Equilibrium: MM Gay Shifter Romance (Kingdom of Night Book 3) Read online

  He stood from his chair and pushed it aside, coming to sit on the bed in front of me. He reached out with lightly trembling hands and took my face between them. "Arthur," he whispered, sweeping a hand through my hair. Only then did I realized it nearly brushed my shoulders now. His fingertips glided down my face and neck until his palm came to rest over my heart. At one point, the fact that his gaze was exploring me as earnestly as his hands were might have made my heart skip, but isolation had rendered me a passive recipient of his interest.

  "My dearest Arthur," he murmured once he seemed to have satisfied himself with whatever he was looking for. "I'm so sorry. I thought I was strong enough to endure this for both of us, but I've failed you. I've failed you and I don't know what to do next."

  His words flew over my head and my patience for them was waning. "I'll tell you," I said, hoping to avoid another monolog.

  He gazed at me in a mixture of skepticism and hope. It was the first time I'd seen him look human in ages. Too bad I no longer cared about that, either. "This isn't something to joke about," he said in a warning tone.

  "I'm not joking," I said firmly. "I'll tell you. For the life of me, I can't remember why I didn't just tell you from the beginning."

  He moved closer, searching my face for something he wasn't going to find. "What is it, then?" he asked warily. "What is the thing you want most in this world, the thing that holds you back from transition?"

  I held his searching gaze with an empty one of my own and replied, "You."

  He frowned like he thought I had delivered the punchline to a joke he hadn't gotten yet. "What?"

  "Take it or leave it, that's the answer," I said, shrugging. "Always has been. Not that it matters anymore. Nothing does."

  "I don't understand," he said, standing. "What do you mean by that? How can I be your closure?"

  "Figure it out, professor," I said, flopping back on the bed to finish counting the specks on the ceiling.

  He was silent for a long moment. If he thought I was going to spell it out for him, he was wrong.

  "You can't be serious," he said after I had gotten to one-fifty.

  "You wanted the honest answer and I gave it."

  "Why are you telling me this after resisting for so long?"

  I shrugged. "Guess you finally broke me. I probably should have done this before I gave away the secret ingredient, but I do have one favor to ask."

  "What is it?" His voice was strained, probably with disgust.

  "When they bring me back, assuming you'd rather not just kill me permanently as opposed to indulging my perversions, make sure they hollow me out. Make sure there's nothing left of me but an empty shell for our dear Patriarch to worm himself into," I murmured. "Or better yet, just kill me the old fashioned way."

  When he didn't respond, I assumed he was formulating some comment about how overly dramatic I was being. When he climbed onto the bed and placed his hands on either side of me, I thought he was going to attack. The look on his face was unreadable and I had long since given up on trying to look for any answers in his eyes.

  Suddenly, inexplicably, he touched my face. It was a gentle touch and I told myself that I was mad to read anything into it other than pity. Even when he leaned in and brushed his lips against mine, my heart clung desperately to denial. Hope hurt too much.

  I neither returned the kiss nor resisted it. Ever since I was old enough to know what a kiss was, I'd dreamt of having my first with Prentice. In fact, whenever I had agreed to one of Clive's experimental "practice" sessions, Prentice was the one I was really kissing in my heart. There were two things about that dream that I had always counted on. The first was that it was absolutely hopeless and the second was that, were it to occur by some miracle, it would be the single-most earth shattering event of my life.

  Neither turned out to be true. Prentice pulled away and gazed down at me to search my face once again. "If this is what you need," he said huskily, "if this is what it will take to save your soul, then so be it."

  My heart pounded and for the first time since coming out of that chamber, I felt something. It was fear. It was then I realized that the thing you wanted most could easily turn into your worst nightmare under the right circumstances.

  Just when I was afraid he would come onto me further, he rose from the bed and straightened his tie. "I'll be gone for a couple of hours. When I get back, be ready to go. We're taking a trip."

