in the handle. The servant made a hasty exit. I let the cover drop to my lap. Beirach ran his fingers through his hair, the late afternoon sun gilding the reddish-brown mass with bright streaks of gold.

“I can feel your displeasure,”

the big man said as he slowly turned to face me. “I was…discourteous to poor Larell. I will apologize later. It was just the thought of another man braiding your hair…”

Ah, so that was what prompted his unusual sourness. “No man will ever braid my hair but you. So, if you please, would you gather up the brush from the dresser and come to sit behind me? It will take some time for you to do my braids.”

He gathered the soft bristled brush, the slim green cloth ties, and climbed into bed. I wiggled down from the pillows, the coverlet wound about me, to make space for him to rest his back on the ornately carved headboard.

When he was settled, I moved backward on my ass and sighed at the first pass of the brush through my hair.

“I would not have thought you a jealous sort,”

I confessed as he tenderly worked the first of what would be many tangles from my hair.

“Nor did I, but it seems that I am quite possessive of my new love.”

He dropped a kiss on my shoulder. “I shall work on calming that animalistic nature of mine.”

“Do not calm it too much. I rather like your beastly nature on occasion.”

“I shall remember that,”

he said and gave my neck a playful nip.

If this were a taste of what having this man in my bed forever would be like, I would be quite content to never leave our shared bedchamber ever again. Alas, life would pull us apart far too soon, but that was a worry for the dawn.

The bells rang out just as the sun set. Beirach and I were dressed in our finery.

“I feel like a gusseted goose,”

he complained as we left our room, my hand on his arm, my hair perfectly braided and gathered into a large bun at the back with dozens of shorter braids tangling from the knot. I’d teased him about the complex hairdo when I’d seen it in a hand mirror.

“You should have been a lady’s maid,”

I’d said as I twisted the ruby-encrusted mirror this way and that.

“My wife long admired the plaits of the forest elves and would often ask me to recreate them,”

he had confided. I’d lowered the mirror to kiss him on the pale scar on his now cleanly shaved chin. He had cinched me close with one arm, inhaled the skin of my throat, and then let dropped a few pecks to the pulse under my ear. “You shall set the nobility of this vills on their fat, spoiled asses.”

“You have been spending far too much time with Tezen,”

I’d joked and got a chuckle of agreement. Now we were moving down the hall to her room only to find her sitting in the hall on the lip of a vase filled with freshly cut water tulips. She saw us, frowned, and then blew out a wet greeting with her tongue.

“You two look like a couple of court dandies,”

she said and plucked at the lacy edges of her lovely purple dress. “And I look like a two copper trollop. Look at this!”

She flew into the air, right at us, and hovered a hand space from Beirach’s nose. “Look at my titties! They’re about to tumble out!”

She gave the stiff bodice in the front of her gown a rough tug. “I loathe gowns and stays and fricking petticoats!”

“Do you feel like a gusseted goose?”

Beirach asked as the soft sounds of music floated up from the ground floor of the keep to us.

“Yes!”

she exclaimed and gave the beaded bodice, which was quite skillfully covered with small white beads no bigger than the head of a pin, a strong jerk. “I have no clue what a gusset is but if it means choking my titties then yes, I feel like that.”

“Actually, I think a gusset is merely a panel of material that—” I began.

“That chokes a goose,”

Beirach finished, then gave me a saucy wink.

“Yes, that chokes a goose.”

I sighed, letting the two of them complain about their finery all the way down the grand stairs to the first floor.

The music grew louder as we neared the ballroom, the sound of voices and laughter mixed with the drums, lutes, and flutes.

I did my best to not dwell on the golden flute that had been offered to a yeti for safe passage.

Perhaps, someday at a diplomatic meal in Calaer, I would sight a yeti representative playing a flute.

Mayhap they would be willing to part with it if I offered them something of great value.

Two guards stood on either side of the ballroom doors, their gold armor polished to shine like the sun itself.

They clapped a fist to their chests as we slowly entered the main hall.

My eyes flared at the sheer number of people here.

A hundred at least, all in their finest dressed and velvet suits, short hair festooned with jewels, feathers, and ribbons that trailed behind the wearer like a peacock’s tail.

The musicians were situated by the hearth, four elves in gay purple-and-pink patterned suits with small bells on their high collars.

Minstrels then, and a very good band of them, judging from the songs we had heard on our way here.

I spied the table at the front where Umeris and Aelir were seated.

There were a dozen seats, six on each side of the grand advisor and his grandson, most empty save for a couple that the mayor of the vills and his lady wife filled.

