Hidden Depths (6 page)

Each time he neared the palace’s sea gates, his blood would thicken and his steps would slow. He couldn’t prevent the reaction, though he tried hard enough.

No matter who was with him, his groin would tighten and his prick slide free. He could feel the call of the warming ocean, just as his father warned. Someone was out there, some distant female whose blood was a match for his. He wanted to fling himself into the water and swim until he found her, wanted to fuck her amongst the waves and fill her womb with his pup. His dreams had grown increasingly explicit, laden with images of acts he’d never experienced in life.

He’d wake hard as iron and wishing he’d had a wet dream.

He craved the touch of a woman more than he’d known he could crave anything.

Not
a
woman
, he corrected, his hand forming a fist on the thick window.
The

woman.

If he hadn’t witnessed his mother’s sadness, he’d have long since obeyed the urge. What his blood craved didn’t justify the crime involved, nor did it guarantee anyone’s happiness. Moreover, Anso wasn’t a damned salmon. He was a modern person with a conscience.

And a responsibility to continue my ancestral line
, the opposing side of him reminded. His blood carried magic that had lent generations of Vitul rulers better ruling instincts than the norm.

“Your Majesty,” his butler interrupted from the doorway behind his back.

“Lady Ellice has come by. Shall I tell her you’re in?” Anso opened his mouth and turned, but Ellice was already entering the salon.

“You don’t need to do that,” she laughingly told the servant. “Anso and I don’t stand on ceremony.”

“Actually,” Anso said, deciding this conversation was overdue, “he does need to. I have too many demands on me to let anyone, no matter how old a friend, stroll in at their pleasure.”

Ellice’s smile faltered. “You can’t mean me.”

“I do,” he said softly but firmly.

“Oh.” She blinked rapidly, her hands clutched together before her narrow waist. She looked especially nice, draped in a rich blue gown that made the most of her Vitul eyes and her fine cleavage. Anso’s sole consolation was that tonight he was unmoved by the display. “I’m sorry, cousin. I didn’t mean to offend. My father and I were wondering if you’d like to join us for a late supper. We couldn’t help noticing you barely ate two bites at the state dinner.” Anso doubted her father had noticed anything of the sort. His Uncle Phoca was a jovial man but not particularly observant. Anso enjoyed his company, especially his stories of the Pelappo Wars. If the invitation had come from him alone, Anso would have accepted gladly and enjoyed a relaxing meal. Sadly, Ellice had the habit of treating her father like an addled child. While Anso admitted she was cleverer than her sire, he didn’t like watching it. Less intelligent or not, her father was a war hero.

“I’m afraid I have plans,” he declined politely.

“Oh,” Ellice said. “Well, perhaps another -”

Anso’s butler reappeared at the door. When he cleared his throat, anger flashed across Ellice’s normally sweet face, tightening her rosebud mouth into a flat line. The expression startled Anso enough for his jaw to drop.

“Forgive me, sire. Your ten o’clock has arrived. You did say you wanted to be informed.”

He hadn’t, but you’d never know it from the servant’s grave manner.

“Thank you, Harrison,” he said. “Show them to my office and assure them I’ll arrive shortly.”

“Well,” Ellice said with a brittle laugh. “I suppose those are my walking papers.”

Anso resisted the urge to apologize. “Please give your father my regards.” Ellice rolled her eyes and turned. “I’m not giving up,” she threw over her shoulder. “Being king is no excuse for never taking off your crown.” The butler came back as soon as he’d closed the door behind her. “Forgive me, sire. I didn’t mean to presume. Or to let her slip by me.” Anso realized the man was worried he’d be disciplined. “You did fine, Harrison. Lady Ellice should be treated with respect, but it’s true I don’t want her traipsing in as she pleases. Er, did anyone actually arrive?” The butler’s mouth gave a little twitch. “Lord Otari, sire. I put him in your office as requested.

The warmth that spread through Anso’s chest was probably too grateful. Not inclined to play games, he didn’t keep Ty waiting but went immediately to greet him.

“Hey, stranger,” Ty said, pushing off his desk and grinning.

Anso hugged him and slapped his back before letting go. “Your timing is impeccable as usual.”

