Lor (Monstrous, #7)

by Lily Mayne

“I might take these chains off now.” Lor gave me a sly grin, darting up to kiss me again. “But I will wear them for you again.” “Yes please,” I said hoarsely, my cock stirring with renewed interest when I lifted myself off him and saw his lean body dripping in chains—and cum.

“I’ll bring you mint choc chip ice cream one day so you can try it.” His eyes brightened over the rim of his glass as he gulped his water. Pulling back with a sated gasp, he eagerly asked, “Is it green?” I burst out laughing. “It actually is, but it doesn’t taste anything like pistachio.” “I’m sure I’ll still like it.”

“How much longer can you stay?” “Ages,” I said without even checking my watch. Untying his robe, I slid my arms under the fabric to wrap them around him and pull him closer. Nuzzling his prominent collarbone, I breathed him in and let my eyes slide shut. I didn’t ever want to leave.

Over the past few weeks since that wonderful night, I had had some part of Jugs inside me almost every single night. His fingers, his cock. His tongue in my mouth, when we kissed for long, long moments. He’d even dipped the tip of his tongue into the tiny hole for my extrusion a few times, which always made me writhe and shake uncontrollably.

Jugs was always gentle with me—well, until he was buried deep inside me. Then the pleasure got too much, and he fucked me so hard and fast that I could do nothing but take it.

“I missed you today,” he mumbled, squeezing me tighter. The lantern almost clattered to the floor as my fingers twitched with the urge to clutch him closer. To ask him to stay with me for longer this time—not just a night. To stay for days. Weeks. To never go back.

Jugs’ throat bobbed several times as he looked at it in the mirror, before picking up his old hoop and turning to face me. “Will you… will you keep mine?” he asked shyly. “Yes,” I breathed, staring at it in his palm. “Please.”

I’d given it to Jugs this morning before he left, excitedly telling him that I would see him tonight in my room, adding that I would be most pleased if he was waiting for me—nude—in bed. He’d laughed and kissed me, murmuring, “Of course, Moric,” against my mouth, which had… for some strange reason, made my cock twitch.

He patted my cheek gently and smiled. “You look very handsome. Mama would be proud.” He said it every year, and it always made me flush with pleasure. “And you, Lyri.”

“Go,” he hissed now, shooting me a grin. “Go and kiss your Jugs.”

“Hi,” he said quietly, tangling his fingers through mine before I could lift my hand for a high-five. “You look—you look beautiful.” My ears twitched with pleasure, but I could only give him a brief smile before my gaze dropped back to his bare body. “So do you,” I croaked, resting my free hand on his chest and curling my fingers in the golden hair there.

The chains all tinkled together, sliding over my skin. His stiffening cock pressed into my belly, and his big, warm hands slid down my back to slip under the hem of my tunic, making me shiver as long fingers danced over my bare spine.

This was how I wanted every day to end—with me coming back to my once lonely quarters to spend my nights with him. To eat with him and bathe with him and share all the parts of me that I didn’t share with anyone else. The soft, secret parts that made me feel vulnerable. The parts that made me feel normal, not like a ruler with the weight of an entire fiefdom on my shoulders.

My eyes slid shut as I turned my head to nuzzle his cheek. I didn’t care about looking over my city. I wanted only to look at him, to drink him in while I had him here with me.

I shifted slightly and reached back to fumble for his cock. When my fingers wrapped around it, Jugs’ breath hitched, but before he could speak or move, I demurely asked, “What are cities in your world like?” He struggled to answer at first, fingers gripping me tighter as his breaths sped up. A secret smile tilted my lips as I stroked his cock slowly, lightly. In this moment, I felt… strangely powerful, in a way that I had never felt simply from being the Moric.

I had been told all my life that I was beautiful—that Lyri and I were perfect examples of vint royalty, delicately handsome with the noble features of our mother. But when Jugs said it, I truly felt it, like he was actually seeing me, Lor, not just my royal heritage and immaculate clothing and perfectly groomed hair. He thought I was beautiful as a person. And I thought the same of him.

