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Perl gasps, blinking. He sees the faces staring at him all around the table. He doesn’t want to think about that yet. He wants to stay where he is. Just himself and Kerik.

He takes a breath, composing himself by stroking Kerik’s face. Kerik’s mouth is red and wet. He wipes his finger along Kerik’s lower lip, sticky with seed and pushes a little of it up, fingers going into Kerik’s mouth. Kerik sucks on them as if Perl’s seed is delicious, as if he cannot get enough of it.

Distantly, Perl hears the scrape of Exeinil’s chair. He looks over and sees her standing, then gliding over. “Ah,” she says, stroking a hand over Perl’s face. “When you spend you look so much like my sweet Irmeena. I miss her so.”

She turns and announces to the hall, “Perlash-zeren-ai is truly returned to us, washed of his previous perversions. When his devoted thrall delights at the fourth test, I will grant his boon and raise him to his old position as my favoured at court.”

22

KERIK

As soon as the convoluted dinner is over, Perl takes his leave quickly and they both rush back to Perl’s chambers. When the door is warded closed they fall upon the bed, entangled together, kissing and laughing in triumph. Another test passed.

Kerik pulls back from the kiss and says, “I should have sucked your cock in front of her sooner. I’ve never seen your Queen so happy with us.”

Perl looks up at Kerik. His face is sweetly flushed. “I don’t know why that worked so well. I was afeared she would never grant my boon even if you passed all her tests, but I have truly never seen her so delighted.”

“She enjoyed seeing you spend,” Kerik says with a sly twitch of one eyebrow. “I told you, she desires you.”

Perl shakes his head against the bed’s silken cushions. For a moment all Kerik can think of is kissing him again. So he does and it's a few long moments of his tongue in Perl’s cool mouth and Perl’s sweet moans of want, before Perl pulls his head away and says, “Why would you think so?”

Kerik sits back on his heels, straddling Perl, looking down at him. “Look at what she’s done for you.” He counts off on his fingers. “Started a war with her sister over you. Hid you away. And she keeps demanding you fuck me in front of her.”

“A lot of fae enjoy watching thralls being mastered.”

Kerik snaps out an arm and grasps Perl by the jaw.

He feels Perl’s chest move as he gasps. “Don’t lie to me,” he says in a seductive snarl that he knows will ruin Perl.

Perl shakes his head in Kerik’s grip, “That is hardly fair. And you know I cannot lie to you.”

Kerik smiles. It’s really quite delightful to see Perl so conflicted. He can tell Perl wants to give in and lose himself in the bliss of obeying Kerik’s every command, but he loves keeping his secrets even now. Kerik waits, watching Perl wrestling with himself.

Eventually he says, “She has feelings for me only because of who I remind her of. My mother was her lover, Irmeena. That is the reason she has done so much to protect me. I believe she loves me, in a way. I am all she has left of Irmeena after Sefi executed her. She has done much for me. I owe her everything.” Perl’s voice drops low. “But I will betray her. I must.”

Perl’s confession is more heartfelt than Kerik expected. He struggles to rectify Perl’s statement about Exeinil and all he knows of how much she did to protect Perl, even taking Vane as her hostage, bound to Vylenor, with the sadistic, mercurial creature he has encountered. He supposes she could only mean to protect Perl, the tainted son of her dead lover. “But she has done such terrible things. She lowered you with iron. She condemned your father to the vile cage.”

“When I was her ward and she claimed the rumours about my parentage were the work of Sefi and the Timeless Court to undermine Ulla, she outlawed all talk of it. But I ruined all that when I was caught with Seridil. Which confirmed for many that the rumours were true. She punished me so harshly, I suspect in part, because of how I had upset her plans to redeem me.”

“I see,” says Kerik.

Perl is looking at him with glassy eyes and he thinks he ought to do something to make him feel sweet instead of weighted down with thoughts of his shame and the debts he owes to the faeries who protected him.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Kerik says.

“What wasn’t?” says Perl in a tone that suggests that he considers everything he has spoken of to be his fault.

“It wasn't your fault who your father was. Or the circumstances of your birth. You didn’t cause the schism between Oria and Ulla, or the reasons Exeinil took Vane hostage to protect you. It’s not your fault your parents sired you, no matter how everyone involved wishes you to bear the shame of it.”

Perl looks at Kerik for a long time. His eyes are strange. There’s a softness in them Kerik doesn’t think he has ever seen before. Eventually, quietly, Perl says, “Thank you.”

Kerik leans down and kisses Perl sweetly on the lips. He desperately wants Perl, but he keeps this kiss chaste and slow.

When he pulls back he says, voice husky with want even from the restrained kiss, “Did you enjoy it? When I sucked you?”

“I suppose so,” Perl says. “In a way.”

“But there is something you would prefer to do?”