Scribbles and Drabbles

Notebook Drabbles 53 - Soulmarked

"I'm a priest!" Albert said, stepping back. Wrong moved.

Key's eyes flared with the challenge, bugger somehow as he followed Albert and pressed into Albert's space, their faces inches from each other and heat building between them. Albert needed to stop this. Key wouldn't back down. If he fled, Key would follow. It was engraved in this blood, into his bones and in the dirt under his fingernails. The hunter stalked his prey carefully and Key always caught his prey. 

"Soulmarked," Key caught him by his waist, the band of steel reeling him in too close to the burning inferno of the Warrior-King. There were so many reasons why Key could claim him and strip Albert of everything: his position, his life's work, his pride. Key's status meant that if the man wished to take him in the heart of the Santium, the High Archbishop would not stop him. 

"A fool's argument."

Soulmarks were good things. Priests who had them accepted that they gave up being able to claim such things until someone uncovered them. The Temple ignored if two priests got a little too close, letting them serve together. Soulbound priests had uses, but for a priest to be bound to a King, using them like this was barbaric and in Key's right as the other half of Albert's soul. 

"Would you deny me?"

"You demand that I debase myself for your amusement and pleasure?"

The look he got was less hot and more like ice. "You're forcing me into a corner," Key said, arms curling around Albert as his back hit the wall, and there was nowhere else to go. His rough hands cupped Albert's bottom, squeezing through the light material and rumbled as Albert flinched up against him. "I can take you in the temple, if you'd prefer? Or my court, on my throne? We can make a big ceremony of it if it would calm your fears?"

Albert shivered, bile rising in the back of his throat, and his hands trembled. The groping hand shifted up to his lower back, and it turned from groping to a tight hug. Rough lips kissed his forehead and Albert let the Warrior-King hold him. He dropped his head to the man's shoulder.

"Please, no."

"I won't."

"Then why threaten it at all?" Albert made vows of celibacy and dedication. Plenty broke those vows. 

"You vex me," Key's grip tightened, and he lifted Albert off the ground. Albert curled his arms around Key's board shoulders and refused to lift his head. He couldn't face Key like this. Key rocked him. "I am afraid the culture of swords doesn't lend well to courting a civilian partner. It's all brawn and buster and promising a very good time. It works even less for skittish priests who don't have the culture cue of someone promising to beat them into the ground literally and figuratively as a flirt."

Albert snorted, the sound wet. That oddly made more sense than anything else Key had offered up about the culture of swords. "Definitely not."

"Sleep with me tonight. I won't ask what you fear tonight. Eventually, yes, but not tonight or tomorrow."

Albert wanted to say no, protest, and fight. He didn't have a leg to stand on. He slumped and forced himself to relax in Key's hold. Giving any ground would lead to defeat, and giving none would lead to humiliation. His body belonged to the Everlight, except the black mark on his back declared it belonged to Key. 

"Ok."

-x-

Key rumbled, soothing Albert as the King held him close. True to his words, Key's hands didn't wander. The sound of Key's heartbeat and warmth calmed his frantic heart. Fingers curled in his scruff of hair. Key slept easy, and Albert lay in a bed that smelled of Key's musk, listening to the snores.  It took time, but he slept. Sleeping in the same room as another had never been an issue. It was resting in someone's arms with flesh sticking together and breathing against his skin.