fortunate trespasser

With wine in hand—his third glass—and a suitably non-threatening smile fixed on his lips, Zeth’rinn appears merely another guest in the great hall of House Nydalla. He’s had more than a few passes made at him since he arrived, with varying degrees of sobriety attached, and it breaks his heart to turn them all down, but he didn’t scale a warded fence, avoid a half-dozen magical traps, and bribe his way past a series of increasingly extortionate guards for a casual encounter with a mildly entertaining stranger.

The objects of his second ill-advised and unauthorised entry into the Nydalla’s estate have so far eluded him, however. They remain mere glimpses in passing through the throng—a flash of silver jewellery; a sliver of black dress; the glint of a belted rapier; the sway of a long, perfect braid. Tantalising. Enticing. And always gone before he can reach them.

Zeth’rinn takes another swallow of really quite excellent red wine and adjusts the set of his rolled sleeves. Bracelets glitter on his wrists, red gems matching the ones on the chains of his favourite choker. The decorative webs on the sides of his head are freshly shaved; his make-up perfect; his shirt fixed open at his navel by enchanted buttons, the better to display his hard-earned musculature; and the delectable curve of his calves are wrapped to the knee in supple, gleaming leather. He’s put a lot of effort into the feast he’s brought tonight, and he isn’t about to let it go to waste.

As if conjured by his determination, a gap opens in the crowd, revealing Iphis with his back to him. The music swells in a surge of strings, masking Zeth’rinn’s footfalls. His heart speeds with excitement he swallows, firming his voice as he makes his opening gambit.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

Iphis turns. For a moment his pretty blue eyes widen, then he cocks hip and eyebrow both, treating Zeth’rinn to a scouring once-over. “Now you definitely weren’t invited.”

“I heard the music on my way past,” Zeth’rinn says. “Thought I’d see what was going on.”

“Is that so?”

His tone is sharp, and he’s got a hand on the hilt of his rapier but he isn’t drawing it. His fingers trace the guard, circling and sliding tenderly over the curving metal. Two and a half glasses of wine do little to justify how much heat the motions bring to Zeth’rinn’s face. Iphis is not unobservant of the flush.

“Why are you really here, Baenre?” he asks. “And don’t be boring and lie.”

“Maybe I wanted to see you again,” Zeth’rinn says. Motion behind Iphis catches his attention—Minisstra, cutting through the sea of guests like a well-thrown knife. He meets her eyes and can’t unmeet them. “Maybe I wanted to see both of you again.”

The moment Minisstra arrives, Iphis slots into place at her side. Not puzzle pieces, Zeth’rinn thinks; more like a hand fitting around a hilt crafted to fit its exact contours. She’s beyond stunning tonight, poured into a dress as dark and compelling as the Abyss, with the silver markings of Lolth’s Embrace shining clearly on her skin, which is a surprise. Admittedly, he was somewhat distracted the last time they met, but he would have remembered her having those. If they’re painted, they’re immaculate, and if they’re an illusion, it’s one so well-crafted it’s not setting off any of the subtle alarms dangling from his ears.

A dangerous game, to play with marks of favour like that. It only makes him want her more.

Zeth’rinn fashions his most enticing smile, then takes her hand and brushes a kiss over her knuckles. “Matron Nydalla. A fine evening you’ve put together.”

She seems halfway between entertained and offended by his boldness. She doesn’t snatch her hand away, she’s too elegant for that, but she does remove it swiftly from his grasp.

“I seem to recall telling you not to set foot in my house again without permission.”

“You did.”

“Yet here you are.”

“Yet here I am. What does that tell you?”

She breaks from Iphis’ side to circle him. Despite the crowd and the heat and the music, the three of them are alone, with Zeth’rinn at the centre of this island of tension he finds himself stranded on. He forces himself not to turn his head to follow her, to watch Iphis and nothing else.

“It tells me that you are an audacious, ill-mannered boy with about as much sense as a rothé,” Minisstra says. “And that you are either extremely foolish, or in search of a swift end to your existence.”