“Ellice, eh? She’s not going to become less determined now that you’re king, you know.”

Anso grimaced and dropped sideways onto the office’s antique red sofa. The furniture was mostly scarlet, the room’s walls lacquered black and stenciled with the Vitul family’s signature silver eel patterns. The effect was heavy, but here too he’d decided he’d rather leave the decor alone. Lobodon had often worked here, sometimes late into the night. When Anso had been a boy, he’d liked to hide in the storage compartment beneath a drinks trolley, because he’d wanted to remain close to his father. Looking at the trolley now, he marveled he’d ever been small enough to fit.

On the other side of the room, behind the large carved desk, the king’s private sea gate was set into the wall. The hatch and wheel were fashioned from an alloy of gold and silver known as electrum, which retained magic well. The mechanism was slightly tarnished but still functioned after centuries of use. Oceana’s mages renewed the spells that powered the city’s gates periodically, ensuring the outside water stayed where it belonged. This particular hatch led to a pressurized changing tube whose further door gave into the royal courtyard, which then accessed the sea. Given the effect the gates had been having on him lately, Anso had avoided the space. He only told the butler to stash his guest here because he’d spoken without thinking.

He thought that was the reason, in any case. To have brought himself here on purpose would have been stupid.

“You ... don’t look right,” Ty said unsurely.

He didn’t feel right. Maybe it was because he hadn’t eaten or how busy he’d been all day. His head swam with dizziness, and his hands and feet tingled. If he hadn’t known how fit he was, he have sworn he was going to faint. Suddenly too heavy to move, he closed his eyes just for a second.

He dropped into a dream like a boulder through dark water. The wheel to the hatch was stuck. All his strength wouldn’t open it. He had to open it. She was out there. Waiting. Only she could complete him. His body burned with awareness, every pore opening to catch her scent. He knew he would recognize her. All he had to do was slip out into the spring currents ...

“Anso.
Anso
.”

Anso shuddered awake. To his amazement, he was on his feet. Ty stood behind him, hauling him back with both arms. Anso resisted, his grip seeming welded to the big electrum wheel. He’d been trying to turn it, exactly as in his dream.

“Good Lord,” he said, dropping the handles like he’d been burned.

As he gawked at the thing, Ty placed himself between Anso and the hatch.

This probably was a good idea. Anso belatedly realized his cock was hard as a rock.

Ty folded his arms and glared. “Care to tell me what that was about?” Anso really didn’t want to. He barely wanted to tell himself. Shaken in more ways than one, he ran one hand back through his honey-colored hair. “My father warned me this might happen.”

“
This
being?”

“I think ... my instincts are trying to tell me I need a human wife.” He couldn’t stand this close to the hatch. It was making every inch of his genitals itch. He walked back to the couch and forced himself to sit. Ty followed, standing over him in a posture that said he was prepared to block him if he made a run for the sea again. His expression was wary. “Have you blacked out like this before?”

Anso shook his head. “I’ve been feeling odd, though, whenever I get close to an ocean door. I’ve been dreaming as well. About women.
A
woman. And not the usual sort. These dreams are as vivid as if they’re happening.” He shifted uncomfortably on the cushion, a few of the situations from those dreams making his prick pulse harder. “I thought I could resist it if I made up my mind.” Ty sat gingerly on the couch beside him. “It looks to me like resisting it might not be the best idea.”

“I can’t give in! Just abduct some human because my body decides I need to?

Look how that turned out for my mother.”

“Have you talked to Pinni? Maybe he’s got a potion he can give you.”

“I suspect he’ll take the same position as my father. Needs must, and all that.”

“Perhaps the mages then.” Ty’s hand was warm on his knee, too warm considering his arousal. “I confess I find them as creepy as you do, but if a spell could help maybe you should try. You know you can’t afford for this to happen in front of someone else.”

Anso did know it. Mad kings tended not to have long reigns. And people were already flapping their jaws about how young he was for rule: not yet forty - as if being thirty-eight rendered him an infant. “I don’t like putting myself in the mages’ debt. My father trusted the Magus, but I don’t even know his real name.

You know how faeries are about those things. If he were just an elf, it might not be so bad. God.” He covered his face and rubbed it. “I think I have to do this.”

