Aleksey's Kingdom (A Royal Affair #2)(3)

Johan and Anastasia wanted to come and join us. I think my descriptions of the life—the freedom and the complete lack of censure from any form of authority—had seduced a young princess who had dreamt of such a life since she was old enough to realize that etiquette and manners of court were not for her. Although I do not think Johan’s and my experiences of love were similar in most respects, they were perhaps more alike than we had ever suspected they would be. We had both tethered ourselves irrevocably to beautiful whirlwinds and were hanging on for the ride.

So his letter was full of his plans for the journey to the New World, but also full of the work they were both doing as de facto guardians and counselors of a very young king. Stephen, being only twelve, needed them. It was an ideal arrangement. Johan and Anastasia ruled Hesse-Davia and raised Stephen to be a monarch worthy of the ideal. Our early reforming zeal was in very good hands. They had apparently rescinded once more the death penalty for witchcraft and sodomy.

There was even a suggestion of Aleksey and I being able to return one day, which is why, I suspect, the canny old soldier had sent the letter to me and not to Aleksey, or both of us as he usually did. He knew Aleksey’s innate good manners would forbid him opening something so directed. He probably understood my extreme reluctance to even contemplate such a return, despite how much Aleksey might see it now—from this great remove—as a good idea. He was still, technically, King of Hesse-Davia, of course. Only a small handful of people knew of his survival—and mine, come to that. So I read him parts of the letter I wanted him to hear and concealed others. I think he was too distracted by us both being naked and erect to worry much over what the letter said. I dragged out the recital a little to inflame him more.

Finally he could stand it no longer and suddenly displayed one of those annoying traits I alluded to: he demanded I turn for his convenience. I didn’t object to taking Aleksey into my body—indeed, I craved the feel of him inside me—but I didn’t appreciate being ordered by him to do anything and certainly not in the crude way he put it. Turn over, I want to fuck you was the sort of thing a soldier might say to an eager young man….

At my very mild enquiry—something along the lines of is that what the soldiers in the colony say to you?—he took umbrage with me for some reason, and the consequent manhandling was quite vicious. I always took the time to prepare him—well, a finger or two if he was lucky and I was feeling generous. His entry into me, however, was painful and sudden. If we hadn’t been laughing so much, I might have actually resented it. But we were too amused with ourselves to worry about my discomfort or his intense delight in conquering me so. He rode me with the same urgency he rode his horse, with the spirit with which he did everything, and as he worked himself deep inside me, he regaled me with tales of what he did with the soldiers, when and how, and was inventive in his wicked lies. Quite where the young prince I first met who had no words to describe most of what we did with our bodies had gone, I had no idea. This challenging man had taken his place. It was a good trade, I thought.

Aleksey’s news, therefore, did not get related until later that day as we were swimming in the lake. It was incredibly convenient, given our favorite pastime was inevitably so messy, to have this to look forward to afterward. The water was always cool, even in the high summer months, and sometimes, when the light was just right, was entirely clear to the bottom except in the very deepest parts in the middle. Now in late autumn it was very cold and quite delightful to plunge into—once the initial heart-stopping moment was over.

We were both very brown, as even his pale skin, exposed to so much sun and activity naked outside in the daylight hours, had darkened over the very hot summer we had just enjoyed. I would have been taken for one of my Powponi brothers had it not been for the intense lightening effect of the sun on my hair, which was now the color of gold dust dredged and shiny from a river. We were both very lean, too, living as we did on a diet of mostly fish and meat. And, of course, we had no home comforts other than those we provided for ourselves.

If we wanted shelter, we had to build it. If we hungered, we had to catch and kill something. If we fancied luxuries like saddles or boots we had to trap for furs, which could be traded. The activity all this necessitated had contributed to our leanness. Even during the war, neither of us had felt so well, so vitalized. Maybe it was other things making us so vigorous and alive. Relief from torture and death can do that to a man.

It had taken me many months to recover fully from the torture I had endured in Hesse-Davia. I often found it hard to watch a branding iron being heated on a fire and still could not smell boiling flesh without nausea assailing me. The sound of a bone breaking when we cleaned a carcass produced an odd stab of pain behind my eyes, as though my body were expecting a consequent follow-on of agony. My scars were ferocious upon otherwise tanned, smooth skin. I did not mind them too much. Who does not secretly like to be scarred and fearsome with evidence of a life lived as a man? Aleksey spent many hours tracing my wounds, trailing his tongue and fingers around them, roused, I suspect, by the thought of possessing and taming the violent nature they betrayed.

Other than the scar on his belly, won before I met him, Aleksey was as flawless as the water in the lake when the light struck it just right. His nature more than balanced out this apparent perfection in being so infuriatingly annoying, as evidenced in the lake that evening. Whilst I was taking the opportunity to laze and relax my muscles, as I had been exerting myself from first light with domestic chores, he decided I needed to be punished. He never needed a reason to decree this, as he claimed my whole demeanor to him was an outrage, given he was a king and I was nothing more than a deserter from his army, a fake doctor, and a sodomite. Three death sentences. I would have preferred the scaffold to the dunking and splashing and constant torment he subjected me to in the water. Fortunately, being stronger and quicker and just better than him, I was able to dunk him more than he could me and thus make his life an equal misery.