“Audacious I’ll admit to, and ill-mannered my father would agree with,” Zeth’rinn says. Iphis is still toying with the hilt of his rapier, and it takes a good deal of effort not to get distracted by the play of his fingers. “But how do you mark the place between foolishness and determination, Mistress Nydalla? I’d have thought you’d appreciate someone who’d go to whatever lengths it took to get what he wants.”

A low laugh. Threatening nailpoints press to his neck. His heart is as hot as his face. “You’ve ventured into treacherous waters, little Baenre.”

Now he does look up at her, and it takes all his will not to melt into wordlessness at her nearness. “I know how to swim.”

Her silence spins the moment into something precarious. Something delicious. Something akin to the strange energy she conjured between the three of them when her hand was in his hair and the point of Iphis’ rapier was inside his breeches. Her nails fall away.

“I think I’ve had enough socialising. We’ll retire somewhere quieter,” she says. Iphis falls into step alongside her, her hand on the small of his back steering him in the direction of the doors at the far end of the hall. After five steps, she glances back. “You too, Baenre.”

Zeth’rinn drops his glass on the nearest passing tray, and races after them as fast as his foolishly determined legs can carry him.

He knows at once that this isn’t their bedroom. The hallway, lined with portraits whose eyes followed him with pointed interest, was long and deliberately arranged, and the door Iphis directed him through had neither his face nor Minisstra’s near it. Judging from the lack of personal effects, it doesn’t belong to another member of their household, either. Guest room, then. An unused place where no-one will think to look for his body.

Minisstra reclines elegantly at the head of the bed, one arm draped along the headboard and her knees tucked up beneath her.

“Last time you wanted to play with him more, lince’sa,” she says to Iphis, motioning at the dark sheets. “Play.”

“Just like that?” Zeth’rinn asks. “No more games, no more threats on my life? Don’t tell me I came all this way for no foreplay.”

Iphis rolls his eyes. “Still you talk too much.”

He shoves Zeth’rinn onto the bed with enough force to knock the wind out of him. Half sprawled, he scrambles up to make room, only to be stopped by Minisstra’s foot. Her heel—gods, she’s still wearing her heels—digs into the space between his shoulder blades, pushing him back towards Iphis, who takes him by the shirtfront and pulls him into a kiss.

It’s a good kiss. A very good kiss, with a lot of tongue, and it goes on the entire time it takes them to get their clothes off, which involves a good deal of under-the-breath cursing on Zeth’rinn’s part, and a greater deal of amusement and groping on Iphis’.

Arousal, present in a background hum from the moment he crossed the Nydalla’s threshold, blazes into hungry life. He didn’t expect to have Iphis under him so soon, and revels in his prize: warm skin and the strangely familiar bump of scars, webbed like his own but joined at the centre; soft stomach and a waist he can sink his fingers into; silken hair, a delight to find at the juncture of such sweet thighs as well as curled around the lovely points of those delicate ears.

Iphis maps him in turn, the pads of his thumbs coaxing Zeth’rinn’s nipples to hardness, palms skimming over his scars, his ribs, his waist…and no lower. Despite his best efforts, Iphis refuses to touch him the way he’s wanted ever since the rapier came close. It’s not reluctance, it’s tease—the smirk against his lips makes that abundantly clear.

The fact they have an audience makes the torment so much worse. How can she just sit there and watch him suffer? Zeth’rinn arches his back as he rides Iphis’ thigh, exaggerating the roll of his hips in a way he knows shows off his lean form, and is mid too-loud moan when he gets the attention he wants—Minisstra grabs the knot of his hair and hauls him, yelping, off of Iphis. His spine twinges in protest at the treatment, not nearly as flexible as she’s forcing it to be.

“If you don’t stop overacting like a poorly trained whore, you’ll be leaving this room in several very unattractive pieces,” she growls.

Which, all things considered, should not make Zeth’rinn wetter than he already is, but his cunt apparently didn’t get that notice.

“Maybe that’s the problem, Miss.” Iphis sits up, toying with the pendant on his choker. “He’s not trained.”

“Then you had better provide him with some instruction on how a properly trained boy ought to behave, Ra’soltha,” Minisstra says.

