“You okay?” Nick mumbled, licking at Arit’s blood already slowing to a trickle from Nick’s bite.
Sighing, Arit nodded. “You’ve killed me.”
“If I didn’t, everyone else in the lodge soon will.” Nick wiped his messy hand on the ruined sheets. Not as sticky with cum, he stroked Arit’s abdomen. “We weren’t quiet.” He glanced over his shoulder at the closed bedroom door. “I’m surprised Lydia and Rolan haven’t barged in yet.” He nosed away the dark hair curtaining Arit’s ear and didn’t resist the instinct to nibble the dangling lobe. “Or your dad.”
“I mated the last emperor.” Arit snickered. “You think any parent would believe you aren’t good enough? Would disapprove?”
“I’m the last in my bloodline, but I haven’t been crowned. Until I am, I’m no one’s emperor, and if negotiations for my family’s memorial prove fruitful, I won’t retain my title as crown prince, either. I’ve no reason to believe we won’t resolve terms quickly now that I’ve informed Benjic I won’t continue the balls and parties feeding the tribes’ tabloid curiosity.” Nick chuckled, squeezing Arit tight. “I think your dad will worry. With the high-stakes games the elders and council play, I can’t blame him.” He blinked, nonplussed, when he realized how true it was. “I’m worried, too.”
Turning his head, Arit stared at him, dark eyes flecked with shifter yellows. “You expect trouble.”
“I lost my entire family when I was eight years old and would have been killed along with them if not for a human who had reached his fill of witnessing the horrors of war and death.” He curved his mouth into a sad smile. “In my experience, danger and risk are as natural as breathing. I’ve grown accustomed to it.”
“If we are mated, I could become a weapon wielded against you.” Arit furrowed his brow. “Are you used to that?”
“If?” he asked, voice droll, but he couldn’t resist Arit’s lips another moment. Leaning over him, Nick brushed his mouth across his mate’s, enjoying the warmth unfurling inside him anew. “I chose to love my mom, Rolan, and Lydia. Protecting them against all perils for loving me in return has been my highest priority since I was a boy.” He deepened their kiss, sharing the coppery taste of Arit’s own blood with him. “Yes, I’m used to it. Love can be a weakness, but love is also my greatest strength.”
Wriggling his ass to seat Nick’s steely length more securely inside him, Arit angled his jaw to lick and suck at Nick’s tongue. “You don’t love me,” he said.
Resisting Arit was futile. Nick didn’t try. He arched his hips, shoving his deflating knot farther inside the cloying heat of Arit’s ass. His mate’s vise-like grasp around him indicated they’d need more excruciating minutes to recover before fucking Arit wouldn’t hurt him.
Nick sighed. “I will love you, though, as you will love me. Eventually. Your Goddess blessed our union with a mating heat—once we chose to come together, love became inevitable.”
“She’s your Goddess, too, and She guides us to possibilities, not certainties.” Arit pulled his mouth away, bit his ripe bottom lip. “Benjic loves my dad. Still.”
Nick bent to recapture Arit’s lips. “No one said love was easy.”
When Arit opened his mouth to argue, Nick slanted his own over him. Their teeth clacked, but as Nick pushed his tongue inside, Arit’s met his in a slick, arousing glide. Nick wallowed in Arit’s shudder, steeped himself in his mate’s earthy scent. Nick reached down Arit’s flat abdomen to his groin, where Arit’s fat cock already jutted. He palmed Arit’s dick, letting his thumb sweep moisture gathering at the spongy tip.
“Stop trying to distract me,” Arit said with a low growl, though he nonetheless pushed his ass back, hips grinding into Nick’s groin, “and tell me what’s next.”
Happiness swamped Nick, wringing a laugh from him. “I’m distracting you?”
He snarled, breath hot on Nick’s tingling lips. “Tell me what your plan is so I can help rather than hinder you.”
Wishing he could, Nick licked the seam of Arit’s frowning mouth. “You think I have a plan?” Arit elbowed his gut, and Nick grunted. Testy, testy mate. Perversely, Arit’s snarling ill temper at Nick’s reticence made Nick crave him all the more. “Fine. I had a plan.” He pumped Arit’s dick with his fist, satisfaction whirling inside him at Arit’s gasp. “Had. Past tense. I didn’t agree to the council’s proposed tour of the tribes until I’d settled on a strategy to get into the tribes and back out as soon as my birth family was decently buried, but meeting you sent my plan ass end over teakettle.” With his mate warming him, his hole choking Nick’s hardening dick, Nick couldn’t say he minded. “Now…? I’m winging it.”
At the next taunting stroke, Arit groaned. “You are the most calculating, deliberate shifter I’ve ever met.” He glared at Nick. “Including my sire. Unless your promises to me before we fucked were bullshit, you wouldn’t have mated me unless you’d decided to stay in the territories at least part of the time, and if you are staying, you must have settled on a scheme to rule.”
“Truly?” Gladness swamped Nick. “You think you know me that well? Already?”
“I don’t know your favorite color nor have I met your human mother. I couldn’t name the meal you like best if my life depended on the correct answer,” Arit said, his handsome face twisting into a fierce scowl. “But I know you.” He lifted his hand to his hairy chest and rubbed the area over his heart. “As our bond strengthens, I can sense what’s important as readily as you can of me. Your character is no secret to me.” He glared at Nick over his shoulder. “If you’d rather keep the entirety of the game you intend to play to yourself, I won’t blame you. We are newly met and freshly mated. Wherever you go next and whatever you do there, you’ll need me at your side, though. You could at least tell me what in your strategy comes after we’ve sealed our mating. You owe me that much.”
His heart thumping with his joy, Nick kissed away Arit’s frown. He’d mated with Arit for political reasons, to forge an alliance with Benjic that would win him support in the capitol, but he hadn’t counted on the bond developing between he and Arit gifting him so much more. That unanticipated prize thrummed his pulse, sweetened every breath filling his chest, warmed him as thoroughly as the heat of Arit’s body—Nick wasn’t alone anymore. Success or failure, rise or fall, Nick would never be alone again.
Happiness zinged through him, and he brushed his mouth over Arit’s, simply because he wanted to and he could. “The capitol.” He snickered at his mate’s glower. “Next, I must return to the capitol.”
Chapter Eleven