Night's Templar: A Vampire Queen Novel (Vampire Queen Series Book 13) (14 page)

Keldwyn brought his sharp eyes back to Uthe’s face, pinning him in place. “I don’t think you want my mercy at all, Lord Uthe. I think what you truly want is just the opposite. So stay on your knees and prove yourself to me.”

Blood pounded through Uthe’s heart, throbbed in his testicles. As Keldwyn held him in that pointed gaze, the Fae’s lips curved. “Your clever mouth offers much wisdom to the Council. I'd like a memory of when your tongue was otherwise occupied. And hear me now,” he added, “If you bite me, score me with your fangs, I will take my pound of a flesh in a way that will tear your soul wide open.”

Devils came in many forms. The tremor in his fingers had increased. Uthe dispelled it with an act of will before he reached out, figured out the laces to the leggings. Keldwyn didn’t help him, but Uthe stiffened when the Fae’s fingers moved to Uthe’s shoulder, tracing the breadth of him, coming back to curve over his skull. 

The pants were a front flap style, laces on either side. Underneath was all Keldwyn. His cock stretched out, growing thicker and harder before Uthe’s eyes. His pubic hair was smooth and trim, black silk framing his member and curling over the testicles beneath. His shaft was flushed to a darker flesh color, thanks to the blood filling it to such rigidity.

Uthe’s heart was beating up into his throat. He was not a stripling lad, not a virgin by any means. It had just been so long, even before the Order. Had it truly been that long since he’d been intimate with a male?

“Your mouth, vampire,” Keldwyn said in that same low tone. He slid his hand down to Uthe’s wrist, resting on Keldwyn’s upper thigh. Closing his grip around that, he guided Uthe’s hand to his erection. Uthe watched the Fae curl his fingers over the base, making Uthe’s thumb brush his balls. A different species, but still so much the same.

“It has been many years, my lord,” he said, his voice strange to his ears. “Though I fear nothing so little as your retribution, if I score you, it will be by accident.”

“Just imagine it’s your own cock and you will take extra care. Unless you vampires get aroused by punctures in your genitalia.”

“No, my lord.” Uthe almost smiled at his tone. Keldwyn’s wit was sharp and on the mark, often capable of amusing Uthe. This wasn’t amusing, but the tease helped. Mixed feelings filled him. The practical part of his mind told him to just do it, get it over with. If touching Keldwyn this way was truly distasteful, he could have done that. It all would even be easier. But the problem was just the opposite. He was mesmerized, seeing his hand clasped around another male’s cock, and not just any male. A male who had proven himself irresistible to Uthe. Even without the oath, Uthe had known it was just a matter of time before they ended up here. Keldwyn had merely tired of waiting and taken the advantage he’d been given. As a tactician himself, Uthe couldn’t fault him. He might even be thankful for it.

Keldwyn increased his grip on Uthe. “You are shaking, my lord,” he said. “Do not fear yourself in this. This is truth, for both of us.”

Which was why it was so disturbing to him. Leaning forward, he put his mouth over the glans. The musky pre-come smell was clean, earthy, but with a heated flavor that tempted the tongue. He thought of spiced cider, or the tantalizing thick syrup formed by the sugar and juices of an apple pie. He traced the corona and teased the slit, collecting more of that taste.

Keldwyn drew in a breath, his body growing taut. Uthe curved a strong hand over his upper thigh, holding him, savoring the sudden tautness of the muscles under his palm. Knowing the Fae wasn’t unaffected, and was less in control than he appeared, was useful. Needed. Uthe slid his whole mouth over the head, then down the shaft. By the Cross, it truly had been so very long since he’d done this, since he’d had someone he’d wanted like this. He couldn’t help but take his time, reining back the wasteful urgency of lust. Keldwyn’s hand moved to his nape, then cupped his skull, applying a firm pressure that told Uthe he was not the only one fighting that battle.

Uthe’s fingers slid across the Fae’s thigh and around, finding Keldwyn’s buttock. It was tight as the iron the Fae preferred to avoid. His own cock was in a similar state, and every muscle was drawn and straining in anticipation. Desire was a sharp pain in his lower belly. 

He took in more of Keldwyn’s shaft, tasting the length of it. Now his hand was back alongside his testicles, petting the trim hair over the pubic mound, teasing the tight silken curls over the balls. Keldwyn had arrived at a Council meeting once with a fine down of a beard, like a man who’d not shaved in several days. When Lyssa had remarked upon it, Keldwyn said the Fae did not have to shave. They could choose to have facial hair or not, altering their appearance in various ways, like the tattoo that was on his face today, which might not be there tomorrow. The beard had defined his jaw even more, the short stubble on the upper lip drawing attention to the shape and firmness of his mouth.

