Fic - Of Kings and Slaves Chapter 10
Title: Of Kings and Slaves AU - Chapter 10
Rating: Mature
Paring: OB/EW - AU
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: All made up :)
Beta: Many, many thanks to itstonedme *hearts*
Previous parts:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4.1
Part 4.2
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
“What are you doing out of bed??” Orlando asks when he enters their room and finds Elijah sitting in his chair before the fire. Elijah’s hair is wet, and he’s dressed in fresh bedclothes. It is only when he scans the room that Orlando spies the heavy tub sitting in the middle of the floor.
“I am well enough to get out of bed. Piper wanted to change the bedding, and I needed a bath.”
Indeed, Orlando can see that a healthy color has returned to Elijah’s cheeks and the spark is back in his blue eyes. But still, he worries, and his mouth forms a thin line. “You should be in bed.”
“I can’t stay there forever. I’m fine,” Elijah assures. “I wanted to get up.”
Orlando drops into the chair next to Elijah’s. “Have you eaten today?”
“Yes, Piper made sure I ate.” Elijah studies Orlando’s face. There are dark circles beneath his eyes and a weariness the likes of which he’s never seen before, even when they were traveling and Orlando had slept little. “Have you?”
“Not yet.” Orlando rests his face in his hand and closes his eyes. “But I will.”
There is a knock at the door, and Orlando lifts his head slowly. Piper stands in the doorway, two other servants behind him. “We’ve come for the bath, my lord.”
“Leave it, please,” Orlando requests softly.
“My lord?”
Elijah can see the surprise that flickers across Piper’s face. Courtesy has been so foreign from Orlando’s lips; he wonders when that word became part of Orlando’s vocabulary.
“Just leave it.” He massages the back of his neck. There is an ache that has settled in and made turning his head difficult. “I would bathe.”
“It’s cold, my lord. We’ll bring fresh water.”
Orlando sighs, more out of sheer exhaustion than anger, and nods.
“Would you bring something for him to eat, Piper?” Elijah asks. Piper bows and disappears with the servants in tow.
“You don’t need to worry about me. I’m capable of taking care of myself.” Orlando rolls his shoulders, trying to rid himself of the knot that has formed in his neck and right shoulder, but every time he turns his head a sharp pain nearly levels him. “The only thing you need do for me is continue to get well.”
“I am better,” Elijah assures. He has been well enough to manage getting in and out of bed on his own for the past three days. “You’ve been so busy taking care of my family. Let me do what I can for you.”
Orlando heels off his boots. He is beyond spent; this last week has been harder on him than any battle - little sleep and so much worry. He kicks his boots to the side and fixes Elijah with a look. “You know about that?”
Elijah nods.
“How?”
“Piper told me.” Elijah had woken late one evening after his fever broke. For the first time, Orlando had not been beside him upon waking, but he wasn’t alone. Piper was there, collecting the dirty cups and bowls. Elijah’s first question, after Piper made him take some tea, had been to ask after Orlando. He’d anticipated being told that Orlando had duties to attend. What he hadn’t expected was learning that Orlando was with his family at the end of the hall.
Piper continued that the rest of his family had taken sick, speaking in his calm voice, the cadence of which Elijah remembered from childhood when something important had to be relayed but was not meant to be alarming. Elijah had passed his fever to his mother and she, in turn, to the rest of his family. Orlando, Piper told him with restrained wonder, was helping to care for them.
“He shouldn’t have said anything,” Orlando frowns.
“I asked where you were. He had to tell me.” Elijah doesn’t, however, tell Orlando that he’d risen from bed then and unsteadily made his way down the hall. Through the open doorway, standing so that he might be unseen, he had looked into the room. The only light softly illuminating those within had been from the fire and two lamps, one near the children and the other by his parents’ bed. He can still envision Orlando, head resting upon the edge of the bed, Erica’s small hand within his own, both of them fast asleep.
Piper returns expediently, bearing a tray laden with food and accompanied by other servants with buckets to change the water.
Orlando watches Elijah eagerly begin eating, and the sight pleases him greatly. Elijah passes him a bowl filled with stewed rabbit and a chunk of bread. He’s almost too weary to eat but does so for Elijah.
“Your water is ready, my lord. Is there anything else you need?” Piper asks.
“Just …” He looks meaningfully at Piper.
“I will check on them, my lord,” Piper assures with a nod and most pleased expression.
Elijah is quick to set his bowl down. “I could help. Please.” He wants to see them, badly.
Orlando has not the strength or desire to deny Elijah anything. He nods and watches as Elijah follows Piper out the door. The bathwater is calling him.
*
The two little ones have recovered fastest, and they run and fling themselves into his arms. He kisses their cheeks as he hugs them close. “I missed you. How do you feel?”
“Better!” they chorus. He lifts them, one in each arm, though they’ve grown and it takes more effort now, and deposits them on the big bed where Evangeline and Eliza rest. Evangeline only manages a weak smile and limp wave, but Eliza sits up to hug him.
“Where’s Orlando?” Erica asks, jumping on the surface of the bed, which earns her a warning from Evangeline.
Elijah releases Eliza and turns to Erica; he is both shocked and pleased by her curiosity. “Do you wish to see him?” he asks.
“Yes,” she answers, blithely unaware of Elijah’s surprise. She bounces on the edge of the bed until Evangeline snaps at her to stop, yanking her down by her nightdress.
“I wasn’t doing anything!” Erica protests, pushing away her sister’s hand. Elijah laughs; how he has missed these things, even their bickering. Erica glares at Evangeline for a moment before seeming to remember her question. “Where is he?”
“Taking a much needed rest,” Elijah replies, brushing the hair from her face. “I’m surprised,” he confesses, smiling at her.
“Why?” she asks innocently.
“That you would ask to see him.”
“I am not afraid of him anymore,” she replies matter-of-factly as she starts to kick the mattress, eliciting a huff of annoyance from Evangeline.
Elijah stills his little sister’s kicking with a gentle hand on her knee. “Why not?”
She looks at him in wide-eyed disbelief, as if it should be clear to him without her saying why. He raises his brows encouragingly, and she rolls her eyes, exhaling loudly.
“Because he held my hand when I was scaredest, like you would have. I don’t think anyone who was all bad would do that, do you?”
Elijah looks into her solemn eyes and shakes his head. Orlando knows how much his family means to him. Orlando had risked his own health to care for first him and then his family.
“No one was more surprised than us,” Evangeline adds softly.
Elijah swallows hard, the lump in his throat rendering him speechless for a moment; nothing could mean more to him than this. He knew Orlando had this capacity in his heart and now those most important to him know as well.
“And he brought us this!” Erica exclaims gleefully as she slides off the bed. She runs to a familiar-looking box, the one that held the puppet. John’s party must have brought the box, for Orlando had left without it.
She brings Elijah the puppet, holding it by the wooden cross at the top, doing her best to carefully free the arm that has become entangled in the string. Once free, she dangles it before him. “He taught us how to make it dance.”
He watches as she tries to make it do a little jig but her little fingers are too unskilled.
“That’s not how he did it!” Eric insists as he tries to muscle Erica out of the way.
“He was better at it,” Erica says, shoving at her brother with her elbow.
“Don’t fight,” he tells them softly.
Evangeline props herself up on her elbow and watches her siblings play with the toy. “He was like another person,” she admits.
Elijah smiles at her. No, not another person, he wants to tell her, but the person Orlando has always been, the person he couldn’t be while trying to live in his father’s shadow. He feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up at his mother’s face. She touches his cheek and smiles.
“He loves you,” she says quietly. “He must, to have cared for your old, sick mother the way he did.”
In his heart, he knows this is true, but to hear her confirm it makes his own feelings for Orlando that much deeper, stronger. “You believe this?” he asks.
Necia’s hands cover his. “I know it. I saw it in his eyes when he thought he was going to lose you.” She brushes back his hair tenderly. “Only love holds that kind of desperation.”
From the other side of the room comes his father’s voice, “It could be used against him.”
Medias appears wan, but the edge in his voice indicates that he is on the mend. “What do you mean?” Elijah asks. He does not believe Orlando would ever use his love in such a fashion.
Medias glances at the puppet in Erica’s hand. “You have his heart. Why not his ear? You can control him, get him to do what you want.”
Elijah stares at his father in disbelief. He thought it was a warning for him to be on guard against what Orlando would use him for, not the other way around. “Would you do that to mother?”
Medias looks affronted, offended. “No, but your mother isn’t holding other people’s lives in her hands, your family’s lives.”
Elijah bows his head and stares at his mother’s hands. Orlando had feared this very thing …
“Come here, boy.”
Elijah rises and follows his father dutifully to the other side of the room. Media’s hand rests on his shoulder as heavy a weight as the eyes boring into his. “Your family is at risk, Elijah. Your mother may believe … what she wishes to believe, but…”
“You doubt her?” It would be the first time his father ever ignored Necia’s opinion.
A wince flickers across his father’s face. “No. I don’t doubt her. I’m only saying that we must take advantage of weakness where we can.”
“So love is weakness?” Elijah can’t keep the indignity from creeping into his voice.
Medias stares at him for the longest time, and Elijah watches as his father’s eyes soften. “You love him, too.”
Elijah feels his insides twist. A part of him knows that he is disappointing his father, but he recognizes that what his father says is true. “What you ask me to do is to deliver him his greatest fear.”
Medias studies him for a moment. “What do you mean?” Elijah can tell it is a reluctant question, and that his father probably does not wish to be dissuaded. For any other thing Elijah would do as he asked, but not this.
“Using love as leverage is the reason he has denied it, was taught to deny it. To them, to his father, love is a great weakness. Orlando was taught that love could be used against him and now that’s what you’re asking me to do.”
Medias is thoughtful. “Think of your sisters and your brother,” he implores.
Elijah sighs heavily. “It is a very great weapon, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“Love.” He looks into his father’s eyes. “You are trying to use it against me now … my love for my family. You are trying to use me.”
Medias bows his head; whether it is in frustration or defeat - or perhaps even shame - it is hard for Elijah to tell.
“He will keep you safe,” Elijah says. He knows this is true, that Orlando will protect them because they mean everything to him. That is the best he can ask for right now.
“It’s not him that I fear, Elijah.” Medias straightens. “Piper tells me what he sees and hears.”
“And what does Piper know?”
“That the king is not respected by his men. They turn to the other for their instructions; that they went behind Orlando’s back after he left with you. Had there been an order against us…” His father does not speak the rest, but Elijah knows what he is implying. Had John left an order for their death, the men would have followed through with it.
“He will keep us safe,” Elijah assures. He believes it. He knows it in his heart. “You have to trust me.”
Medias’ face betrays nothing in the end, and as Elijah walks the corridor back to his room, he worries again that he’s been a disappointment, a failure. He hopes that his father will see the truth in the course of time.
*
Orlando casts the pillow away irritably and tries to find a position that will allow him to lay on the bed comfortably. The warm water had helped some, but every time he so much as breathes, a sharp pain plagues him. He shifts again and hisses, opting to lie there with his face buried in the sheets for a moment.
“Your shoulder bothers you?”
Orlando lifts his head, trying to look at Elijah but stops, dropping his cheek to the linens. “A little,” he admits through clenched teeth. There is no need for Elijah to know how much.
He shifts again, but there’s still no relief. In fact, it is worsening and he gives up with a grunt, nearly face down in the clean sheets. He starts when the bed dips near his feet. He tries, once more, to lift head as Elijah climbs the length of him, Elijah’s thighs slipping around his, bunching the sheet. “What are you doing?”
“I thought I would see if I could make it feel any better.”
He shivers as Elijah’s humid breath puffs against his neck. He thinks he might regret choosing to lie on his stomach. He drops his head back to the sheets and winces. “You needn’t…”
“It’s bothering you, isn’t it?” Elijah interrupts, staring at Orlando’s shoulders, his back, all that smooth golden skin that he very much desires to touch.
Orlando grinds his teeth as Elijah leans to the left; the bed dips, rolling him a bit and causing another sharp stab of pain. It’s only when Elijah rights himself that he can breathe again.
“Yes, it bothers me, but it need not concern you.” The last word escapes on a sigh as Elijah’s warm, slick fingers mold themselves against his neck, smearing oil infused with sandalwood and rosehips across his shoulders.
Elijah presses his thumbs gently into Orlando’s skin and smiles as Orlando moans into his pillow. “My family need not have concerned you, yet you took care of them. Consider this... a thank you.”
“It’s not n-needed,” Orlando stutters as Elijah’s fingers find the spot where the ache has settled deepest; the light press of fingers against it robs him of his breath for a moment.