It’s only then that Zeth’rinn realises what he’d taken for fashionable black leather wrapped around Iphis’ neck is something much, much more. Ra’soltha is a word he’s only seen written in the kind of erotic novels one doesn’t admit to reading in polite company; a word charged with the same energy that crackles between Minisstra and her consort, an undercurrent both obvious and hidden, because it’s so very natural for a male to serve his Matron in any way she desires. His own choker feels suddenly too tight, restricting his air.

Minisstra releases him into Iphis’ hold, which is no less firm. He spreads his legs, forcefully pulling Zeth’rinn’s head between them.

“Let’s see,” he drawls. “Do you have any skill with that mouth beyond not knowing when to shut up, or are you all talk?”

With a mass of thick white curls and the heady scent of sex less than an inch from his face, Zeth’rinn finds himself at an uncharacteristic loss for words. A clit almost like his own, swollen to a small, enticing cock, responds to the flick of his tongue with a twitch. He delves lower, eagerly devouring the divine wetness that greets him, putting every scrap of every decade of experience into his performance, sucking and licking as if his life depends on it.

Which, he muses dimly, it actually might.

His efforts do seem to be having an effect at least, judging by the slick arousal coating his lips and the sounds coming out of Iphis’ mouth, muffled as they are by the thighs pressed to either side of his head. He plunges his tongue deep, flexing into heat and hungry flesh before dragging it out and up to the equally hot clit that fits so wonderfully in his mouth. His own throbs with want, the slight friction he can get from the sheets only aggravating it. Zeth’rinn manages to work a hand below himself and has just gotten it where he wants it when once again Minisstra’s touch halts him.

For a moment, it’s the fact of her hand between his legs that freezes him, but all she does is grip his wrist with bruising force.

“No,” she says. It’s the work of moments for her to have both his hands behind his back, held tight in one of her own. His cunt pulses, clenching around nothing, and he whimpers over Iphis’ clit, rutting into the bed. Minisstra’s other hand grasps his waist, pulling him away from his meagre source of stimulation. “I said no, Baenre. You’re servicing my pet right now. No distractions. Focus.”

Zeth’rinn focuses. Each gasp is a signpost, every moan a fresh marker on his map, and he follows them with his tongue until Iphis tenses, bucks his hips, and comes with a throaty cry that conjures a bolt of pride in Zeth’rinn’s chest. Being the cause of orgasm never fails to bolster his ego.

The firm hands and plush thighs holding him down finally let go. He sits up, massaging his jaw, licking his lips. Iphis is flushed, his lovely lilac face stained inky dark.

“Well, Ra’soltha?” Minisstra asks.

“He has potential, Mistress.”

“Good.” She rises smoothly from the bed. “Come here.”

If this were any other place, with any other bedmates, Zeth’rinn would be touching himself whilst she undressed. Here, he doesn’t dare. He curls his fingers into his palms as he watches Iphis expertly help his Mistress out of her dress. The way he moves his hands—it’s not just obedience, it’s something closer to reverence. The ache Zeth’rinn felt the last time he was here starts up again, a longing he has no name for but suspects might fall into the same category as the word Ra’soltha.

Iphis returns to the bed. “You’re a very lucky trespasser,” he says, pushing Zeth’rinn down so his head is by the footboard.

“My tongue passed the test, I take it.”

“Your tongue did.” Iphis settles between his legs, hips raised to meet Minisstra’s hands as she kneels behind him. “The rest of you is yet to prove itself.”

“And how do I do that?”

Iphis pushes two fingers into him—they go easily, the wet sound of their entrance and Zeth’rinn’s accompanying startled cry much too loud in the quiet of the room. Iphis crooks them with a wicked grin. “You show us how much you can take.”

No tease this time, just a quick, clever tongue on his clit and even cleverer fingers fucking into him. His hands fist in the sheets; he’s been eaten before, but not like this. Never like this. Iphis sucks his overgrown clit like it’s a cock, teasing the sensitive head with cunning circles, drawing it up and out and harder than it’s ever been.

He can tell when Minisstra makes her move because Iphis moans into him, and pleasure sparks and spirals up from his dripping cunt to his spinning head. Iphis’ pace shifts to match that of his Mistress, her thrusts dictating his. His hand might be smaller than Zeth’rinn’s, but somehow it’s reaching places inside him his own has never found.