Uthe slid down to the root, relishing Kel’s indrawn breath as he took him deep into the tight clasp of his throat and wrapped his lips firmly around his base. He’d remembered how to relax his gag reflex and the Fae reaped the benefits. Keldwyn’s hand flexed on his head, fingers pressing into Uthe’s scalp. He ran his tongue along that pounding vein, the folds of flesh over his balls. A high Fae’s sex organs had no apparent differences from human or vampire. Uthe wasn’t surprised, since the way the male acted around him said sex worked in a similar way for them.

For the most part.

As Keldwyn trailed his fingers from his nape over his shoulders, under the collar of his shirt, Uthe jumped at the crackle of electricity teasing his flesh. 

“Don’t stop. Your mouth is skilled in far more than vampire politics.” Keldwyn continued to draw that electric path along his skin, down his shirt collar, along the side of his working throat. A vampire’s throat was sensitive to any type of touch, and so the feral sound Uthe made was almost involuntary. Keldwyn dug in his nails, which suddenly felt longer, sharper. As he descended to Uthe’s nipple, that touch of electricity came again. Uthe shuddered at the feel of it.

“You should see what happens when I wrap this stimulation around your cock, Lord Uthe.”

Uthe held onto that image and everything Keldwyn was giving him. Maybe the Fae Lord thought he’d resist this and had added the extra stimulus to help him get lost in it. That wasn’t the problem for Uthe.

Keldwyn had been a temptation within touching distance for far too long. The difficulty for Uthe was not revealing how good this felt, how much the Fae was making him want even more. He should have put effort into being inept at this to frustrate Keldwyn. Since it had been so long for him, a lack of skill wouldn’t necessarily be artifice. But that kind of calculation didn’t honor the oath he’d taken. Keldwyn understood how seriously Uthe took a promise. However, oath or not, Uthe knew he was using it as an excuse to follow his own desires, tasting, sucking and stroking the other male with enthusiasm. Whether or not any skill was involved, the Fae Lord was responding to his fervor with some of his own, shoving into Uthe’s mouth. It made Uthe’s lips stretch in a primal grin around the male’s cock. 

That electrical sensation from Keldwyn’s fingertips turned into a thrumming vibration, a surge of energy that wrapped Uthe up in a cocoon and made everything about giving and feeling pleasure. Keldwyn came, flooding his mouth with a release that tasted of honey, sunshine and smooth stone. Uthe’s fingers curled into the Fae’s quivering thigh, his other hand coiled around his cock and exploring the twitching testicles, the appealing softness of the skin covering the firm roundness of what lay beneath.

Keldwyn drew a deep breath. “Well done, my lord. Very well done.”

He hadn’t expected or required the praise. Though he expected his pride to be abraded by the whole situation, Uthe felt an odd peace at completing the task, doing it well. The only thing that wasn’t peaceful was his own libido. He was painfully rigid, and Mariela was no longer his servant, to attend to him. Any second mark serving in a Council capacity could be called upon for that kind of service, but Uthe found the idea of exposing himself like that unappealing for reasons he didn’t care to examine. He’d simply meditate himself back to a less aroused state once Keldwyn took his leave. 

“Stay on your knees.” Keldwyn bade him sit on his heels as he laced the leggings, covering himself. Uthe could tell him that serving his sexual desires was all he’d agreed to do. Sitting at his feet like a pet was not part of the requirements, but before he could make that justifiable argument, Keldwyn dropped to a squat before him and placed his palm on Uthe’s chest. “Stand on your knees, Lord Uthe.”

As he did, Keldwyn went to one knee, shifting closer. “Your hand on my shoulder. You will need the balance.”

Uthe wasn’t sure of his intent, but he complied. Keldwyn slid his hand down Uthe’s front, deftly opened his jeans and pushed beneath his underwear, wrapping his fingers like snug vines around his cock. Then he began to stroke. 

Uthe’s grip convulsed on his shoulder and Keldwyn put his other hand around his waist, drawing him closer. “You may lean if you wish,” he murmured, his hair brushing Uthe’s cheek, his jaw. “You are beautifully formed, my lord. Not that I expected any differently. I like you in the jeans. Wear those more often. You too often hide your assets in the smooth lines of your slacks and loose trousers."