“Not needed, or not wanted?”
“You don’t need to do this for me,” Orlando answers, even though he thinks that if Elijah were to stop now he’d be forced to beg him to resume.
“I know I don’t need to do this. I’m doing it because I want to. You did something that means a great deal to me, and I only wish to show my gratitude.” Elijah leans forward, his fingers slipping against Orlando’s skin until his lips hover just above Orlando’s ear and the dark curls tickle his lips. “You took care of me when I was sick,” he whispers. “Let me do the same for you.”
As much as Orlando would like to accept all the credit, he knows that he can’t. Elijah’s gratitude doesn’t belong to him. “It wasn’t me, Elijah, it was your mother.”
Elijah smiles; Piper had told him Orlando had called his mother, but only that one night, only at a most desperate hour. “Not all her,” Elijah says softly as he rights himself and continues to move his fingers over Orlando’s shoulders. “I remember your cool hands on my forehead.” It was a touch that had brought so much relief. “And there was a time when my head was in your lap.” It’s a fuzzy memory, more dream-like than real, but still, Orlando had been there.
“It was necessary.” Orlando immediately regrets his tone and choice of words. He fears he’ll forever be fighting the man his father raised.
“It wasn’t. You could have left Piper to look after me.”
That is true. He defied John’s direct orders.
“Why did you stay when it wasn’t necessary?”
“You know why,” Orlando murmurs.
“Then you know why I’m doing this for you.”
“I don’t deserve it, Elijah. I’ve…” He catches himself about to apologize for who he’s been, and what he’s done.
“Do you want me to stop?” Elijah asks as he smoothes his hands over Orlando’s shoulders, pressing with his palms until Orlando sighs ‘no’.
Elijah smiles and runs the tips of his slick fingers along Orlando’s spine, watching as the oil leaves a glistening trail in the flickering candlelight. He splays his hands against Orlando’s lower back, his hands spanning the width of Orlando’s narrow waist.
He hasn’t done anything more than touch, yet Elijah finds he can barely catch his breath, and he’s aching with desire to do more. Orlando’s skin is fever-hot; he can feel the bundled muscles beneath as he leisurely pushes his hands up Orlando’s back. He leans in, using his weight and the heels of his palms, and Orlando groans again. He doesn’t stop until his fingers sink into the curves on either side of Orlando’s neck, and he dips forward, his nose all but buried in Orlando’s drying curls. When he closes his eyes, all he can smell is the sweet, clean scent of Orlando’s skin and heady perfume of oil.
He’s never felt this kind of hunger before, perhaps because he was never hungry. But right now he feels starved of Orlando even though he’s right here, beneath his hands, beneath his lips.
Orlando shivers against the soft, humid touch of lips clinging at his nape. He wants what Elijah offers, but not as payment. What he did was out of love; it wasn’t a service rendered. “You can stop now.”
“Is it better?” Elijah lifts his head so that he can see Orlando’s face. The cut is still a dark and ugly mark on Orlando’s cheek; he’s afraid it will scar, not because it would make Orlando displeasing to the eye for it would take much more than an ugly wound to do that, but because it will be a permanent mark of his father’s abuse.
“Yes,” Orlando lies.
“Move your shoulder.”
“Giving me commands now?”
Orlando’s voice is muffled; it has lost its edge, and it is clear that Orlando doesn’t really mind. But Elijah notices that Orlando doesn’t even try to move. “Why won’t you let me help you?”
“I don’t want you to feel that you owe me this... kindness. What I did, I did for selfish reasons. I tended you because...” He swallows hard, afraid to say it, but it’s foolish to not speak now when he’s admitted so much more already. “I couldn’t live without you. I took care of your family because I could not have faced you if something had happened to them and I, had I stood by idle.”
Elijah presses his thumbs in deep at the base of Orlando’s neck, moving them fluidly along Orlando’s shoulders. He knows that Orlando has spoken the truth such as he understands it, but Elijah sees both - the selfish and the selfless. He realizes that Orlando’s never had a family to love and care for. The idea is foreign to him, that one could love others so much. But he’s learning.
“Thank you,” Elijah says softly.
“It that what this is then? Your thanks?” Orlando’s frustration simmers beneath the surface. He wants more than gratitude but knows he’s not entitled. “I don’t want what you think you owe me.”
“If I didn’t want to do this, I wouldn’t,” Elijah returns simply.
“But you’re only doing this because you think I saved your family, when it wasn’t me at all. What good did I do for them?”
“You made one little girl less afraid,” he answers softly. Orlando snuffles into the pillow, saying something Elijah cannot hear. “What was that?”
“I told her… to keep it secret.”
Elijah laughs. “Then you ought not trust your secrets to a five year old.”
“I see that,” Orlando groans. She had been so frightened at first, but the moment he took up her hand - it had been so small in his - the fear seemed to leave her eyes. It was something he’d never been responsible for before - comfort, peace, whatever name it went by - and it had made him feel… good. There had been no need for it other than that feeling in his heart. Is it possible that Elijah feels the same now?
“I want to do this for you,” Elijah sighs.
Orlando lets go. Every thought, every argument leaves his head as gently pressing fingers find the knots beneath his skin, and after a time he finds that he can lift his head with only the faintest twinges to remind him of how he came to rest beneath Elijah’s hands.
“Better?” Elijah asks. This time Orlando’s nod is both answer and proof that it is true. Elijah pours more oil across his fingers; they tingle now from moving constantly over Orlando’s skin, warm and buzzing as he traces the gentle arc of Orlando’s shoulders to the shallow dip of spine, to the narrow waist he straddles, leaving small drops of oil behind.
Orlando lies perfectly still, waiting to see what Elijah will do, what touch Elijah wishes to give him now. He is not patient.
Elijah knees his way backward until he’s straddling Orlando’s thighs; he works his fingers against the small of Orlando’s back before dragging them over the gentle curve of his buttocks and the tight muscles of rock hard thighs. “Does it feel good? You haven’t said.”
When Orlando doesn’t respond he looks up to see if he’s put his king to sleep, but Orlando’s eyes are open, his lips parted. Elijah’s fingers drift upwards, along the insides of Orlando’s thighs. Orlando flinches.
“You need to stop.”
Elijah pauses, his fingertips resting on heated skin. “Why?”
“Because of what you’re doing - what your touch does to me,” Orlando replies hastily as he attempts to roll onto his hip and shift Elijah off.
Elijah presses Orlando’s shoulder to still him. He finds Orlando’s reaction strange and his own reaction even stranger. He’s been given the opportunity to stop, only to find that he doesn’t want to.
“Don’t you want me?”
Orlando tucks his face into his arm and says nothing.
“I would know what you desire, my lord.”
Words Orlando never thought to utter fall from his lips. “I want what you want.”
Elijah sits, stunned into stillness. He wonders if he’s still in the grips of the fever and dreaming all of this. How much of a disappointment it would be to wake right now.
“It’s better now. My neck,” Orlando says to break the growing silence as he curls one hand beneath his chin. He made promises to Elijah and the gods - promises that he might change if given the opportunity - but the time has come and he must prove himself. He’ll start with something that’s nearly unbearable now - letting Elijah decide what he wants.
Orlando feels Elijah shift a bit and his heart catches a little, for he fears Elijah will move away. But Elijah’s thighs remain pressed against his own.
Elijah watches as Orlando’s eyes squeeze shut; he keeps careful watch on that face as he drags two fingertips along the rough skin of Orlando’s balls, the smooth skin behind them, skimming the crease lightly and smiling to himself as those dark eyes widen.
“Will you turn over now?” Elijah asks.
Orlando shifts to one elbow and twists to look over his shoulder, a testament to Elijah’s healing touch. “What for?” If he turns over, his own desires will be most evident, and, he’s afraid, uncontrollable.
“It’s what I want.”
Orlando can see it - the honest truth - in those blue eyes, and he can see the desire there, the want. He should know it well. He’d felt it from the very moment he’d see Elijah sitting at the foot of the bed - his gift - pale and frightened and beyond beautiful. He’d taken Elijah because he was supposed to. And Elijah had accepted him, lain under him, and each time had been better than the last, at least on his part, but it had never been Elijah’s choice. ‘The choice between nothing and nothing is nothing’; Elijah’s words haunt him.
“Let me up.”
Elijah rises on his knees, giving Orlando enough room to turn onto his back, but when Orlando starts to push with his feet as if to scramble away, he puts out a hand. “Where do you go? I only asked you to turn over, not get up.”
Orlando falls back against the pillows and looks away. He can’t even dare look at Elijah now.
“Perhaps I should ask of you - what do you want? Not what your father would expect you to want, or John, just you. What do you want?” He clasps Orlando’s face between his hands and stares into Orlando’s eyes.
“I…want…” Orlando begins desperately, but the words collect in his burning throat.
“What does the man who marked me as beautiful want?”
Orlando follows Elijah’s downcast eyes; watches as Elijah unknots the ties at his waist and pushes the material down to reveal the dark letters etched on pale skin. The mark glistens with the oil from Elijah’s fingertips.
“Charlie told you.”
Elijah nods. “I know that it means beautiful, not slave, but I don’t understand why.”
The leggings slip lower to reveal the dusky form of Elijah’s hard sex. Orlando’s eyes slowly move up Elijah’s body, while his hands reach out and follow. He looks into blue eyes and feels his entire being catch the same way it did that moment he first saw Elijah. “Because you are.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
The movement of Elijah’s shoulder catches his eye and Orlando watches, with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, as Elijah begins to stroke himself. Elijah’s cock glistens with the oil and pearlescent fluid seeping from the tip.
“Tell me what you want,” Elijah demands in a whisper.
Orlando gently pushes Elijah’s hand aside. He can’t think while Elijah is touching himself, or rather, it changes his answer and that’s not what he wants - what he wants is to answer Elijah’s question.
“I just want…” Orlando swallows hard. “I want you to love me.”
“I do. I am. I would if you let me.” A frown line appears between Orlando’s brows. Elijah stands on the bedding to rid himself of his leggings and falls heavily back to his knees, both hands on either side of Orlando’s neck so that the gentle pressure of his fingertips tilts Orlando’s face.
Elijah’s lips are insistent and hungry against his own. He doesn’t reach for Elijah, but lets his mouth fall open in eager invitation. His eyes close, and he pushes his chest against the slick slide of Elijah’s hands. Elijah’s touch is maddening.
It is as gentle as it is demanding.
Elijah’s touch is love.
There is only the faintest residue of oil on Elijah’s fingers by the time he reaches Orlando’s belly so he pauses, pouring more into the well of his palm and spreading it liberally between both hands before moving on. He traces Orlando’s mark and makes the dark sun shine more brightly.
The throaty moan that escapes as he curls his fingers tightly around Orlando’s cock nearly undoes him. He pushes Orlando back into the bedding, squeezing the oil along Orlando’s length until he’s sure just a little more pressure will make Orlando come. He stops, not wanting to drive Orlando to release too soon, and pushes his hand down to cup Orlando’s balls.
Orlando is watching him, his eyes the merest slits. He gives the tight skin in his palm a gentle squeeze, thrills at the sound of Orlando’s breathy gasp, before slipping his finger boldly between Orlando’s cheeks.
He is waiting for the moment when Orlando commands him to stop, but that moment never comes. His heart is beating wildly as his finger presses at Orlando’s opening; he watches the body before him twitch and then arch.
“Do it, if it pleases you,” Orlando says, still watching him through heavy lids. “I am yours.”
I am yours. There is no master now; no slave. And oh, it would please him. He presses the tip of his finger inside. Orlando’s body is prison tight, gripping and squeezing, and Elijah wonders how it will feel when it’s more than just his fingers.
Orlando holds his breath. Elijah’s touch is hesitant and inexperienced. “Deeper,” he urges against the darkness, his eyes slipping shut again.
Elijah complies, exploring tentatively; he twists his finger, running it experimentally over a soft knot of flesh. His eyes flick to Orlando’s face as a hiss escapes between barely parted lips.
“Did I…?”
Orlando’s wraps his hand around Elijah’s wrist, preventing him from drawing away. “Don’t stop,” he begs as he pushes Elijah in deeper. “Please, don’t stop.”
Elijah drops forward, bracing himself on one hand, seeking Orlando’s mouth. He moans as Orlando’s fingers thread through his hair, holding his head so that their disjointed kiss flows into to something deeper, something he still can’t quite get enough of. More, he wants more.
“No,” he protests as Orlando pulls his head back. He struggles to return to those lips.
“I want you inside me,” Orlando pants. “Want you.”
