Wyvern Ways and Elven Magic Read online

  The Ruby Throne circled the meadow in a group, then made a tighter circle of the tents to finally drop into the space set up beneath the main pavilion’s awning. They descended one at a time from Carnell to Scarlet—all executing flawless landings and simultaneous shifts back to their other-forms the second their claws touched the ground, clothing themselves as they did so.

  They’d left a space for him, and Brick decided he was going to take it properly, instead of scuttling to it, shamefaced. Ignoring his headache and throbbing nose, he ran a few paces and leaped as high as he could with a gurgled “Eaaarrgghhh!” to shift into his wyvern form and, oh, how good it felt to be in the air again, stretching his wings.

  He liked the world better in his shifted form. He loved the view from up on high, how things looked when seen from his bigger, more golden than yellow eyes. Scents were more acute to his snout, with its slits for nostrils, than to his other-form nose, which was broad and had never worked as well after being broken during a heated game of tail ball. Which his team had still lost.

  Okay, so he wasn’t all polished and gleaming reds like the others, but he liked his scales, with their rust and terra-cotta and ochre shades. Recalling Cerise’s insistence that his hues were “alternative reds” made him snort with laughter and swish his tail, the triangular barb it ended in swinging near his face.

  He was going to do this! He dropped lower. I can do this! Can drop into that landing zone! The really small landing zone… I can’t do this.

  “Believe in yourself!” Cerise had told him over and over since hatchhood. He would. He did! With a high-pitched squeal, a bit like a teakettle coming to the boil, he took a final squint at the target zone, landed, shifted and…belched. Oh gods. He’d meant to clothe himself, not burp one out. And certainly not such a loud one…or one that stank like a dragon’s taint.

  “Oh, ewwwwwwww!” cried Scarlet, her longest ever. She pinched her nose closed with her talon-like fingers. She’d get the worst of the stench, being next to him. “How, how, is that so foul? What the fuck you been doing, bro, sucking off a troll?”

  “Could have been worse!” called a voice from the crowd. “Just imagine if he’d farted!”

  Chapter Two

  Jagger glanced up at the palace servant whose cock he had down his throat, trying to decide if he looked more scandalized now than he had a few minutes ago.

  The blond page—Steven? No. That didn’t sound… Ah, Stephan, right—had worn shock like a part of his livery on seeing Jagger earlier, and not just at Jagger, the royal-adjacent elf, being in the palace library. Although that would have been understandable enough. A place of scholarly learning and intellectual study wasn’t Jagger’s natural habitat.

  And as if the sight of Jagger, Jagger, sword and swagger among dusty, sneeze-inducing tomes hadn’t been enough, Stephan’s eyes had widened, and his mouth had gaped farther when Jagger had reached out and looped a hand around his neck to bring him in for a kiss.

  Stephan’s astonishment had turned into bewilderment when Jagger had pulled him into this small storeroom tucked into an alcove—perhaps the page knew Jagger didn’t do that well in confined spaces?—and his expression had slid back to scandalized at Jagger slipping off his sword belt and sinking to his knees in front of him. According to royal protocol or palace hierarchy, it should be the page servicing Jagger—a councilor and son of the chancellor—and not Jagger giving a lowly servant a blow job.

  “Sir!” Stephan squeaked as Jagger, holding eye contact, firmed his hard palate and sucked. He’d wager no one had taken the blond page this deep before, or slurped quite so filthily, or tickled the bundle of nerves under the head of his dick with the tip of his tongue like Jagger was. Elves were one of the few species that were more sexually promiscuous than Love fairies, and Jagger was probably the most uninhibited in all the court.

  Humming, he swiped his tongue over every vein and wrinkle of Stephan’s dick, relishing each whimper and pant he pulled from him, and loving how the page snatched his tasseled livery cap from his head and shoved it into his mouth to muffle his squeals and cries.

  A second later, the page stamped a foot on the floor, telling Jagger he was feeling the cool tingle around his cock and balls. Just a tiny bit of herb lore. Not a keen student, Jagger knew the basics of elven magic, like shimmers and glamours, and enough earth craft to…enhance things. To spice things up. In this case, a smidgeon of contact magic to make his mouth feel like the coolest freshest peppermint and—

  “Ahhhh!” Stephan spat out his cap and bit down on his hand instead to gag himself.

