He set his rucksack and the camera bag in the trunk that had, at some point, found its way into Vanya’s furnishings for Soren’s use. Then he undid the pauldron and sheath that secured his poison short sword to his back and laid it on top. Vanya still carried the storage case, which he passed on to apraetorialegionnaire and gave strict instructions to have it guarded by magicians in another room.
“I’ll have the servants provide you a better traveling case for it tomorrow,” Vanya said as he closed the bedroom door behind the legionnaire.
“You’re not going to demand to keep it?” Soren asked.
“As you said before, the dead are your duty, though I would want you to inform me of what the wardens find.”
“There’s the princeling in you.”
A hand caught him by the elbow, pulling him back against a familiar body. Warm lips kissed the side of his neck over the collar of his shirt. “You forget I was crowned emperor today.”
Soren lifted a hand so he could run his fingers through Vanya’s short dark hair around the crown, gripping what he could. “You’ll always be a princeling to me.”
Vanya chuckled, the sound low and deep and making Soren shiver, because he knew that tone, knew the mood Vanya was in. “Is that so?”
He tilted his head to the side, biting his lip when Vanya slid a hand between his legs with firm intent. “Stubborn and full of yourself. Of course you’ll always be that. It’s in your blood. It’s in your House. No one ever tells you no.”
Vanya kissed the shell of his ear, the hinge of his jaw, and Soren could only rock into the touch between his legs. “You do.”
He turned his head, twisting his torso enough so he could find Vanya’s mouth. “Someone needs to.”
Vanya made a sound that was all want, pure and simple, as he kissed Soren until they were drunk on the taste. He kissed with a fierceness that Soren didn’t back down from. They stumbled toward the bed before parting long enough to shed their clothing, and in Soren’s case, the rest of his weapons.
He hadn’t worn his whole set to the coronation, but he’d been thankful for the pistols. He left the belt with the holsters and pistols on the nightstand, within reach in case any other threat made it past thepraetorialegionnaires on duty around the palace.
The only thing he didn’t remove was the vow hanging around his throat, the gold medallion warm against his skin. When Vanya pulled him onto the bed, the glint from the golden crown was a match for the vow.
He leaned up to steal a kiss, fingers pressed to where gold rested against dark skin, thinking about the day when he wouldn’t have this anymore. “What do you want?”
“You,” Vanya said as he bore Soren down to the bed, settling between his legs, exactly where he belonged. “Whenever I can have you.”
Soren groaned, hooking a leg over Vanya’s hip and arching against him. “I’m here tonight, so have me.”
And Vanya did, with such exquisite thoroughness that Soren was reduced to begging by the time Vanya slid into him. Soren tilted his head back, mouth open on a wordless moan when Vanya snapped his hips forward and began fucking him in earnest.
Here, in this bed, it was just the two of them in ever-changing roles, but the want they shared, that was a truth Soren clung to. He urged Vanya on with hands and mouth, rocking into every thrust that had heat pooling in his gut.
Fingers scrabbled at his chest, tangling in the gold chain there, gripping it tight. When Vanya pulled on it, Soren could only follow, propping himself up on his elbows so he wouldn’t choke. Vanya’s hand slid up his back, pressing between his shoulder blades, and he found himself hauled upward, rocking forward onto Vanya’s lap.
He sank with a groan onto Vanya’s cock, the new position driving the other man deeper, feeling split open as he panted against Vanya’s mouth. The crown sat askew on Vanya’s head but hadn’t fallen off, and Soren would’ve fixed it, but Vanya thrust up into him with enough force to punch the air out of his lungs.
The metal links of the medallion’s chain bit into his skin as Vanya twisted it around his fingers again, keeping Soren in place. His eyes were nearly black beneath the crown he wore as he fucked Soren, fingers digging bruises into scarred skin.
“Tell me what you want,” Vanya said, voice a rasp as he chased his pleasure in Soren’s body.
Soren knew if he ever did, he could never have this again. That Soren wouldn’t have the right to Vanya’s time, his touch, his life, now that he was emperor. In that moment, as Soren tipped over the edge and came with a gasp against Vanya’s mouth, fingers curled over the crown, keeping it in place, he knew he’d do anything to stay.
It was a dangerous thing, he realized, to make a person your home.
“No,” Soren said against the seam of Vanya’s lips, giving himself up to the other man’s pleasure because he could at least offer that.
When Vanya finally came, fingers tangled around a vow he’d given and clutching Soren close, there was nothing between them but everything that mattered.