“I want you too,” I panted desperately. Something in my chest broke open, and words started pouring from me, and I was helpless to stop them. “I want you too, more than anything. I miss you every moment you are not here. I dream of you after you leave. I spend my days wishing you were beside me, wishing that I could have you here with me always.” “Lor,” he croaked, fingers going still inside me as he pressed kisses all over my skin.

I grinned back at him, walking over when he beckoned me closer. And when he dropped to his knees and enveloped my relaxed cock in his mouth, making it start to twitch and fill rapidly, I forgot everything but the utter joy of being with him.

My hand drifted automatically up to my earlobe, fingers fiddling with Lor’s hoop. My eyes filled with tears again. I wanted to be with Lor. I wanted to curl up in bed with him and breathe in his scent and be with someone who… who loved me. We hadn’t said it, and maybe it was way too early, but… it felt like he loved me. I loved him.

I left the apartment and got into my car, not wanting to be here anymore. There was no point being here. Lor wasn’t here.

“I’m sorry, Lor.” She swallowed. “This… this is how it started with your mother.”

NO WHAT????

Utter hopelessness threatened to drown me. I pushed it back as I heard Jugs’ sweet laugh—weaker and threadier now—through the door. I couldn’t crumble completely. It wasn’t fair to Jugs. He was the one who was ill, not me. I wished it was me. I wished I could take this sickness from him and let it kill me instead.

Eventually, I turned and walked stiffly into the dining room to get Jugs’ water. My hands shook wildly as I tried to pick up the carafe, spilling it everywhere. I thumped it back down onto the sideboard as my chin started wobbling, sinking to my haunches and burying my face in my hands. Once I let myself start crying, I couldn’t stop. I wept into my hands, trying to stay silent so Lyri and Jugs wouldn’t hear from the bedroom.

I felt sick. I didn’t feel old enough or wise enough or strong enough to handle this situation correctly. I wanted to turn to my brother and have him hug me and tell me everything would be alright. I wanted Mama here to bundle me up in her arms, enveloping me in her long, flowy robes, and whisper that she would look after everything. But of course she couldn’t. She had been taken from us. And now Jugs was going to be taken from me too.

Like a fool, I’d let myself hope as I watched him step through the void and vanish, taking my heart with him.

He had apologised to me when it was my fault. Even if I wasn’t a carrier, I was still the reason Jugs was even here. In this world. I had exposed him to it. I was the reason he was going to die.

I had condemned Jugs to death. Beautiful, vibrant Jugs who was so young and so full of life and so brave.

I wanted to run away from it all, but I couldn’t. I was the Moric. I had to keep going for Jugs, for Lyri, for everyone here. For my mother.

“Talimuth said once saffin has been ingested for a while, the effects are irreversible,” Seis said quietly. “So it was probably already too late.” “And it is too late for Jugs,” I choked out, feeling Seis grab my arms to keep me upright as my knees buckled. “It’s too late for Jugs.”

“The throne would fall to the Verin if you died,” Lilimar said. “And this entire fiefdom knows that Lyri could never be controlled.” But I could. And I had. I’d never felt more weak and useless. Pathetic. I hung my head in shame.

Every morning after he had left, I returned to my chambers and cried. I prayed to the Mabs to save him. I asked them to take me instead. I swore that if he survived, I would let him live his life in peace in his own world, in case this was punishment for me giving my heart to an otherworlder. It would destroy me, but at least he would be alive. At least I would know that he was still out there, growing old and moving on, finding happiness with someone else. Alive.

I didn’t want to be here anymore. If I was going to die, I wanted to be with Lor. And if I had any hope of being cured, I needed to be there. Whatever was making me sick had come from his world, which meant any chance of a cure would be there too.

I wanted Raynir and whoever else was involved to be brought to justice while Jugs was still here. I wanted to tell him that I had achieved that much, at least, even if I had failed him in all other ways.