  Chapter 15

  ARTHUR

  Prentice hadn't been lying about the trip. The blindfold he had tied around my eyes before leading me outside confirmed my theory that he had seen the logic in my earlier request for death. It was better just to let me die before the others realized that the only thing that could bring me enough closure to transition was utterly impossible. Surely it would compromise Prentice's reputation if he went along with it and the others found out. He led me into the trees with his hand wrapped tightly around my wrist. His steps were so quick that I tripped a couple of times just trying to keep up, but he caught me and continued leading me along.

  Judging from the crunch of leaves and the twigs that snagged my sleeves, we were in the forest. So that was where he planned to do it.

  He finally came to a stop and removed the blindfold. I was so unprepared for the sight of our old treehouse that my first thought was that it must have been another hallucination. I hadn't been back to the treehouse since going away to college and I was amazed that it hadn't been torn down.

  Prentice released my arm and we both stared up at what had once been our sanctuary. From the summer we had built it together--a construction project that mostly involved me handing things up the ladder while Prentice did the real work--to the day he decided he had become too mature and too busy to hang out and read contraband comics in a treehouse, the structure held so many memories.

  When I thought about it, they were really the only memories of my life at home that were worth keeping.

  The white moon followed us through the trees and her round, watchful eye was full. I had never before felt anything but indifference towards her when I looked up into the sky, but tonight was different. Knowing that she was the voyeur who would watch my last moments on this earth filled me with bitterness and chased away the momentary nostalgia I was feeling.

  I didn't mind dying, even though my emotions were starting to come back online and fear was first among them. Still, after being separated from the sun's warmth for so long it seemed unnecessarily cruel not to get to see him one last time. To die in this sacred place seemed like even more of an insult than I deserved.

  "What do you think?" he asked, putting his hand on my shoulder as he looked down, waiting for my reaction.

  As usual, I avoided making eye contact with him. "It's as good of a place to die as any, I guess." I shrugged out from under his touch, hoping the gesture was subtle enough.

  He frowned. "To die?" Confusion gave way to something like disgust. "You thought I would bring you out here to kill you?"

  "It's a good place to hide a body."

  "It's good to know that you think so lowly of me and yet --" He broke off with a frustrated sigh and took my hand. "I didn't bring you here to kill you, Arthur. Please, come up."

  He gestured towards the treehouse, waiting for me to go up the ladder first. I obeyed grudgingly, although it was impossible to imagine what he was planning. At least the ladder was easier to climb now that I didn't have to work to squeeze through the hole in the floor anymore.

  When I made it to the top, I froze. White candles covered every surface and made a ring around the perimeter. It looked more like a magician's altar than a treehouse. There was a makeshift bed in the middle of the floor made from thick blankets and pillows were strewn everywhere. A bottle of wine sat chilling in a bucket of ice on the floor.

  I climbed into the treehouse and moved aside enough for Prentice to get by, but I couldn't take my eyes off the strange spectacle he had made out of our sanctuary.

  "I'd hoped you wo
uld be surprised," he said, pulling the door shut behind him.

  "Surprised is definitely one word for it," I muttered, looking around. "Why did you do all this?"

  "For you," he said, like I shouldn't even have to ask.

  "This is what you were doing?"

  "Yes, what did you think?"

  Plotting my death, figuring out what to tell the rest of the family. Anything but this.

  "I don't know." Far less inflammatory.

  He sighed, popping the cork on the wine bottle before pouring two glasses. "I think we could both use a drink."

  I stared warily at the glass he offered me. He rolled his eyes and took a sip. "There. It isn't poisoned. Happy?"

  I still wasn't sure, but the promise of alcohol was too much to resist. It went down harsh even though it was top shelf stuff, judging from the label. I hadn't tasted much more than water for months, after all.

  "Why did you do this?" I asked only when I felt a slight buzz coming on.