Elijah kneels back, his chest heaving, trying to keep up with his need for air. That’s the more he wanted, needed. He grabs his cock with fingers still warm from Orlando’s body, feels the rough slide of Orlando’s legs as they curl around his hips and draw him forward.
Elijah mewls softly as he strains forward, the sensitive tip of his cock sliding along Orlando’s skin until he’s nestled against that tightly puckered ring. He can feel the press of Orlando’s foot, and his own need urges him on until he’s sinking inside. All is tight and heat and breath-robbing pleasure.
Orlando gasps and lets Elijah take his time, but it’s so hard when Elijah makes those wanton little sounds that tell him Elijah might just break at any moment. He pulls Elijah’s head down and kisses him thoroughly, the press of Elijah’s cock against his prostate a maddening tease.
“Please, ‘Lijah,” he begs as Elijah starts to withdraw, “you won’t hurt me. Harder.”
Elijah tries to do what Orlando wants, but with each short snap of his hips he’s drawn ever closer to the moment when he won’t be able to hold back his release. “I can’t.” His answer is more like a plea as he stops, leaning back on his heels, holding onto Orlando’s knee like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to this earth, and it might very well be.
“I’m sorry,” Elijah whispers as he reaches for Orlando’s cock, runs his hand over the length of it, feels the heat and heaviness of it beneath his palm; he squeezes and wonders if his grip is as tight as the body he’s sheathed in.
“No. No apologies,” Orlando smiles; he can’t have Elijah apologizing for something that feels so good. He also can’t allow Elijah to stop fucking him either; he reaches for Elijah’s hips, arches his back, and forces Elijah deeper, takes until they are completely joined, no separation between them. Elijah possesses him utterly, each thrust building the most pleasurable ache, and each twisting squeeze of Elijah’s hand doubles the effect.
Elijah crushes his mouth to Orlando’s, but the kiss is as broken as his stuttering rhythm. He jams his hand between their bodies and curls his fingers around the base of his cock in a last-ditch attempt to stave off his orgasm. He wants to linger in this place where every inch of him feels on fire.
“Elijah.” It’s a demand, a prayer, a whisper as he bucks against Elijah’s hand and clenches around Elijah’s cock. “Please.”
Elijah hasn’t the control or strength to deny Orlando. His breath sobs out of him as he jerks Orlando’s cock, twisting, squeezing, pulling in a frenzy until he feels the skin jerk beneath his fingers and Orlando’s release lands in silky white stripes against his belly.
There are no words to describe the shock he feels as Orlando’s hand pushes squarely against his chest, pushing him to his back so quickly that he can’t even voice a protest; the strangled noise he makes doesn’t do it justice. He’s so close, his entire body tingling from it; he doesn’t understand why Orlando’s doing this.
Orlando sees the wounded look in Elijah’s eyes. He’s so used to just doing that he hadn’t thought. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I didn’t warn you. You’ll have to forgive me and bear with me while I learn.”
Elijah hiccups a breath as Orlando straddles him. He watches Orlando twist, in all his long, lean glory, and gasps as Orlando cups his balls, kneading them until the desperation comes back and he’s mewling for more. He reaches for his shaft and lifts it into position.
Elijah arches eagerly, needing this like air, craving the friction that he thinks he’ll die without. Orlando sinks onto him with agonizing slowness; the weight of Orlando’s body keeps him pinned, aching, buried. He needs to move; his fingers dig into Orlando’s ass.
Orlando flexes his thighs and lets Elijah guide him with a pinching roughness. It feels so good, not just the feel of Elijah’s cock, but the possessiveness of it. Elijah’s in him; not just in his heart, but in his body.
Elijah fights his orgasm again, wanting it to last so much longer, but he can’t fight forever. He jerks upward one last time and holds Orlando’s body to him as he comes with a soft cry.
He can feel Orlando’s lips on his sweaty forehead, his eyelids and cheeks, such tender touches - gestures of love that he never expected. “Your first time?” he slurs.
“No,” Orlando answers honestly, “but the other was just an experiment.”
Elijah’s softening cock slips from his body as he rises and pads to the basin of water where he retrieves a damp cloth. He cleans them both in silence and blows out the lamps before returning to the bed. “I wished to know what it was like,” he explains simply as he gathers Elijah close, pressing his nose against his temple.
“Was it Eric?”
“No.”
Elijah can hear the regret in Orlando’s reply. He wonders what would have been if Eric had lived. “You loved him.”
“I don’t know.” It’s hard to sort out now, hard to recapture what he had felt for Eric while he holds Elijah in his arms. He thinks it was love, but it was nothing like this. “I was very young.”
“Had he lived … you would have killed me.”
Orlando stares into the darkness. He doesn’t wish to dwell on such things - on what might have been. He has chosen another path, one that keeps diverging from his father’s wishes. “I cannot say, Elijah. I doubt my father or John would have allowed us what we felt. I may have ended up with three against me instead of only two.”
“I don’t understand your father’s fears.”
“Think of your story, Elijah, think of Absalom and everything he gave up, and then you’ll see why my father’s afraid.” Orlando fears are not so different - he has already felt it - already made a promise to himself that he would never let them take Elijah from him without a battle.
“With great love comes great strength…” Elijah says.
“Absalom gave up everything…”
“For the one thing greater than all others,” Elijah argues.
“How do you believe that’s so? How can you say love is greater than his wealth and kingdom?”
“Those are just things, Orlando. Does this castle make you happy? Does its wealth?”
Orlando lies quietly considering the answer. If this castle were gone tomorrow, if the gold were gone, would he be a changed man? He thinks not. But what if Elijah were gone? It is not the building that brings him contentment, but the young man within it.
“I have lost what you say I should value,” Elijah says. This kingdom is no longer mine, nor the finery in it, but I have what matters to me most - my family.”
“It doesn’t matter then? That your title is gone? Your power, your wealth?”
“Those are just things, Orlando, physical comforts. They can be replaced, but I cannot replace those I love. So long as I have them, I will be strong and happy.”
“Even if you had to give up everything?”
“I already have.”
Perhaps Elijah’s words aren’t meant to sting, but they do. It forms a revelation in his mind that he is afraid to face. “You … are only willing with me because of them?”
“I was.”
“Was?” Orlando repeats the word heavily. “What do you mean?”
“Surely you know what I meant by it.”
“I would like you to explain it to me.”
“There are times when I would like someone to explain it to me,” Elijah says as he studies the soft glint of firelight reflecting in Orlando’s eyes. “In the beginning, I did what I had to do to keep my family alive; that was all. You were cold and you were cruel, and I suffered you because I love them.”
Orlando can only see that at the moment Elijah is proving his point - that love is a detriment.
“But you were not always cruel and your heart was good, though you didn’t know how to use it.”
“How did you know?”
“Your muddled attempts to help my people to start rebuilding, the way you listened to me, and your nightmares. I came to realize it even more when you ignored John’s warnings, and further still when we were at your uncle’s. Your choices regarding me told me what your words did not.”
“So, you are using my weakness against me?” Orlando asks soberly.
“Weakness?
“My love for you.” It seems inevitable that his father would be right. He feels Elijah’s fingers on his face and their foreheads press together as Elijah leans forward.
“Love is not weakness. I have asked you for nothing and I…” Elijah feels a finger press gently against his lips.
“Save your arguments, Elijah, for I am already lost.”
“Lost is the last thing I wish you to feel,” Elijah says as he takes Orlando’s hand in his own.
“Will you forgive me my ill-chosen words? I do not feel lost at all, lost in you perhaps, but with you I feel as if…”
“As if what?”
“I am home.” He realizes now that he felt that way the whole nightmarish trip back to his father. He had not been returning home, for his home was in Elijah’s arms. As if Elijah knew this was the case, his arms creep around to hold him.
“I was thinking of moving your siblings back to their own rooms. Do you think they would like that?”
Elijah coils one silky curl around his finger, smiling in the dark. He knows they would love it, but he wants the discovery of it to belong to Orlando and so he replies, “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask them.”
*
Orlando wakes to a soft sound. It’s later than usual, judging by the brilliant sunlight flooding the room. He looks down and nuzzles Elijah’s messy locks. He thought it was Elijah who had made a noise, but he can tell by the heavy weight and even breaths gusting against his neck that Elijah’s still asleep.
He hears the noise again, a quiet throat clearing from the doorway, and finds Piper standing there.
“What is it?” he asks as quietly as possible, not wanting to wake Elijah.
“John, my lord. He’s requesting your presence.”
Orlando exhales loudly and rubs his eyes. He’s not ready to have the argument that John so surely craves. He carefully extracts himself from beneath Elijah and swings his legs over the edge of the bed; he sits there for a moment before rising reluctantly and beginning to dress. “Tell him I will be but a few moments, and bring Elijah some breakfast. Make sure he eats.”
“I will and I always do, my lord.” Piper answers softly.
“I know and I thank you.” He can read the surprised but pleased expression on Piper’s face. He finds it strange that such a little thing as saying thank you could make him feel this good; it’s not the words so much as the feeling it obviously creates in the other person, and he quite likes it.
“Would you like me to bring you something?”
Orlando smiles ruefully and shakes his head. “I wouldn’t want to keep John waiting.”
“Very good, my lord,” Piper says as he disappears.
Orlando dresses quietly. He’s a little tender, but his neck and shoulder are blessedly loose; it’s something to be thankful for as he straps on his dagger and sword. He leans over and presses a kiss to Elijah’s blessedly cool forehead.
He slips from the room and is about to descend the stairs when he stops before the door at the end of the hall. He’s about to rap and seek permission to enter when he catches the eye of the sleepy guard on the landing. Piper must have woken him. The guard would judge him for requesting entrance in his own castle and he knows until such time as John’s treachery is dealt with he needs not feed them any further reasons to disrespect him.
He pushes the door open and, to his credit, his presence does not now throw the family into complete turmoil. He finds Erica still in her night dress, trying to make the puppet dance. The moment she sees him, she smiles and asks him to do it.
“I can’t right now,” he tells her as he crouches low.
“Why not?” She holds it out to him hopefully.
“I have somewhere to be.”
“Where’s Elijah?” Eric asks.
“Sleeping, but I’m sure when he wakes he’ll come see you.”
“Elijah’s not very good at it either!” Erica scoffs at her brother.
“I wanted to ask you all a question,” Orlando says loudly as he tries to get their attention before a quarrel erupts. They pause and look up at him. “I wanted to know what you thought of returning to your own rooms?”
They look completely surprised, especially Evangeline and Eliza.
“Your parents would stay here for now, but you would have your own rooms again.”
“You want to separate us?” Evangeline gives him a suspicious look.
Orlando stands, giving her an apologetic smile. “I suppose I deserve that. I haven’t earned your trust yet, but I intend to.” He takes a deep breath. “You don’t have to leave her if you don’t feel comfortable. I just thought you might want to return to your rooms again.” He sees them look uncertainly at one another. “You can think about it and let me know later.”
He turns to Medias and Necia. “There would still be a guard, but they would have free access to this floor.” They say nothing in response, as he expected. “I’ll return later for your answer.”
*
He finds John waiting for him in his private chambers. He hasn’t been here in weeks, and it seems that John has quite comfortably taken up residence.
“What is it?” he snaps as he begins to lift letters from the table, all of them written his father’s hand. When John says nothing he looks up. “I understand you wished to see me.” He doesn’t appreciate being pulled from Elijah’s arms only to deal with sullen power games.
“Someone should see to you.”
“What do you want?” Orlando asks darkly. John is standing by the fireplace, much like he had in his father’s room, except this time he’s studying the flex of his hand as it curls into a fist - hand to fist, hand to fist, as if it’s the most fascinating thing in the world.
“It would have been better for you if you had just let him die.”
Orlando’s lip curls into a snarl. “My business is my own.”
“Oh, but I do forget that the boy holds you as his a slave,” John sneers, ignoring him completely.
“He doesn’t. He was sick.”
“And you would tend all your ill slaves with such devotion? You would give up your bed for them and risk contaminating yourself? I’m sure there are ill slaves all about the place now; shall I have them brought to you?”
“That’s enough,” Orlando warns.
“It seems that your father and I have been trying to tell you the same thing and yet you don’t listen.”
Orlando tries to tamp down the rage. He’d allowed both of them to work him into a frenzy the last time, the consequences of which had nearly cost Elijah his life, and he will not allow it to happen again. “I will live my life as I choose,” he says evenly.
“Everything you have, you owe to your father. Your life belongs to him, and you need to comport yourself as he sees fit. He does not sanction your favoritism of a slave. You shame him! You have always been an embarrassment, weak…”
“Are you done?” Orlando explodes.
