The Prince's Boy: 37

(Continuing the weekly serial by Cecilia Tan! Need to start at the beginning? Click here.)
37: Kenet
The next morning the general met with a bevy of his top commanders. I was bade to wait in the field marshal’s tent with two other pages while they conferred. The pages served the two most important battalion commanders, and knew one another, it seemed. They were probably the same age as me, yet they were so much more knowledgeable than I was. I listened to them go on about all things military for some time without saying a word, but eventually their attention turned to me.
“So, you’re Roichal’s new boy,” one of them said. He had a mess of black hair like Jorin’s but he was far more rangy, his arms too long for the uniform jacket he wore.
“Yes,” I said, not sure how else to answer.

He and the other one exchanged looks, and then he pressed on. “So where were you the night they made that spy into a fuckslave? Did you get a turn?”
For a moment I was too shocked by the question to realize what he was asking. “I-I… Wh-what?” I sputtered.
They looked at each other and nodded, as if my lack of answer confirmed something for them. The shorter one sidled toward the tent entrance. “He’s all yours, Jorl. I haven’t the stomach for it.”
Jorl removed his too-short jacket and made a beckoning motion toward me. “Come on, now. We can do this nice or we can do this rough. I like it both ways. My commander promised me a turn the next time we captured a spy. It’s a crime for Roichal to be keeping you to himself.”
“He hasn’t touched me!” I cried, taking a step back, but my protest was a bit weak. Perhaps because just last night he truly had touched me, just not in the manner I–and everyone–expected. “You… you don’t know of what you speak.”
“Don’t play stupid. Come on, Misk,” he then said to his friend. “At least hold him down for me. No one has to get hurt that way.”
I took another step back, turning to the side in a defensive stance better suited to a sword than my bare hands, but I had to show them I would not allow them to take me without a fight.
Misk lingered by the tent flap, looking unhappy. “Leave it, Jorl. He’s not going to play.”
“Tcha. You really have no stomach for it. Fine, sit outside and listen to me make him squeal.” Jorl took a step toward me and Misk went out.
I glanced around for something I could use as a weapon. The lantern was hung out of my reach. The field marshal was wearing his sword. His extra boots were sitting next to his chest. His folding camp stool, though, would it make a good club? It was three sturdy pieces of wood, hinged together. I snatched it up and brandished it.
Jorl laughed. “Think you’re a rough and tumble little thing, don’t you? You can’t have been a spy. Cook was right. You had to be an escaped whoreslave to begin with.”
It hit me then that it was true. That was exactly what I was. I had escaped, barefoot and nearly naked, from my master. “And what if I was?” I spat at him. “That doesn’t make me your hole to fuck.”
He snorted and took another step toward me. “Doesn’t it?”
I hissed like a cornered snake.
“Come on, now. Don’t be that way. Wouldn’t you rather be with a healthy young soldier like me than crushed under that fat old man?”
“He’s not fat!” The general, as I had seen, though he had a bit of a belly, was quite fit, even his lame leg. “And I told you, he hasn’t fucked me. I’m a page now. Go suck your friend’s milk if you’re so hungry for it.”
But then there was a sharp hiss from outside the tent, and a moment later Misk stuck his head back in. “Best get your uniform on. They’re coming.”
Jorl made a disgusted noise and then pulled his jacket on. A few moments later the voice of his commander calling him could be heard, and he piped up quickly and exited.
Marksin stuck his head in a moment later. “Why are you holding that stool?”
I hadn’t realized it was still in my hand. “Oh, just… talking about fencing with the other pages.”
“Fencing.” He eyed me skeptically.
“Yes.” I put the stool down and then walked, stiff with bruised dignity, back up the hill to the general’s tent. Marksin followed.
There were still the remnants of the meal the commanders had eaten during their long conference. I sat quietly while Marksin and Roichal talked about nothing consequential and two of the cook’s boys came and cleared everything away. Once they were gone, though, Marksin made one check of the tent’s perimeter and then drew the flap closed.
“Tell the general what happened today,” he said.
I looked up with a start. “Nothing happened today.”
Marksin sat on the chest while the general himself sat on the sleeping pallet. “Sir,” Marksin said, “I believe there was some kind of incident with the pages.”
Roichal made a small gesture toward his leg and I slipped to my knees at his feet to pull his boots free. “Is that so.”
“Your page was holding a stool when I found them.”
I began rubbing his ankle, looking at it instead of at his face. “Is that so, Page?” he asked me.
“Yes, Sir,” I said.
“Sir,” Marksin continued. “I worry that it may not be safe to leave him alone with other men.”
Roichal grunted as I worked out a knot behind his heel. “Page,” he said softly. “I believe it would be best if you told me what happened today.”
I looked up in surprise. I had been girding for an order, as if he could make words spill out of me the way he did my milk. But no, there was just this gentle, reasonable request. “Um, I don’t wish to make trouble.”
