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Without really thinking too much about what he is doing, Tobi reaches out to steal a small piece of meat from Harok’s plate.

As his fingers close around it, Harok moves like lightning. One muscled arm, darting out to grab Tobi’s wrist, before he can steal his prize. Harok rounds on Tobi, holding his wrist so painfully tight Tobi thinks it might break. Tobi gasps in shock and pain.

Harok’s eyes flash dark with anger. He snarls something out in Ambolk that is clearly a reprimand.

In response, Tobi tries being playful. Perhaps Harok’s anger will lead him to drag Tobi to bed, take him roughly, punish him with pleasure. He bats his eyelashes, ignoring the pain from Harok’s grip on his wrist, tries to pull it free so he can take his stolen bite.

Harok snarls and unleashes more angry-sounding Ambolk, pulling a knife from his belt and holding the tip to Tobi’s throat.

Tobi gasps in shock and somewhere too, a small thrill of arousal.

Behind Harok, Mereli leans forward and says in Artemian, “Kushir, Irgo Harok wishes to know why you disrespect him at his own table.”

Harok turns to Mereli and snarls, “Ei, Mereli,” before launching into more Ambolk, sounding just as unhappy with Mereli as he had with Tobi.

Tobi tries to say something, but what can he say? “Irgo Harok, please,” he tries, throat moving against the blade. How can he say sorry? How can he flirt playfully and make Harok understand he wasn’t trying to disrespect him.

Solwen further down the high table and on the other tables set out in the Sacred Hall are all looking at them.

Tobi didn’t try to snatch the piece of meat from Harok’s plate because he was hungry. He has been well fed. He had done it because he wanted Harok’s attention. And he certainly has it now. Harok’s and that of most of the room.

He remembers something Mereli said to him earlier about how a kushir’s behaviour is a sign of an Irgo’s virility. If Tobi misbehaves is that a sign that the other Solwen would think meant Harok was not satisfying Tobi in bed?

When that is so far from the truth.

“Dek,” Tobi says, “Dek ga?”

Is that a way of saying Harok has fucked him well? He isn’t sure. Harok is staring at Tobi with his eyes still blazing. Perhaps Tobi has just insulted him further.

Harok takes a breath and lowers the blade. But his other hand still holds Tobi’s wrist, although thankfully, now, not so bruisingly tight. And there is something darkly sweet about that grip on his wrist. Something that makes his belly flip. Harok’s strength and simple, unquestionable power over him.

“Suskara,” Harok says firmly. “Idi.” As he says that he points towards the back of the room with his knife.

Tobi frowns at him. Idi nal means time to go. He thinks idi alone means go, or something like it. “Do you want me to leave? Or go stand at the back of the hall?” Tobi leans forward, craning round Harok to see Mereli. “Perhaps Mereli could⁠—”

“Ei,” Harok snaps. Tobi sees Mereli shake his head as Harok says again. “Idi. Nal idi.”

Tobi says, “Irgo, I do not understand you. If you want me to obey you, you’ll have to let Mereli translate.”

Harok stands up with a loud huff of frustration. He lets go of Tobi’s wrist and puts both hands on Tobi’s waist. Tobi looks up at him. Harok suddenly seems very large looming over Tobi on his seat of cushions.

Without a word, Harok lifts Tobi up, carrying him again, but this time he slings him over his shoulder like a sack. Tobi doesn’t have even a moment to gather his wits before he is upside down, his face against the cloak that covers Harok’s back and he is swinging from side to side as Harok marches out of the room.

Harok stamps down the passageway and up the stairs. This makes Tobi’s head bump into Harok’s back at each step. Tobi yelps and tries to struggle, but it’s hopeless. He is taken all the way to Harok’s bed chamber and thrown down on the bed.

Tobi struggles to sit up. Harok glowers down at him, face still lit by anger, eyes still dark.

Tobi holds out his palms. Is Harok going to hit him? “I’m sorry,” he says. Although he does not know what he is sorry for or how to make Harok understand that he is.

Harok’s right hand darts forward, but he does not hit Tobi. He grabs the neckline of the alit and rips it the way he had done full of passion the night before. It tears right down the centre, falling into two halves, leaving Tobi’s naked body exposed as Harok stares down at him. Tobi gasps, fear and arousal mixed. The combination of sensation going straight to his cock. He is roused and, naked before Harok, there is no way to hide it.

“Kushessa,” Harok says.

“Very well, beast,” Tobi snaps back. “You are angry with me. And we don’t share a language so there is nothing to be done.” He pauses. When Harok doesn’t say anything else, Tobi holds out his hand. “And you almost broke my wrist.”

Harok looks at Tobi’s wrist. He reaches for it, grabbing hold of it again, which makes Tobi wince. But this time Harok takes it gently. He says, “Kushessa,” again, but this time more sweetly. Before dropping Tobi’s wrist and stalking over to the window.

In frustration, Tobi shouts at his back, “I don’t know what you want.” Then tries, “Suskara, ei Ambolk, Irgorye.” But what more can he say when all he knows are bedchamber words. What use is dekuna now?