Enslaved by a King [Sold! 5] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (10 page)

“Why in the hell would they want to set me on fire?”

“To show your faith in me as the water bearer.” Now that their bodies had separated, Mingor felt their souls were further apart, too. He longed to recapture the tight bond, but realized it would be overwhelming to feel it all the time. Perhaps it was best to only happen in smaller doses when they were physically intimate. “It is a way to impress upon the populace that I am powerful.”

“So they set me on fire and you put me out?”

“Yes.” Mingor thought about sliding off Noah, but Noah wrapped his arms tightly around him, making it clear he didn’t want him going anywhere.

“Are you cold?”

“No.” Mingor turned his head to the side.

“Please tell me what’s wrong.”

Mingor didn’t want to. All his life he’d kept things to himself. It didn’t take many times to learn that others weren’t genuinely interested in what he honestly felt or thought about matters. But that was his own advisors. It was different with Noah. He asked not so he could formulate some plan against what Mingor might do. Noah asked because he wanted Mingor to share. Noah wouldn’t judge. He would support Mingor.

“I don’t want to go home.” Mingor had struggled valiantly to ignore the feeling, but he couldn’t change something that ran so deep.

“Why?”

“I do not like my advisors.”

“Are they abusive to you?” Noah’s voice was so soft it was as welcoming as warm water after an arduous day.

“They try to manipulate me to do what will serve them best.” Mingor lifted his head and looked at Noah. “They are more interested in their own selfish needs rather than in what is best for me or the people who worship me.” Mingor felt his soul shattering like ice dropped from a great height. “My advisors think of the worshipers as fools. Fools.” He shook his head. “They mock them. How horrible that they spend their time encouraging them to worship me as a god when they know I am not and then mock them for their reverent beliefs.”

Noah reached up and gently touched Mingor’s cheek. “What can I do?”

“Nothing.” Mingor cupped his hand and kissed his thumb. “I knew you would wish to assist me, but there is nothing to be done.”

“Can’t you fire your advisors?”

“How would setting fire to them help?”

“No.” Noah laughed, but lightly, and not with mocking intent. “On Earth, when an employee isn’t working out—not performing well, coming in late, being a slacker—he’s fired. It means he no longer has a job.”

“I cannot release them from service when they are born into the role.”

“They are born to be your advisors?”

“It is a station passed down through a family line.”

“From father to son?”

“From parents to child.” Mingor considered Noah for a moment. “Is your culture very male centered?”

“Yeah. I think they call it patriarchal. Everything runs from man to man rather than woman to woman. But there are some cultures on Earth that are matriarchal. Just not as many. Yours isn’t like that?”

“The sex doesn’t matter. The parents do.”

“Then why don’t you have a predestined
sephir
?”

“I did. She died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I did not know her well, so I did not feel tremendous pain when she passed.”

“How old were you?”

It took a moment for them to translate each other’s time increments, but eventually Mingor explained he was a young boy of two hundred nineteen passes of the moon, which was about six years in Noah’s terms.

“You already had a destined mate at six?”

“She was chosen for me when she was born. She was the daughter of the eldest advisor.” Aido’s harsh face flashed in Mingor’s mind. “I was aggrieved because the loss of a life is always sad, but there was no emotional attachment to her.”

“She was destined but you never spoke with her?”

“She died when she was still a babe. But she would have been sheltered from me until such time as she was deemed of age.”

“And then?”

“I would have spoken to her only after the trial by fire.”

“Holy fucking shit! Let me get this straight. They would have taken some lovely purple lady, set her on fire, then what, expected you to put her out?”

“That is the way of things.”

“It’s fucked up.”

It took a moment for the phrase to translate but Mingor had to agree with the sentiment. “It is indeed.”

“Has a
sephir
candidate ever died during the ceremony?”

“I am not going to subject you to that.”

“I didn’t say you would, but I’m curious.” Noah kissed Mingor’s forehead. “You’ll find it’s a twisted facet of humans. We can be a morbid bunch.”

“You sometimes talk about yourself in such a curious way.”

“I am a curious man.”

“That you are.” Mingor kissed his chin then moved up to his lips. “But I find your strangeness meshes well with mine.”

Noah laughed with genuine delight. “I think it was Dr. Seuss who said everyone is a little weird so if we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.”

“Love?” The word on Thand was different, but the idea was the same. “My kind loves, too.”

There was silence between them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, it was sweetly reflective. Mingor didn’t know Noah well enough to love him, but what he knew so far made him know that his feelings would only intensify. Noah was kind, considerate, gentle, and almost painfully generous. Mingor knew if he asked Noah to perform the trial of fire, he would, and he would trust Mingor completely. But Mingor didn’t need such a show of faith. He didn’t think his advisors did either. They only demanded the ritual be performed when they did not like who the water bearer had chosen as a
sephir
. However, they were not so open about it as that. They would never admit that was the truth, but Mingor knew that was the way of it. Aido’s daughter would have had to undergo the ceremony, but since she passed, Mingor was free to choose his companion. By tradition, he could pick anyone, even a soul his advisors didn’t approve of. The way they wielded power over Mingor’s choice was by demanding the ritual be performed. That scared most would-be
sephirs
away.

“Tell me more about this Dr. Seuss.” Mingor reached down to pull the coverings over them as Noah told him about the man who told tall tales while rhyming his words. Mingor found the very idea charming. He fell asleep listening to the gentle cadence of Noah’s voice.

Mingor woke to the same sweet sound.

“Wake up, sleepy.” Noah kissed the top of Mingor’s head. He was on his side, facing away from Noah. “I want to fool around.”

