Wild Magic Two: The Dark of the Sun- a M/M shifter fantasy romance

13- Safe Word

*****Yay Friday again! I'm going hiking this weekend, so I'm excited for that :)

Ok, so kinky sex incoming. I don't know if it needs a trigger warning, because it's consensual, but bondage and rough sex warning, I guess. Nothing too crazy. Also knotting.

You're welcome... ? ;-) *****

CAIN—

Dasan slammed his hand on the wood of the table between us, his face furious as he leaned forward. "That's bullshit, and you know it. The Emperor is in love with you, you stupid boy!"

"I made a vow—" I began, only to be cut off by Dasan's other palm slamming down on the tabletop beside the first.

"—Fuck your vow, you coward! That man tried to break you, and you're fuckin' letting him! You may as well have died that day. Fuck it, we should've left ya to die! Because what you're doing? It's not living. This— this day to day, keeping your head down, your heart closed, not even letting people touch you for fear of feeling it? That's not living, boy. Get your head out of your ass, find that man, and beg him to take your sorry ass. Because the gods know you don't deserve whatever forgiveness that poor man will surely grant you for the months you've spent stomping on his heart for fear of what he'll do to yours."

I wanted to scoff, to turn away, deny Dasan's words, but as always, he was... right.

Gods, he was right.

I was a coward. I had been letting Kile win. Since I was barely old enough to be on my own, I had been letting him control my life.

How had I not seen it before? How had my own pain blinded me so wholly to the truth?

Before I even knew what I was doing, I was pushing out of the kitchen, past a startled Nibley whom I almost mowed down, and then I was running full speed down the keep halls.

Gods dammit, Dasan was right. No man would spend as much time trying to seduce someone if they only wanted to fuck them. It wasn't even probable. And despite the sane voice in my head that was screaming at me to slow down, think things through, remember the million other reasons I had turned Riece down so many times— protecting my own heart, my own sanity, my need to never feel that loss, that heartrending betrayal again, to never leave myself open and vulnerable to it. My own inadequacies when it came to being with a man like Riece. A man so far above me it was almost pathetic how I could possibly even consider myself worthy of him. But I didn't stop. I didn't think. I kept running, fighting my thoughts back as well as I could until I saw him.

When I saw him, the way he looks at me, the way he reaches out to me instinctively. Then, I would let myself think things through. Because until then, the bad outweighed the good. But with him before me, the good would so far outweigh the evil I could think clearly and shove it all back.

I ran to the library first, then Lacy's study, but no one had seen him. Lacy watched me with bemusement, but I was grateful when she said nothing about my bedraggled, frantic stance as I looked past her, as if she may be hiding him behind her skirts.

I began to scent him as I moved nearer to his rooms, and was surprised when his scent heightened. It was still midday, and he was never in his rooms if he could help it. He hated being alone, and spent the majority of his time he was in the castle bothering one servant or noble or another. The man was insufferable.

Mine, my beast rumbled, and I shook my head.

I don't know yet. I can't... I can't just change so quickly. How can I trust? How can I learn to trust again?

Had I ever known how? Truly?

It wasn't until I was halfway through the front sitting area, stomping through his chambers without even knocking, that the other scents beyond just Riece's natural musk hit my nose. The scents that almost knocked me off my feet as I stopped, my eyes glued to the closed bedchamber door.