John rounds on him, his jaw pushed out angrily. “You will never be the man your father is. You will never be as I am or what my son would have been.”
Orlando shakes with unspent rage. John, as expected, presses his words into old wounds and tears them open, but two can play at that. “The fact remains that your son is dead.”
The wince that darts across John’s face isn’t nearly enough. “Your son loved me. Did you know that?” Orlando stares hard at John. “You must have,” Orlando answers his own question. “That’s why you hate me. Because he loved me and not you!”
John has a heavy hand, just like his father, and Orlando feels the pain blossom in his cheek made worse by the cut still healing.
“Never speak of this to me again! He would never have loved such a spineless thing as you!”
Orlando smiles as he looks at the blood on his fingertips; the wound must have re-opened, but it doesn’t matter. His victory is internal; he is vindicated by the fact that he knows better than John. He knows the truth.
“I don’t owe you a choice,” John growls, “but I’ll give you one now.”
“Oh? You’re giving me a choice? How generous,” Orlando seethes.
“You will think that I am.”
Orlando laughs in John’s face. “This is my kingdom.”
“The boy or his family.”
Orlando wipes blood from his cheek and flicks the droplets to the floor. He searches for a cloth, but there isn’t one, so he uses the sleeve of his shirt, while he stares dully at John, waiting for him to continue.
“You chose who lives, Orlando. The boy or his family.”
“You’ll force no such choice on me.” Orlando doesn’t run as John charges forward; he feels the bite of John’s fingers into his nape.
“You will choose and choose now.”
“Fuck you,” Orlando says as he snaps his head back and reaches for John’s jaw, digging his fingers into the chiseled flesh. “You will leave them alone. I am the ruler here.”
“You are nothing but a figurehead here, boy.” John pries Orlando’s fingers away, bending them back so far he could break them with just a little more force. “Who would help you stop me? Who will step up to have your back? The guards? Do you think they’re yours? Your father gave me permission to deal with this situation as I see fit. Things never should have come to this.”
“You will not touch them.”
“Choose.”
“You won’t kill them, John. It would be madness; you would start a riot among the people.” Orlando feels a sinking in the pit of his gut, knowing that is something John would love.
John all but laughs in his face. “Yes, those remaining defenseless, unarmed men, women and children are completely terrifying to me.”
“They should be. I would let them know it was you.” This time he does step away and deftly avoids John’s lunge. He draws his sword to John’s throat.
“Guards!” John shouts merrily.
Orlando turns as the door is thrown open and two guards enter with weapons drawn. But their weapons are not at his defense.
“You see, Orlando? You see who this army supports? With a word, I could send them up the stairs. One word, and I could chose for you. Perhaps you would find that easier,” John says, straightening up. “Would you rather I choose because you cannot?”
“There will be none of this! Elijah is mine; his family is mine.” He is so angry that he can barely spit the words out. “My father…”
“Are you daft, boy? Your father has already given me permission. He told you how to rectify your situation; fate gave you a chance as well, and yet you still did what you wanted.”
“I am king here!” Orlando shouts, enraged.
“You are nothing here!” John’s face is dark as thunder and his eyes burn with that familiar hatred. “You took everything from me; don’t think I’ll have any conscience about taking everything from you. Choose!”
Orlando stands there shaking with rage, the weapons of his own guards pointed at his back. He wants to tell John to just get it over with, kill him and be done with it, knowing that is what John truly wants, but it wouldn’t spare Elijah or his family in the end and he’d be a fool to think John wouldn’t want to watch him suffer first.
“I will not allow you to kill them.”
“Then we must reach another compromise.” John appears to pause thoughtfully, but Orlando thinks that John already has a plan in mind, and indeed the speed with which he lays it out confirms this suspicion.
“You will choose between them, decide between Elijah and his family, but instead of death we shall offer them as a gift to the northern adversaries.”
“Gift?” Orlando scoffs, knowing that this is just an elaborate plan for John to get what he wants without any blood on his hands. “What are you talking about?”
“A gift,” John repeats, “an act of generosity on our part, a peace offering.”
“Peace offering? You’re mad,” Orlando laughs bitterly. “How long before my father wants their lands, too? You think that a gift would help them turn a blind eye to our advance?” But he can tell from the smile on John’s face that that is not the point.
“That is your choice then, the family?”
“No,” Orlando snaps. “What would they want with an old king and his family? This is foolishness.”
“I’m sure they would make an example of their enemy, and I’m certain they would find a use for the daughters.”
“Bastard.” Orlando whispers in shock and disgust. “You sick bastard.” His voice gains resonance as the shock wears off and the anger takes over. He steps forward, fingers curling around the hilt of his sword, but stops as two blades appear at the periphery of his vision.
“Choose then. If you don’t want me to send the family, simply tell me and I’ll send the boy. Put away your sword.”
Orlando slowly sheathes his sword. If he dies here and now, so will Elijah.
“Very wise. Now, which is it?”
Orlando feels his stomach turn. One day, he will make John pay. There will come a moment when John’s guard is down, and then Orlando will exact his retribution.
“Well?” John presses impatiently.
“The family.” Orlando is sickened by his words, but somehow, some way, he will prevent this from happening. He will not let any harm come to Elijah’s family.
John nods, satisfied. “The family it is then. I should tell you how little your decision surprises me.”
Orlando says nothing, his mind already turning over one plan and then another. He turns slightly at the sound of a rap on the door, and a chill spreads through his gut at the smug grin spreading across John’s face.
“Enter.” Their voices echo together in the room. John merely shakes his head in a dismissive way, and Orlando realizes that he’s been usurped.
Elijah is standing there when the door swings open; the guard gripping his arm pushes him forward.
“What is this?” Orlando’s heart is in his throat. He’s terrified that John has just been playing sport with him and now means to kill Elijah before his very eyes. His hand curls around the hilt of his sword but John stays it, that self-satisfied smile still curling his lips.
“I wanted to make sure I was here when you told him what you planned to do with his family, my lord,” John says silkily.
“What about them?” Elijah asks cautiously. Why would John see the need for his presence just to hear that his siblings will be returning to their own rooms?
“Tell him, Orlando. Tell him that you’re sending his family as an offering to our enemies.”
“What enemies? Why?” Elijah looks at Orlando; it’s clear from the look on Orlando’s face and the blood still seeping from the reopened cut that this is not his decision.
Orlando stares at Elijah, willing him to see the promise in his eyes that he will do everything in his power to prevent what he’s saying. “It’s true. I - I’m sending them as an offering.”
Elijah’s lips move, but no sound follows. Orlando hates John for this; he knows that he’s going to kill for this, no longer a matter of if, but when.
“Why?” Elijah implores.
“I have to, Elijah; it’s you or them.” He can barely meet Elijah’s eyes.
“Then send me!”
Orlando catches Elijah as he steps forward and grasps his shoulders. “Take him back,” he orders the guards; he attempts to turn Elijah and push him back to the men still standing in the hall, but Elijah turns on him wildly, striking away his hands. John’s laughter rings out as Orlando grabs Elijah’s shirt, and Elijah stumbles.
Elijah springs to his feet, pushing at Orlando’s chest, his heart thundering wildly in his own. “You’re not going to send them away!”
“Stop this,” Orlando hisses. He can say nothing more in their present company.
“You’re not! You wouldn’t!” Elijah tries to draw his wrists from the painful grip Orlando has on them. “You can’t allow this.”
“He can and will, boy,” John says smugly, “if he wishes to maintain his title. This is his last chance.”
‘Chance’ Orlando wants to scoff. There is no chance, nor choice; John is toying with him like the cats in the barn toy with the mice, but if there is to be any hope for them at all he needs to cling to what little he is being given. He is well aware of the eyes on him. The nearest guard watches scornfully, and he’s sure the others do as well. He drags Elijah into the hall, pushing him forcefully toward the garden.
Once there, he checks that they are alone and presses his lips to Elijah’s ear: “I’m not going to send them.”
Elijah stops fighting. “Why did you say that you were?”
“Did you really think I would?” Orlando supposes he rightfully deserves the suspicion, but still it wounds. “He forced me to choose between you and your family. He thinks I’m going to let this happen, but I assure you I will not.”
“What are you going to do?”
Orlando’s not sure, but he says the first plan that seems worth its salt. “I’ll bribe the guards to take them somewhere else, somewhere safe.”
“Where? Where? Does any safe place exist for them anymore?”
“I haven’t thought that far yet, Elijah,” he pleads. “I’ve only just learned of this myself.”
“There’s nothing to figure. In the East your father waits, to the North the horde, and to the South and the East, there’s only the sea.”
“I will think of something,” Orlando promises.
Elijah stands in the garden, the warm sun beating on his neck and the birds singing in the trees, and around him the entire world is going on as if nothing grave has happened; yet it has. He has no doubt that Orlando can and will offer a bribe - a sizeable one that those men might take, but there is still no guarantee that his family will remain safe.
“Send me instead,” he pleads.
“No.”
“Orlando…”
“No. I said no.”
“Please, please I can…”
Orlando gives Elijah a rough shake. “I said no.”
“Play me.”
“I’ll find a way and I…”
“Play me for it.”
“What?” Orlando suddenly realizes what Elijah has been suggesting.
“Play me at Strategy. If I win, you send me; if I lose you …” He can’t even admit to what he wishes to wager, but he’s certain that he will win.
“This cannot be settled by playing some game!”
“Why not? You use my family like pawns.”
Orlando sees a shadow move from the corner of his eye. If it is John, he does not wish to be caught haggling with Elijah. “Fine,” Orlando hisses to quiet Elijah and hauls him forward by the arm.
The hall appears to be empty, but he feels eyes on him nonetheless. He follows a now silent Elijah up the stairs.
*
There is no pleasure in the game; both of them are playing for keeps. Elijah plays for the right to go in his family’s place, while Orlando plays to keep Elijah docile for a few moments so that he can think.
Orlando stares at the dark head bent determinedly over the board and tries to formulate his plan. He will have to feel out the men he can buy off; perhaps he can manage to have it look like an ambush happened, fix it so that it appears that the family was killed, and only one or two of the men return with news of what happened.
He watches Elijah capture one of his men, but that move allows him to take two of Elijah’s.
Orlando sits back in his chair. How many men will he have to bribe? At what price? He has no inkling if any of them would be willing, and no idea which, if any of them, won’t turn news of his plot over to John.
Elijah stares at the board. In his eagerness, he’s dug himself a hole; not just a hole but a trench. Any move he makes now will leave men open for Orlando’s taking. He draws a deep breath and wills himself to calm down; he can’t think about anything other than the outcome he desires.
He is better than this. Elijah moves closer to the board and sighs as he finally spots a move that will spare him any losses. But it is only the most temporary of saves, and as his men slowly dwindle he realizes that he’s not going to win.
Elijah’s face is inscrutable as Orlando captures his last man.
It is a hollow victory.
“Again,” Elijah demands as he starts to reset the pieces.
Orlando shakes his head.
“Send me instead.”
The empty board clatters to the floor and suddenly Elijah is between Orlando’s legs, fingers sliding up his thighs; Orlando clamps his hands over Elijah’s.
“No.”
Elijah wriggles free of his grasp but Orlando pulls them away before they can reach their intended target. “Stop, Elijah.”
“But you want me,” Elijah whispers pleadingly. “You always want me.”
“I told you to stop.” Orlando can hardly keep his grip on Elijah’s twisting wrists. When Elijah finally wrestles one hand free, Orlando releases the other and stands so abruptly that Elijah tumbles backward. “I will think of something, but sending you in their stead is not an option.”
“You can’t do this. Please…” Elijah shrinks back as Orlando moves toward him with a fierce look on his face.
“I don’t want to do this. This is not my choice!” He stops himself just shy of putting angry hands on Elijah and walks away, running a restless hand through his hair.
Elijah is silent and does his best to swallow the lump in his throat. “I’m sorry.” He studies Orlando’s back. “You really should send me.”
“I won’t. I’m not going to.”
“But…”
“Let me think, Elijah!” Orlando roars.
“There’s something…”
Orlando strides to the door and flings it open, slamming the bar in place as he leaves. Piper is standing at the hall, with a pitcher cradled in his arms, staring at him.
“When you’re done with them,” he indicates towards the royal suite, “I want the bar drawn.”
“Yes, my lord.” Piper nods obediently, but Orlando can see the curiosity in his eyes.
“And I want you to … I want you to give Elijah something that will help him sleep.”
“Is he ill again?”
Orlando watches curiosity turn to concern. “I fear he might be if he doesn’t sleep.” He hopes that a little half-lie will ensure Piper’s help.