  And the slyest, wickedest hint of hot cinnamon. Enough to make Stephan give a final buck of his hips and shoot his load down Jagger’s throat in record time. Jagger swallowed Stephan’s cum and pulled off slowly, licking the page’s cock clean as he did so. He liked giving head and was good at it, and Stephan tasted great. Jagger bestowed one of his crooked smiles on him as he got to his feet.

  “Sir, you…you didn’t…” The servant’s face glowed a bright red even in the gloom of the drab closet.

  “You mean I haven’t. Not yet. I will when I fuck you, in about thirty seconds,” Jagger, Jagger, tongue and dagger answered. He reached out a finger to tip up the page’s chin, needing to see his face to assess what state he was in. Only a little fucked-out. Sex with Jagger could make some of the lesser elves totally blissed-out, or give them a fuck-high, as he thought of it—a by-product of elven magic.

  Stephan’s eyes were wide again as Jagger one-handedly popped the buttons on his tight leather breeches. He used the other hand to strip the page’s stupid uniform pants off him, at the same time yanking off those ridiculous shiny shoes that Jade liked the household servants to wear—for a joke, Jagger assumed.

  There was no need to remove his own trousers, only peel back the placket. They fit his legs like a second skin and allowed him freedom of movement and looked amazing with his knee-high boots. He backed the page against the shelves lining one wall of the closet. Stephan stumbled against the high, wide ladder Jagger had barely noticed leaning against the shelves, but that he studied now.

  Interesting. Assessing possibilities, Jagger crowded Stephan, pushing himself between his legs and shoving at his feet until, floundering, the small page had to step onto the ladder’s bottom rung to right himself…and raise himself to the height Jagger wanted. Stephan flung up his hands to grip the ladder’s sides, level with his head, steadying himself, and Jagger admired the picture this made.

  He regretted not having time to nuzzle and lick, suck and nip. He liked exploring a partner, learning all their hills and hollows, where they liked to be stroked…and bitten. He tended to leave his mark. Abs and pecs were his thing. Well, his upper body thing—there was plenty on the lower body he liked to get his teeth into. And that being the case, Stephan might as well keep his double-breasted little-drummer-boy jacket on—the slender page didn’t have much torso terrain for Jagger to explore.

  He had sweet slim legs though, and Jagger enjoyed running his hands up their outsides, then back down the insides, feeling the softness and suppleness. He smirked to see that Stephan’s spent cock, shrunk to acorn size after his massive climax, was trying its best to stir, wanting to get in on the action. Jagger gave it a swift lick, to be going on with. “Sit,” he ordered, and Stephan, when he’d caught on, sat gingerly on a rung.

  “Slide forward. Sit back.”

  Stephan didn’t get Jagger’s impatient and unclear instructions, so Jagger pulled his ass forward and tilted his chest back for him on the slanted ladder, making the page bend his knees to use the rung his butt sat on as a footrest too. It looked lewd and dirty but didn’t expose his ass enough for Jagger’s liking. Wrapping his legs around Jagger’s waist did, though. “Better.”

  Stephan’s knuckles tightened on the sides of the ladder when Jagger stroked his ass cheeks, admiring their pertness, and Jagger tutted. “I haven’t even touched you yet,” he griped, giving Stephan that few second’s warning be
fore he grabbed and squeezed, learning the texture and testing the resilience of his partner’s ass. Stephan bit back a moan, some of it escaping when Jagger touched a finger to his hole. Tight. He loved screwing a guy after he’d come, when his muscles were still contracted from his climax. But he’d relax his partner first.

  Jagger felt in the hip pocket of his leather jerkin for the small pot of balm in there. He unscrewed the wooden tub one-handed and scooped out a dollop. He was used to the slightly sour smell of the unguent but wondered if Stephan would react—he was following every movement Jagger made, almost unblinking.

  “Is that…?” he whispered.

