Never. No matter what the circumstances. Even if a proclamation left out anyone not in the crown’s good grace. He simply couldn’t consider it.
In the meantime, though, Corin couldn’t allow him to marry Aster. He had the demeanor and courage of a man who’d be formidable someday if he trained consistently, and he might not be a complete asshole. But Aster deserved better, someone who could protect him. Someone older, more experienced.
“I didn’t like the look of him,” he said at last, unable to find a way to articulate any of his thoughts without offending Aster’s sense of his ability to protect and care for himself.
They’d agreed on a plan, over the ham they’d eventually gone downstairs to eat the other night. Once an acceptable candidate came to the gate, Corin would bow out and Aster would take his challenge and gracefully lose. They’d left the criteria to be applied to the challengers rather vague, agreeing only that if Corin thought the fellow might pass muster, he’d make some excuse to step inside for a moment and confer with Aster, who’d be watching through the loophole by the gate.
That much settled, they’d eaten their supper and returned directly upstairs to bed. They hadn’t discussed it any further since then.
Aster frowned and leaned back in his chair. “I thought he was handsome enough. I mean, he wasn’t old or ugly at all, and he spoke well.”
Corin unclenched his jaw before the sound of his grinding teeth became audible. He had been very handsome, in fact. Young, tall, and muscular, with flowing blond hair to his shoulders rather like Aster’s.
“Didn’t seem all that handsome to me,” he growled, and silently cursed himself as Aster bit his lip and stared down at his lap.
Fuck, he wanted to pull Aster into his own lap, kiss him and slide his hands under Aster’s clothing until he had him all disheveled and flustered, and then go back upstairs, where he didn’t feel so much like he hated everything. Damn it, he ought to be able to last until evening, at least. But he’d had Aster spread wide around his knot twice last night and he still didn’t feel sated at all. Every time he took Aster it stoked the flame rather than dousing it.
It had been three days since Fredmund had ridden up to the bridge, three days and slightly more than twice that many new challengers. And of course three nights, on each of which he’d told himself he’d keep some distance and slope off downstairs to sulk as soon as his knot went down. He’d spent them wrapped around Aster, of course.
He’d managed to lie still most of the time instead of petting him and nuzzling him and attentively tugging the blankets over his shoulder every few minutes.
Small victories.
Fuck, he was pathetic.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you,” he said, in lieu of getting on his knees. “These assholes are starting to piss me off, that’s all.” He hoped Aster wouldn’t ask why they pissed him off so much, because he didn’t have an answer.
“It’s all right,” Aster said, with a tentative smile that went straight to his cock, and far worse, straight to a spot beneath his breastbone that ached whenever he looked into Aster’s pretty eyes.
Completely fucking pathetic.
And it didn’t matter whether Aster had truly put him under some kind of spell or was simply oblivious to his own insidious charms. The effect was the same: another Cezanne luring Corin into a hopeless entanglement. The first had ended here, with Corin hiding in a miserable stone hovel for years, with no occupation and no friends, followed up the mountain by the jeers and sneers of the court. He’d rather jump off the fucking bridge outside without his wings than get involved with the Cezanne family a second time.
Of course, every time he claimed Aster as his captive and fought to keep him, the rumors would grow. But fucking hell, rumors were just that, rumors. And they’d forget about it altogether when Aster returned to court as another man’s prize.
“Corin?” He looked up again, his vision a bit hazy. Fuck, Aster would think he’d developed a strange obsession with tea. Aster wasn’t smiling now. In fact, he’d moved his hands to the arms of his chair, a bit white around the knuckles, as if he meant to either brace himself or bolt. “That’s a lot of smoke. Are you—upset about something?”
Smoke. He blinked. The haze remained. His throat and nostrils had that itchy burn they got when he breathed too much dragon fire in his human shape. He exhaled, and another plume rose up, thick and heavy.
For fuck’s sake.
“No,” he said, and he didn’t sound convincing even to himself. “Nothing’s wrong.” He sucked in a deep breath and let out another rush of smoke, and this time he felt a flicker of flame in his throat.
Aster leaned back in his chair, coughing and obviously trying to suppress it.
God fucking damn it. Corin rose so abruptly he shoved his chair, sending it screeching across the flagstones, and started to turn to leave the hall.
And then he stopped even more abruptly when the smoke cleared and he got a good look at Aster’s white face, expression frozen and eyes wide.
He forced himself to go still, to turn inward, to focus on the draconic part of his nature and command it to settle the hell down. Corin might be a monster, but even monsters had their limits. Terrifying Aster crossed that line and then some.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped, his scorched throat making his voice even lower than usual. Fuck, he didn’t sound less terrifying in the slightest, and he had no idea what to say. “It’s not—I’m preoccupied. I’m not in the mood for conversation, I’m sorry.”
Aster blinked at last. “I shouldn’t have bothered you. I won’t—”
“It’s sunny,” Corin cut in, speaking before he even realized the words were forming in his mind or on his tongue. “We ought to go out back and train a bit. I could use the exercise.”
He shut up, nonplussed by himself, of all the things. Where the fuck had that come from? He didn’t bloody well need any exercise, not on top of…being on top of Aster however many times in the last few days. Vigorously on top. Anyway, Aster wouldn’t want to spar with him.
