“Do you care for the prince?” Niko asked.
The question interrupted Julian’s smooth movements, making him stall and look up. “It is my duty to protect the royal name, as it is yours, although you seem to have forgotten.”
“I did not forget. They stopped earning my loyalty when the king surrendered.”
“The king negotiated peace, and he had his reasons.”
Niko leaned back against the windowsill and folded his arms. “I don’t blame you for wanting this peace. But we fought back, and we were winning. Eight years and we were beating them until King Talos pissed it all away because he’s a coward, just like the rest of them. Just like Vasili.”
Julian’s smile was a sad, sympathetic turn of his lips. He stood and fumbled with the buttons of his shirt as he headed toward the four-poster bed. “Get some rest while you can. Vasili keeps unusual hours.”
“I rarely sleep.”
“Neither does he.”
Chapter 6
Niko woke to the sound of whispers. At first, he’d thought the gentle ebb and flow of hissing was the wind through the trees and his mind had propelled him back to the frontline camp where fires fought off the dark, but not the elves. But the blanket thrown over him was not his own, and the lounger he slept on was far more comfortable than straw over dirt. Groggy, he blinked, clearing his focus while checking for the shape of Julian sleeping on the bed.
The whispers continued, although he couldn’t make out any words.
He carefully folded back the blanket and padded barefoot across the room, grateful he’d kept his shirt and undergarments on. The sound wasn’t in the room, but seemed to be coming from behind the connecting door. He was sure of it. The whispers grew louder as he approached.
Niko glanced at Julian. He could wake him, but wasn’t entirely sure if the whispers were real or his own dreams misleading him again. He closed his hand around the door handle and gently turned it. The door swung open with well-oiled ease to reveal a narrow, middle chamber with a sofa and a few chairs. No beds or wardrobes. Just a private antechamber leading to the prince’s room. And it was empty.
He must have been dreaming after all.
A shadow moved under the prince’s door.
Niko silently crossed the distance and pressed his ear to the door. Nothing.
Was the prince awake? Julian had said the man didn’t sleep. What if the assassin were in the room right now? Maybe he should leave them be. What a terrible shame the prince had died. Although with Niko so close, he might get accused of being complicit in his death. If he were to die, it had better be for the truth and not wrongly accused.
The whispers started up again, louder this time. Niko grabbed the handle, twisted, and shoved the door open.
A shifting shadow with ruby-red eyes loomed over the prince’s bed, clawed fingers poised to strike. Its head whipped around, glare fixing on Niko. The shadow rushed forward, slamming into Niko, sending him reeling. A breath-stealing sensation of crawling ice clutched at his throat and chest and froze his heart.
His legs hit something—a chair. It toppled, taking Niko with it, the shadow still riding his chest. The red-eyed glare burrowed into his own, screaming through his soul. By the gods, it was strong. Niko got hold of some solid part around its thin waist and pushed. His biceps burned, arms trembling, but inch by inch he heaved the shadow creature off his chest and gasped, finally able to breathe again.
“Back, fiend!”
Grit rained over Niko, some of it catching in his lips. Salt. It sizzled on the fiend’s wispy skin, making the shadowy smoke bubble. The fiend screeched, darted free of Niko’s grip, and shot like an arrow through the prince’s chamber door. Niko launched himself off the floor in time to see it disappear out the window.
“You all right?” A hand landed firmly on Niko’s back. Julian steered him toward the chair Vasili had been draped in earlier.
Niko grabbed the chair’s arm. He concentrated on breathing through the remnants of that thing’s death-grip on his lungs. He glanced at the bed. The sheets were unwrinkled. The prince wasn’t here, and never had been.
Julian stood close to Niko’s right, making him glance up. The guard’s blue eyes were big in the dark room. “I’m fine,” Niko grunted.
“Wait here.”
Julian left and Niko stared at the window, its pane ajar. How had the creature climbed to the highest tower in the palace without being seen?
Julian returned later to find Niko slumped in Vasili’s chair. “He’s safe,” he said.
“Good for him,” Niko wheezed, still trying to make his lungs work. “What was that thing?”
“Our assassin.”
Niko dragged a hand down his face and sighed hard. “He said nothing about sorcery.”
“Did he not?” Julian mumbled, reaching for Niko with a gloved hand. His fingers landed gently against Niko’s shirt, over his chest. The sudden touch stalled Niko’s thoughts, emptying out everything that had happened. His head filled with notions that Julian’s concern might be something more. Julian was shirtless, his chest smooth. A few soft golden hairs caught the ambient light from the connecting room. Niko’s gaze fluttered downward to where his loose night trousers hung off his hips.
“Come on,” Julian said, pulling his fingers back. “It won’t try again tonight.”
Niko almost groaned at the loss of the man’s touch. Breathlessness and aches aside, he’d have welcomed more attention from Julian’s steady hands. Niko might have taken them in his own hands and applied them to parts of him that so desperately missed the touch of another man.
Scanning the chamber a second time to distract himself, his eye caught the monstrous bed again. “He doesn’t sleep in this room, does he?”
Julian slipped his fingers into Niko’s hand and heaved him to his feet, then looped an arm around his waist. “Of course not.”
The prince was far more sly than Niko had realized.
“I’m really all right,” Niko protested, wishing he’d slept shirtless so he could feel the man’s skin brush against his own.
Julian guided him to his own bed and urged him to lie back on the soft covers. The icy tightness in his chest sparked up again; probably bruised ribs. He wheezed his thanks and rested his head on the fine pillow. Would Julian climb on beside him? Wrecked as he was, the thought of Julian lying close, his firm body next to Niko’s, had his cock taking an interest. He waited for Julian to speak, to say something about the attack or Vasili, but he only smiled and withdrew, readying the lounger where he clearly intended to sleep.
Candlelight stroked over the man’s firm back and shoulders and down his waist. The rise of his ass looked firm too. Would he yield, or would he demand Niko yield for him? It was a good thing Julian had taken the lounger because there was no hiding exactly how much attention Niko’s dick had taken in events.
Julian turned away and Niko drifted again, this time falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.
When he next opened his eyes, sunlight poured into the room through the window.
The pressure on his chest was still there, and he winced as he gingerly climbed from the bed. His time in the cells had cost him physically, but his strength would return.