The boy shot to his feet, wearing a grin when he saw us in the doorway.

Umeris stalled him with a hand on his arm.

Aelir frowned, then dropped heavily to his seat, his gold crown sitting at an angle on his golden head.

V’alor stood off to the side, his sight touching on us momentarily before sweeping the crowded hall. Always vigilant.

“Kenton,”

a woman called. I jolted at the familiar sound of my mother’s voice, spinning to find her among the rest of my family stepping out from a small alcove where, somehow, all seven of them had been hiding.

My father, my mother, and all of my siblings, even Eldar, poured out of the nook to engulf me. I clasped my mother tightly, the smell of soft yellow daisies and sunshine flowing from her skin and long, tight braids. “My youngest boy has become a man in the blink of his mother’s eye. My sweet son.”

She pressed a kiss to my brow where the goddess had blessed me, and then wept openly. “You have saved us all, my darling chosen one.

Without you and your fellow warriors, our people would have been locked in stone forever, unable to move into the trees to be lifted to our goddess. We cannot…I simply cannot say how much we love you. How proud you have made us.”

“Mother,”

I choked out, keeping her as close as I could before my brothers and father wedged in to clasp me to them, pound on my back, and call me the hero princeling.

“My boy, you have made us so proud,”

my father whispered into my ear as he held me to him. He pulled back, hands on my biceps, to smile at me and turned his attention to Beirach standing off to the side with Tezen grinning widely.

“And I hear that you have chosen a man to settle with? A man who I know not only from the tales of his devotion to the goddess and her woods, but by fighting at his side. Your mother and I approve.”

“Father, we haven’t even—”

My protest was cut short when my family turned to Beirach with handshakes, hugs, and huge welcomes that made me want to crawl into a corner and hide.

Eldar limped up, his leg in a splint, but otherwise looking healthy. I hugged him to me, then pinched his side as hard as I could. He yelped.

“That is for telling Mother and Father about my…about our…”

“Oh for the goddess’s fair toes, just say it,”

Eldar said while rubbing at his side.

“For telling everyone about Beirach braiding my hair. We haven’t even discussed what will come after tomorrow and already they are making wedding plans!”

He gave me a sly wink. “You are welcome. If I waited for you two to announce your romance, we would all be resting in the arms of Danubia. Now come and have a seat. The food is coming soon, and I find I am famished.”

I let my family and my two companions move me to the front of the hall. In all my years in service here, I had never been seated at the grand advisor’s table.

Now I sat beside Aelir, in a place of honor, as the appetizers were brought out in a mad scramble of staff wearing harried smiles.

“Did you have a nice nap? I don’t have to take naps anymore, but I know the elderly need them,”

the young heir said as he plucked a fat berry dipped in honey from a tray filled with candied fruits.

“I had a lovely nap,”

I said, smiling at my elder brother seated next to Beirach as my love spooned some sticky palm roots imported from the capital onto his plate.

“I’m glad. I told Grandfather when the first raven arrived from the purge clerics that told us the evil mage was dead that we should have a feast and invite your family.

He was crabby about it at first, but I told him if I had done such a heroic thing, I would want to see my mother and father and brothers afterward. He got very quiet and told me he would think about it and then the next day we were told a feast in your honor would be held.”

He plunked the dripping treat into his mouth. I stared at the young lad with sorrow. “I wish more than anything that when you return from a quest when you are grown that you could see your parents.”

Aelir chewed and swallowed, then wiped his sticky fingers on his pant leg—under the table so that his grandfather would not see—and then took my hand in his.

“I wished for a long time I had a brother, then I realized I did. You were the sibling that could have been if my parents hadn’t died. Even if your skin is green and mine is white, we’re close as kin, are we not?”

I gave his hand a squeeze. “We are brothers in all the ways that matter most.”

His grin was wide. “That’s what I told Grandfather. That made him spit and sputter! But I don’t care. It’s dumb to think someone is lesser than someone else because of their skin tone. When I rule the vills, I’m going to wipe out that stupid thinking!”

With that proclamation, the future lord of the vills of Renedith shoved two more berries into his face and was then scolded by Umeris for unseemly behavior.

I prayed that I would still be at his side when Aelir ruled. And I also hoped that his childish wishes for unity among all of elven kind was attainable.

It would take more than a proclamation from a boy with honey on his chin but, perhaps, with diligence, an elf grown with a fire in his heart could affect change. It was a dream surely, but dreams did have a way of becoming reality if one believed in them strongly enough.