Harbor (On the Wind #3)

45. Orestes

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

ORESTES

F or just a moment, I thought I had lost everything. Tybalt went off the edge of the stone, and I didn’t even fight Eric as he screamed for guards, and the lot of them forced me to my knees.

All I could do was stare at the spot where the man I loved had disappeared. The center of my whole life.

He was gone, just like that, in an instant.

But then, over the lip of the stonework had soared a bird. It had landed on the edge of the space Tybalt had fallen from, dug its tiny claws into the stone, and trilled long and loud, as though offended.

I had known in an instant that it was Tybalt. It couldn’t be anyone else.

Tybalt was the tiniest bird I’d ever seen in my life. Smaller than a sparrow, just a little round ball of fluff with a bright gold crown on his head. I’d never seen the type of bird before, but it was perfect for him. Beautiful and small and loud, just like him.

And suddenly, I couldn’t stop smiling.

Tybalt was alive, and more than that, he was a bird.

Somehow, he’d already had Avianitis and survived it. He had only been mildly ill, and that only for a short time, but... well, Paris had survived the illness, and according to Killian’s letter, so had Hector and Helena. Perhaps the people of Urial were hardier than we’d given them credit for, and Tybalt was hardiest of all.

It didn’t much matter how or why, it only mattered that it was.

And that I could take him back to his bed and fuck him senseless without having to worry about killing him anymore.

So as the guards disappeared down the stairs with Eric in front of them, I grinned at Tybalt.

He grinned back, but I suspected it was the sheer rush of having turned and flown for the first time ever.

He looked dubious when I told him that his bird had been beautiful, so instead of arguing the point, I swept him up into my arms and determined to show him just how beautiful and perfect I thought he was.

We ran into only servants in the hall, and they knew well about us, so not a single one of them batted an eyelash at me carrying their prince back to his quarters. In fact, the young woman who started our fire in the morning grinned and winked at me.

“Should we go tell my father the game is up?” Tybalt asked, and his voice was... well, it wasn’t tremulous, precisely, but it was obvious that wasn’t his preferred course of action.

Who actually wanted to go confront one’s father, knowing that he was a monster? I was happy I would never have to see mine again, personally.

“Your father can wait,” I informed him, even as I turned down the hall to the royal wing of the castle.

That made him grin, all roguish and adorable. “Can he really? And, if I may be so bold, precisely what are we making him wait for?”

I pulled Tybalt tight against me as we reached the door to his quarters—our quarters—and I had to free a hand to open it. “We are making him wait because my love is a bird, and I need to fuck him into the mattress to remind him that I love him.”

Slamming the door behind me with a foot, I marched right into the bedroom and dropped him on the bed. “Because I love you, and if this doesn’t prove it, nothing can. I gave you Avianitis. You’re a bird now. And you’re mine.”

He shivered at the words, but the grin didn’t slip from his face for a moment. “Yours, is it? I thought you were protecting me so I could be king one day. The King of Urial can’t be with a man.”

“On the contrary, the King of Urial can clearly do whatever the fuck he wants. And since you got Avianitis, I’d say you want me, too.”

With that, he was breathless. Instead of immediately answering, he reached up and grabbed the front of my shirt, yanking me down toward him, pushing our lips together in a graceless smash that was all teeth and tongue. When he pulled away, letting himself fall back on the bed, he was panting outright, and his shoulders were shaking with laughter.

“An hour ago I’d have said you were insane, you know that?”

“I do. And now?”

“Now? I think you just might be right, Orestes the Eagle. I just might... love you.” Then his eyes widened. “And you... you love me. You actually do.”

I could have given him the old standby that I’d already told him so, but I understood. Words meant very little in Urial, this place where almost everyone lied about every little thing. Only now, only this, proved that I meant what I had said.

“I do,” I agreed. “I love you. And I’ll repeat it as often as you’d like. To anyone you want me to repeat it to.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “I must admit, I’d love to see how my father would react to that.” Then he pushed the edges of his borrowed cloak open and lay himself bare before me. “But not right now. Forget my father. Right now, I want you to prove again that you’re a man of your word, and fuck me into this mattress.”

I grinned back as I rounded the bed to snatch the bottle of oil we kept there, and without another word, opened the ties on my trousers to slick myself up for him.

His eyes twinkled with something between challenge and sheer joy. “Not going to spend an hour opening me up for you?”

Instead of answering, I leaned forward and captured his lips with my own, kissing him hard, thrusting my tongue into his mouth and tasting him. By the time I let him go, he was barely able to suck in enough breath, panting hard.

He didn’t give in, though. Never my Tybalt. No, he wrapped his legs around my waist and met my eye, unflinching. “Fuck me,” he forced out between harsh breaths. “Now.”

And who was I to turn down an order from my chosen prince?

I steadied my cock and thrust inside him. Not fast, to be certain I’d used enough oil, but once I slid inside him without pain or drag, I pulled back out and pressed in again, faster and faster as I went. My prince liked a good, hard fucking, and I was inclined to give him precisely what he wanted in that moment. Anything he wanted.

He fell back against the bed, only his legs wrapped around me, his hips moving in time with mine, leaning into each thrust as I fucked into him, his perfect face relaxed and open and so, so beautiful.

He was all I could see, all I could feel, and I wanted to keep that, keep this moment, forever.

“Say it again,” he whispered to me, opening his eyes to meet mine. “Say it.”

It didn’t take more than a second to know what he was talking about. He was worried, of course. Still half convinced this wasn’t real, because his life up till now had taught him that people used you for things. They didn’t ever truly—“I love you. Completely. I love you, Tybalt. Only you.”

He gave a little whimper and thrust up harder against me, tightening his thighs around my hips and throwing himself forward, his arms around my shoulders and his lips suddenly meeting mine in a rough kiss. Like he could drag the words out of my mouth. Taste them inside me.

I thrust into him again and again, his cock trapped between our bodies, and it only took a moment for him to stiffen against me, the wet warmth of his spend spilling between us as his ass tightened around my cock. It was almost too much, but no. I fucked him through his orgasm, determined to wring every last scrap of pleasure out of him.

Only when he fell back against the bed, looking half asleep and utterly blissful, did I let my strokes speed once more, searching out my own release.

That, I found the moment he looked hazily up into my eyes and smiled at me. “I love you too, you know.”

And I tumbled over the cliff at his side. Just as I would always do, forever.