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

He gave me a bewildered scowl. "The hell I can't. This is what you want, isn't it? To be with me. To lie with me."

  "Yes, but wanting something and doing something are two completely different things," I stammered. "I don't want it this way, not if it's just part of some ritual before I die."

  "I didn't hear you complaining when I was sucking you off."

  His bluntness made me jolt. I wasn't used to Prentice using words like that. "That was a mistake, too."

  His eyes narrowed. "You're lying," he said, watching me as if he was making some great deduction. "It's something else. You're scared."

  I gulped.

  "Why should you be scared?" he scoffed. "I can't be that much larger than the Wolves you enjoy offering yourself up to so much."

  My face grew warm and I made myself look away, anywhere but his face. He was closing in and it was only a matter of time before he uncovered my humiliating secret.

  "No," he said in a disbelieving tone. "That's not possible. Don't tell me you've never actually..."

  My silence was all the answer he was getting.

  "With anyone?" he pressed, astonished.

  I finally shook my head. "I've done other stuff here and there, but I've never done that."

  "You can't expect me to believe you're actually a virgin with the way you run around playing the part of the whore."

  "You act so mystified." I scoffed. "You're perfect and you always have been. Everyone wants you. How could you possibly have any idea what it's like to have to put on a mask just to get into the party when you're always the life of it?"

  I sat up, pulling my knees to my chest to at least partially conceal myself. "It's an act, Prentice. I'm the chubby nerd, the loser. I don't fit in out there any more than I do in our world. I can't get by on my looks, or even my personality, so I pretend like I have confidence and pray nobody notices that the jokes and the ego are just a cover for the fact that I fucking hate myself more than you or the rest of the Family ever could."

  He stared at me, blinking. For once, he seemed to be at a loss for words. "How can you say that? If you hate yourself so much, why fight so hard to resist losing who you are?"

  That was a good question, and not one I had an adequate answer for. I shrugged. "Maybe because I can't stand the fact that I lived my entire life never even knowing who I was. Who knows? Doesn't matter, I'm over it now," I muttered, reaching for my shirt.

  His hand closed over mine. "You're none of the things you think are, Arthur, least of all a loser. Do you really think I would fight so hard and risk my own damnation for someone I deemed worthless?"

  I couldn't meet his eyes, this time for a very different reason. There were tears in my eyes as he gathered me into his arms and held my naked chest against his own. "All this time I thought you had been defiled long ago and yet here you are, a virgin masquerading as a whore."

  My face grew warm and I leaned away when he tried to kiss me again. His hand tangled firmly but gently in my hair, keeping my head in place as his other arm locked my waist against his torso. "I think I prefer it like this," he murmured, rubbing a long strand of my hair between his fingertips. "I'll have to make sure it isn't cut before the hunter's moon."

  I let out a pathetic whimper as his hand traveled down my back to cup my ass. "Prentice --"

  "I see this hasn't gone anywhere," he said in a tone of approval.

  "You're straight," I said, reminding him as much as myself.

  "There is no sin in a man appreciating the beauty of what belongs to him through touch," he murmured as he slipped a finger into my crevice. His lips crushed mine possessively to drown out the sound of my startled cry. "Or taste."

  His eyelids were heavy as he laid me on my back and came to rest beside me, holding me at his side as his finger worked its way in deeper. I let out another whimper and refused to look at him.

  "You really are untouched, aren't you?" he mused, pulling his finger out to reach for something I couldn't see. A moment later, he started massaging some kind of slick, warm gel around my entrance. When I attempted to close my legs, he pried them open, pressing down on one of my knees with his own and resting his other hand on my opposite thigh to keep me spread.

  "This is humiliating," I muttered angrily.

  "You're the only person in this world stubborn enough to put up a fight even when he's getting what he wants," he said, clearly amused as he pushed his finger in deeper.

  My entire body stiffened up, which only made the pain worse. I knew better than to tense up, but my embarrassment wasn't helping matters.

