...“The family protected you even when you weren’t aware. Do you really think you would have done so well were it not for your family name?”
“My family name?” Selhdun said, and the fury came off him in sickening waves. “Just what did my family name do to protect me from that sadistic bastard?” He sneered at the woman beside him. “Maybe I asked the wrong person. How long did it take you to find him, Mother? Perhaps you’d like to know what Battaan did to me every night for the year I had to stay with him. Or would you like to hear what the men he gave me to did while he watched?” He looked straight into Kerstrik’s widening eyes. “I recall you were so curious, cousin. I could answer all your questions about how I did it, if you still want to know. Unless, of course, you satisfied your curiosity on your own.”
“I never,” Kerstrik sputtered. “You filthy liar—”
Selhdun pushed away from the silent table. A trio of servants fell in behind him, subtly supporting him when he stood. Pakal hovered as close as he dared.
“You can’t threaten me here,” Kerstrik shouted. “I have as much right to that title as you do. You said you didn’t want it. I stayed and earned it.”
“My goodness,” the dowager said. “The new Lord doesn’t have a big appetite does he? I remember my first husband, now there was a man who enjoyed the table.”
“Oh hush, you silly old woman,” Dame Neibuhr said. “And you, Kerstrik, haven’t you learned to keep your mouth shut! Terik!” Her composure crumbled. “We still have business to discuss—”
Selhdun shook. He didn’t stop shaking even when the lift door closed behind them.
“What is it they did to you so long ago?” Pakal said as the lift took them up to relative safety. “Why do you allow them to get to you this way?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He closed his eyes against Pakal’s questions. “I see Kerstrik’s face and it all comes back. Stupid. Stupid then, and stupid now.”
Eleven years after Selhdun’s apprenticeship had ended, Battaan had been killed in a knife fight in an outie bar on the Spindle. His killer, a nineteen-year-old runaway from Chaghatai, had been his latest apprentice. The boy, Gayan, had been sentenced to death in a Hegemon court and would have been put out an airlock for his troubles if Selhdun hadn’t bought his bond and taken him onboard the Necromancer.
Pakal had not been impressed.
“He killed a man!”
“No, he didn’t. He killed Miklos Battaan. Something the bastard’s mother should have done at birth. No good deed should be so punished.”
Gayan had remained with them for nearly two years before leaving to take a job on Nexus. The last Selhdun had heard, Gayan was married with three children and his own export business.
Selhdun wearily rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re right, I shouldn’t let Kerstrik get to me.”
Pakal rested his hand on Selhdun’s shoulder. Selhdun reached back to take it. “Stay with me,” he murmured. “If anything happened to you… No, never mind. Just stay with me. I don’t know where they’ve stashed you in this dusty monolith, so don’t make me come looking for you.”
“Yes, I will stay.” Pakal smiled and tightened his grip. “I always do.”
After dismissing the servants who might have objected to Pakal touching him, he carried Selhdun into the master suite and laid him on the massive carved tanglewood and ivory bed.
He stripped, revealing his swollen cock to Selhdun’s eager touch, then pulled off Selhdun’s clothes. Kneeling between the man’s legs, Pakal took Selhdun in his mouth, bringing him to the brink only to back off at the last minute. He did this again and again until Selhdun was writhing on the bed and hoarsely begging him to finish. Instead he shoved apart Selhdun’s legs and reared up over his, his face a mask of desire as he rammed his cock into Selhdun’s ass. Selhdun howled and clutched at Pakal’s broad shoulders as they slammed together. Selhdun spewed hot ejaculate all over his stomach and Pakal’s, smearing them both when Pakal collapsed on him, rolling onto his side and taking Selhdun with him.
Later, when they started to doze, Selhdun lifted his head off Pakal’s shoulder. Pakal barely opened one eye.
“You know I have to marry her,” Selhdun said.
“I thought you might.” Pakal sighed. “You believe your mother is right?”
“She usually is when it comes to matters of family. She’s right about having a year to marry. Does it matter who?”
“A son,” he said. Selhdun’s breath feathered the hairs on Pakal’s chest. Because, of course, it was preordained the first would be a son. An heir. “Let’s hope he has a better life than the one they gave you...”