“I will, my lord.”
Tbc … Part 11
Rating: Mature
Paring: OB/EW - AU
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: All made up :)
Beta: Many, many thanks to itstonedme *hearts*
Previous parts:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4.1
Part 4.2
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
“What are you doing out of bed??” Orlando asks when he enters their room and finds Elijah sitting in his chair before the fire. Elijah’s hair is wet, and he’s dressed in fresh bedclothes. It is only when he scans the room that Orlando spies the heavy tub sitting in the middle of the floor.
“I am well enough to get out of bed. Piper wanted to change the bedding, and I needed a bath.”
Indeed, Orlando can see that a healthy color has returned to Elijah’s cheeks and the spark is back in his blue eyes. But still, he worries, and his mouth forms a thin line. “You should be in bed.”
“I can’t stay there forever. I’m fine,” Elijah assures. “I wanted to get up.”
Orlando drops into the chair next to Elijah’s. “Have you eaten today?”
“Yes, Piper made sure I ate.” Elijah studies Orlando’s face. There are dark circles beneath his eyes and a weariness the likes of which he’s never seen before, even when they were traveling and Orlando had slept little. “Have you?”
“Not yet.” Orlando rests his face in his hand and closes his eyes. “But I will.”
There is a knock at the door, and Orlando lifts his head slowly. Piper stands in the doorway, two other servants behind him. “We’ve come for the bath, my lord.”
“Leave it, please,” Orlando requests softly.
“My lord?”
Elijah can see the surprise that flickers across Piper’s face. Courtesy has been so foreign from Orlando’s lips; he wonders when that word became part of Orlando’s vocabulary.
“Just leave it.” He massages the back of his neck. There is an ache that has settled in and made turning his head difficult. “I would bathe.”
“It’s cold, my lord. We’ll bring fresh water.”
Orlando sighs, more out of sheer exhaustion than anger, and nods.
“Would you bring something for him to eat, Piper?” Elijah asks. Piper bows and disappears with the servants in tow.
“You don’t need to worry about me. I’m capable of taking care of myself.” Orlando rolls his shoulders, trying to rid himself of the knot that has formed in his neck and right shoulder, but every time he turns his head a sharp pain nearly levels him. “The only thing you need do for me is continue to get well.”
“I am better,” Elijah assures. He has been well enough to manage getting in and out of bed on his own for the past three days. “You’ve been so busy taking care of my family. Let me do what I can for you.”
Orlando heels off his boots. He is beyond spent; this last week has been harder on him than any battle - little sleep and so much worry. He kicks his boots to the side and fixes Elijah with a look. “You know about that?”
Elijah nods.
“How?”
“Piper told me.” Elijah had woken late one evening after his fever broke. For the first time, Orlando had not been beside him upon waking, but he wasn’t alone. Piper was there, collecting the dirty cups and bowls. Elijah’s first question, after Piper made him take some tea, had been to ask after Orlando. He’d anticipated being told that Orlando had duties to attend. What he hadn’t expected was learning that Orlando was with his family at the end of the hall.
Piper continued that the rest of his family had taken sick, speaking in his calm voice, the cadence of which Elijah remembered from childhood when something important had to be relayed but was not meant to be alarming. Elijah had passed his fever to his mother and she, in turn, to the rest of his family. Orlando, Piper told him with restrained wonder, was helping to care for them.
“He shouldn’t have said anything,” Orlando frowns.
“I asked where you were. He had to tell me.” Elijah doesn’t, however, tell Orlando that he’d risen from bed then and unsteadily made his way down the hall. Through the open doorway, standing so that he might be unseen, he had looked into the room. The only light softly illuminating those within had been from the fire and two lamps, one near the children and the other by his parents’ bed. He can still envision Orlando, head resting upon the edge of the bed, Erica’s small hand within his own, both of them fast asleep.
Piper returns expediently, bearing a tray laden with food and accompanied by other servants with buckets to change the water.
Orlando watches Elijah eagerly begin eating, and the sight pleases him greatly. Elijah passes him a bowl filled with stewed rabbit and a chunk of bread. He’s almost too weary to eat but does so for Elijah.
“Your water is ready, my lord. Is there anything else you need?” Piper asks.
“Just …” He looks meaningfully at Piper.
“I will check on them, my lord,” Piper assures with a nod and most pleased expression.
Elijah is quick to set his bowl down. “I could help. Please.” He wants to see them, badly.
Orlando has not the strength or desire to deny Elijah anything. He nods and watches as Elijah follows Piper out the door. The bathwater is calling him.
*
The two little ones have recovered fastest, and they run and fling themselves into his arms. He kisses their cheeks as he hugs them close. “I missed you. How do you feel?”
“Better!” they chorus. He lifts them, one in each arm, though they’ve grown and it takes more effort now, and deposits them on the big bed where Evangeline and Eliza rest. Evangeline only manages a weak smile and limp wave, but Eliza sits up to hug him.
“Where’s Orlando?” Erica asks, jumping on the surface of the bed, which earns her a warning from Evangeline.
Elijah releases Eliza and turns to Erica; he is both shocked and pleased by her curiosity. “Do you wish to see him?” he asks.
“Yes,” she answers, blithely unaware of Elijah’s surprise. She bounces on the edge of the bed until Evangeline snaps at her to stop, yanking her down by her nightdress.
“I wasn’t doing anything!” Erica protests, pushing away her sister’s hand. Elijah laughs; how he has missed these things, even their bickering. Erica glares at Evangeline for a moment before seeming to remember her question. “Where is he?”
“Taking a much needed rest,” Elijah replies, brushing the hair from her face. “I’m surprised,” he confesses, smiling at her.
“Why?” she asks innocently.
“That you would ask to see him.”
“I am not afraid of him anymore,” she replies matter-of-factly as she starts to kick the mattress, eliciting a huff of annoyance from Evangeline.
Elijah stills his little sister’s kicking with a gentle hand on her knee. “Why not?”
She looks at him in wide-eyed disbelief, as if it should be clear to him without her saying why. He raises his brows encouragingly, and she rolls her eyes, exhaling loudly.
“Because he held my hand when I was scaredest, like you would have. I don’t think anyone who was all bad would do that, do you?”
Elijah looks into her solemn eyes and shakes his head. Orlando knows how much his family means to him. Orlando had risked his own health to care for first him and then his family.
“No one was more surprised than us,” Evangeline adds softly.
Elijah swallows hard, the lump in his throat rendering him speechless for a moment; nothing could mean more to him than this. He knew Orlando had this capacity in his heart and now those most important to him know as well.
“And he brought us this!” Erica exclaims gleefully as she slides off the bed. She runs to a familiar-looking box, the one that held the puppet. John’s party must have brought the box, for Orlando had left without it.
She brings Elijah the puppet, holding it by the wooden cross at the top, doing her best to carefully free the arm that has become entangled in the string. Once free, she dangles it before him. “He taught us how to make it dance.”
He watches as she tries to make it do a little jig but her little fingers are too unskilled.
“That’s not how he did it!” Eric insists as he tries to muscle Erica out of the way.
“He was better at it,” Erica says, shoving at her brother with her elbow.
“Don’t fight,” he tells them softly.
Evangeline props herself up on her elbow and watches her siblings play with the toy. “He was like another person,” she admits.
Elijah smiles at her. No, not another person, he wants to tell her, but the person Orlando has always been, the person he couldn’t be while trying to live in his father’s shadow. He feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up at his mother’s face. She touches his cheek and smiles.
“He loves you,” she says quietly. “He must, to have cared for your old, sick mother the way he did.”
In his heart, he knows this is true, but to hear her confirm it makes his own feelings for Orlando that much deeper, stronger. “You believe this?” he asks.
Necia’s hands cover his. “I know it. I saw it in his eyes when he thought he was going to lose you.” She brushes back his hair tenderly. “Only love holds that kind of desperation.”
From the other side of the room comes his father’s voice, “It could be used against him.”
Medias appears wan, but the edge in his voice indicates that he is on the mend. “What do you mean?” Elijah asks. He does not believe Orlando would ever use his love in such a fashion.
Medias glances at the puppet in Erica’s hand. “You have his heart. Why not his ear? You can control him, get him to do what you want.”
Elijah stares at his father in disbelief. He thought it was a warning for him to be on guard against what Orlando would use him for, not the other way around. “Would you do that to mother?”
Medias looks affronted, offended. “No, but your mother isn’t holding other people’s lives in her hands, your family’s lives.”
Elijah bows his head and stares at his mother’s hands. Orlando had feared this very thing …
“Come here, boy.”
Elijah rises and follows his father dutifully to the other side of the room. Media’s hand rests on his shoulder as heavy a weight as the eyes boring into his. “Your family is at risk, Elijah. Your mother may believe … what she wishes to believe, but…”
“You doubt her?” It would be the first time his father ever ignored Necia’s opinion.
A wince flickers across his father’s face. “No. I don’t doubt her. I’m only saying that we must take advantage of weakness where we can.”
“So love is weakness?” Elijah can’t keep the indignity from creeping into his voice.
Medias stares at him for the longest time, and Elijah watches as his father’s eyes soften. “You love him, too.”
Elijah feels his insides twist. A part of him knows that he is disappointing his father, but he recognizes that what his father says is true. “What you ask me to do is to deliver him his greatest fear.”
Medias studies him for a moment. “What do you mean?” Elijah can tell it is a reluctant question, and that his father probably does not wish to be dissuaded. For any other thing Elijah would do as he asked, but not this.
“Using love as leverage is the reason he has denied it, was taught to deny it. To them, to his father, love is a great weakness. Orlando was taught that love could be used against him and now that’s what you’re asking me to do.”
Medias is thoughtful. “Think of your sisters and your brother,” he implores.
Elijah sighs heavily. “It is a very great weapon, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“Love.” He looks into his father’s eyes. “You are trying to use it against me now … my love for my family. You are trying to use me.”
Medias bows his head; whether it is in frustration or defeat - or perhaps even shame - it is hard for Elijah to tell.
“He will keep you safe,” Elijah says. He knows this is true, that Orlando will protect them because they mean everything to him. That is the best he can ask for right now.
“It’s not him that I fear, Elijah.” Medias straightens. “Piper tells me what he sees and hears.”
“And what does Piper know?”
“That the king is not respected by his men. They turn to the other for their instructions; that they went behind Orlando’s back after he left with you. Had there been an order against us…” His father does not speak the rest, but Elijah knows what he is implying. Had John left an order for their death, the men would have followed through with it.
“He will keep us safe,” Elijah assures. He believes it. He knows it in his heart. “You have to trust me.”
Medias’ face betrays nothing in the end, and as Elijah walks the corridor back to his room, he worries again that he’s been a disappointment, a failure. He hopes that his father will see the truth in the course of time.
*
Orlando casts the pillow away irritably and tries to find a position that will allow him to lay on the bed comfortably. The warm water had helped some, but every time he so much as breathes, a sharp pain plagues him. He shifts again and hisses, opting to lie there with his face buried in the sheets for a moment.
“Your shoulder bothers you?”
Orlando lifts his head, trying to look at Elijah but stops, dropping his cheek to the linens. “A little,” he admits through clenched teeth. There is no need for Elijah to know how much.
He shifts again, but there’s still no relief. In fact, it is worsening and he gives up with a grunt, nearly face down in the clean sheets. He starts when the bed dips near his feet. He tries, once more, to lift head as Elijah climbs the length of him, Elijah’s thighs slipping around his, bunching the sheet. “What are you doing?”
“I thought I would see if I could make it feel any better.”
He shivers as Elijah’s humid breath puffs against his neck. He thinks he might regret choosing to lie on his stomach. He drops his head back to the sheets and winces. “You needn’t…”
“It’s bothering you, isn’t it?” Elijah interrupts, staring at Orlando’s shoulders, his back, all that smooth golden skin that he very much desires to touch.
Orlando grinds his teeth as Elijah leans to the left; the bed dips, rolling him a bit and causing another sharp stab of pain. It’s only when Elijah rights himself that he can breathe again.
“Yes, it bothers me, but it need not concern you.” The last word escapes on a sigh as Elijah’s warm, slick fingers mold themselves against his neck, smearing oil infused with sandalwood and rosehips across his shoulders.
Elijah presses his thumbs gently into Orlando’s skin and smiles as Orlando moans into his pillow. “My family need not have concerned you, yet you took care of them. Consider this... a thank you.”
“It’s not n-needed,” Orlando stutters as Elijah’s fingers find the spot where the ache has settled deepest; the light press of fingers against it robs him of his breath for a moment.
“Not needed, or not wanted?”