  "I'll be as gentle as I can, but first you have to relax," he said in a low, patient voice. The husky quality of it gave me little other choice and my legs fell open a bit more to grant him better access.

  "There," he continued in that soothing tone. "Good boy. You're lucky that it's me, you know. A Wolf wouldn't be so gentle."

  I glared at him, struggling to resist the warmth building between my legs.

  "Still resistant?" he chuckled, positioning a second finger at my entrance. I clutched the blankets and gritted my teeth, bracing for the pain. It came, but it was less than I had imagined. Once he had them both inside, he started sliding them in and out in a devastatingly slow rhythm that made it impossible to suppress my arousal.

  "Say what you will, but your body betrays your need, Arthur."

  "Well, you are an expert in making my body do whatever you want," I muttered, clinging to the last straw of bitterness as he found my prostate. Despite my best efforts not to give him any clues, he knew exactly when he'd found it and began stroking it in earnest.

  "I'm not making you do anything. This was your desire," he reminded me. "I'm just fulfilling it."

  "That doesn't mean I want it to happen."

  "Why?" he asked, pulling his fingers out of me. "Because you're afraid? Is that why you haven't been with anyone? I'm sure you've had plenty of chances."

  "No," I muttered, collapsing. He knelt between my legs, refusing to let me close them. "That's not it."

  "Then why?"

  "Why do you want to know?"

  "So I can make the experience more satisfying for you," he said simply, resting a hand on my knee. "Why haven't you slept with anyone before?"

  I took a deep breath to buy more time. He was going to get it out of me anyway, and it wasn't like there was anything left of my dignity to preserve. "I wanted my first time to be with you."

  He stared at me, blinking. "What?"

  "You heard me."

  I winced, expecting to be punished for my insolence. Instead, he leaned over me and placed the most tender of kisses on my forehead. It was an oddly chaste gesture, given the circumstances.

  "Your devotion honors me, Arthur, sinful though it may be," he murmured, gazing down me with the same look I hadn't been able to identify earlier. "But the penance for it can wait until morning. Tonight and only tonight, what transpires between us is love. Do you understand?"

  I nodded even though I didn't. No matter how I tried, I couldn't understand why getting what I had always wanted felt so wrong. It was even harder to understand why my body responded to his domination so readily or why the sweeter his words were and the softer his touch, the more force they had. The look in his eyes was what I understood least of all. Now that I finally knew what it was, it made less sense than ever.

  It was desire.

  Before I had time to marvel at this new revelation, Prentice's lips claimed mine more forcefully than before. He positioned himself against my entrance and my ass clenched of its own volition to keep him out. He kept pushing, ignoring my body's resistance. Prentice always got what he wanted in life, so why should fucking be any different?

  His kiss muffled my cry of pain as the head of his shaft made it past my entrance. I tightened around him instinctively and he broke the kiss with a groan. "You are tight," he muttered, breathless.

  "Sorry."

  "You're the one who's suffering," he reminded me, planting both hands on either si
de of me to steady himself. He pushed in a little deeper and a fresh wave of pain assailed me. His lips parted with an inaudible expression of bliss and the look on his face confirmed my suspicion that this experience wasn't just a first for me. "Fuck."

  The profanity caught me off guard, but he thrust into me before I had time to call him on it. He pulled out only to push in even deeper, his hips grinding into me in a painful rhythm until he was so deep inside of me I could feel his pulse throbbing. It was a welcome reminder that he was closer to being human than the others, even if he was no less of a monster for it.

  At first, the pain was almost unbearable, but when his fingers laced with mine and he kissed me I couldn't bring myself to care. I had been through far worse torture without the promise of pleasure. Prentice was awakening new sensations deep inside of me and while his penetration had only brought pain at first, soon each thrust came with a surge of bliss.

  I could feel myself getting hard again and hoped he wouldn't notice. Of course, as if reading my mind, his hand closed around my shaft and stroked approvingly. "You are responsive for a virgin," he mused.

  "Twenty-one years of pent-up sexual frustration," I reminded him.

