“You promised if I blew you, you would help him stay,” Rin reminded, grasping at straws.
“That’s the great thing about being the Imperial Prince,” he said. “I can always change my mind.”
“So I’m just supposed to never trust you? The man who I’m apparently going to spend the rest of my life with?” Rin couldn’t live like that. He’d done it before, been a slave to the whims of another person. It wasn’t the same, his father would have been a permanent presence, but he never would have forced the brothers to marry. Only because it wasn’t common on their planet though. “I ran to another galaxy to avoid that fate.”
“Would you like to?” Kelevra asked, and some of the harsh edge had left his voice. “Trust me?”
Rin licked his lips. “Yes.” There was no other alternative.
Their number one rule was to do what they had to to keep them both safe. His brother couldn’t be used as a pawn against him. He’d do what he had to to ensure that he wasn’t.
“Then I’ll make you a deal, Consort,” Kelevra replied silkily, lapping at the curve of Rin’s ear, a sure sign his anger was ebbing.
He swallowed. “I’m listening.”
“You will not contest this betrothal,” Kel said. “You will give yourself to me, in whole.”
“You can’t make someone love you,” Rin interrupted.
“I’m not asking for your love,” he told him, “not yet. I’ll claim that on my own, as surely as I’ve claimed your hand. But you will be mine. You’ll answer to no one but me. You’ll move in here and share my bed and when I tell you to spread for me, you will do so. You can still curse me and argue though. You can even still threaten me with knives and your fists—when we are alone. Outside, in front of others, you’ll be my Royal Consort, and you’ll like it. Is that understood, cadet?”
“And in return?”
“I’ll keep my promise and pay off your brother’s tuition fees. I’ll even sweeten the pot and give him an allowance if you’d like. You don’t have to worry about the Academy expenses, I’ve covered those for you already.”
“What?”
“It was taken care of this morning,” he said. “I didn’t see the need in telling you before, now I can see it’ll bother you if I don’t. Your brother will be granted permanent citizenship, and I won’t threaten to off-world him again. He can come and go as he pleases, so long as he never tries to take you from me. So long as you never try it either. You’re all in, Flower. Or I show you, unapologetically, why I’m a Devil of Vitality.”
Trapped. Rin waited for the same sinking, twisting panic to consume him, that flustered almost frantic sensation that came over him whenever he and his brother were cornered by their father or an obvious injury. He waited. But it didn’t come.
There was a chance he was simply numb to it by now, too tired and mentally drained. If he allowed himself to really think about it though, if he was honest, he knew that wasn’t the case.
Kelevra was promising not to separate them. That meant he and his brother still had time. He’d said so earlier himself at their hideaway in the woods. No one made either of them do anything they didn’t want to.
Rin would agree, for now, and he would plot. If there was a way out of this mess, he would find it, and if there wasn’t…
At least the two of them would be free of their father.
“Tick-tock, Flower,” Kelevra cut through his thoughts. “You know I’m not very patient.”
“All right,” he blurted before he could change his mind. “But the second you break your end of things, I’m gone. My brother isn’t a pawn.”Hewasn’t a pawn.
“Trust goes both ways,” Kel told him. “I’m willing to buy yours with my own.”
“Then,” Rin inhaled, “we have a deal?”
“We have a deal, Consort.” His hand finally slipped from his neck, arm settling back around his waist. “And I have you.”
Sure, but who exactly did the Imperial Prince think he caught? Was it really him?
Or was it someone else?
* * *
Sometime in the morning, with the sun just barely cresting outside, bathing the room in a golden glow, Rin was woken. He was on his stomach, his face pressed into the silk pillow.
“Awake?” Kelevra asked from behind him, grinding his hips against Rin’s backside, his hard cock driven in deep with the movement.