“You don’t need to do this for me,” Orlando answers, even though he thinks that if Elijah were to stop now he’d be forced to beg him to resume.
“I know I don’t need to do this. I’m doing it because I want to. You did something that means a great deal to me, and I only wish to show my gratitude.” Elijah leans forward, his fingers slipping against Orlando’s skin until his lips hover just above Orlando’s ear and the dark curls tickle his lips. “You took care of me when I was sick,” he whispers. “Let me do the same for you.”
As much as Orlando would like to accept all the credit, he knows that he can’t. Elijah’s gratitude doesn’t belong to him. “It wasn’t me, Elijah, it was your mother.”
Elijah smiles; Piper had told him Orlando had called his mother, but only that one night, only at a most desperate hour. “Not all her,” Elijah says softly as he rights himself and continues to move his fingers over Orlando’s shoulders. “I remember your cool hands on my forehead.” It was a touch that had brought so much relief. “And there was a time when my head was in your lap.” It’s a fuzzy memory, more dream-like than real, but still, Orlando had been there.
“It was necessary.” Orlando immediately regrets his tone and choice of words. He fears he’ll forever be fighting the man his father raised.
“It wasn’t. You could have left Piper to look after me.”
That is true. He defied John’s direct orders.
“Why did you stay when it wasn’t necessary?”
“You know why,” Orlando murmurs.
“Then you know why I’m doing this for you.”
“I don’t deserve it, Elijah. I’ve…” He catches himself about to apologize for who he’s been, and what he’s done.
“Do you want me to stop?” Elijah asks as he smoothes his hands over Orlando’s shoulders, pressing with his palms until Orlando sighs ‘no’.
Elijah smiles and runs the tips of his slick fingers along Orlando’s spine, watching as the oil leaves a glistening trail in the flickering candlelight. He splays his hands against Orlando’s lower back, his hands spanning the width of Orlando’s narrow waist.
He hasn’t done anything more than touch, yet Elijah finds he can barely catch his breath, and he’s aching with desire to do more. Orlando’s skin is fever-hot; he can feel the bundled muscles beneath as he leisurely pushes his hands up Orlando’s back. He leans in, using his weight and the heels of his palms, and Orlando groans again. He doesn’t stop until his fingers sink into the curves on either side of Orlando’s neck, and he dips forward, his nose all but buried in Orlando’s drying curls. When he closes his eyes, all he can smell is the sweet, clean scent of Orlando’s skin and heady perfume of oil.
He’s never felt this kind of hunger before, perhaps because he was never hungry. But right now he feels starved of Orlando even though he’s right here, beneath his hands, beneath his lips.
Orlando shivers against the soft, humid touch of lips clinging at his nape. He wants what Elijah offers, but not as payment. What he did was out of love; it wasn’t a service rendered. “You can stop now.”
“Is it better?” Elijah lifts his head so that he can see Orlando’s face. The cut is still a dark and ugly mark on Orlando’s cheek; he’s afraid it will scar, not because it would make Orlando displeasing to the eye for it would take much more than an ugly wound to do that, but because it will be a permanent mark of his father’s abuse.
“Yes,” Orlando lies.
“Move your shoulder.”
“Giving me commands now?”
Orlando’s voice is muffled; it has lost its edge, and it is clear that Orlando doesn’t really mind. But Elijah notices that Orlando doesn’t even try to move. “Why won’t you let me help you?”
“I don’t want you to feel that you owe me this... kindness. What I did, I did for selfish reasons. I tended you because...” He swallows hard, afraid to say it, but it’s foolish to not speak now when he’s admitted so much more already. “I couldn’t live without you. I took care of your family because I could not have faced you if something had happened to them and I, had I stood by idle.”
Elijah presses his thumbs in deep at the base of Orlando’s neck, moving them fluidly along Orlando’s shoulders. He knows that Orlando has spoken the truth such as he understands it, but Elijah sees both - the selfish and the selfless. He realizes that Orlando’s never had a family to love and care for. The idea is foreign to him, that one could love others so much. But he’s learning.
“Thank you,” Elijah says softly.
“It that what this is then? Your thanks?” Orlando’s frustration simmers beneath the surface. He wants more than gratitude but knows he’s not entitled. “I don’t want what you think you owe me.”
“If I didn’t want to do this, I wouldn’t,” Elijah returns simply.
“But you’re only doing this because you think I saved your family, when it wasn’t me at all. What good did I do for them?”
“You made one little girl less afraid,” he answers softly. Orlando snuffles into the pillow, saying something Elijah cannot hear. “What was that?”
“I told her… to keep it secret.”
Elijah laughs. “Then you ought not trust your secrets to a five year old.”
“I see that,” Orlando groans. She had been so frightened at first, but the moment he took up her hand - it had been so small in his - the fear seemed to leave her eyes. It was something he’d never been responsible for before - comfort, peace, whatever name it went by - and it had made him feel… good. There had been no need for it other than that feeling in his heart. Is it possible that Elijah feels the same now?
“I want to do this for you,” Elijah sighs.
Orlando lets go. Every thought, every argument leaves his head as gently pressing fingers find the knots beneath his skin, and after a time he finds that he can lift his head with only the faintest twinges to remind him of how he came to rest beneath Elijah’s hands.
“Better?” Elijah asks. This time Orlando’s nod is both answer and proof that it is true. Elijah pours more oil across his fingers; they tingle now from moving constantly over Orlando’s skin, warm and buzzing as he traces the gentle arc of Orlando’s shoulders to the shallow dip of spine, to the narrow waist he straddles, leaving small drops of oil behind.
Orlando lies perfectly still, waiting to see what Elijah will do, what touch Elijah wishes to give him now. He is not patient.
Elijah knees his way backward until he’s straddling Orlando’s thighs; he works his fingers against the small of Orlando’s back before dragging them over the gentle curve of his buttocks and the tight muscles of rock hard thighs. “Does it feel good? You haven’t said.”
When Orlando doesn’t respond he looks up to see if he’s put his king to sleep, but Orlando’s eyes are open, his lips parted. Elijah’s fingers drift upwards, along the insides of Orlando’s thighs. Orlando flinches.
“You need to stop.”
Elijah pauses, his fingertips resting on heated skin. “Why?”
“Because of what you’re doing - what your touch does to me,” Orlando replies hastily as he attempts to roll onto his hip and shift Elijah off.
Elijah presses Orlando’s shoulder to still him. He finds Orlando’s reaction strange and his own reaction even stranger. He’s been given the opportunity to stop, only to find that he doesn’t want to.
“Don’t you want me?”
Orlando tucks his face into his arm and says nothing.
“I would know what you desire, my lord.”
Words Orlando never thought to utter fall from his lips. “I want what you want.”
Elijah sits, stunned into stillness. He wonders if he’s still in the grips of the fever and dreaming all of this. How much of a disappointment it would be to wake right now.
“It’s better now. My neck,” Orlando says to break the growing silence as he curls one hand beneath his chin. He made promises to Elijah and the gods - promises that he might change if given the opportunity - but the time has come and he must prove himself. He’ll start with something that’s nearly unbearable now - letting Elijah decide what he wants.
Orlando feels Elijah shift a bit and his heart catches a little, for he fears Elijah will move away. But Elijah’s thighs remain pressed against his own.
Elijah watches as Orlando’s eyes squeeze shut; he keeps careful watch on that face as he drags two fingertips along the rough skin of Orlando’s balls, the smooth skin behind them, skimming the crease lightly and smiling to himself as those dark eyes widen.
“Will you turn over now?” Elijah asks.
Orlando shifts to one elbow and twists to look over his shoulder, a testament to Elijah’s healing touch. “What for?” If he turns over, his own desires will be most evident, and, he’s afraid, uncontrollable.
“It’s what I want.”
Orlando can see it - the honest truth - in those blue eyes, and he can see the desire there, the want. He should know it well. He’d felt it from the very moment he’d see Elijah sitting at the foot of the bed - his gift - pale and frightened and beyond beautiful. He’d taken Elijah because he was supposed to. And Elijah had accepted him, lain under him, and each time had been better than the last, at least on his part, but it had never been Elijah’s choice. ‘The choice between nothing and nothing is nothing’; Elijah’s words haunt him.
“Let me up.”
Elijah rises on his knees, giving Orlando enough room to turn onto his back, but when Orlando starts to push with his feet as if to scramble away, he puts out a hand. “Where do you go? I only asked you to turn over, not get up.”
Orlando falls back against the pillows and looks away. He can’t even dare look at Elijah now.
“Perhaps I should ask of you - what do you want? Not what your father would expect you to want, or John, just you. What do you want?” He clasps Orlando’s face between his hands and stares into Orlando’s eyes.
“I…want…” Orlando begins desperately, but the words collect in his burning throat.
“What does the man who marked me as beautiful want?”
Orlando follows Elijah’s downcast eyes; watches as Elijah unknots the ties at his waist and pushes the material down to reveal the dark letters etched on pale skin. The mark glistens with the oil from Elijah’s fingertips.
“Charlie told you.”
Elijah nods. “I know that it means beautiful, not slave, but I don’t understand why.”
The leggings slip lower to reveal the dusky form of Elijah’s hard sex. Orlando’s eyes slowly move up Elijah’s body, while his hands reach out and follow. He looks into blue eyes and feels his entire being catch the same way it did that moment he first saw Elijah. “Because you are.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
The movement of Elijah’s shoulder catches his eye and Orlando watches, with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, as Elijah begins to stroke himself. Elijah’s cock glistens with the oil and pearlescent fluid seeping from the tip.
“Tell me what you want,” Elijah demands in a whisper.
Orlando gently pushes Elijah’s hand aside. He can’t think while Elijah is touching himself, or rather, it changes his answer and that’s not what he wants - what he wants is to answer Elijah’s question.
“I just want…” Orlando swallows hard. “I want you to love me.”
“I do. I am. I would if you let me.” A frown line appears between Orlando’s brows. Elijah stands on the bedding to rid himself of his leggings and falls heavily back to his knees, both hands on either side of Orlando’s neck so that the gentle pressure of his fingertips tilts Orlando’s face.
Elijah’s lips are insistent and hungry against his own. He doesn’t reach for Elijah, but lets his mouth fall open in eager invitation. His eyes close, and he pushes his chest against the slick slide of Elijah’s hands. Elijah’s touch is maddening.
It is as gentle as it is demanding.
Elijah’s touch is love.
There is only the faintest residue of oil on Elijah’s fingers by the time he reaches Orlando’s belly so he pauses, pouring more into the well of his palm and spreading it liberally between both hands before moving on. He traces Orlando’s mark and makes the dark sun shine more brightly.
The throaty moan that escapes as he curls his fingers tightly around Orlando’s cock nearly undoes him. He pushes Orlando back into the bedding, squeezing the oil along Orlando’s length until he’s sure just a little more pressure will make Orlando come. He stops, not wanting to drive Orlando to release too soon, and pushes his hand down to cup Orlando’s balls.
Orlando is watching him, his eyes the merest slits. He gives the tight skin in his palm a gentle squeeze, thrills at the sound of Orlando’s breathy gasp, before slipping his finger boldly between Orlando’s cheeks.
He is waiting for the moment when Orlando commands him to stop, but that moment never comes. His heart is beating wildly as his finger presses at Orlando’s opening; he watches the body before him twitch and then arch.
“Do it, if it pleases you,” Orlando says, still watching him through heavy lids. “I am yours.”
I am yours. There is no master now; no slave. And oh, it would please him. He presses the tip of his finger inside. Orlando’s body is prison tight, gripping and squeezing, and Elijah wonders how it will feel when it’s more than just his fingers.
Orlando holds his breath. Elijah’s touch is hesitant and inexperienced. “Deeper,” he urges against the darkness, his eyes slipping shut again.
Elijah complies, exploring tentatively; he twists his finger, running it experimentally over a soft knot of flesh. His eyes flick to Orlando’s face as a hiss escapes between barely parted lips.
“Did I…?”
Orlando’s wraps his hand around Elijah’s wrist, preventing him from drawing away. “Don’t stop,” he begs as he pushes Elijah in deeper. “Please, don’t stop.”
Elijah drops forward, bracing himself on one hand, seeking Orlando’s mouth. He moans as Orlando’s fingers thread through his hair, holding his head so that their disjointed kiss flows into to something deeper, something he still can’t quite get enough of. More, he wants more.
“No,” he protests as Orlando pulls his head back. He struggles to return to those lips.
“I want you inside me,” Orlando pants. “Want you.”