“I do not know what that means.”

When Noah’s cock pressed against Mingor’s buttock, he realized exactly what Noah meant. Mingor smiled. He hadn’t woken up so happy in a long time, and it felt wonderful. Before he could roll over, Noah was sliding his cock in the split made by Mingor’s buttocks. It was a lazy exploration.

“Do you always wake up like this?” Mingor found the bottle of lube and passed it back to Noah.

“Usually, but I’m also alone when I wake up.” Noah leaned away and then he came close, placing his mouth against Mingor’s ear. “I have to say it’s a lot more fun to wake up with a stiffy when I’m with you.”

Mingor didn’t need his translator to understand the meaning of the word
stiffy
. It was obvious by the way Noah spoke and moved that he was talking about his erect cock. The sound of the word and Noah’s playful mood lightened his heart.

Gently, Noah angled Mingor’s hips back and slid his slick cock deep inside. He was tender but not in pain. More than anything, he welcomed the closeness. Noah wrapped his arms around Mingor and pulled him tight to his body while he kissed his neck, ear, and shoulder. It was similar to last night but different, too. Sweeter, perhaps. And more languid. There was no rush to find the peak of pleasure but rather a determination to keep them on a high plateau for a long time. When Noah’s hand wrapped around Mingor’s cock, Mingor sighed, closed his eyes, and felt himself floating away.

“Are you still with me?” Noah asked softly.

“I’m here. But I am otherwhere.”

“Otherwhere. I like that word.”

“It is when your physical body is on one plane but your spirit is on another.”

“Like when you dream.”

“Yes. I never thought of it that way, but yes, that is very accurate.” Mingor closed his eyes and allowed himself to go otherwhere. He trusted his physical form in the hands of his
sephir
so his mind was free to wander. As his pleasure rose, he found it oddly difficult to maintain his separation of body and spirit. When his orgasm hit, he was pulled back into his body just in time to fully experience his release. Noah followed him quickly into bliss, his grip tightening as he flicked his hips one last time and held.

A warm afterglow surrounded them, and to his surprise, Mingor fell back to sleep. He couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t instantly awake and striving toward his goals for the day. There was always something pulling his attention. But for today. When he discovered that Noah’s cock was still inside him, he rhythmically clenched and unclenched his buttocks.

“I’m awake. I’m awake.” Noah groaned and snuggled closer. “Oh, yeah. I’m awake.”

Mingor waited until Noah was hard again then pulled away.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”

“I want to try something new.”

“Okay.”

Mingor climbed on top of Noah, but rather than attempt to penetrate him, he placed their cocks together and rocked his hips.

“Now this is different.”

“I want to thrust and feel you thrust hard.”

“I can do that.” Noah grasped Mingor’s buttocks in his powerful hands, and together they rocked against each other. Faster they went until they were sweaty and short of breath. Their cocks rubbed hard against one another and their bellies until the friction became too much. Noah climaxed first, giving Mingor a curious burst of pride that was truncated when he climaxed right after him.

They dozed again but ultimately rose together. Mingor brought the lights up to half to ease them into the schedule of his planet. They helped one another bathe then dressed. After a light meal, they were ready to depart.

“What should I expect?” Noah’s hand was sweaty against Mingor’s.

“My advisors will greet us.”

“Do they know I am coming?”

“No.”

“Then how will they greet us?”

“They will know a trader’s ship wishes to land. They will come out to negotiate trade.”

“Wait. They don’t know you’re on this ship?”

“No.”

“That can’t be good.” Noah adjusted his robe for the tenth time.

“Are you uncomfortable?”

“This is ironic as hell but I guess I got used to running around naked at Hindur’s.”

“If you wish to be nude, you may disrobe.”

“What kind of a message would that send to your people?”

“I do not know.” Mingor considered for a moment. “However, I would be too distracted to pay attention to anything but you.”

“Ah. Well, if I’m ever losing an argument, I’m going to get naked really fast.”

Mingor smiled at him, truly pleased that Noah was thinking of the future. It gave him more hope that they would indeed have one together. He halted before the door that would take them out of the ship. “Kiss me again.”

“Gladly.” Noah pulled him close and kissed him as if they had all the time in the world.

His passion gave Mingor the extra strength he needed to lift his head, open the door, and stride down the ramp. At the bottom all eight of his advisors stood in a semicircle. They were peering expectantly up, but they betrayed nothing until they looked at Noah.

“Are those people your advisors?” Noah was asking out the side of his mouth as if he didn’t want them to know he was speaking.

Mingor softly said, “Yes.” He looked at the group of eight. Five were women and three were men. All of them looked furious despite their efforts to comport their faces. Their ire seemed to be equally split between Mingor and Noah. The closer he got to them, the more he realized there seemed to be little curiosity expressed toward Noah. When Mingor saw the elaborately festooned stage for the trial by fire, he knew someone onboard the starship had informed them that Mingor had chosen a
sephir
.

Noah looked around at an almost surreal landscape. The sky was sapphire blue. Unlike Earth, with the softer powder blue or even the darker tint that the sky had in the desert, this was a saturated blue that was deep despite the fact the sun was high in the sky. When he looked at the light from the sun, Noah realized it wasn’t warm yellow like the sun that shone down on Earth but more white. Noah wasn’t certain if the wavelength of light from the star was different or the atmosphere of the planet was different. Maybe both. He’d never worried much about his lack of scientific knowledge until he realized how much it would have come in handy out here. Frankly, Noah didn’t even understand how or why he and Mingor were able to breathe the same air. All he knew was he wasn’t gasping, so he was good.