Harbor (On the Wind #3)

13. Orestes

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ORESTES

I took him five times over the afternoon and during the night, and each time, he was... so much. So sweet, molding himself against me, holding me tight and leaning into me, panting against my skin, always ready for more, even when all he could do was lay limp against me and whisper that he wanted me to stay inside him.

He didn’t talk much, not at all other than demanding more and harder and faster and again. And again.

It was understandable, though. The more I learned about Urial, the more it amazed me that he’d survived at all. Because as much as he tried to pretend to be the emotionless monster they seemed to want him to be, Tybalt wasn’t that.

He was soft. Not just his perfect, unblemished skin, which was softer than any I’d ever felt before. His heart was soft too, as much as he tried to hide it and pretend he was strong. Pretending that he had no emotions only made it even more obvious, in fact. The hurt inside him was all too familiar, and it called out to me like little else ever had.

He was one of a very special sort of men who felt everything, maybe too keenly. Like my friend Brett, who’d been horrified at my father’s death, even after the bastard had tried to kill him. Sure, he’d been more bothered on my behalf than my father’s, since I’d had to stand there and watch Minerva gut him in the middle of the street, but...

I liked Minerva. I loved Brett like the brother I’d never had. My father had tried to kill both of them, and would have continued trying if she hadn’t killed him. I had been more accepting of the outcome than Brett.

Of course I wished for a different father, the sort of man who wouldn’t try to kill people for power and land, but I’d never once wished for a different outcome than his death.

The curtains around Tybalt’s bed were yanked open, and I instinctively pulled him against me, ready to protect him from the prying eyes of whoever might invade his bedroom. I’d handle?—

It was the young woman who came and set the fire in my room every morning. Behind her, a fire danced merrily on the hearth. She paused for just a second to look at me, then continued, pulling the other sides open and tying them back with the gold cords hanging from each post of the bed. When a young man walked past the door in the parlor, she motioned to him. “Breakfast for three.”

He nodded to her, simple and efficient, not a jot of judgment on his face.

I glanced down at Tybalt, who was grumbling about the light, but not yet awake, so I took the opportunity to sit near the girl. “I have a question.”

She smiled at me, and I liked to think it was a friendly one, not the usual Urial patronizing rudeness. The palace servants had been kind to me, almost all of them, and I treated them with the respect they were due as human beings. “What can I help you with, my lord?”

“Do the people of Urial really think men aren’t allowed to have emotions?”

She blinked for a moment, then glanced over at Tybalt, and back to me. “That’s... it’s not exactly right. But it’s not far off. Powerful men aren’t supposed to have soft emotions. No love. No caring. Only anger. Resolve. Determination.”

Resolve and determination, while admirable, were not emotions to my mind. If the Urials thought they were, that might explain a lot. And anger? That was never admirable. It was understandable sometimes. I could be sympathetic to anger. But I would never see it as a goal.

“And in relationships? Are men allowed to love women? Each other?”

Her eyes widened, and she looked at Tybalt, who was sitting up, stretching. She shook her head, leaning toward me and lowering her voice. “Women love and nurture. Peasant men as well. Not lords.” She took a step back, looking into the other room and biting her lip. “It’s why I’m happy to be a peasant, milord. I’ll happily marry a man who can care for me.”

“Running off first thing in the morning, are you?” Tybalt asked me, voice still warm and sleepy, but there was an undeniable note of disappointment in his tone.

“Not in the least,” I denied. “Just asking the lass a question. She said they’re getting breakfast ready.” I turned and crawled back up the bed next to him, sitting down at his side and watching his profile. He was a beautiful man, with his strawberry hair and smooth skin. He had the lightest stubble, all that same reddish shade of his hair, and I wanted to scrape my hand against it, feel the only bit of roughness on the man. Well, the only bit other than the defensiveness his own people had trained into him.

“Breakfast sounds perfect,” he said, turning to fluff his pillows and leaning back into them, luxuriating in the moment. Then, he turned a wicked smile on me. I saw the mask overtake his face at the same time, and it made me unaccountably sad. “After that, you can fuck me again.”

I put more pillows next to his, leaning on them, but more into him. Reaching over, I ran my callused palm across his light stubble. It wasn’t rough, though. Somehow, just like the rest of him, it was silky soft and perfect. “As you wish,” I agreed.

Telling him that I liked his softness wouldn’t help. Or that I thought his emotions were normal and healthy and there was nothing at all wrong with him other than how his people had told him he needed to be. He’d only get defensive, and rightfully point out that my opinion didn’t matter because I was going to go home to Nemeda someday, and he’d still be there with all the people who told him he was wrong and broken.

I was just one man, and not the brightest one at that. I couldn’t change a whole country so they’d stop mistreating him.