  “Just tagmallow.” Jagger understood the question. “Thick, but just simple lubricant.” Nothing aphrodisiac. He wouldn’t use something like that, like the fluid from peruinan flowers or—gods!—huzz orchid honeydew, without discussion. He didn’t need to, not if the way Stephan bit his lip and his fingers tightened to the point of desperation on Jagger when Jagger circled his hole with a lubed finger was any indication.

  The page’s first ring of muscles gave way and Jagger teased his finger round the whorls guarding the entrance, then eased in. A noise outside the door had Stephan jerking his head in that direction. “S-sir!” he hissed, freezing and clamping down on Jagger’s finger.

  Yeah, this was crazy. Anyone could come in and find them, Stephan pantless and Jagger with his pants open and his hard, erect dick wanting in to Stephan’s ass, and no way to deny he was about to screw the page’s brains out.

  “Want me to stop?” Jagger offered, pulling his finger almost out but continuing his slow swirl that was softening Stephan’s hole to accept—and crave—something a lot bigger. When a quiet “No,” came in answer, Jagger grinned. He eased back a little to coat himself in the lube then made sure Stephan’s legs were wound tight around his waist, forcing him flush against Jagger’s body…with the head of Jagger’s dick pressing against his hole.

  He caught his partner’s gasp in his mouth and breathed, “Ready?” against his lips. Before Stephan could reply, could even nod, Jagger thrust forward, pushing the head of his cock just inside him, letting him get used to the thickness and stretch. He held still for long seconds then pushed a little more, a little farther, the tight heat that gripped his cock making him throw his head back and grunt.

  His head in that position made him notice the long, narrow strip of mirror on the back of the door and he cast a quick look at himself. The sight of his opened leather jerkin and billowing white shirt, his tangles of curly shoulder-length hair made him forget the closed, narrow, low-ceiling room. He thrust deeper, making Stephan grip tighter to both the ladder and around Jagger’s waist, rocking with the hard, fast pace Jagger set.

  Ideally, he’d have fucked the page until his moans filled every corner of the closet and he was ready to come a second time. Then Jagger would have wrapped his hand round Stephan’s on his filling-again cock, working it until it engorged, the head glistening as it emerged from the grip of their joined hands. But this session, all he could do was make sure he rubbed over that gland inside his partner that had him crying and weak, then thrust harder and deeper one last time, to shudder in a quick but satisfying climax, one that had the both of them groaning.

  Jagger pulled out of Stephan’s ass slowly, enjoying the ripple of its muscles along his dick as he did so. The page’s arms trembled as he let go of the ladder’s sides and he shook his hands to get the blood flowing there again. Jagger helped him unwind his legs from his waist and set his feet on the floor. A glance around showed him a soft cloth, no doubt used for wiping book jackets, and he snagged it and passed it over. “Here. Clean up.”

  Stephan tried, looking dazed. Wrecked. “Will I…?” He made an effort to raise his averted gaze. “Will I see you again?” he got out in a gabbled rush.

  “Sure. We both work here,” Jagger replied, tucking himself in and buttoning up.

  “I mean—” The page pressed his lips together almost as tightly as he had when trying not to scream a few minutes ago. Which seemed to remind him to look for his hat. When he retrieved it from under the bottom shelf, it looked rather the worse for wear.

  Jagger took it and tapped it on his knee, glamouring it a little, and handed it back.

  “Thank you.” Stephan had a sweet little smile. It was what had attracted Jagger’s attention yesterday. Well, that and his equally sweet ass. “Sir…Jagger. Will we—?”

  “Sure. Why not.” Jagger meant it. He could always use a palace snack, a morsel on hand to complement the smorgasbord he enjoyed in the town, at the tavern. He had his own room there—it had once been Jade’s. Before Grlind, of course. Lucky Grlind. Lucky Jade. Well, good thing for Jagger that the palace servants rotated. He’d have been bored stupid else.

  “But even with the prophecy?”

  A bell tolled before Jagger could ask the page what he meant.

  “Daemons’ horns.” Jagger scowled. “I have to help prep the Great Hall for dinner later this evening.” Not that he intended to do much but taking on that task meant he was excused all today’s last-minute council tedium, most of it meeting and greeting delegations and trying not to yawn while he did so. Thank the stars no senior councilor had tried to force him into that. They all tended to be lenient and indulgent with Jagger, with him having lost his mother at a young age—well, young by how long elves lived.