For his part, Keldwyn could have given hand jobs for a living. Uthe didn’t often fall into the crudity of soldier talk anymore, even in his mind, but the alternative was letting himself react to the Fae Lord caring for his needs in such a decisive way, no asking for permission. When was the last time someone had touched him without permission? Uthe’s breath caught in his throat as Keldwyn worked him.

I am in a box of steel. Suffocating. You put me there, and yet you are the one suffocating in your life for me. He will free you, and then I will be free.

The intrusion of that sibilant voice should have jarred him, knocked him out of the spiral of want building in his lower belly. But he was used to its interruptions, and the wants of his body were too strong. He ignored it. He kept pushing into Keldwyn’s touch. Plus, if the voice was trying to make Uthe repel Keldwyn, it was a good reason to embrace the opposite course. Unless the serpent voice could predict that. His mind was whirling, his body tensing…

Somehow his hand was on Keldwyn’s shoulder, then around it, fingers digging into the Fae Lord’s back. He was leaning fully into Keldwyn’s body. Uthe was not a massive male, though he was built strong and wide enough, but Keldwyn held him easily. He was speaking to him, a crooning language like music. When he tilted his head, Uthe’s face was against the fall of dark hair, the gold ribbons and braids. He could sense the artery in Keldwyn’s throat, pounding just beyond his reach. Since sexual release would bring forth his fangs, he turned his head away, pressing his jaw against the point of Keldwyn’s shoulder. 

Keldwyn adjusted without disrupting him. As his cock jumped in the Fae’s sure grip, Uthe felt the press of cloth and knew the Fae had covered him with the tail of Uthe’s shirt, containing the spray of seed that overflowed, thick and heated. Keldwyn’s other hand dropped, slid into the back of Uthe’s loosened jeans to squeeze his flexing buttocks, urging him on, increasing the intensity of the climax. When it was over, Keldwyn caressed those globes of pale flesh, then found his way up under Uthe’s shirt to explore his back, hold him. He was holding him while Uthe was in his arms, leaning against him.

It wasn’t sex. It was intimacy, succoring, something far too hazardous to him. Up until Mariela’s peculiar request to stroke his head and hum to him, he’d rarely accepted such a thing from someone offering it sincerely, with no hidden motives. Which meant he couldn’t afford it from a mysterious Fae whose intentions were entirely suspect. 

He had a high regard for Keldwyn’s intelligence, his abilities as a liaison. He enjoyed the intellectual challenge of him on a day-to-day basis, both in Council meetings and in their discussions and leisure strategy games. However, when it came to the personal, to friendship, a Fae was a Fae. They explained themselves to no one, and their motives could be detailed and pre-meditated, or capricious and whim-based. He’d seen all those things in Keldwyn.

He was attracted to Keldwyn, but who wouldn’t be? Being alluring was part of his power, same as it was for vampires. Too many of the old stories suggested a Fae would extend something that looked shiny and appealing, but turned out to be an illusion, the quest for it destroying a person’s whole world. A day in a Fae world could mean the loss of an entire lifetime in the person’s actual one.

Fairy tales could exaggerate, but in the case of the Fae, the perils might well be understated. There was a reason the Fae and vampires had been enemies.

There was a wrongness to his thinking. Uthe knew he was denying his feelings for the male, and that denial could be fueled by his fear of making the wrong steps and jeopardizing the task he had to finish. It didn’t make Uthe’s musings untrue, however. It took him longer than it should have to draw out of the other male’s embrace. But he did. That was all that mattered. He felt the Fae’s gaze on him as he got to his feet, tucking himself back in and refastening his jeans. Stripping off the shirt, he took it to the bell elevator. Once a day, it was drawn up to the main floor, the clothes washed by the servants and then reappearing on the platform clean, ironed and hung on a rack.

"How long have you known you have Ennui, my lord?" Keldwyn asked.

He was in the process of pulling the elevator door back in place. His grip on the cable slipped and the door dropped onto his other hand with a bruising thud. Biting back an oath, he pulled it free.

"Good thing no other dangling appendages were close to that."

It might have been better if one had been, for an aching dick might have lessened some of Keldwyn's effect on him. Though Uthe doubted it. He moved to the kitchenette and ran his hand under a soothing rush of water from the sink faucet. The edge of the bell elevator door had cut into the flesh, but it would heal quickly, gone in minutes, unlike the truth that had just been thrown out into the open between them. He watched the few drops of blood mingle with the swirl of water against the silver sink and disappear down the drain.