“Then you do.”

Anso dropped his hands to look at his friend. “Maybe I just think I do because my blood wants me to.”

Ty laughed at him. “You’re not your father. If you were, you wouldn’t be fighting this.”

“I loved my father.”

“Of course you did. So did we all. He was a good strong ruler. The thing is, he never really tried to understand your mother, not that I recall. He never figured out how to make her love him. I think you would. I think you look more deeply into people’s hearts than he did.” He cocked his head and offered a winsome smile. “You’d also have me to advise you. You know how big you’re always saying my brain is.”

Anso wasn’t sure women fell for brains, but how could he know? “You’d help me do this?”

“I’m the captain of your guards. I could hardly let you swim off alone.

Drylanders are eccentric, but they’re as likely to defend their women as we are.” Of all the responses he’d imagined, Ty offering to go with him wasn’t one.

Maybe he hated the idea of Ellice snaring Anso more than he’d realized.

Whatever the reason for Ty’s helpful attitude, Anso’s heart thumped faster inside his chest. If his friend came with him, he’d have a safety net against his blasted instincts doing something terrible.
Could
Anso inspire a woman from a different race to love him? It seemed too much to hope for. He barely understood were females.

“You’d stop me,” he said. “If it looked like I was going to commit some act my conscience wouldn’t be able to live with afterward.” Ty pulled a dubious face. “You’re my friend, Anso. And my liege.”

“You have to promise.”

Ty held his gaze, thoughts flittering like baitfish behind his eyes. “I promise I wouldn’t let you do anything
my
conscience couldn’t live with afterward.” Anso sensed this concession was the best he was going to get. The sea gate loomed behind him, unseen but certainly not unfelt. “Kiss me then. I could really do with a distraction.”

Something else flickered through his friend’s eyes, one more minnow of a thought.

Then Ty distracted him.

* * *

Ty turned his head sideways on the red sofa cushion while Anso went at him from behind, able to do little more than take what Anso was dishing out.

Fortunately, the king was good at fucking even when halfway out of his mind. Ty groaned at his building pleasure. The crest of Anso’s penis thumped the aching swell of his anal gland every single time he went in.

“
God
,” Anso gasped, thrusting ever more urgently. The sharp slap of his groin into Ty’s buttocks was driving him crazy, like a spanking but not. As if he knew this, Anso’s hand fumbled under Ty for his erection. When he found it, his grip was tight enough, not to mention rough enough to sink Ty’s teeth down into his lower lip.

This was good. Anso was jacking him with the precise fervor Ty’s kinks required. Sometimes Anso was overly careful with him.

“Shit, yes,” Ty said, arching his spine to encourage Anso to go deeper. This seemed to be appreciated. Anso’s second hand dug into his hip like a claw.

“God.” Anso slammed in again and held. He strained so hard, Ty assumed he was coming, but then he drew out and repeated what he’d just done. The solid, bull’s-eye blow to Ty’s prostate had his eyes crossing. Anso dragged his prick to the brink, and once more he drove in. His ball sac ground against Ty’s butt like he was trying to push his testicles in there too.

“Fuck.
Ty
.”

His hoarse desperation sent Ty over. Ty came with a suddenness that startled, the rush of it strong and sweet. He wasn’t certain Anso noticed. His hand continued to work his shaft so fast it was clicking in his wetness, dragging the orgasm well beyond its usual limit.

“Ah,” Anso cried. “
Ahh
-”

Heat flooded Ty inside. Anso was coming, the ejaculation both long and hard.

Perhaps the cause was their weeks apart, or maybe Anso’s desires were more feverish from his urge to spawn. When the wet pulses finally tapered, Anso sagged over him.

“Sorry,” he panted, his hot cheek on Ty’s shoulder. “Couldn’t stop myself for a minute there.”

Ty wished he could take credit for Anso’s extraordinary loss of control. Alas, he feared he’d simply been a stand in for Anso’s mysterious future mate. This sort of thing was more Ty’s style than his friend’s. Ty often became obsessed with people he hadn’t seduced yet. The turning of the carnal tables caused more discomfort than he expected.

When Anso pulled out of his pummeled ass, the muffled moan Ty let out was precariously close to wistful.