I already felt like a husk. Pretending that everything was fine when I was with Jugs was draining me, mentally and physically. But how could I complain? How dare I even think it? Jugs was dying. He was trying his hardest to forget that he had only weeks—days—to live. I couldn’t break down in front of him. I couldn’t be that selfish.

I lay awake beside him most nights, petrified that if I slept, he would be gone by morning.

When he reached for me at night, it was the only time he allowed a hint of his despair to show. In the trembling of his whole body. In the desperate way he kissed me and buried himself inside me. In the hitching breaths against my throat once our bodies began calming, as if he was barely holding himself together.

“She’ll find something,” I got out, even though I didn’t believe it either. “She will, Jugs.” He let out a low sob, but lifted his head to stare at me with tear-filled eyes. “She won’t. Not in time. I can feel it… I can feel something happening.” A tear rolled down his flushed cheek as his mouth trembled. “I’m scared, Lor.” “No,” I choked out, clutching his face.

“I love you,” he said tearfully. “I want you to be happy after this.” “I won’t be happy without you,” I sobbed. “I won’t be able to bear it.”

“You are everything to me. I won’t survive it, not as I am now. I won’t.” Releasing his hand, I splayed my trembling fingers over his chest. “My heart is in here now. Not with me. I will be empty without you.”

“Maybe I will be, in a way,” he croaked. “Maybe she had it right. Maybe I’ll still be watching over you in some way. Because I only want to be here, Lor.” He cupped my cheek, hand quaking. “Even if I wasn’t sick, I’d only want to be here. With you. I just… I w-wish we’d had a bit more time.”

“But it’s okay,” he continued, determination edging into his unsteady voice. “Life doesn’t always work out the way you want it to. But at least we had a little time together, right? At least… at least we managed to meet, against all the odds. I’d say we did pretty well.”

“I haven’t really achieved much, but making the decision to come back here, to meet you properly, is the thing I’m most proud of in my life,” he told me quietly. “I love you, Lor. I don’t regret any of it. And that… that helps. It helps me accept what”—his breath shuddered out of him—“what’s going to happen. It was all worth it. I love you.”

“And we still have a bit more time,” he said as he pulled back, smoothing my hair from my damp face. “Let’s do something fun tomorrow. Well, as fun as it can get in this room.” He chuckled. “We’ll do whatever you want,” I whispered, twining our fingers together on the pillow between us and kissing his knuckles. “Anything. We will spend the whole day together.” He smiled back drowsily, eyes already slipping shut, face lined with exhaustion after his emotional onslaught. “Sounds nice.” The next morning, he didn’t wake up.

I had already said my last words to Jugs. When the realisation hit me, I almost fell to my knees. Grief made it hard to breathe, my chest tightening and tightening until it felt like my ribs would burst through my skin.

“N-no—Wait—” I rushed forward. I hadn’t even got to touch him one last time. I just needed to touch him, while his skin was still warm, while his heart was still beating, no matter how slowly.

My earring winked in his ear, making a weak sob bubble up my throat. I pressed my fingertips to the glass, tears streaming down my cheeks. At least… at least a part of me was in there with him. I hoped he remembered, wherever his mind now was—if it was even awake enough to think. I hoped he knew how much he meant to me. How happy he had made me.

My gaze trailed over his golden hoop winking in my ear, then up to the ridiculous Moric beads braided into my hair. My hand tightened around the drying cloth. I hated them. They symbolised everything that had been taken from me. My life. My freedom. My mother. Jugs.

I was going to make Jugs proud of me, even if he wasn’t here to see it.

One year and three months.

HUH???????????

Then they continued west before descending into the Barren Valley, a cavernous crack in the flat lands. It wasn’t actually barren—plenty of plant life grew there—but most creatures and all people avoided it because of the old telyth who had lived there for eons, his nest buried deep in the rock.

HEY WYN