Elijah kneels back, his chest heaving, trying to keep up with his need for air. That’s the more he wanted, needed. He grabs his cock with fingers still warm from Orlando’s body, feels the rough slide of Orlando’s legs as they curl around his hips and draw him forward.
Elijah mewls softly as he strains forward, the sensitive tip of his cock sliding along Orlando’s skin until he’s nestled against that tightly puckered ring. He can feel the press of Orlando’s foot, and his own need urges him on until he’s sinking inside. All is tight and heat and breath-robbing pleasure.
Orlando gasps and lets Elijah take his time, but it’s so hard when Elijah makes those wanton little sounds that tell him Elijah might just break at any moment. He pulls Elijah’s head down and kisses him thoroughly, the press of Elijah’s cock against his prostate a maddening tease.
“Please, ‘Lijah,” he begs as Elijah starts to withdraw, “you won’t hurt me. Harder.”
Elijah tries to do what Orlando wants, but with each short snap of his hips he’s drawn ever closer to the moment when he won’t be able to hold back his release. “I can’t.” His answer is more like a plea as he stops, leaning back on his heels, holding onto Orlando’s knee like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to this earth, and it might very well be.
“I’m sorry,” Elijah whispers as he reaches for Orlando’s cock, runs his hand over the length of it, feels the heat and heaviness of it beneath his palm; he squeezes and wonders if his grip is as tight as the body he’s sheathed in.
“No. No apologies,” Orlando smiles; he can’t have Elijah apologizing for something that feels so good. He also can’t allow Elijah to stop fucking him either; he reaches for Elijah’s hips, arches his back, and forces Elijah deeper, takes until they are completely joined, no separation between them. Elijah possesses him utterly, each thrust building the most pleasurable ache, and each twisting squeeze of Elijah’s hand doubles the effect.
Elijah crushes his mouth to Orlando’s, but the kiss is as broken as his stuttering rhythm. He jams his hand between their bodies and curls his fingers around the base of his cock in a last-ditch attempt to stave off his orgasm. He wants to linger in this place where every inch of him feels on fire.
“Elijah.” It’s a demand, a prayer, a whisper as he bucks against Elijah’s hand and clenches around Elijah’s cock. “Please.”
Elijah hasn’t the control or strength to deny Orlando. His breath sobs out of him as he jerks Orlando’s cock, twisting, squeezing, pulling in a frenzy until he feels the skin jerk beneath his fingers and Orlando’s release lands in silky white stripes against his belly.
There are no words to describe the shock he feels as Orlando’s hand pushes squarely against his chest, pushing him to his back so quickly that he can’t even voice a protest; the strangled noise he makes doesn’t do it justice. He’s so close, his entire body tingling from it; he doesn’t understand why Orlando’s doing this.
Orlando sees the wounded look in Elijah’s eyes. He’s so used to just doing that he hadn’t thought. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I didn’t warn you. You’ll have to forgive me and bear with me while I learn.”
Elijah hiccups a breath as Orlando straddles him. He watches Orlando twist, in all his long, lean glory, and gasps as Orlando cups his balls, kneading them until the desperation comes back and he’s mewling for more. He reaches for his shaft and lifts it into position.
Elijah arches eagerly, needing this like air, craving the friction that he thinks he’ll die without. Orlando sinks onto him with agonizing slowness; the weight of Orlando’s body keeps him pinned, aching, buried. He needs to move; his fingers dig into Orlando’s ass.
Orlando flexes his thighs and lets Elijah guide him with a pinching roughness. It feels so good, not just the feel of Elijah’s cock, but the possessiveness of it. Elijah’s in him; not just in his heart, but in his body.
Elijah fights his orgasm again, wanting it to last so much longer, but he can’t fight forever. He jerks upward one last time and holds Orlando’s body to him as he comes with a soft cry.
He can feel Orlando’s lips on his sweaty forehead, his eyelids and cheeks, such tender touches - gestures of love that he never expected. “Your first time?” he slurs.
“No,” Orlando answers honestly, “but the other was just an experiment.”
Elijah’s softening cock slips from his body as he rises and pads to the basin of water where he retrieves a damp cloth. He cleans them both in silence and blows out the lamps before returning to the bed. “I wished to know what it was like,” he explains simply as he gathers Elijah close, pressing his nose against his temple.
“Was it Eric?”
“No.”
Elijah can hear the regret in Orlando’s reply. He wonders what would have been if Eric had lived. “You loved him.”
“I don’t know.” It’s hard to sort out now, hard to recapture what he had felt for Eric while he holds Elijah in his arms. He thinks it was love, but it was nothing like this. “I was very young.”
“Had he lived … you would have killed me.”
Orlando stares into the darkness. He doesn’t wish to dwell on such things - on what might have been. He has chosen another path, one that keeps diverging from his father’s wishes. “I cannot say, Elijah. I doubt my father or John would have allowed us what we felt. I may have ended up with three against me instead of only two.”
“I don’t understand your father’s fears.”
“Think of your story, Elijah, think of Absalom and everything he gave up, and then you’ll see why my father’s afraid.” Orlando fears are not so different - he has already felt it - already made a promise to himself that he would never let them take Elijah from him without a battle.
“With great love comes great strength…” Elijah says.
“Absalom gave up everything…”
“For the one thing greater than all others,” Elijah argues.
“How do you believe that’s so? How can you say love is greater than his wealth and kingdom?”
“Those are just things, Orlando. Does this castle make you happy? Does its wealth?”
Orlando lies quietly considering the answer. If this castle were gone tomorrow, if the gold were gone, would he be a changed man? He thinks not. But what if Elijah were gone? It is not the building that brings him contentment, but the young man within it.
“I have lost what you say I should value,” Elijah says. This kingdom is no longer mine, nor the finery in it, but I have what matters to me most - my family.”
“It doesn’t matter then? That your title is gone? Your power, your wealth?”
“Those are just things, Orlando, physical comforts. They can be replaced, but I cannot replace those I love. So long as I have them, I will be strong and happy.”
“Even if you had to give up everything?”
“I already have.”
Perhaps Elijah’s words aren’t meant to sting, but they do. It forms a revelation in his mind that he is afraid to face. “You … are only willing with me because of them?”
“I was.”
“Was?” Orlando repeats the word heavily. “What do you mean?”
“Surely you know what I meant by it.”
“I would like you to explain it to me.”
“There are times when I would like someone to explain it to me,” Elijah says as he studies the soft glint of firelight reflecting in Orlando’s eyes. “In the beginning, I did what I had to do to keep my family alive; that was all. You were cold and you were cruel, and I suffered you because I love them.”
Orlando can only see that at the moment Elijah is proving his point - that love is a detriment.
“But you were not always cruel and your heart was good, though you didn’t know how to use it.”
“How did you know?”
“Your muddled attempts to help my people to start rebuilding, the way you listened to me, and your nightmares. I came to realize it even more when you ignored John’s warnings, and further still when we were at your uncle’s. Your choices regarding me told me what your words did not.”
“So, you are using my weakness against me?” Orlando asks soberly.
“Weakness?
“My love for you.” It seems inevitable that his father would be right. He feels Elijah’s fingers on his face and their foreheads press together as Elijah leans forward.
“Love is not weakness. I have asked you for nothing and I…” Elijah feels a finger press gently against his lips.
“Save your arguments, Elijah, for I am already lost.”
“Lost is the last thing I wish you to feel,” Elijah says as he takes Orlando’s hand in his own.
“Will you forgive me my ill-chosen words? I do not feel lost at all, lost in you perhaps, but with you I feel as if…”
“As if what?”
“I am home.” He realizes now that he felt that way the whole nightmarish trip back to his father. He had not been returning home, for his home was in Elijah’s arms. As if Elijah knew this was the case, his arms creep around to hold him.
“I was thinking of moving your siblings back to their own rooms. Do you think they would like that?”
Elijah coils one silky curl around his finger, smiling in the dark. He knows they would love it, but he wants the discovery of it to belong to Orlando and so he replies, “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask them.”
*
Orlando wakes to a soft sound. It’s later than usual, judging by the brilliant sunlight flooding the room. He looks down and nuzzles Elijah’s messy locks. He thought it was Elijah who had made a noise, but he can tell by the heavy weight and even breaths gusting against his neck that Elijah’s still asleep.
He hears the noise again, a quiet throat clearing from the doorway, and finds Piper standing there.
“What is it?” he asks as quietly as possible, not wanting to wake Elijah.
“John, my lord. He’s requesting your presence.”
Orlando exhales loudly and rubs his eyes. He’s not ready to have the argument that John so surely craves. He carefully extracts himself from beneath Elijah and swings his legs over the edge of the bed; he sits there for a moment before rising reluctantly and beginning to dress. “Tell him I will be but a few moments, and bring Elijah some breakfast. Make sure he eats.”
“I will and I always do, my lord.” Piper answers softly.
“I know and I thank you.” He can read the surprised but pleased expression on Piper’s face. He finds it strange that such a little thing as saying thank you could make him feel this good; it’s not the words so much as the feeling it obviously creates in the other person, and he quite likes it.
“Would you like me to bring you something?”
Orlando smiles ruefully and shakes his head. “I wouldn’t want to keep John waiting.”
“Very good, my lord,” Piper says as he disappears.
Orlando dresses quietly. He’s a little tender, but his neck and shoulder are blessedly loose; it’s something to be thankful for as he straps on his dagger and sword. He leans over and presses a kiss to Elijah’s blessedly cool forehead.
He slips from the room and is about to descend the stairs when he stops before the door at the end of the hall. He’s about to rap and seek permission to enter when he catches the eye of the sleepy guard on the landing. Piper must have woken him. The guard would judge him for requesting entrance in his own castle and he knows until such time as John’s treachery is dealt with he needs not feed them any further reasons to disrespect him.
He pushes the door open and, to his credit, his presence does not now throw the family into complete turmoil. He finds Erica still in her night dress, trying to make the puppet dance. The moment she sees him, she smiles and asks him to do it.
“I can’t right now,” he tells her as he crouches low.
“Why not?” She holds it out to him hopefully.
“I have somewhere to be.”
“Where’s Elijah?” Eric asks.
“Sleeping, but I’m sure when he wakes he’ll come see you.”
“Elijah’s not very good at it either!” Erica scoffs at her brother.
“I wanted to ask you all a question,” Orlando says loudly as he tries to get their attention before a quarrel erupts. They pause and look up at him. “I wanted to know what you thought of returning to your own rooms?”
They look completely surprised, especially Evangeline and Eliza.
“Your parents would stay here for now, but you would have your own rooms again.”
“You want to separate us?” Evangeline gives him a suspicious look.
Orlando stands, giving her an apologetic smile. “I suppose I deserve that. I haven’t earned your trust yet, but I intend to.” He takes a deep breath. “You don’t have to leave her if you don’t feel comfortable. I just thought you might want to return to your rooms again.” He sees them look uncertainly at one another. “You can think about it and let me know later.”
He turns to Medias and Necia. “There would still be a guard, but they would have free access to this floor.” They say nothing in response, as he expected. “I’ll return later for your answer.”
*
He finds John waiting for him in his private chambers. He hasn’t been here in weeks, and it seems that John has quite comfortably taken up residence.
“What is it?” he snaps as he begins to lift letters from the table, all of them written his father’s hand. When John says nothing he looks up. “I understand you wished to see me.” He doesn’t appreciate being pulled from Elijah’s arms only to deal with sullen power games.
“Someone should see to you.”
“What do you want?” Orlando asks darkly. John is standing by the fireplace, much like he had in his father’s room, except this time he’s studying the flex of his hand as it curls into a fist - hand to fist, hand to fist, as if it’s the most fascinating thing in the world.
“It would have been better for you if you had just let him die.”
Orlando’s lip curls into a snarl. “My business is my own.”
“Oh, but I do forget that the boy holds you as his a slave,” John sneers, ignoring him completely.
“He doesn’t. He was sick.”
“And you would tend all your ill slaves with such devotion? You would give up your bed for them and risk contaminating yourself? I’m sure there are ill slaves all about the place now; shall I have them brought to you?”
“That’s enough,” Orlando warns.
“It seems that your father and I have been trying to tell you the same thing and yet you don’t listen.”
Orlando tries to tamp down the rage. He’d allowed both of them to work him into a frenzy the last time, the consequences of which had nearly cost Elijah his life, and he will not allow it to happen again. “I will live my life as I choose,” he says evenly.
“Everything you have, you owe to your father. Your life belongs to him, and you need to comport yourself as he sees fit. He does not sanction your favoritism of a slave. You shame him! You have always been an embarrassment, weak…”
“Are you done?” Orlando explodes.