  He gave me an impatient look as he sat across from me, sipping lightly at his own wine. "Isn't it obvious?"

  I shook my head.

  Prentice placed his wine aside and moved closer. When he slipped the glass from my hand and moved it aside, too, I grew nervous. He tilted my chin up and forced me to meet his gaze. His eyes were filled with something utterly impossible and I couldn't tear myself away. Maybe he really was capable of putting me into a trance with his powers.

  When he moved to close the distance between us my heart ached. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be real. He kissed me and I knew I had to still be in the isolation chamber somehow. Maybe I was hallucinating or maybe I had died and this was some strange parting gesture from a world that wasn't quite as cruel as I had thought.

  Either way, I didn't care. Unlike the one before it, this kiss warmed even the deepest parts of me that three long months of isolation had frozen solid. I returned it too eagerly and, to my amazement, he didn't pull away or scold me. In fact, he deepened the kiss.

  Before I could process what was happening--not that I would have understood it if I could have--Prentice cradled my head with his hand and laid me against the soft nest of blankets. Any reservations I had about him doing this just to appease me faded as his tongue slipped past my lips and demanded entrance, which I gladly gave.

  Call me naïve, but when someone kisses you like that, all the logic and reason in the world cease to matter. In that moment, he and I were the only thing that existed.

  The kiss ended abruptly and for a moment my sense returned. "Prentice, I --"

  He placed a finger against my lips to silence me. Once he was sure of my compliance, he began undoing his tie. With one swift motion he jerked it free and the silk wound itself into a pile on the floor. Next, he started unbuttoning his shirt. If there were any doubts as to what his intentions were, they were slipping away with each button he loosed. I watched, transfixed as the lean planes of his chest became visible. He shrugged out of his crisp white shirt, revealing his athletic shoulders and a lithe torso.

  I swallowed hard and looked away when his eyes found mine and I realized I had been caught staring. When I finally looked back, he was far from angry. In fact, he was wearing a small smirk. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was flattered.

  "Like what you see?" he asked in a bewilderingly sultry voice. It was like he was trying to tempt me.

  At a loss for how to respond, I simply nodded.

  "Good," he murmured, looming over me. He leaned down and his breath blew coolly on the side of my neck. I gasped a little when his hand crept underneath my T-shirt. I was usually sensitive about my stomach, but it was only when his fingers brushed over it that I realized it actually had some definition.

  "That's going to have to change before your transition," he murmured next to my ear, as if coming to the same realization. "I don't want to be reminded of how unnecessarily torturous you made your imprisonment for both of us by refusing to eat."

  The mention of my torment was enough to jolt me out of whatever trance he had me in. I had little choice but to press my hands against his chest in a feeble attempt to get him off me. I was weaker than ever.

  "Shh," he hushed soothingly. His hand moved up to my chest, as if he thought the location of his touch was the problem. When his finger circled patiently around my nipple, I shivered and forgot all about my plans to...?

  Well, it probably wasn't anything important.

  My head fell back against the pillows and I moaned, struggling to keep quiet as his teeth grazed my neck. His tongue flicked out and he made a low, pleased sound of his own. He bit down again, only this time his bite was hard enough to go beyond a pleasurable sting. "That's my jugular, Prentice," I breathed anxiously.

  "You don't think I know your body by now?" he asked, though he swept his tongue over my flesh in consolation. "I know your limits in ways the feral whores at the Lodge never could. Whips and knives are amateur tools. You don't fully know someone until you've held their beating heart within your hands."

  His words elicited a shudder from deep inside and as his finger trailed the route underneath my heart I knew he meant them literally. The reminder that Prentice had done awful things to me that I would never remember was horrifying, and yet it did nothing to lessen my desire for him.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe I really was perverted. Maybe I really did need saving.

  But so did he.