“You make trouble by your very presence,” Marksin said under his breath.
“One of the other pages asked if I was… if I was the one that Cook captured. He said he… he had been promised a turn. I told him it didn’t matter where I came from, I wasn’t his… his… to do with what he liked.” I could not bring myself to use the words that Jorl had used. “So then he said I should like to have a go with a soldier like him and not you, Sir. I told him you hadn’t done anything of the sort, but I don’t think he believed me.”
Roichal lifted my face to his with two fingers under my chin and placed a kiss on my forehead. “That is because you are a terrible liar,” he said affectionately. “At least when it comes to some things.”
I went back to working my way up his leg. “Well, Marksin,” he said, “you may be right. It may not be safe for Page to be alone with other men. I have been wondering about it, and I have to wonder if there is more to it than his mere beauty.” He stroked my hair as he said this and I blushed deeply under the praise of my looks.
“Sir?” Marksin asked.
“He’s under some kind of spell that has him living healthy off nothing but your milk,” Roichal pointed out. “Don’t you wonder if he’s a bit like a hind in season? The hart, they say, can smell her for miles.”
“Is that possible?” Marksin looked alarmed.
Roichal shrugged. “What do you think, Page? Has nearly every man you’ve met since your escape tried to put his prick in you?”
“Well, not every man…” I said.
Marksin hung his head. “I don’t know how we’re going to keep him safe, then.”
Roichal’s voice was suddenly grave. “But we must. I will keep him at my side at all times, and if I must speak in confidence to someone else, then you must keep him close by you.”
“And then for conferences like today? You cannot seriously be thinking he can sit beside you while strategy is planned? What if he truly is under a compulsion to spy?”
“It cannot be helped,” the general said. “You will have to absent yourself to keep him safe, and then return him to me.” He grunted again as I made my way up his thigh. “Marksin, you are the only man I can trust.”
“And if he is truly giving off some magical scent that makes men wild, what makes you think I will be able to resist much longer?”
Roichal chuckled. “I have no doubt that Page would not let you try without protesting, and your aversion to taking a boy against his will is strong. Else you would have taken him when you had the chance.”
“True.” Marksin looked slightly relieved by this thought. “I would… it would destroy me to betray you, Sir.”
“I know,” Roichal said softly, caressing my hair. “And as usual I must ask something unfair of you. At least there are some benefits to you, though, to the protection you provide our young charge.”
Marksin colored deeply. “Yes, Sir.”
“Page,” the general said to me in a gentle voice. “Would you drink a little of the field marshal’s milk now?”
“Of course, Sir,” I said. “Though I would prefer to drink all of it.”
He chuckled. “Just a figure of speech,” he assured me. “Of course you may drink all of it. Come up on my lap so I may stroke you while you do as I ask.”
“Yes, Sir.” I got to my feet and stripped down to bare, then straddled his legs so that we were both facing Marksin. Roichal’s hand was warm as he cupped my balls.
Marksin took off his boots and stepped out of his trousers, then came to stand facing us, one leg on either side of the general’s feet. This put his prick very close to my mouth, but I reached up and stroked and teased him with my hands first, which drew approving noises from both of them. Roichal began to stroke me at the same time, and then I took Marksin into my mouth.
For a while, one of the general’s hands stroked up and down while the other toyed with my balls. But then he left my balls alone and I felt Marksin thrust a bit harder than before. My eyes flickered open to see the general had one hand on Marksin’s hip, pulling him in and encouraging him to fuck my mouth rather than simply stand there and let me do as I would.
I moaned. It felt, well, it felt as if the general were the one fucking my mouth, even if it wasn’t with his own prick. Marksin’s hands were on my shoulders, but then they moved to the general’s, and I heard the general say something approving.
The next thing I heard him say was the quiet but firm order to spill. To my surprise, Marksin cried out and spilled at the same moment, and the general’s chest bumped against my back as all three of us twitched and jerked and spasmed.
Yes, all three. Marksin blinked in surprise as Roichal seemed to swoon behind me. “Sir!” he said in alarm, steadying him. I reached behind me to do the same.
“It’s all right,” Roichal growled, voice low and hoarse. “Thunderclouds roll…” Now he leaned against me for support, his forehead against the back of my shoulder. “That… I had forgotten…”
“Forgotten?” I asked, too stunned to stop myself.
“The last time I actually experienced release… more than ten years ago.”
“Ten years!” Marksin’s voice was just as alarmed as before.
“Yes, ten years.” He lifted his head and turned mine enough that he could kiss me, his mouth on my mouth. Then he seized Marksin by the collar and pulled him into a kiss, too. Marksin made a sound of surprise and for half a second tried to pull back, then made a needy groan and surrendered his mouth to being plundered by Roichal’s tongue.
(Continue reading in Chapter 38!)