John rounds on him, his jaw pushed out angrily. “You will never be the man your father is. You will never be as I am or what my son would have been.”
Orlando shakes with unspent rage. John, as expected, presses his words into old wounds and tears them open, but two can play at that. “The fact remains that your son is dead.”
The wince that darts across John’s face isn’t nearly enough. “Your son loved me. Did you know that?” Orlando stares hard at John. “You must have,” Orlando answers his own question. “That’s why you hate me. Because he loved me and not you!”
John has a heavy hand, just like his father, and Orlando feels the pain blossom in his cheek made worse by the cut still healing.
“Never speak of this to me again! He would never have loved such a spineless thing as you!”
Orlando smiles as he looks at the blood on his fingertips; the wound must have re-opened, but it doesn’t matter. His victory is internal; he is vindicated by the fact that he knows better than John. He knows the truth.
“I don’t owe you a choice,” John growls, “but I’ll give you one now.”
“Oh? You’re giving me a choice? How generous,” Orlando seethes.
“You will think that I am.”
Orlando laughs in John’s face. “This is my kingdom.”
“The boy or his family.”
Orlando wipes blood from his cheek and flicks the droplets to the floor. He searches for a cloth, but there isn’t one, so he uses the sleeve of his shirt, while he stares dully at John, waiting for him to continue.
“You chose who lives, Orlando. The boy or his family.”
“You’ll force no such choice on me.” Orlando doesn’t run as John charges forward; he feels the bite of John’s fingers into his nape.
“You will choose and choose now.”
“Fuck you,” Orlando says as he snaps his head back and reaches for John’s jaw, digging his fingers into the chiseled flesh. “You will leave them alone. I am the ruler here.”
“You are nothing but a figurehead here, boy.” John pries Orlando’s fingers away, bending them back so far he could break them with just a little more force. “Who would help you stop me? Who will step up to have your back? The guards? Do you think they’re yours? Your father gave me permission to deal with this situation as I see fit. Things never should have come to this.”
“You will not touch them.”
“Choose.”
“You won’t kill them, John. It would be madness; you would start a riot among the people.” Orlando feels a sinking in the pit of his gut, knowing that is something John would love.
John all but laughs in his face. “Yes, those remaining defenseless, unarmed men, women and children are completely terrifying to me.”
“They should be. I would let them know it was you.” This time he does step away and deftly avoids John’s lunge. He draws his sword to John’s throat.
“Guards!” John shouts merrily.
Orlando turns as the door is thrown open and two guards enter with weapons drawn. But their weapons are not at his defense.
“You see, Orlando? You see who this army supports? With a word, I could send them up the stairs. One word, and I could chose for you. Perhaps you would find that easier,” John says, straightening up. “Would you rather I choose because you cannot?”
“There will be none of this! Elijah is mine; his family is mine.” He is so angry that he can barely spit the words out. “My father…”
“Are you daft, boy? Your father has already given me permission. He told you how to rectify your situation; fate gave you a chance as well, and yet you still did what you wanted.”
“I am king here!” Orlando shouts, enraged.
“You are nothing here!” John’s face is dark as thunder and his eyes burn with that familiar hatred. “You took everything from me; don’t think I’ll have any conscience about taking everything from you. Choose!”
Orlando stands there shaking with rage, the weapons of his own guards pointed at his back. He wants to tell John to just get it over with, kill him and be done with it, knowing that is what John truly wants, but it wouldn’t spare Elijah or his family in the end and he’d be a fool to think John wouldn’t want to watch him suffer first.
“I will not allow you to kill them.”
“Then we must reach another compromise.” John appears to pause thoughtfully, but Orlando thinks that John already has a plan in mind, and indeed the speed with which he lays it out confirms this suspicion.
“You will choose between them, decide between Elijah and his family, but instead of death we shall offer them as a gift to the northern adversaries.”
“Gift?” Orlando scoffs, knowing that this is just an elaborate plan for John to get what he wants without any blood on his hands. “What are you talking about?”
“A gift,” John repeats, “an act of generosity on our part, a peace offering.”
“Peace offering? You’re mad,” Orlando laughs bitterly. “How long before my father wants their lands, too? You think that a gift would help them turn a blind eye to our advance?” But he can tell from the smile on John’s face that that is not the point.
“That is your choice then, the family?”
“No,” Orlando snaps. “What would they want with an old king and his family? This is foolishness.”
“I’m sure they would make an example of their enemy, and I’m certain they would find a use for the daughters.”
“Bastard.” Orlando whispers in shock and disgust. “You sick bastard.” His voice gains resonance as the shock wears off and the anger takes over. He steps forward, fingers curling around the hilt of his sword, but stops as two blades appear at the periphery of his vision.
“Choose then. If you don’t want me to send the family, simply tell me and I’ll send the boy. Put away your sword.”
Orlando slowly sheathes his sword. If he dies here and now, so will Elijah.
“Very wise. Now, which is it?”
Orlando feels his stomach turn. One day, he will make John pay. There will come a moment when John’s guard is down, and then Orlando will exact his retribution.
“Well?” John presses impatiently.
“The family.” Orlando is sickened by his words, but somehow, some way, he will prevent this from happening. He will not let any harm come to Elijah’s family.
John nods, satisfied. “The family it is then. I should tell you how little your decision surprises me.”
Orlando says nothing, his mind already turning over one plan and then another. He turns slightly at the sound of a rap on the door, and a chill spreads through his gut at the smug grin spreading across John’s face.
“Enter.” Their voices echo together in the room. John merely shakes his head in a dismissive way, and Orlando realizes that he’s been usurped.
Elijah is standing there when the door swings open; the guard gripping his arm pushes him forward.
“What is this?” Orlando’s heart is in his throat. He’s terrified that John has just been playing sport with him and now means to kill Elijah before his very eyes. His hand curls around the hilt of his sword but John stays it, that self-satisfied smile still curling his lips.
“I wanted to make sure I was here when you told him what you planned to do with his family, my lord,” John says silkily.
“What about them?” Elijah asks cautiously. Why would John see the need for his presence just to hear that his siblings will be returning to their own rooms?
“Tell him, Orlando. Tell him that you’re sending his family as an offering to our enemies.”
“What enemies? Why?” Elijah looks at Orlando; it’s clear from the look on Orlando’s face and the blood still seeping from the reopened cut that this is not his decision.
Orlando stares at Elijah, willing him to see the promise in his eyes that he will do everything in his power to prevent what he’s saying. “It’s true. I - I’m sending them as an offering.”
Elijah’s lips move, but no sound follows. Orlando hates John for this; he knows that he’s going to kill for this, no longer a matter of if, but when.
“Why?” Elijah implores.
“I have to, Elijah; it’s you or them.” He can barely meet Elijah’s eyes.
“Then send me!”
Orlando catches Elijah as he steps forward and grasps his shoulders. “Take him back,” he orders the guards; he attempts to turn Elijah and push him back to the men still standing in the hall, but Elijah turns on him wildly, striking away his hands. John’s laughter rings out as Orlando grabs Elijah’s shirt, and Elijah stumbles.
Elijah springs to his feet, pushing at Orlando’s chest, his heart thundering wildly in his own. “You’re not going to send them away!”
“Stop this,” Orlando hisses. He can say nothing more in their present company.
“You’re not! You wouldn’t!” Elijah tries to draw his wrists from the painful grip Orlando has on them. “You can’t allow this.”
“He can and will, boy,” John says smugly, “if he wishes to maintain his title. This is his last chance.”
‘Chance’ Orlando wants to scoff. There is no chance, nor choice; John is toying with him like the cats in the barn toy with the mice, but if there is to be any hope for them at all he needs to cling to what little he is being given. He is well aware of the eyes on him. The nearest guard watches scornfully, and he’s sure the others do as well. He drags Elijah into the hall, pushing him forcefully toward the garden.
Once there, he checks that they are alone and presses his lips to Elijah’s ear: “I’m not going to send them.”
Elijah stops fighting. “Why did you say that you were?”
“Did you really think I would?” Orlando supposes he rightfully deserves the suspicion, but still it wounds. “He forced me to choose between you and your family. He thinks I’m going to let this happen, but I assure you I will not.”
“What are you going to do?”
Orlando’s not sure, but he says the first plan that seems worth its salt. “I’ll bribe the guards to take them somewhere else, somewhere safe.”
“Where? Where? Does any safe place exist for them anymore?”
“I haven’t thought that far yet, Elijah,” he pleads. “I’ve only just learned of this myself.”
“There’s nothing to figure. In the East your father waits, to the North the horde, and to the South and the East, there’s only the sea.”
“I will think of something,” Orlando promises.
Elijah stands in the garden, the warm sun beating on his neck and the birds singing in the trees, and around him the entire world is going on as if nothing grave has happened; yet it has. He has no doubt that Orlando can and will offer a bribe - a sizeable one that those men might take, but there is still no guarantee that his family will remain safe.
“Send me instead,” he pleads.
“No.”
“Orlando…”
“No. I said no.”
“Please, please I can…”
Orlando gives Elijah a rough shake. “I said no.”
“Play me.”
“I’ll find a way and I…”
“Play me for it.”
“What?” Orlando suddenly realizes what Elijah has been suggesting.
“Play me at Strategy. If I win, you send me; if I lose you …” He can’t even admit to what he wishes to wager, but he’s certain that he will win.
“This cannot be settled by playing some game!”
“Why not? You use my family like pawns.”
Orlando sees a shadow move from the corner of his eye. If it is John, he does not wish to be caught haggling with Elijah. “Fine,” Orlando hisses to quiet Elijah and hauls him forward by the arm.
The hall appears to be empty, but he feels eyes on him nonetheless. He follows a now silent Elijah up the stairs.
*
There is no pleasure in the game; both of them are playing for keeps. Elijah plays for the right to go in his family’s place, while Orlando plays to keep Elijah docile for a few moments so that he can think.
Orlando stares at the dark head bent determinedly over the board and tries to formulate his plan. He will have to feel out the men he can buy off; perhaps he can manage to have it look like an ambush happened, fix it so that it appears that the family was killed, and only one or two of the men return with news of what happened.
He watches Elijah capture one of his men, but that move allows him to take two of Elijah’s.
Orlando sits back in his chair. How many men will he have to bribe? At what price? He has no inkling if any of them would be willing, and no idea which, if any of them, won’t turn news of his plot over to John.
Elijah stares at the board. In his eagerness, he’s dug himself a hole; not just a hole but a trench. Any move he makes now will leave men open for Orlando’s taking. He draws a deep breath and wills himself to calm down; he can’t think about anything other than the outcome he desires.
He is better than this. Elijah moves closer to the board and sighs as he finally spots a move that will spare him any losses. But it is only the most temporary of saves, and as his men slowly dwindle he realizes that he’s not going to win.
Elijah’s face is inscrutable as Orlando captures his last man.
It is a hollow victory.
“Again,” Elijah demands as he starts to reset the pieces.
Orlando shakes his head.
“Send me instead.”
The empty board clatters to the floor and suddenly Elijah is between Orlando’s legs, fingers sliding up his thighs; Orlando clamps his hands over Elijah’s.
“No.”
Elijah wriggles free of his grasp but Orlando pulls them away before they can reach their intended target. “Stop, Elijah.”
“But you want me,” Elijah whispers pleadingly. “You always want me.”
“I told you to stop.” Orlando can hardly keep his grip on Elijah’s twisting wrists. When Elijah finally wrestles one hand free, Orlando releases the other and stands so abruptly that Elijah tumbles backward. “I will think of something, but sending you in their stead is not an option.”
“You can’t do this. Please…” Elijah shrinks back as Orlando moves toward him with a fierce look on his face.
“I don’t want to do this. This is not my choice!” He stops himself just shy of putting angry hands on Elijah and walks away, running a restless hand through his hair.
Elijah is silent and does his best to swallow the lump in his throat. “I’m sorry.” He studies Orlando’s back. “You really should send me.”
“I won’t. I’m not going to.”
“But…”
“Let me think, Elijah!” Orlando roars.
“There’s something…”
Orlando strides to the door and flings it open, slamming the bar in place as he leaves. Piper is standing at the hall, with a pitcher cradled in his arms, staring at him.
“When you’re done with them,” he indicates towards the royal suite, “I want the bar drawn.”
“Yes, my lord.” Piper nods obediently, but Orlando can see the curiosity in his eyes.
“And I want you to … I want you to give Elijah something that will help him sleep.”
“Is he ill again?”
Orlando watches curiosity turn to concern. “I fear he might be if he doesn’t sleep.” He hopes that a little half-lie will ensure Piper’s help.
“I will, my lord.”
Tbc … Part 11