  I reached up and stroked his hair affectionately, trying to pretend like he hadn't just said something so monstrous. He flinched as if in surprise and pulled away. He took my hands and pulled me upright before peeling my shirt off. He gazed at what he had unveiled for a moment with an unreadable expression and it was all I could do not to squirm in fear of his judgment.

  When I could bear the scrutiny no more, he unbuttoned my jeans and pushed me back down so he could tug them off. I had barely recovered from the shock when he pulled off my boxers, too. Him being exposed was one thing. Everything about Prentice, with the notable exception of his conscience, was flawless. I, on the other hand, was the exact opposite of perfection.

  I pulled the blanket over me to hide the fact that I was already getting hard. As often as I had fantasized about this moment, now that it was actually here I was acutely aware of how incredibly far out of my league he was.

  He watched me with obvious amusement. "It's nothing I haven't seen before, you know."

  "Yeah, but not like this."

  He chuckled and ripped the blanket away with ease. "Be careful what you wish for, Arthur," he said, taking me in his hand. I squeaked pathetically, ruining whatever nonexistent chance I had of being suave and attractive. "They say anything can come true on a full moon."

  His tongue flicked over the tip of my dick and I was filled with anxiety that I would come right then and there. As he continued to tease me, it became a little too obvious that he knew exactly what he was doing. He was in control of me, of everything.

  When it became clear that he wasn't going to give up on this new form of torture he'd found, I relaxed and committed myself to enjoying it. He took me into his mouth and sucked until my head spun. I held off as long as I could, but there was only so long my defenses could last against Prentice in any capacity.

  "Prentice, stop," I pleaded, desperately close to the end of my restraint. When he didn't respond, I tried to push him away.

  He looked up, his gaze venomous. "Shut up and lie down. This isn't your club, you don't get a safe word."

  I gulped and laid back down, shivering when he took me in his mouth again. Even if he was just giving me what he thought I wanted, it was working. He was right about one thing. He knew my limits better than I did. Time after time when it seemed like I couldn't possibly last a second more, he altered his technique just slightly or dug his nails into my thigh to keep me hanging on just a little longer.

  When I finally came, I cried out in surprise. The most intense orgasm of my life hadn't even faded when I realized what I had don
e and clamped my hands over my mouth, partly in horror over the fact that I had made so much noise and partly from shock over the fact that Prentice had just swallowed.

  In fact, when I dared a peek between my legs, he was licking the residual cum off the inside of my thigh. When he was done, he rose while still sucking on the tip of his middle finger. His amber eyes were filled with satisfaction as he watched me. "I can taste it through your sweetness."

  "T-taste what?" I stammered in disbelief, propping myself up on my elbows to watch him.

  "My blood," he said in a smug tone, crawling towards me again. "Did you enjoy yourself?"

  I nodded weakly. My breaths were still ragged. "I still don't know why you did that," I huffed.

  "As I said before," he murmured, unfastening his belt and making quick work of his zipper, "I'm giving you what you need."

  His words made me shiver anew. When he freed himself from the confines of his trousers, there was no mistaking the sizable bulge in his boxer briefs. He pulled those down and revealed his full length. Sure, we had changed in front of each other plenty of times. All the guys did, but I had never really gotten a good look at him. Despite what the others thought about me, I made it a point never to look around in the locker room, especially not at Prentice. That curiosity I reserved for the realm of fantasy.

  I had always just assumed my imagination was writing checks it couldn't cash when it came to the older hunter's anatomy, but I was wrong. He was long and thick enough to give me pause at the idea of what I was pretty sure he was about to do. It was hard to be afraid when I was still reeling from shock at the fact that he was already hard and leaking precum because of...me?

  That couldn't be right. Surely this was a chore for him and he was thinking of something else, but the way he set his gaze on me made it dangerously easy to buy into the delusion that he wanted me as much as I wanted him.

  "Roll over," he said in a low, strained voice. "Onto your stomach."

  I swallowed hard as panic rose in my throat, choking out the words. "Prentice, you can't."