They Counted Me Like Cargo, So I Took the War novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Orders

Corvus looked at the knife on the chest, and then at Seren.

He didn't get up.

"Orders," he said.

"You heard me."

"In my camp my word's the only law, Highness."

"Then it's a good thing you're not in your camp. You're in my tent."

"It's my tent."

"Not tonight."

The corner of Corvus's mouth went up, the side with the scar.

He sat back on the cot with his hands on his knees, the left one still red across the palm where he'd caught the clerk's blade.

He waited with quiet amusement, ready to be told what to do for the first time in his life.

"Go on, then," he said.

Seren's mouth had gone dry.

He'd given orders to the Wend boys at Hollin with thirty torches pointed at him, and his voice hadn't shaken once.

It shook now.

"Take your shirt off, General."

Corvus reached back over his shoulders and pulled it off in one movement and dropped it on the floor.

Seren had felt him under his hands on the cot and on the map table.

He hadn't seen him.

Corvus was scarred all over, old white lines across his ribs and a puckered star low on his side, and broad enough to block out the brazier.

He watched Seren look.

"Next order," he said, very low.

Seren walked to him and stood between his knees.

"Put your hands on me."

Corvus did.

Corvus's hands were warm through the wool, big enough to span Seren's waist with room to spare.

They didn't move.

Seren looked down at him and Corvus looked up at Seren, and neither of them breathed.

"You're shaking," Corvus said.

"Give me the next order, Highness."

"Then stop waiting for it."

His fingers tightened, just enough to pull Seren a half-step closer.

He leaned in and put his mouth against Seren's stomach, over the shirt.

The heat of it went through the cloth and into Seren.

"Tell me what you want," Corvus said against the fabric.

"I want you on your knees."

Corvus slid off the cot.

It wasn't a fall, it was a folding, slow and deliberate, until he was kneeling between Seren's feet with his hands still on Seren's waist.

He looked up from there, and the scar through his lip pulled white.

"Like this?"

Seren couldn't answer.

His hand found the back of Corvus's head, the close-cropped hair rough under his palm.

"Unlace me."

Corvus didn't rush it.

His fingers took the laces one at a time, pulling them loose with the same care he'd used on the tally-book page this afternoon.

The wool parted.

He hooked his thumbs into the waist and dragged the trousers down to Seren's knees, then lower, until Seren could step out of them.

Seren was barefoot already.

The air in the tent was cold below the brazier's reach, and he felt it everywhere.

Corvus didn't touch him yet.

He just looked, and the look was worse than the cold.

"You've got no idea what you look like," he said quietly.

"From down here."

"Then show me."

Corvus leaned in and took him into his mouth.

Seren made a sound he'd never made before, too high and too raw, and his hand fisted in Corvus's hair.

Corvus didn't stop.

He took Seren deep, steady and slow, one hand braced on his hip and the other gripping the back of his thigh.

The fresh scab across the general's palm rasped against Seren's skin.

Seren had faked noises on that cot for a witness.

This wasn't faked.

He couldn't have stopped it if the whole army had been outside with tally books.

"Corvus."

Corvus pulled off just enough to speak, his lips still against him.

"Yes, Highness?"

The title had never sounded like that before.

It sounded like Corvus was getting exactly what he wanted.

"Don't stop."

Corvus took him back into his mouth and did something with his tongue that made Seren's knees buckle.

Seren grabbed the cot frame to stay upright, and Corvus made a low noise of approval.

"Look at you," Seren managed. "On your knees for a Caerwen prince."

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