  His father, Jerrick, was still recovering from her death—their mate-bond had been so strong he would never think of taking another. The custom was to choose again from the same family. Although Tahly’s family had paraded forward various cousins and nieces over the years, and a couple of her old friends who’d remained unbonded or become widowed had offered themselves—or more recently, their daughters—too, Jerrick remained loyal to Tahly’s memory.

  Jagger knew how much his father still grieved and how lonely he’d been for many years now. He was determined not to go through any of that and avoided a mate-bond. Prison sentence, more like. Never mind the agony and sorrow of losing them, what about the mind-numbing, soul-extinguishing monotony of having sex with the same person? Every. Single. Day. Ugggh.

  “Sir, the prophe—”

  “Not now.” Jagger shushed the page. Whatever he was babbling on about—and Jagger had no idea—could wait.

  He buckled on his sword belt then ran his hands through his hair to settle it and blew a kiss to his companion before making his way out of the closet, glad to be free of the confined space.

  His sword swung at his side and his boot heels rang on the stone floors as he strode the corridors and halls to the Great Hall, casting the tiniest bit of a charm to make sure he looked clean and fresh when he entered.

  Chapter Three

  The laughter that greeted his loud, noxious belch and the witticism someone had called out in response made Brick wish he could sink through the ground like it was a yurt bog. The flurry of apologies—his to his parents, his family’s to their hosts and fellow guests—and the rush to clothe him was mortifying. He wanted to slink away into the small crowd as soon as he could and wondered how he could make himself look thinner and shorter and generally more elf-like, to blend in and lose himself, but knew it wouldn’t work.

  It wasn’t possible, anyway, because it was his duty to be part of the wyvern group. Well, to be on his own in the wyvern group. He took a deep breath and tried to make his face smile and wear a look of interest at the proceedings. He was curious and liked seeing and learning new things. He was happy to be here for the wedding of Jade, the Storm King, and his chosen, Grlind. It was just that his efforts tended to go wrong, and usually sooner rather than later.

  With effusive, “Your Excellencies!” the councilors and courtiers were immediately crowding them, their greetings fulsome and long-winded. Brick looked longingly toward the bigger tent, where the chink of glasses and plates meant the food was. He’d much prefer grabbing a trencher of food and a tankard of malt ale or wheat beer—or whatever the local brew was—at the
tavern he’d passed along the road. He cast a glance back the way he’d come. It couldn’t be that far…

  As if knowing his younger, gauche brother was contemplating bolting, Gules sidled up to him and spoke with his hand covering his mouth. He tended to be over-cautious at any public event like this…and it tended to mean a reprimand was coming. “Mother says can you at least try to look as though you want to be here?”

  “I am trying,” Brick protested. “This is my ‘interested in the new place and its people and customs’ look.” He forced himself to stop eyeing the top of the field, where the road was. The route would probably lead him to the palace anyway, and more of this bowing and scraping. Ha—there was literally a quartet of musicians bowing and scraping away at their wooden instruments on a small platform to his left. Would his brother appreciate the joke?

  “And Father says keep your eyes peeled and your ears to the ground,” Vermilion edged over to them to add.

  Brick wanted to give a Scarlet-like, “Ewwww,” at that. His eyes watered at the thought of being peeled. “Not literally?” he asked, fingering an ear and pointing at the lush grass.

  Milly gave her patented older-sister-to-a-fuck-up-of-a-little-brother sigh. “Brick, wyverns are—”

  “Wily. Yeah, I know.”

  “And the Ruby Throne is only as secure as—”

  “Its underpinnings. I know that too. Like I know we’re all on show. That all this is for show.”

  A nice one, however. The elves had put on a dignified welcome, with the tents that were a clever blend of Ruby Throne and Storm King colors set up for the use of the family and their retinue. Servitors in Storm Palace livery waited in twos and threes to spring into action and the scent of citronella, to keep away whatever bugs this kingdom had, competed with the sweet smell of pale lallit flowers set in tall vases on half-pillars. The effect was tasteful and a flattering compliment—those blooms were Cerise’s favorite.