Minisstra’s eyes meet his, bright as altar flame. In the face of that fire he’s a mindless moth, straining to reach the ecstasy of extinction, and this must be how a match feels when it’s struck; the brutal scrape, the sharp, sudden transformation from friction to heat—the knowledge that you have seconds to live, and each and every one of them will burn.

Between them, Iphis whines. Minisstra slows, gripping his hip tight. Another whine, and her nails dig crescents into his skin. “Our guest gave you one already, lince’sa. Be patient.”

His response to such denial is to take it out on Zeth’rinn. A third finger joins the first, the furiously wet sound of their ruthless pace louder than the pant of his breath—the sheets below his hips must be soaked. Minisstra stretches languidly over her consort and though Zeth’rinn leans forwards to meet her, she ignores him, kissing Iphis on the shoulder. Zeth’rinn growls in frustration. Iphis growls into his cunt in reply and he curses.

“Excellent work, pet,” Minisstra croons. Delight rises from Iphis at the praise, so tangible Zeth’rinn can almost taste it. He leans further towards Minisstra, lips parted, desperation on his tongue. Two inches. An inch.

“Please,” he whispers, ragged. She shakes her head. He swallows. “Please, Mistress.”

Her kiss scorches him to the marrow. It’s nothing like the way Iphis kissed him. It’s exactly like the way Iphis kissed him. When it ends, he’s left chasing her lips, moaning headily as Iphis licks into him. Minisstra catches his chin, searching his face. Seeing how close he is.

“I—” he starts. She presses her thumb over his lips.

“Not yet, Baenre. Iphis can behave, so can you.”

It’s sweet agony. Zeth’rinn tenses his thighs over and over—every time Minisstra fucks into her consort, the fingers buried in his cunt pulse harder, the tongue on his clit works more intensely. Every sound Minisstra wrings from Iphis reverberates through him, echoing out of his mouth in pale imitation. His fingers clench in Iphis’ hair, controlling nothing, only holding on for dear life. He can’t take much more, but he doesn’t want to disappoint Minisstra—or disobey her.

Iphis makes a keening sound. “Please, Mistress, may I come now?”

The words hang in the space between the sound of skin moving against skin. Moments stretch into needful infinities, balanced on a knife edge of incomplete desire.

“You may,” Minisstra finally grants. Iphis puts his free hand between his legs and scarcely a heartbeat later comes with a groan that vibrates deep into Zeth’rinn’s core. The orgasm drives his tongue to fresh urgency, and its fervent motions put paid to the notion of doing anything but give in.

Zeth’rinn tries to beg like Iphis did, but his plea collapses into a throat-wrenching cry. Minisstra’s nails dig into his face, her lips parting in pleasure as her own climax takes her. Her grip never lightens and her pace never lessens until Iphis falls limp beneath her and Zeth’rinn collapses under them both.

Only then does she let go, and smile, and stroke Iphis’ hair with a tenderness Zeth’rinn feels guilty for witnessing.

“Good boy,” she murmurs. Iphis whimpers, wordlessly. Her eyes find Zeth’rinn’s. “Good Baenre.”

And if he hadn’t just come, those two words would have sent him over an edge he’s certain he’d never come back from.

As clean as one minor earring charm can make him and dressed, Zeth’rinn’s hands tremble as he laces his boots. He wants to stay. He needs to leave. Tonight’s risk paid off, but all it’s done is ignite a fire in him for the kind of more he’s not going to get.

“Enjoy yourself?”

He glances up. Minisstra looks exactly as she did before they left the party, not so much as a hair out of place.

“Very much,” he says.

Her lips curve. She crosses to him, and he’s sure the way she moves is designed to be hypnotising, for why else should it captivate him so? Arms slide around his waist, Iphis’ breath hot at his neck. There’s no rapier pressing into him this time, but just as much threat holding him still. Minisstra leans in close. Her fingers are cold and hard on his jaw. Inescapable.

“At some point,” she says, “I shall have need of your father’s services. And when that time comes—” the emphasis she places on the word is subtle; Iphis’ hand between his legs is not “—I’m going to get what I want, aren’t I, little Baenre?”

There’s only one possible answer.

“Yes, Mistress.”