Prince's Gambit (Captive Prince, #2)

by C.S. Pacat

‘Does he know?’ said Jord.

I feel SICK

Laurent was developing quite a collection of sons.

LOLLLLL

Then Laurent turned and saw him, and the pressure in his chest grew like pain as Laurent greeted him, half-stripped and bright-eyed. ‘How do you like my fort?’ ‘I like it. I wouldn’t mind seeing you with a few more,’ said Damen. ‘To the north.’

so supportive

‘You see? I’m learning to take your advice.’ He spoke with an unselfconscious little smile that was wholly new.

Shyly, after a pause: ‘I told you that I would repay you. You did so much to help me in the palace. And…’ Erasmus hesitated, looking over at Torveld. When Torveld nodded that he should speak, he lifted his chin, uncharacteristically. ‘And I didn’t like the Regent. He burnt my leg.’ Torveld gave him a proud look, and Erasmus flushed and made obeisance again with perfect form.

HI ERASMUS!!!!! I've missed you.

Laurent was complicated and contradictory, and Damen could look nowhere else.

smitten.

‘I remember. You take a great deal of pleasure in small victories.’ Damen quoted Laurent’s words back to him. ‘It’s not small,’ said Laurent. ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever won a play against my uncle.’

They are surely gods who speak to him With steady voices A glance from him drives men to their knees His sigh brings cities to ruin I wonder if he dreams of surrender On a bed of white flowers Or is that the mistaken hope Of every would-be conqueror? The world was not made for beauty like his

‘I wish it could have been different between us, I wish I could have behaved to you with more honour. I want you to know that you will have a friend across the border, whatever happens tomorrow, whatever happens to both of us.’ ‘Friends,’ said Laurent. ‘Is that what we are?’

The touch he offered was accepted as it had not been last time, fingers gentle on Laurent’s jaw, thumb passing over his cheekbone, soft.

Damen’s palm slid over Laurent’s warm nape; slowly, very slowly, making his height an offering, not a threat, Damen leaned in and kissed Laurent on the mouth.

ITS HAPPENING. EVERYONE STAY EFFING CALM.

The kiss was barely a suggestion of itself, with no yielding of the rigidity in Laurent, but the first kiss became a second, after a fraction of parting in which Damen felt the flicker of Laurent’s shallow breathing against his own lips.

He felt remade with the desire to give Laurent this: to give him all he would allow, and to ask for nothing, this careful threshold something to be savoured because it was all Laurent would let himself have.

‘Your Highness—’ They broke apart at the voice, the burst of sound, of nearby footsteps. A head was cresting the stone steps. Damen took a step backwards, his stomach twisting. It was Jord.

shit

‘I ordered the section cleared,’ Damen said. Jord was intruding.

ya you did, Captain!

To what, gloriously, he had been doing. He’d been kissing Laurent and that should not be interrupted.

Laurent looked like any young man who has been pressed against a battlement and kissed.

Guymar and another of the soldiers were coming to the section he had ordered cleared. Damen passed a hand over his face. Everyone in the fort was coming to the section he had ordered cleared.

‘Jord,’ said Laurent, ‘this is why he fucked you. This moment.’ ‘I know that,’ said Jord. ‘Orlant,’ said Laurent, ‘didn’t deserve to die alone on the sword of a self-serving aristocrat he thought was a friend.’ ‘I know that,’ said Jord. ‘I’m not asking you to let Aimeric go free or to forgive him what he’s done. It’s just that I know him, and that night, he was…’

The warm, sweet kiss had been broken in a moment of promise: the first slight parting of lips, the hint that Laurent had been on the cusp of allowing the kiss to deepen, though his body had been singing with tension.

‘Keep your mouth off my brother,’ said Laurent.

‘I bet you were a peach of a little boy. A pretty peach. How old were you when you fucked my uncle?’ Damen went still, everything in the tower went very still, as Laurent said, ‘Were you old enough to come?’ ‘Shut up,’ said Aimeric.

‘He was lying. He wouldn’t take you back. You’re too old.’ ‘You don’t know,’ said Aimeric. ‘Thick-voiced and rough-cheeked, you’d make him sick.’ ‘You don’t know anything—’ ‘With your ageing body, your overripe attentions, you’re nothing but—’ ‘You’re wrong about us! He loves me!’ Aimeric flung the words out defiantly, they came out over-loud. Damen felt the bottom fall out of his stomach, a feeling of total wrongness passing over him.

Laurent gave him the kind of look a swordsman gives as he decides whether or not to slice his unarmed enemy in half. ‘Are you going to try it with me? Or do you only take pleasure in attacking those who cannot defend themselves?’ Damen heard the hardness in his own voice.

Abruptly, Laurent turned away. He put the heels of his palms on the table, gripping its edge, standing with his head down, his arms stiffly braced, tension across his back. Damen watched his ribcage expand and deflate, several times.

‘What you are saying is that when I lose control, I make mistakes. My uncle knows that, of course. It would have been an amusing pleasure for him to send Aimeric to work against me, you’re right. You, with your barbaric attitudes, your brutish, domineering arrogance, are always right.’ Laurent’s hands on the table were white.