  His teeth found my neck again as he lowered himself onto me, crushing my erection between our stomachs. As he ground against me, I felt in danger of coming both from the friction and from the way his dick was grinding against my spot.

  His teeth broke the skin on my neck without warning, but before I could scream, his hand clamped over my mouth. I let out a muffled sob as he licked the wound he had just created and began drinking from it.

  "Prentice," I cried, straining to sit up. He pinned me down, both with his hands and his body, but he didn't stop. "This is blasphemy," I hissed.

  That caught his attention. He looked up at me, his eyes glazed with undeniable lust and his lips red with my blood. "Dear boy, we're already knee-deep in blasphemy. I might as well enjoy what's mine if I'm to be punished for it anyway."

  He gave me no time to respond before he went back to feeding from me. I whimpered and he stroked my side consolingly. Once he had sated himself with my blood, he resumed focus on my body. He pushed my knee up towards my chest and the change in angle made me cry out as he thrust into me again.

  "How does that feel?" he purred.

  I gritted my teeth and refused to answer him. He knew damn well how it felt. If he couldn't tell from my cries of pleasure and pain, my body tightening around him in response should have been enough of an indication.

  "Good boy," he coaxed, stroking my thigh. Now that he had found the perfect angle, he seemed intent on using it to torment me. He reached for my shaft and I tightened up again. This time, he was the one who moaned.

  If I didn't know better, I'd think he was enjoying himself. He kissed me hard and ground into me violently, as if punishing me for his body's reaction. It was a punishment I was eager to take and I found that my own body was all too eager to submit to his domination. My nails dragged along his back simply because my hands had nowhere else to go and he pinned my wrists with a single hand.

  "Prentice," I cried, writhing underneath him. The plea was an empty one. I couldn't put a name to what it was that I wanted from him, but somehow he seemed to know. He pulled me closer, holding me down as he thrust into me, his rhythm becoming more erratic and intense.

  "Arthur," he breathed next to my ear, gripping me tighter as his body shuddered on top of mine and he came inside of me. I came again just from the way his cum filled me up, hot enough that it almost burned. He collapsed on top of me and nuzzled my neck with unexpected tenderness. I expected him to pull out right away, or to scold me for the mess now covering our chests, but he didn't. Instead, he rolled off me without pulling out and held me close.

  "I want to stay inside of you like this, just for a little while," he said, breathlessly answering my unspoken question. "When we leave this place, everything is going to change."

  I buried my face in his chest, inhaling his scent. "I know that."

  He wrapped his arms tighter around me and stroked my hair. I could still feel his pulse inside of me and for a moment, I allowed myself to indulge in the fantasy that we could stay like that, part of each other, forever.

  "One thing will never change," he whispered after I had all but fallen asleep to the hazy lullaby of postcoital bliss. He spoke so softly that for all I knew he thought I already was asleep. "You are mine, Arthur. In this way, and in every other."

  Chapter 16

  ARTHUR

  When I woke in the morning, my body ached like hell. Of course, pleasure came with consequences. At least now I understood what all the fuss was about. Somehow I had always thought I would feel differently after I had finally lost my virginity, but I didn't. I had also imagined I would wake up in my lover's arms, but Prentice was nowhere to be found.

  Not that I was surprised. I was a bit surprised that I was fully dressed and back in my own bed. If it wasn't for the soreness in a very telling location, I might have thought the whole thing had been a dream.

  I made my bed and left the room, deciding it was time to start living what was going to be the rest of my life. I didn't know what Prentice had planned for me after my closure from the night before. He hadn't mentioned anything after our encounter. In fact, all I remembered was him holding me in his arms in complete and blissful silence until I fell asleep at some point.

  I knew it was a one-time kind of sin, like he'd said. In fact, I'd made a strange kind of peace with it. Still, I hoped that the fact that he hadn't given me instructions about my final mission meant that I would get some more time alone with him before they put me in the ground.

  I didn't dare bother him in his office. If he wanted to talk to me, he could seek me out. Instead, I made my way to the kitchen and sat down at the counter. Two of my sisters and Aunt June were in the kitchen. It was always a crowded place and the perfect location to get over the awkward hump of reintegration into life in the Family.

  When I sat down, they all looked at me like they had seen a ghost. I picked up an apple and took a bite before pouring myself a bowl of cereal. I hadn't left the isolation chamber as hungry as I should have been, which made me think that Prentice had somehow gotten me to eat during my brief periods of consciousness, but I was famished now.

  "What are you doing?" Abigail finally asked after Jen elbowed her. She was always the brave one. When we were kids, she had always been the one who got sent out to investigate a strange noise in the woods if Prentice wasn't around.

  I glanced down at my cereal, then back up at her. "Eating breakfast?"

  They both looked to Aunt June for help. She dried her hands off on the dish towel she had been using and walked over to the counter. "Are you feeling alright, boy?"

  "Fine," I said, taking another bite of the apple. I stopped eating when Aunt June pressed her hands into the counter and leaned in, squinting like she was trying to read some fine print on my forehead.

  "Fine?" she asked doubtfully.

  That answer didn't sit well with my sisters. Before they had looked like they thought they were seeing a ghost. Now they looked like they were sure of it.

  "Really," I said, looking at each of them. "I'm okay."

  Concern was a difficult emotion to recognize when it was coming from one of my family members, never mind three of them.

  "We just thought you'd be all crazy after --" Abigail cut off with a wheeze when Jen elbowed her even harder.

  "What Abigail means to say," Aunt June began slowly, "is that none of us thought you'd be up and about so soon."

  I shrugged, pouring another bowl of cereal. "Guess I'm hardier than you thought. So, what are my chores today, Aunt June?"

  She stared blankly at me. "Nothing," she said stiffly, putting a glass of orange juice in front of me. "Not unless Prentice has something for you."

  I snorted in amusement before I could catch myself and tried to cover it by taking a sip of juice and pretending that I was choking.
"Alright."

  The three of them kept staring as I ate my breakfast. It was like being watched by statues. "Is everything alright with you guys?"

  Aunt June cleared her throat and turned back to the sink. "Fine," she said, grabbing a dish she had just dried. She dunked it back into the dish pan and started scrubbing it vigorously.

  Abigail and Jen had a brief, whispered argument before Jen succeeded in pushing the shorter blonde woman out of the kitchen.

  Once they were gone, I finished my cereal in peace and I picked up my bowl to carry it over to the sink.

  "I'll do that," said Aunt June, snatching the empty bowl from my hands.

  "But I can --"

  "No," she snapped, giving me a forced smile a moment later. "You should take it easy. Go on, go find Prentice. He'll know what to do with you."

  In other words, "Get the hell away from me." Fear was the only explanation for Aunt June being kind. For whatever reason, she was intimidated by me and so were my sisters. I doubted the phenomenon was limited to them.

  All I knew was that I had gone into that box a pariah and emerged a plague. I had every intention of using it to my advantage. "I'll find him soon, but first I'd like to apologize to Grandpa Hugh," I said, looking down at the floor in shame when I remembered our last encounter. "Is he in his room?"

  The glass she was rewashing slipped from her hands and shattered in the sink. "No, he isn't," she said, turning her attention to the cleanup.

  "Do you need help?" I asked worriedly, noticing a dark glob of the mush running down the sink. It was the stuff a normal hunter's blood turned into after ascension. I didn't particularly like Aunt June, but I loved her enough not to want to see her hurt.

  "No," she said in a harried voice, keeping her back turned to me. "Please, just go find Prentice."

  "Okay," I said, backing out of the kitchen. I grabbed my partially eaten apple since I was still a bit hungry and left the kitchen. Once I made it down the stairs, I tried to determine if that had gone better or worse than I had expected.

  Deciding the answer was better, I took another bite of my apple and rounded the corner towards Grandpa Hugh's room. In doing so, I collided with a blonde blur and my apple went rolling down the hall.