His heart was pounding. He wanted to make a barrier that protected Laurent from anyone who would intrude on him.

He looked down at the badge in his hand. His time as Laurent’s Captain had been short-lived. An afternoon. An evening. In that time they’d won a battle and taken a fort.

Laurent said, ‘I know you’re planning to leave tomorrow. You’re going to cross the border, and you’re not going to come back. Say it.’ ‘I—’ ‘Say it.’ ‘I’m going to leave tomorrow,’ said Damen, as steadily as he could. ‘I’m not going to come back.’ He drew in a breath that hurt his chest. ‘Laurent—’ ‘No, I don’t care. Tomorrow you leave. But you’re mine now. You’re still my slave tonight.’ Damen felt the words hit, but that was subsumed in the shock of Laurent’s hand on him, a push backwards. His legs hit the bed. The world tilted, bed silks and roseate light. He felt Laurent’s knee alongside his thigh, Laurent’s hand on his chest.

‘I see you are everywhere in proportion.’

HAHAHA

‘You liked this too, with Ancel.’ ‘That wasn’t Ancel,’ said Damen, the words coming out, raw and honest. ‘That was all you, and you know it.’

Laurent said, ‘Adequate.’

Iconic

‘Kiss me,’ he said again. Dark-eyed, Laurent was holding himself in place as though pushing himself past a barrier, the tension in Laurent’s body still telegraphing flight, and Damen felt the shock with his whole body when Laurent’s gaze dropped to his mouth.

This time when he drew back, neither of them broke fully from the other. He lifted his other hand to brush Laurent’s cheek, slid fingers into his hair—shifting gold under his marvelling fingers. Then he took Laurent’s head gently in his hands and delivered the kiss he’d longed to deliver, long, slow and deep. Laurent’s mouth opened under his.

Laurent’s skin was so pale that the veins in his neck were blue, stria in marble, and with silks and tents, shaded awnings and high-necked collars, its pristine fineness had been preserved even through a month on the march. Against it, his own skin, sun-darkened, seemed brown as a nut.

Laurent gazed back at him through veiled lashes. ‘Like being on top, do you?’ ‘Yes.’ Never more so than at this moment.

And found himself pushed backwards, sudden, unexpected impetus, and he sat back between Laurent’s legs, a little breathless. Laurent had placed his boot flat against the plane of Damen’s chest, and pushed. And he didn’t remove his boot from its position, he held Damen in place with it, the firm pressure of the ball of Laurent’s foot a warning to stay back. The flare of arousal he felt at that must have shown in his eyes. Laurent said, ‘Well?’

Laurent was, by far, the most controlled lover Damen had ever taken to bed.

Looking up, he saw that Laurent’s hands were fists in the sheets, his eyes closed, his head turned to one side. Laurent, out on the shattered edge of pleasure, was holding himself back from climax by sheer force of his impossible will. Damen drew off, pushed himself up to search Laurent’s face. His own body, fully primed, took up barely a quarter of his attention as Laurent’s eyes came open. After a long moment Laurent said, with painful honesty, ‘I…find it difficult to let go of control.’ ‘No kidding,’ said Damen.

No kidding hahaha

‘Contrary, aren’t you,’ said Damen softly, thumbing over Laurent’s cheek.

He slid his hand up the length of Laurent’s arm where it lay outflung above his head, and, catching hold of Laurent’s hand, he pushed it down, pressed their palms into one other.

Laurent’s arms twining around his neck. Damen slid his free arm beneath Laurent, palm travelling over the flexing incurvations of his back.

He felt some sense that he needed to hold onto this, to hold it tight and never let it out of his grip. You’re mine, he wanted to say, and couldn’t.

To get what you want, you have to know exactly how much you are willing to give up.

A kingdom, or this.

Kill me

Laurent’s dangerous grace lent him an almost androgynous quality. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that it was rare to associate Laurent with a physical body at all: you were always dealing with a mind.

Stirring drowsily, Laurent shifted a fraction closer and made a soft, unthinking sound of pleasure that Damen was going to remember for the rest of his life.

He wasn’t sure how it would be, but when Laurent saw who was beside him, he smiled, the expression a little shy but completely genuine. Damen, who hadn’t been expecting it, felt the single painful beat of his heart. He’d never thought Laurent could look like that at anyone. ‘It’s morning,’ said Laurent. ‘We slept?’ ‘We slept,’ said Damen. They were gazing at one another. He held himself still as Laurent reached out and touched the plane of his chest.

Damen found himself saying, ‘You talk the same in bed,’ and the words came out sounding like he felt: helplessly charmed. ‘Can you think of a better way of putting it?’ ‘I want you,’ said Damen.

Laurent shifted, just so. Damen buried his face in Laurent’s neck and groaned, and there was laughter too, and something akin to happiness that hurt as it pushed at the inside of his chest. ‘Stop it. You will not be able to walk,’ said Damen.